July 30

AM: 9 miles easy/moderate

PM: 6 miles easy

Rock Creek Park trails in the morning. Feeling crisp, even though the humidity is still absurd.

After work, I went up to Columbia and ran easy with Samy on some soft trails.

Quote of the day:

"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."

Oh, those Sumerians....

July 29

AM: 5 miles easy

PM: 7 x 3'on/1'off, 11 miles

Quick morning shake-out run along Connecticut Ave via the produce stand coming back.

I met P. Murphy at the Line after I left work for a fartlek on the Rock Creek Park trails. The effort felt really crisp, and despite the stifling humidity, I was actually able to get my legs turning over fairly well.

July 28

AM: 8 miles easy

PM: weights, core

Recovery day in the morning on the Rock Creek Park trails, and then the gym with Valerie in the evening. I hadn't spent much time there in the last month, but I honestly needed a little bit of a break from it.

Awful and embarrassing. 

July 27 (105 miles/week)

AM: 20 miles easy/moderate

I met a group of almost a dozen GRC guys at Old Angler's Inn, where some of us departed for Edward's Ferry and the rest a few miles south along the canal.

After nearly wrecking the car on the way out there when a spider started crawling on me while I was driving, we started the point-to-point run back to Old Angler's Inn 18.5 miles away.

Despite brief bathroom stops at 8 miles and for water/Gatorade/gels a 11 miles, the pace was steadily moderate, ticking off 6:10-6:30 (it's hard to be certain on the canal because the mile markers are so inaccurate. I deliberately tried to pick it up to MP for a few miles around mile 12.5 to see how my legs would feel, but running under the sun with no shade, I could never really get going at a good clip. After 25 minutes, I eased off the accelerator and took the rest easy. Bain and I added another 10 minutes or so at the end to make the day an even 20 miles in 2:08.

This was a solid week for me--two good workouts, one OK long run, and my highest weekly mileage since March. Next week will be a recovery week.

July 26

AM: 10 miles easy

Quick run down the trails and back up Beach Drive before heading over to College Park to take the GRE.

July 25

AM: 5 x 6:30 on/:90 off, 10 miles

PM: 6 miles easy

I rolled out of bed in the morning to find pleasantly cool temperatures. I ran down to the Meadowbrook loop for a fartlek, which I was pretty pleased with. I ended up running 5:35 pace total for the workout, and was hitting 5:15-5:20 pace (goal 10-mile or HM pace) pretty consistently on the splits I did take.

The weather warmed up considerably by the afternoon, so I stuck to the trails and the shade on my second run.

July 24

AM: 13 miles easy

PM: 4 miles easy

I got in a medium-long run in the morning, running the back stables loop and adding the Tilden hill. The rains from last night left some pleasantly cool weather.

In the evening, I tagged along with Valerie on her run, making a go-around on the Meadowbrook stables loop.

July 23

AM: 6 miles easy

PM: 1600 @ 2-mile pace, 1 mile jog, 2x4x400 w/ 200 jog, 5:00 jog rest between sets, 10 miles

I ran the Rock Creek Park trails in the morning, keeping the pace fairly easy.

After work, I met a solid group of GRC guys at the B-CC track for the workout: P. Murphy, Bain, Klim, Jarrin, and Geir. I wore spikes with a track 2-mile coming up next weekend.

The hard mile felt really relaxed. This reaffirms that the mile race a few weeks ago was an anomaly because I ran essentially the same time, negative splitting (2:22/2:20) for 4:42.

The 400s were also fast but relaxed. I ran even splits on just about all of them: :70, :70, :68, :68, :70 (with traffic), :67, :66, :63.

Jarrin deserves major props for this workout, which was his first mile ever under 6:00 (5:03?), and he was right there with us for the 400s, as was everyone else. He did this all in his trainers without insoles after he forgot his orthotics, essentially making him feel like he was running in cardboard boxes. Imagine what the guy could do in real shoes?

We ran a cooldown just before the sky opened up with torrential rain, thunder and lightning.

In other news, I need a haircut. I'm starting to look like I was cast as an extra in The Fifth Element.

Lastly, this video is posted on the GRC blog, but Peter put together more sweet race footage, this time for the Rockville Twilighter from last weekend. If you want to see my finish (grrr...getting outkicked...), go to 4:00 on the video. If you want to hear my edited (thank god), incoherent, dehydration-inhibited ramblings, go to 5:34.

