Saturday 7/31 - 13.5 miles

I set the alarm for 5:25 this morning to get up for a 6:00am run, but when it went off I convinced myself that some extra sleep was worth torturing myself running by myself later in the morning. I wasn't sure who all would be showing up today since it was more of an informal run with Sean on vacation and I figured if I was going to end up running by myself then I'd rather get some sleep. I'd imagine that at least several of the people I normally run with were out there, but it's a lot easier to convince myself to sleep in if I assume I'd be running alone. We had gone to the astros game last night and we had tickets in the all-you-can-eat mezzanine section and it was a pretty good deal. $20 for the game and all you can eat hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, sodas, and water. Of course my stomach wasn't think it was all that great a deal this morning. I finally made it out the door about 8:45. I did a loop around the park and went out to 610 on Memorial and back on Woodway and then ran down Blossom to the base, did a loop around most of the bayou, down Memorial back to Crestwood and then home. I made sure to plan a route with plenty of water fountains since it would be getting warm out. When I started the run it was about 81 degrees out and the heat index was 86 when I started and it was about 86 and a heat index of 94 when I finished. Because of the heat I didn't push the pace too hard and averaged about 7:40 for the run and finished in about 1:44. I think I stopped at about 6 drinking fountains during he run, but I didn't have any issues with cramping and survived the heat without any real issues. I just wanted to get the mileage in since I didn't get a long run in last weekend and the weekend before that wasn't a very stellar run.

I'm off to chick-fil-a for lunch for a free sandwich since Jeff Keppinger hit the Chick fil-A fowl pole with a HR in the 8th inning so everyone at the game can get a free chicken sandwich today. I don't need to many excuses to go to Chick fil-A for lunch so this one was pretty easy.

Friday 7/30 - 6 miles

I went out for a morning run at the park and ran into my friend Benson and did a couple miles with him during the middle of the run. I ended up doing about 6 miles. I would have gone a couple more but I had an appointment for my leg treatment and had to get back home for that. The doctor found a really sore spot on my achilles that was sensitive to the touch. It's feeling a lot better after the treatment. It still doesn't really bother me while I'm running but I hope that we can get it under control and it doesn't flare up into something really bad.

Thursday - 7.5 miles

I went out after work and did about 7.5 miles around the Woodlands. I was feeling pretty decent and averaged about 7:10 pace. My achilles was a little stiff the first 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile but felt pretty good after that and didn't bother me.

Updates

I've been pretty busy with work and getting ready for the irth fo our daughter in less than 6 weeks and haven't been getting around to updating my blog. My training has been going fairly well. Last week I ran a 2 mile time trial with the Kenyan Way on Wednesday evening and it was pretty brutal. I had run 8.25 miles at lunch on Tuesday, the day before, at a low 7:00+ pace so I wasn't as fresh as I could have been, but I didn't want to sacrifice mileage since this wasn't a race. The heat index was 101 when I left the house and the course consisted of about 2.75 loops of a course at Spotts park with a pretty good hill in it which I had to go up three times. I ran it in 11:35 which wasn't all that impressive, but I really don't have a baseline to compare it to. My first mile (which only had the hill once) was 5:41 and my second mile was 5:54 (with 2 hills). Sean had said it was a slow course based on the morning group's times. It was a good hard effort and I need to start working some speedwork back into my schedule. The best news was my hamstring and achilles felt good and weren't sore afterwards and I didn't feel them at all during the workout.

On Monday I did a little speedwork during my run by doing 6 x 1/2 mile at ~6:00 pace and then running at normal pace for 1/2 mile recovery. I was pretty consistent and hit all the 1/2 mile hard in 2:58 - 3:03 and my recoveries were initially a little quicker than I had anticipated, but I was pretty dead by the end. I did a 1.5 mile warmup and then started the workout. The first couple of recoveries I was running at 7:00 - 7:05 pace and then I dropped to about 7:15 pace by the 3rd one and after the 6th one I was toast and ran about 8:00 pace for my 1.5 mile cool down. The heat index was in the upper 90's but at least I had some good cloud cover.

