Week ending 24APR2022

Monday AM - six with GW along the ditch.  

PM - 4.2 to practice, in it and back.

Tuesday AM - six with Lucas.  He kept me honest.

PM - 4 miles around practice.

Wednesday afternoon - tired.  8 miles, with the coaches.  

Thursday afternoon - 8.2 miles.  Warm.  Feeling good.  Good amount in the middle with RT.

Friday AM - 6.3 with GW on the Lac Amora loop.  Went through 800 miles on year on this run.  

Saturday AM - 10 miles - over to practice, the warm up, some reps with the kids and then back home.

Saturday night - gig at Mother Tucker's in Louisville. 

Sunday afternoon.  Bleh.  7.5 miles.

60 and change on the week, so that is an improvement in terms of quantity.  Need to get more on the inclusion of quality / hills.  Poking along here.  

Week ending 17APR2022

Monday - evening, took a bit of exploring and some state highway crossing but I found some decent paths to hit.  8.1 miles with a broken threshold.  It started as 5 x 3 minutes on, 2 minutes off but on the last one I sorta kept rolling.  Good run.  

Tuesday - evening.  8 miles.  Started at a local trail head and did an out and back over the Des Plaines river, and came up through a controlled burn.  That was sorta surreal.

 

Wednesday AM - 4 miles.  Navigated the State Highway shoulder - which was sorta dumb - but navigated to the open space again

Wednesday night - pouring rain and windy, and I just don't have the gear for that so I relegated myself to the treadmill.  5 miles.  

Thursday - 3 miles. Yeah.  That sucked.  Stupid winds out (like 60mph) so I stayed on the mill.   Left shoulder is angry about something today too - guessing I did something on it in my sleep.

Friday - told myself I'd run when I got home as I failed to overcome the gravitational pull of the hotel bed in the AM.  Yeah, I was getting where I could see a bit of the three weeks of travel picking at my brain in a way I didn't care for.

Some recent music forays from the palace of my hotel room.

I have been finding that I am needing to be a bit more attentive to pushing myself to do my own stuff and then to stay with it.  There are a few levels to that ... including practicing a tune after I actually get one down, and then moving its production past just a three chord hack.

Saturday - 7.7 miles on the BoCo break and there and back.  Played over at Luki with Spare Change.

Sunday 10.5 miles.  Tired.  Windy.  

Another 50 something week.  Made it through three weeks of travel somewhat unscathed/ 

Week ending 10APR20222

Monday AM - woke up prior to the alarm.  Probably still lagged a bit from Ireland. Saw I forgot a hairbrush so I ran over to the early open HEB grocery and picked one up.  Saw this guy.

3.2 miles.  Dark and highway bound but at least there are sidewalks, and it is Texas so it is warm.  In fact, while it was 60 and breezy, I could feel the impending warmth.  Supposed to get to 90 high here tomorrow.  

Evening - oddly felt worked.  Maybe the travel catching up to me?  Forced five miles and it didn't feel so great.  Learned I am in a fairly uninspired burb between some highways, but have some places I can make something happen to some degree.  

Tuesday AM - warm and humid even at pre 6 AM.  5.2 miles.

Evening - 4.2 miles.  North of 90 degrees but it was a bit less humid so it was not too bad.  

Wednesday AM - groggy.  3 miles.  

Evening - explored a bit and found a trail.  Not much of one but a bit.  

Thursday - slept in good, so no AM run.  Out in the afternoon with some threshold for 6.1 miles.  

Friday - travel back to CO.  3.5 miles in the evening, shaking off the flight.

Saturday - 10 miles, mostly at 8 flat pace on the Lac Amora loop.  

Sunday AM - 10 miles.  A bit slower than yesterday but good enough.  Ended up with 56 plus on the week, which given Friday was just over 3, ain't bad for the volume thing of reaching 50 a week.  Today is the 100th day of the year and I am at 710 miles, so you can figure the average from that.  Off to Chicago (or actually north of there) for the week.  

Rest of the week ending 03APR2022

Wednesday AM - the rise and shine 3 miles.
Wednesday PM - five miles.  Sore and slow and feeling tired.  Not surprising given the last couple of days were a bit more volume and a bit more at a solid pace.  Reflects for me that if I am gonna get on that way with 10 mile days I got some work to do to be ready for PPM in September.