July 22

AM: 11 miles easy

PM: core, stretching

Ran the back stables loop in the morning. I'm beginning to feel a lot better on my runs, so I may finally be acclimating to the heat?

After work, I didn't do a great deal. I just loosened up for a little bit in the apartment while I studied more for the GRE this weekend. My life is going to be fairly monotonous throughout the next several days: work, study, sleep, run, eat. There isn't going to be much in between all of that.

July 21

AM: 8 miles moderate

PM: 7 miles easy

Ran the Rock Creek Park trails in the morning, feeling a great deal better. 

After work, I ran a couple of miles with Valerie to the Capital Crescent via the produce stand before I finished up on my own.

Both runs felt great today, so at least I seem to be recovered from most of this past weekend's troubles. 

July 20 (95 miles/week)

AM: 15+ miles easy/death-march

Oh boy. This wasn't a good run at all. "And things seem to be going so well..."

I met a group of GRC guys at the Line for the zoo loop, and I planned on adding on to hit at least 18 today. I'm foolish to think I could have managed that after losing so much water last night.

It was hot enough anyway on this run without being really dehydrated. If Patrick hadn't made a Gatorade/drug drop for us at the bottom of the zoo, who knows when I'd have crashed.

But going up Ross Drive, Klim, Bain, and one other guy who runs for Wesleyan (sorry, I'm awful at recalling names of people I've just met) seemed to be speeding up, and I was getting dropped. The more obvious answer was that I was slowing down, since each hill we hit was getting progressively worse for me.

By the time I made it back, I was in shambles. I could barely lift my legs over the last half mile, and judging from my face and eyes, I had some early signs of heat stroke.

Instead of running the 5 minutes back to my apartment, I instead pathetically asked Patrick for a ride back. This wasn't as bad as last weekend, where I definitely pushed, but it was close. One problem is that I like to run my long runs quicker (not that I always do, per se, but I like to), and that can get me in trouble during the summer. Needless to say, this isn't my first rodeo with suffering in the heat.

Not a great couple of long runs in the last two weekends. The plan is for 20 this Sunday, so I'm going to need to make sure I take care of myself leading up to and during it to avoid another repeat long run heat-crash.

July 19 - Rockville Rotary Twilight Runfest 8k

PM: 8k race, 26:46, 18th place, 11 miles

This race was brutal.

I ended up running slightly slower than last year, but upon finishing, it was apparent that times were out the window. Because of the conditions, running roughly similar times (26:37 vs. 26:46) could be seen as improvement.

I started the day with a lot of GRE studying and a quick, 2-mile shake-out around 2:00. I'm sort of on the fence about the real benefits of early shake-outs like this before evening races, but I've been more or less committed to them thus far. It was obvious going out then that I faced a warm evening ahead.

In 2007, the dew point was a low 49 degrees, so the humidity wasn't bad at all. The high for the day was only 82, so it's safe to assume that last year, we had temperatures in the 70s by the time the gun went off at 8:45.

This year, it was 90 degrees outside when I got back into my car at 10:30 and obscenely humid, and the race organizers delayed the start by 10 minutes just to let things cool off. In fact, it was so hot, that someone actually died in the heat during the race. In retrospect, that makes my struggles seem pretty trivial.

At the start of the race, I got out fairly well: so well, that I was leading the pack of non-Africans through the first half mile. I could tell that I was going out on pace, but I wasn't sure where the usual suspects (i.e. guys that usually beat me in 8k's) were, so I deliberately began careening my head around to see if people would start racing. At that point, they did, as about six guys jumped in front of me while I eased back and relaxed.

I came through the mile right around 5:03, which was right in the 4:55-5:05 range I was shooting for. The next mile had a long, gradual uphill, at which point my teammate from college, Richie Booth, ran up beside me. Going back and forth with a few people already, I tucked in behind him, coming through 2 miles in 10:21 or so, which was just what I expected.

Running the turn past the 2-mile mark, I surged through the crowd and back up the small hill from the first mile. I stayed in contact with the people around me, though the fatigue was settling in appropriately. Going into the Montgomery College parking lot, I hit three miles right at 15:40 and on the planned sub-5:20 pace I wanted.

But here, like every year, one bad mile spoiled the whole damn thing.

The deceptive slowdown in this race comes in the parking lot, and I'll have to remember this for next year. Runners make three 90-degree turns before heading up a half-mile hill. Honestly, I think that the sharp turns do just as much damage, because when I looked up heading into the parking lot, I'd lost a little more ground on my group than I'd wanted.