Most of my easy runs I haven't been wearing a watch lately which is kind of nice because I'm not worried about my pace and I can just run comfortably and the runs are a little more enjoyable.

I found out earlier this week that I got my guaranteed entry to the Houston Marathon through Harra so that is nice I don't have to worry about being left out because of the lottery. I'm a little disappointed that the marathon didn't reserve more spots for people. My dad won his age group in the 1/2 marathon last year, but he might not be able to run this year if the lottery works against him which is a pretty raw deal.

Kenyan Way long run - 10.5 miles

This was one of the roughest long runs that I've had in a while. I was pretty wiped out from the beginning but I made it through 10.5 miles. I'm sure last night's run took something out of me and I haven't been doing very well staying hydrated the past few days and that probably contributed too. It was the typical warm, humid, miserable running weather that we come to expect in Houston. Fortunately for me, Sam, Jena and Mike, a few of the faster guys I sometimes take off with weren't there to tempt me to push the pace. We had a pretty good sized group and I felt ok the first 6 miles, but I really started struggling after that and I was having to throw in surges just to stay with the group. I made it back to the base with the group at the end of the first loop and we were at about 8 miles. I was toast and knew that I wasn't going to be able to hang for the next small loop so I just waited until the next group of guys made it back to base and took a couple extra minutes and got some extra gatorade. Jace showed up in the next group so I ran easy with him the last 2.5 miles and survived, barely. I'll just put today behind me and hopefully be a little stronger over the next few weeks. My splits for the day were 7:55, 7:46, 7:27, 7:36, 7:16, 7:06, 7:16, 7:16, 8:25, 8:22, 8:20 pace for last 1/2.

John and Claudio told me there was a two mile time trial on Wednesday morning so I may try to head out and torture myself and see what I can do two miles in later this week.

Friday - 6+ miles, still hot

Went out for a little over 6 miles Friday evening and ran a little over 4 of them with Sam. We were averaging right about 7:00 pace when we were together. I'm guessing I did about 6.1 miles in just under 44 minutes. It was miserably hot out, but I finished the run. Of course I knew that I would probably be kind of shot for Saturday morning's run, but it felt pretty good. I went in to MSHC for another treatment this morning and they spent just about the entire treatment working on my calf and sore achilles and it was definitely loosened up and feeling better afterwards. They told me I was making good progress on some of my single leg stability strengthening exercises and I was doing them a lot better than the week before.

Summer is hot in Houston

I'm going to make it a goal to start updating my blog a little more regularly, at least for the next month or so. I've been running fairly regularly and I've made a lot of progress with my hamstring. I've done a couple of hard workouts and my hamstring has felt great and I haven't had any problems with it. Unfortunately my left achilles has been a little tight and I'm hoping it doesn't turn into anything serious. I'm a little worried I've been running with Sam a little too much and maybe I caught it from him....

Last night I ran just a shade under 8 miles at Memorial park at just under 7:00 pace. It was my first run in a new pair of shoes, the Nike Lunar Elite. They felt pretty good, but they aren't as flexible as the Adidas Adizero Boston I had been running in. When I finished the run I saw the heat index was 95 and I'm guessing it was probably closer to 100 when I started the run. I probably was pushing it probably a little too hard in those weather conditions and I was pretty wiped out at the end of the run. My achilles was a little stiff the first 1/2 mile, but felt fine the rest of the run.

Today I was still a little tired from last night's run, but I went out at lunch with one of my co-workers. He was doing an easy 4 miles so I was going to run part of that with him and continue on. It was miserable out, but fortunately I had someone to run with. I was pretty stiff and my achilles was kind of sore the first mile or so, but it felt fine after I got warmed up. We got to around the 3 mile mark and I was going to head one way while he went back to the office and I happened to run into another co-worker out running so I turned around and ran with him and got a total of about 6.5 miles in. I didn't stop for water at all on the run and was pretty beat by the end of the run. I spent a while working on single leg stability exercises and stretching and trying to cool off. My achilles was really sore immediately after the run, but felt a lot better after stretching it a bit. I've got another rehab appointment tomorrow so I'll see what they say and about my achilles.