Thursday AM - I decided last night to skip the AM run and see if another hour of sleep helped me move it along better. 

And I did.  In the evening got out on the canal and went past Ballycowan Castle, for about 9.2 on the evening.  Slow start but moving well by the end.  

Finished up on the site in Tullamore on Friday and then headed to Dublin to overnight there before the flight back to the US.  The "fun" was getting a negative COVID test the day before - as this is required to get into the US (but not required to get into Ireland, and FWIW masks are pretty optional in the Dublin Airport).  I did the emed route - basically a home test but it is proctored through a device with a camera so they can see that you are not cheating the test, and they tie it to a bar code of you.  Because it is proctored, one of these tests, which are typically free, costs about 35 bucks.  

This is a bit stressful of curse because you wonder if you might test positive and be generally asymptomatic.  And if you actually have to cough you start to sort of wonder if you are going to be stuck in Ireland for a month.  Not that such a thing would be all bad.  I took a free home test on Thursday night and saw I was testing as COVID negative.  

I started my proctored test on Friday in the office.  It was an easy process:  at first the proctor thought they couldn't scan my bar code because they wanted me to use my front camera and not my back camera.  I had to explain my laptop only has the camera that was facing me.  That proctor said they could help me.  So, I logged out, back in and got a proctor who seemed to understand they could collect my bar code via the camera that I had.  Then took the test, and you have to wait for 15 minutes for it to process.  COVID negative.  Of course when the next proctor came back they said they had to see the test on the front camera, not my back.  I tried explaining to them the camera situation, but to no avail.  I had to log back out and log back in to get someone to understand this.

Then I had to upload my negative test result to the airline site.  First they rejected it - and that was my fault.  My results were sent to me via a password protected PDF and so of course they could get to them.  Next I uploaded an image of my results.  2 hours later I was informed my test was not eligible.  So that lit me up and I called the airline - which was sorta of fruitless because it is one of those industries where it is hard to get a person to talk to you, and when they do, they are not sure what really to do anyway.  

I finally walked over to the Dublin airport, and went to the check in desk for my airline.  That was a wait in a light and then that person told me not to worry about it and they would look at my records tomorrow.  I pushed a bit as I did not want to find out tomorrow my test was invalid.  So I hung out there until they could look at the hard copy of my stuff and update their system.  

Not really a big problem but one of those wrinkles that just wrankles yah.  

6.1 miles in the afternoon around the airport.  Not a great place to run and got chased by a dog.  Oh yeah and the rabbits here are really big.  

Saturday - DUB=>JFK=ATL=>DEN ... day off.  Guess I could got up early and went but I wimped out with the rain.  

Sunday - 9.1, most with GW on the hospital loop and up Lac Amora.  In the later afternoon  DEN=>AUS.

56 something on the week and actually felt like I was actually running some.  Not bad miles on six days with a work gig.  Sea level helped for sure but being a bit more focused on my running was probably more the ticket

Tuesday 29MAR2022

 Enough pix over the last couple of days that I'll do a daily post when it makes sense.  In the AM I got out for a foggy slow 3 miles.

In the evening, I decided to take advantage of the good weather and went in search of a neighbor's deceased father's boyhood farm.  Some looking around on a map made me determine I could get to it on a run, and possibly even hit the Charleville castle along the way.  

The castle was about 2 miles away.  It was fenced off, closed apparently due to COVID but even the limited outside views were impressive.

I tried to determine if I could easily / legally cut through the grounds of the castle to get to the other side  - to shorten my trip to the farm.   I wandered around a bit but kept hitting the ends of roads, or sheep fields.  Short cuts make for long delays.

So I added probably another two miles messing around the grounds, only end up going back out the path that I had entered on.  I found my way to Lynall - over another 3 or so miles.  I was looking for the Lynall Church and Cemetery ruins, and the surrounding farm.  

I had to navigate a couple of "off roads" but nothing problematic in regular day light.  

And then they were visible.  

You can see in the lower left of the shot below the Ballycowan castle that I ran to last night.  That is on the confluence of the Tullamore Canal and River.  

The location was truly beautiful.  I didn't take the chance to go to the ruins themselves so I only observed them form about 50 yards away but it was a gorgeous spot.  The smell, well, that could take some getting use to, but the location was incredible - maybe one of the most beautiful places I have ever run to.