Going up the hill, I felt strong and relaxed, even passing one runner while keeping the gap from growing from the two other guys in front of me. I later found out that the runner I passed was Ben Koch, a guy who I'd met for the first time on a run just last weekend, but didn't recognize in the dark.

But my efforts were apparently more for damage control than any gain. Even though I still felt relatively strong, I did somewhat of a double-take when I saw 21:20-something, putting me at around a 5:40+ mile, way off pace: same race, same crappy mile, every single year. I'm going to need to figure this one out if I do it again.

In the last mile, I just tried to hang on as best I could. For those of you who race with me, you know that my "kick" is more like a long, grinding push from a mile out. I started to tie up with about a half mile to go, trying desperately to close the gap in front of me without much success.

With about 400 to go, Ben came back up to me, and I let him go by, waiting to throw in my last gear when he settled. Now seeing the finish, I threw down my last gear, trying to avoid rigging up. Ben had one more gear left, because as soon as I pulled back up to him, he pushed ahead (or I completed the aforementioned rigging up process...one or the other), beating me a few steps through the line.

Though I didn't see them during the race, teammates Chris Bain and Patrick Murphy, as well as a few other guys I race against fairly regularly, came in right behind me. The trouble is, none of us could really make each other out in the dark. In that sense, the Twilighter is a pretty surreal experience, like racing against faceless, shadowy competitors in a running-themed dream. Or that may just have been the heat stroke seeping in.

All in all, not a great race, but better than Peachtree and just as fast as the Georgetown 8k (raced under similar conditions on a much easier course). OK for a summer race, and I placed better (18th) than I did last year (40-something).

The post-race did not go so well for me. I quickly realized that I was severely dehydrated afterward, aborting my first attempt at a cooldown. I'll spare you the ugly details, but let's just say all of the signs were there, including chills. By the time I'd get home, I'd made at least 10 trips to various toilets in Rockville and Silver Spring. When I got home, I had to force myself to eat some dinner (a Wendy's chicken sandwich and fries: not the most palatable choice, but definitely instant calories) and a quart of Gatorade Endurance (higher levels of sodium, etc., that endurance athletes lose more of).

My last waking hours were painful. I was literally shaking and writhing in pain on the couch and in the bed, clutching my stomach hoping that I would just fall asleep and forget about everything. As I later found out that weekend, I apparently have a separate "condition" (Don't. Ask.) that made the pain or dehydration that much more intense. All in all, in was a tough evening with restless sleep.

July 18

AM: 7 miles easy, strides

I kept it short and sweet on the Capital Crescent today with the race tomorrow evening. This also means no evening workout for me: I'm going to see The Dark Knight instead, which looks absolutely amazing.

July 17

AM: 13 miles easy

PM: 4 miles easy, core

I sucked it up and got in a medium-long run this morning, running the back stables loop and adding on the hill up and down Tilden. I saw Brian Baille, but other than that it was a fairly uneventful morning, albeit still extremely humid. Running up behind a couple of girls, I thought they heard me coming up the trail. They obviously didn't, because they turned around and yelped when they saw me running toward them, scaring the crap out of me. Geez, it's Rock Creek Park? What could you possibly be afraid of?

Oh wait...

And I guess there's this...

When I was getting ready for Boston earlier this year, mid-week long runs like this were something new for me. I'm more or less sold on the idea now, at least when it comes to marathon training, so I'm trying to reincorporate these into my routine. The only trouble is, they usually involve getting up a bit earlier during the week. That makes them, at least mentally for me, the toughest runs to roll out of bed for, particularly in the morning after a hard evening workout.

Following a fairly stale day at work and slow commute home, I planned to go to the gym. Instead, I tagged along with Valerie on her run and did some core work afterward.

July 16

AM: 5 miles easy

PM: 6x1000 @ 8k pace or faster (~3:10) w/ 200 jog recovery, 2x600 @ 3k pace w/ 200 jog recovery, 2x400 @ mile pace w/ 200 jog recovery; 400 jog between sets, 12 miles

I ran through the neighborhood for the morning run, feeling just OK.

