Nested loops

Thursday am, 7.1 miles in :53

My alarm went off at 5:30 this morning and I tried to ignore it. I lay
in bed for a few minutes, noting my sore legs (still? from Tuesday's
run?) and considering going back to sleep. Of course, if I skip today,
I may as well quit running. What's the point? 5:36. Bleh. I got up
and fumbled for my glasses, dressed, had a glass of water and some
raisins. Out the door at 5:46.

I'd planned a tempo today, but I'm not feeling it. I jog easily along
the familiar route. I could swap today with tomorrow's easy run. Yeah,
one more day of recovery. But I'm feeling a little better. I'll pick
it up at Adeline and see what happens.

Up the hill to my first split - 1+ mile in 6:57. Too fast! But I'm
committed. Mile 2 is harder on me, and comes in at 6:53 - a little
slower since this is exactly 1 mile. I turn downhill at Dwight Way and
push, push. I feel like I'm losing steam, but I hit mile 3 at MLK in
6:18 - not bad. Mile 4 is a new one, and I really feel like I'm
dragging. Slightly downhill to Sacramento, then left on level ground to
Russell St. I hadn't measured it beforehand, but gmap tells me that
it's an even mile. 6:12. Yeah. I jog, slowly slowly, down to
Alcatraz, then loop back around to come home.

catchup

Friday, 6.3 in :49
Saturday, 6.6 in :52
Sunday, 12.8 in 1:38
Tuesday, 7.5(?) in :58

Painted into a corner, I accidentally slept in on Friday, but heroically
got the run in that night. I wanted to go for 8 miles on Saturday with
Silas, but he bailed early and I had to escort him home.

Combined, this turned my planned 10-miler on Sunday into a longer run
(one might call it a "long run"). I decided on a slightly new route,
south into Oakland with a lap around Lake Merritt. I decided to take
the lap, somewhere between 3 miles and 5k, at about marathon pace, or 7
minute miles; most of this lap was run while listening to the Mariner's
Revenge Song, twice (OMGOMG, I know I'm a little late to the game, but I
am now in love with the Decemberists after hearing that song). I wasn't
sure about the mile splits, but I ran this lap in 21:07, just as
planned. The wind was serious and I felt buffeted by the end as I
headed home.

I slept through my alarm on both Monday and Tuesday, so I found some
time to run from work on Tuesday. I headed up the Strawberry Canyon
trail, which was longer than I had calculated. I turned around after 32
minutes and came down at an imprudent pace that my legs are still
feeling today.

I felt too beat for my planned tempo run today; I should have switched
the schedule around and gotten some easy miles, but instead I slept in.
So now it's tempo on Thursday, easy on Friday, and 22 miles divided
unequally between Saturday and Sunday.

Into a corner

Last week: 30 miles
This week:
Wednesday am, 8.1 miles, 1:05
Thursday am, 6.1 miles, :46

I painted myself into a corner by sleeping in on Monday and Tuesday,
which means no rest for the remainder of the week. I had plenty of
thoughts about yesterday's run that I should have written down, but it's
too late now.

This morning was a sub-tempo run; same course as before, but wanted to
run it a bit faster and I took a .5 mile bite out of my cooldown to
extend the effort portion. I was out the door by 5:50 and jogged slowly
through the warmup until I hit Adeline. I picked up the pace
immediately, and hit the first split (just over 1 mile) in 7:13 (7:16
last week). I thought I'd shot my wad, though, and really had to work
to pull myself through the next mile. I was pleased and surprised to
see the mile split come in at 6:46 (6:59), and then I hauled ass
downhill. It felt smooth and easy, but went fast - 6:14 (6:23). The
last half mile, down to Sacramento St, went down in 3:08.

It was gratifying to see some improvement in this run, and that should
help me get out of bed early the next couple of days.

Two Easy Pieces

Sunday, 5.4 miles
Tuesday, 5.1 miles in :42

Two easy runs, and two observations.

A couple of weeks ago, I noted that my runs were going pretty fast, and
attributed this to all the rest I was getting between running days. Now
that I'm ramping up my mileage a bit, I'm trading speed for distance -
with the expectation, of course, that the speed will be paid back with
interest. I got up to 36 miles last week, and I'm going to back off a
bit this week before taking a stab at 40. I've had some soreness in my
right knee and right ankle that I don't want to push too hard.

Silas has been waking up earlier in the mornings, but not early enough
for me to take him running. The cardinal rule of my morning runs is
that I must get home before Si wakes up, and this rule was broken twice
last week. So today, I found myself getting up at 5:30 just for a
stinking 5 mile run. I did it, though, despite standing in the living
room for a few minutes waiting to summon the will to go out. Much like
Seebo this morning, but I had short sleeves and temps in the 40s waiting
for me. I couldn't escape the notion that I was running away from the
dawn, rather than towards it; I'll have to get up at 5:15 next week if I
want to increase my mileage.

I got home from the run and was able to start my coffee a few minutes
before Si woke up. Victory!

Good week...

... so far. I have one more day of running, but I'm at 31 miles, including a long run today and another sub-tempo run on Thursday. I stretched the fast part of Thursday's run out just a bit, by fiishing my warmup at Adeline instead of Shattuck. This made for just over 3 miles at about 6:50 pace. The overall time for the run was identical, to the second, to the previous week.

Today was a planned 12 miler on a 13 mile course. No problem; the extra mile brought me to 31 for the week before tomorrow's run. Seebo and Dubs have been listening to Interpol on their runs recently, which for put me in a mind to start with Franz Ferdinand. Particularly that catchy song that makes me think I'm in Urban Outfitters, but has a great mosh part in the bridge. You know the one. After that I went random, and Tom Waits came up. Not good running music, but I survived and only skipped a few songs. On the way up the hill, I passed the second most hardcore stroller runner that I've ever met. The most hardcore, of course, is my friend Jessi, who once ran the 8.5 mile Schuykill River loop in Philly while pushing her son in a stroller. Normally not a big deal, but she had left the front wheel at home.

The trip back down, accompanied by Slayer/Neko Case/REM, was 3 minutes faster but not much easier. I felt pretty beat by the end, and had to ice my knee and ankle when I got home. The cheddar and chutney sandwich I had for a post-run lunch was well-earned, though.

Tuesday am, 7 miles in :55
Thursday am, 6.1 miles in :47
Friday am, 4.4 miles in :33
Saturday, 13 miles in 1:50

TCB

Saturday, 8.1 miles in 1:04
Sunday, 9.6 miles in 1:22

Both of my runs this weekend were programmed to include a stop by the
lab. Saturday was to move a Petri dish from the incubator to the
fridge, and Sunday to pick a few bacterial colonies from that dish to
grow overnight. So these runs were productive from at least two angles.

There was a third angle, as well. Silas hasn't been sleeping well, and
didn't even nap on Saturday. When Sunday was not looking any better, I
decided that the time was right to take my overtired boy out in the
stroller to see what happened. He hasn't been running with me much
lately, both because of inclement weather and because he often just has
better things to do. But yesterday, he agreeably got in the stroller,
and was unconscious within 12 minutes.

Had I been in the mood, I could have turned this into a long run, but my
right hamstring had been a little bit sore from Thursday's run, and I felt
like a 30-mile week was sufficient right now anyway. After the lab, I
headed down the hill to try to catch Christine on her way home from
yoga. We met up just as Silas was stirring, and all walked to the Berkeley
Bowl for some groceries.