Having accomplished the mission, I soaked it in for a bit and then started the task of getting back, another four miles to return to the hotel.  

But along the way, I found the Tullamore Harriers Athletic Club training ground so I did a round on their facility and then beat feet before I got kicked out.  

Ended up with 10.7, and managed a solid average pace after picking it up a bit towards the end.  

Monday 28MAR2022

Monday AM - back down to the Tullamore Canal, but the other direction in the dark.

That set me up with about 5k in the AM.  A bit sore from yesterday but I guess that is good.  

In the evening got out for another seven something.  I say something because I stopped the phone watch accidently for some period of time, guessing about a quarter, before correcting the error (and I still got seven).  More of the path.

Week ending 27MAR2022

Monday - 5.3 miles around practice in the morning (kids are on Spring Break)
Afternoon - 3.8 with GW and IW on Ridgeview

Played the open mic at Odde's Grill.

It was a quiet Monday night and SP drew me out. It was supposed to be a singer/songwriter original mic so I decided it was time to get past that hurdle.  I scribbled the words to "Sad Bastard Songs" and took a crack at it.  It is not polished but it worked.  More to come on that front.

Tuesday - complete wonk of a day.  No miles.  Meh.  

Wednesday - AM practice.  Jumped in some of the threshold stuff the kids were doing, and I ended up getting quarters and halves at 6:10 pace for a bit.  10.1 miles.  Got windy towards the end.  Good run.

3 more with GW in the afternoon along the ditch.  

Thursday PM - shirtless day on a warm afternoon. 9.3 miles.  A bit rough at time but got it done.    

Friday AM - cooler but trending warmer enough that I got away with shorts for an early AM run.  7 miles over to practice and then with GW and RT.  

Saturday - 5.2 miles easy before heading off to the airport.

Sunday - a bit knackered from the trip over to Ireland.  Tullamore.  Got out in their afternoon along the local canal for an out and back run of 8 miles.  Was moving pretty well - sea level is nice and averaged in the mid sevens (haven't seen that in a bit).

Ended up with about a 55 miles week over 6 days of running.  

Oh yeah ... 

Week ending 20MAR2022

Monday - 1 mile.  Yup.  1 mile at the start of practice and that was it.  Busy day.

Tuesday - AM, 10.4 miles easy.  Afternoon - 2.1 miles to the track and back with some strides.

Wednesday afternoon - 6 miles.  A little later to practice:  another 3.5.  Weather degraded from t-shirt and shorts on the early afternoon to a cold rain in practice.  

Thursday - 9 miles around practice.  Also played at the Rails St. Patty's Day mic.  

Friday - over at the Brighton meet all day and only got in like 5k.

Saturday - warming up with kids and some miles with Huen over at the Windsor meet.  9.4. miles.

Sunday - something now wrong with my neck.  I am going to have to come to terms with just something feeling jacked every week.  Today the neck.  Last week the knee.  Before that the Achilles.  Meh. 

Teller Farm today, 9.2 miles and it kicked my ass.  I was beat when done.  So that means I need to get back to that more often.  It has been too long since I have been out there.  

Managed another 50 something week, which is the baseline minimum I have established in my head.  It doesn't feel enough for a PPM effort but it is a "getting ready to get ready" threshold that I think I need to hold now.  This week it came with four miles total over two days, so there is some thought that I got the 50 off of five days ish.  

Off to a road trip for three weeks at the end of next week so its going to be a stretch to continue to hit that I think.

Week ending 13MAR2022

Monday - 6.3 miles around practice.  Pretty cold. 

Tuesday - pressed on the day.  4 miles.

Wednesday - stupid cold and snowing.  8 miles dumb slow.

Thursday - right knee upset about something today.  8.3 miles. Still cold but a lot better than yesterday.  

Friday - knee a bit better but still irked.  8 miles.

Saturday - 4 miles with GW before heading to Coyote-Panther Invite to coach (at the Centaur track ...)

Saturday night was an incredible gig.  Huge crowd, folks dancing, what a blast.  

Sunday - 11.8 miles.  Nice day so felt compelled to get a little longer, also to make sure I got at least 50 on the week.