After a decent day at work, I met Patrick and Bain at B-CC for the track workout. We were all feeling a little apprehensive because of the heat (close to 90 degrees at the start) and the crowded track. Fortunately for us, neither proved to be a major issue. I feel happy with this workout, and my running is in a place right now where I am in need of some positive, motivating signs. I ran smoothly on the 1000s, though I started feeling the short rest at the end of that set, and I didn't strain too much on the faster stuff on the end. The rest stayed fairly consistent at about :70-:75 seconds per 200.

Splits: 3:08, 3:08, 3:09, 3:10, 3:10, 3:10, 3:10, 1:47, 1:47, :69, :67

July 15

AM: 5 miles easy

PM: 10 miles moderate, strides, core

I ran an easy shake-out up Connecticut Ave in the morning.

After work, I met Fleg for a run in Rock Creek Park. Though my legs felt initially a little stiff, we kept the pace fairly honest, tacking on a few strides afterward.

I got back just in time for the All-Star Game. All I have to say is, f***ing Dan Uggla and his three errors. The National League is in a serious All-Star drought. They haven't won since 1996! Think for a second how long ago that was. I went to sleep around the 7th inning, and thank god for that. If I'd stayed up just to watch the NL flounder and lose in extra innings yet again, I'd probably have thrown another AC unit out of the window in frustration.

July 14

AM: 7 miles easy

PM: 6 miles easy

I took an easy recovery double after yesterday's grinder. I hit the Capital Crescent in the morning.

After work, I drove with Valerie to Columbia and got in a run with Samy in this cool old Civil War park near his place. My roommate in college, he's on the comeback, and it felt great to get in a run for old times' sake.

Following the run, we got to watch Josh "The Natural" Hamilton go absolutely crazy in the Home Run Derby. I don't think any of us had ever watched much of a Derby before, but he pulled us all in:



Insane. The guy makes it look so easy. I mean this in the nicest way possible: like watching Ryan Hall, Tiger Woods, or anyone else who excercises their craft so effortlessly, Hamilton is one talented freak.

Hamilton is probably the coolest story in sports right now, bolstered by the fact that he can hit a ball a country mile. If you don't know his story, Hamilton was the #1 overall draft pick out of high school in 1999.

Shortly thereafter, he went into a tailspin of drug and alcohol abuse, kicking around the minors until 2002. No exaggeration here, the guy was addicted to crack at one point. MLB suspended him, and from 2002 to 2006, he didn't play any baseball at all. He eventually came clean, found god, and now he's the leading MVP candidate who has a legitimate shot at the Triple Crown.

Unreal. If he were a few years older, you'd think his name was Roy Hobbs. Hamilton's nickname is "The Natural" for a reason. He's as close living that story as anyone I've ever seen, complete with the towering home runs, the background as a pitcher (he clocked 96 mph in high school), and a personal moral struggle.

July 13 (98 miles/week)

AM/PM: 19 miles moderate with some stretches of MP thrown in

Quick workout summary: if the fighter on the left represents the sun and heat during my long run today, then I would be the fighter on the right. I could see the heat coming from a ways off, but I let it hit me, anyway...




Though I'd planned to go with the GRC to Riley's Lock this morning, I decided I might be better off in the long run if I let myself sleep in a little bit. By the time I got home Saturday night, I felt totally beat, so the idea of waking up to my alarm on Sunday morning sounded terrible. Instead, I went out around 11:30 on my own in Rock Creek Park, running both the trails and Beach Drive (where I otherwise can't run because it's open to traffic during the week).

That being said, this run nearly killed me because of the heat, figuratively cartwheel-kicking me in the face. Toward the end, I wanted to curl up in a ball onto the ground and let the heat on the asphalt finish cooking me like an egg yolk. Heat is a tricky thing. The body spends a lot more energy trying to cool the body down when conditions get hot and humid, which forces you to slow down, like trying to run with a fever. Today was a great example of that principle in action.

Early in the run, I hit some good hills: a few on the trails in Rock Creek Park, up and down Tilden, and all of Ross Drive. At about 1:20, I picked up the pace running up Beach Drive at the top of the Wise Road hill to what I thought was MP, grabbing some water when I crossed the Line onto the Meadbrook loop.

My plan was to run a 5-6 mile stretch at MP, so I was pretty surprised that my first split was 5:54. At that point, I wasn't sure what I was going to do next, so I just ran easy for the next mile, feeling totally drained by the heat radiating from both the tarmac below and sun above.

When I finished the loop, I was at about 1:35, I pulled myself together for another loop at MP, this time hitting 5:40-5:45, which is closer to my actual goal pace. Yes, I understand that the heat makes the body slow down, but it doesn't means I'm happy about it, running 30 seconds/mile slower than what I feel I'm actually running.

