What ever it takes!

Feeling pretty sleep deprived for some reason this morning, didn't make for a great run.  Plus I thought my hamstring issues were through but my long run on Saturday showed me different,  towards the end of the run it was really acting up on some of the hills, I felt like I was going to cramp up if I stopped. 

Anyway, today called for 5 X 800's at 5K pace, I thought since my 5K pace is about the same as my marathon pace I should try and make them a little bit harder and shoot for 1/2 marathon pace instead.  They were pretty hard, my hamstring took a bit to stretch out and the first interval and I about quit but after that it actually felt better.

6 mile slow warm up,  5 X 800's with 1/4 mile jog, followed by a 1.75 mile cool down.

Splits for 800's ----

Interval	Time	Avg HR	Max HR
800m	2:50.83	170
800m	2:55.47	166
800m	2:51.90	167
800m	2:51.07	168
800m	2:48.05	169

Humm, my Garmin wont show me Max HR unless I upload the workout and I forgot my USB cable.  I think the highest I saw it get was 175 so not as hard an effort as my hill "sprint" 1600's the other day, but pretty decent effort.

P.M.

My wife actually came up with the answer to my doubles problem.  My sons soccer team decided to start practice today so she suggested I take him to soccer and run while waiting instead of sitting on the sideline yelling at him for not running hard enough and getting mad at his dimwhit coach.  His practice was at Lehi Jr. High which I knew had a track so I put on my running clothes and ran the track.  I had not idea how far I'd make it, and had no time monitoring device so I just ran until practice was over.  Ended up with 28 laps, in around 50ish minutes.  They are planning on practice everyday this week so it could end up being a good week for me.

Fritz e-mailed me last night and canceled our morning run citing injury prevention, I sent Scott Keate a text to see what his group was doing, they were doing 800s on the track, which I'd already attempted my 800's for the week, I sent Ryan a text and he didn't want to wake up early to run.  Sooo, you can't say I didn't try.  But I woke up and did what I do and went to the gym.

14 miles in 1:39:01 7:04 avg pace.  Progressive run, the last 5 miles were pretty quick, just under marathon pace.  Schedule said 15 this morning but at 14 I figured there was nothing more 1 mile was going to do for me this morning, plus I plan on running laps on the Jr. High track for Soccer practice again tonight.

I didn't get my afternoon run in yesterday cause I made my poor son run on the treadmill the night before.  Well, he crashed and burned on the treadmill and got scraped up really bad, knees and shins.  I feel terrible about it, but long story short, he didn't go to soccer practice last night cause he can barely walk, so I didn't run the track during practice.

I didn't feel real great this morning, my stomach is a bit sick, and my legs are just getting pretty worn down, but I really wanted to go run with the Utah County group this morning.  Met Scott, Reed, Mike, Toni, Dan for a nice 10 mile out and back run on the Murdock trail.  Perfect morning for a run, no wind, nice temps.  I could really feel the hills on my hamstring which makes me nervous.  I really need to figure out how to completely heal my hamstring without loosing fitness over the next 4 1/2 weeks.

Got my bib number for Boston yesterday.  Turns out my St. George disaster is still haunting me.  I start in Coral 5 so I figure I have about 3,500 people to pass to get my goal time.  should be fun.

8 easy miles in 1:05.  8:07 avg pace. 

I told myself I'd retire my 5th pair of Nike Free's when I got 1000 miles out of them.  Well, I hit exactly 1000 miles today so I guess I need to go to the shoe store.  I think I'll get myself some Nike Free's.  Maybe the 3.0's this time.

As my 10 year old son would say, Epic Fail, I usually reserve my epic fails for race day.  Today's workout was pretty key for me both physically and mentally.  I've been struggling a bit this week, just tired and not feeling quite right but I thought I'd be able to get through it at least, turns out I couldn't.

I remember the very first race I ran was the Canyonlands 1/2 marathon,  this was a long time ago, even before I considered myself a "runner" and I remember seeing the lead guys take off and were a 1/2 mile down the road before I even crossed the start line and I thought to myself 'Wow, those guys are going like 10mph, I wish I could run 10mph" lucky for me I didn't know they were actually going closer to 13mph.  Anyway, when I started getting serious about running my goal was to run 10 miles straight in less than 1 hour.  At the time it seemed daunting turns out it's even harder than I imagined back then.  Even in my best shape I've only accomplished it a few times.  Twice in downhill 1/2 marathons, once in a full marathon, and maybe 2-3 times on the treadmill during a workout.  I guess 10 mile LT runs just don't come up a whole lot when marathon pace is less than that.  So this year when I started training for Boston I told myself that a 10 mile run in less than 1 hour would be the indicator that I was finally back, I put the workout down twice on my calendar, once today, and again in 2 weeks.

I ran a 1 mile warmup, stopped and stretched, took a quick drink and started the run.  Decided to just run it flat 10mph instead of trying to progress, started out fine, my HR was high but I'm used to my HR surging at the beginning of a tempo, the problem was it never calmed down, usually I can get my breathing and HR under control after about 5 minutes but today I couldn't.  at 15 minutes 2.5 miles I realized it wasn't going to get easier and I just pulled the plug.  After a minute I tried to just start backup at slow marathon pace but realized after 2 miles I was probably just hurting myself more than anything so I just all together quit and went to the elliptical for 20 minutes.  Pretty disappointed, I'll give it another try in 2 weeks but for now I just need to figure out what's gone wrong with me.  More sleep I suspect would help.

One more thing that's got me down.  I have pretty much worked with my best friend since Jr. High Dave since I got out of college 20 years ago, we have worked at 3 different companies together and pretty much have always gone where the other goes.  Well, the travel finally got to him and he is going to accept another job.  I'm happy for him but it's going to be really hard for me.  I know, kind of sappy but I'm kind of in a funk right now about the whole thing.

18 miles with Ryan in 2:15, then I came home and my wife wanted to go for a run so I did another 3.5 with her.  She had to walk the hills so I put it down for an even 3.