By the last loop, I was totally done. I used the rest of the run as a cooldown, but by the time I got back to the apartment, I could barely walk up the stairs, nearly falling over when I got back into the door. I packed some ice on my shoulders, slumped over in my own pooling sweat, and quaffed some Endourox. I felt like the guy on the right:

I spent the rest of the day fairly useless. Unlike winter runs, after hard and hot long runs during the summer, my body totally rebels against me. I usually spend the rest of the day feeling both starving and sick to my stomach at the same time, and I can never seem to drink enough afterward, alternating between chugging liquids and feeling sick by the sight of them.

I'd catch myself staring off into space, slurring my speach, and in some cases incapable of stringing together coherent sentences. My face looked like an old, drunken prizefighter. Thank god Valerie was with me to watch me, or else I'd have walked off of cliff or into a busy intersection somewhere. I was totally out of it until about 7:30 this evening, after about an hour-long nap. I composed myself just long enough to prepare a damn-fine pastitsio for dinner (my favorite Greek dish that I'd never cooked before).

This caps off a decent week of mileage, but I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall with my running right now. I know from past experience that I always struggle this time of year, but it doesn't make it an easier pill to swallow. I'm just hoping that if I fight through things now and pay my dues in the heat, I'll be rewarded with some strength when cooler days come.

July 12

AM: 11+ miles easy/moderate

I met a big group at the GRC for a run en masse. I felt OK, not as sore as I thought from last night.

I was drenched with sweat, but that didn't stop me from playing 18 holes at East Potomac immediately afterward: beautiful running days are also beautiful golf days.

July 11

AM: 4 miles easy

PM: 1 mile hard/race/awful, 1200 jog recovery, 400 all-out, long cooldown, 10 miles

This was pretty rough. I had hoped of running a low-key race, just hitting a mile in the 4:30s (my marathon time correlates at much, and my 5k suggests I'd be just under 4:30), but I couldn't muster that much. After going through in 2:15, I just fell apart at the seams, crawling home in 4:42. Had I been able to see the clock with 200 to go, I would have tried to ramp it up more (and tired a hell of a lot harder to pass the guy in front of me). The last few meters were pretty dejecting when I saw the clock, so I dishonorably jogged in the last little bit.

I'm not happy with this at all, but I suppose I haven't really put in the work to expect anything good (i.e. not embarrassing) out of a mile. Other than maybe one or two time trials in college, I haven't raced a mile since high school. It showed: the last two laps were pretty awful for me. Tonight I suffered another painful reminder that any event under 5k "just isn't my race." Maybe I'm tried from training; maybe it was the heat; or maybe I just suck at the mile relative to my other races.

After the race, I was still pretty pissed, so for some "redemption" I wanted to run an all-out quarter, since I'd never broken 60 seconds from a standing start. I think I managed it (59.9), but Klim, reading the splits, was probably just being nice.

Overall, this is just another note in a frustrating period of running for me. I can't understand why, also off of no speed work, I can open a 5k in 4:50 without a problem, but then I try to run an all-out mile just a few seconds faster, and I drown in lactic acid.

I'm not crazy about it, but I'll likely return to the track again in about a month for a 2-mile. I'll probably run a mile after that as well, so I'll try to improve on tonight's disappointing result then.

Anyway, I can't wait for the summer heat to back off, and I can't wait for marathon training to ramp up. I'd love to take a muscle tissue sample of my legs. I'm seriously not sure there are any fast-twitch fibers in there at all.

July 10

AM: 9 miles easy

PM: weights, core

Easy in Rock Creek Park in the morning. After work, I went to the gym instead of a shake-out run.

July 9

AM: 11 miles easy

PM: 4 miles easy

Today felt fairly uneventful: the back stables loop in the morning and a shake-out on the Capital Crescent after work.

I am growing tired of sweating so f***ing much. After every run, I come back totally soaked, dripping buckets, even if it's just after pair of easy runs like today. But I guess that's summer running, for you.

July 8 - speed goggles

AM: 5 miles easy

PM: 800, 2x400, 2x200 @ mile pace or faster, 10 miles


Quick shake-out jog through the neighborhoods in the morning.


I met Klim and Patrick for a "true speed workout" after work, lacing up the spikes. I hadn't run anything this fast in a long, long time, but with a mile race coming up Friday night, I wanted to get that feeling back again of what it feels like to be tired in the mile. Well, I felt it.


We took plenty of recovery (800 jog after the 800, 400 jog after the 400s). The good news is that I even-split everything, meaning that I was actually in control, not just sprinting until lactic acid poured from my tear ducts. Splits: 2:13, :65, :63, :29, :30.


A long cooldown immediately followed. I probably won't be running a workout like this again for quite some time. This was a "workout, for a race that's a workout, for a race to get us ready for more races."


Umm...yep.

July 7

AM: 8 miles moderate, strides

PM: 7 miles easy, core

I felt a world of difference today. My legs had bounce in the morning.

Since I started taking recovery weeks (cutting the mileage by 10-20% every few weeks) about six months ago, I've noticed a world of difference. I can't sell this concept enough. I'm now totally converted.

*Editor's Note - Peachtree update*

Rumor has it that the new Peachtree course was long, and the suspected culprits are miles 5 and 6. Even if it's over and done with at this point, it does make me feel a little better about the race.

July 6 - (76 miles/week)

AM: 5 miles very easy

I rolled out of bed and shuffled for five miles before driving more than 12 hours back to Maryland (f***ing traffic between Richmond and DC - we hit it both coming and going). Though it probably had more to do with jumping out of bed to run, my legs felt empty and lifeless this morning; I never got rolling. 

This caps off a recovery week for me in terms of mileage. Back on the saddle next week.

July 5

AM: 18 miles easy/moderate

I ran in the neighborhoods around Westminster and my mom's house in Atlanta: humid, hot, and a ton of hills. It made yesterday's race feel flat. I went up Peachtree Battle; around Cross Creek; climbed Ridgewood; down Nancy Creek and through Westminster; back down Peachtree Battle; around Memorial Park and the Bobby Jones loop.

Aside from a little around Westminster, most of the run was on asphalt. I started feeling better in the second half of the run, but by the time I hit the last 10 minutes, I had to focus on holding myself together, feeling pretty drained.

July 4 - Peachtree Road Race

AM: Peachtree Road Race 10k, 33:48, 62nd place, 12 miles

OK, where to begin...

This race is always brutal for me. I seem to mess it up in a different place every year, and with the heat and stifling humidity, I invariably end up hanging on for dear life up the hills in the second half. This year was no different.

My stomach wasn't cooperating this morning. Both before and after the race, I was making frequent trips to the Porta Johns. That, coupled with a poor night's sleep, and I just wanted to avoid embarrassing myself.

This was the first year I managed to secure a bib with the elites. The Peachtree is so large (55,000 people) that they release runners in a series of waves, and they only bother timing the first 6,000 or so, who are chip-timed. For the first time ever, I got to start right at the front.

Lining up, I saw a few people I recognized (Pacers' Robbie Wade, Samia Akbar), a few more that I recognized but didn't know personally (Nate Jenkins, Macharius Yuot, some Hanson's guys), and a horde of Africans. I swallowed hard at this sight. Nevermind the 54,950 people behind me, today I lined up both with Olympians and your run-of-the-mill guys (and gals!) who can kick my butt on a regular basis.

After the flag waved the start (there isn't a gun), I tucked in behind some guys in college singlets and held on for dear life. I knew that with a tough second half in the race, I wanted to log some time in the bank. So, I went for it. My first three miles were under my 10k PR pace, which can be somewhat attributed to the fast first half. I hit my first three miles in 5:07, 5:08, 5:02, putting me at 15:18 for 3 miles, which is faster than all but one 3 mile/5k I've ever run outright. Little did I know that I would pay for this aggressive pace dearly in just a few miles...

Right before the third mile, the course begins to climb. I hit the fourth mile in 5:32, but I was still passing people up the hill and down the other side. I knew this would be a slow split with the hill, so I was ready to rally.

And then, as they say, the wheels came off. I could tell that I was hurting, but I wasn't getting passed by more than a couple of guys, and I also passed a couple of Africans at this point. Thus, you can imagine when I surprise when I saw, holy s***, a 6:06 mile (not just a full minute slower than my previous mile, but slower than any mile I ran in Boston this year!) at mile 5, unraveling what could have been a solid day into a potential disaster. In retrospect, pounding up the steeper, half-mile hill in the fourth mile cooked me for the gradual, mile-long climb at mile 5. The course profile shows the two-mile-plus climb to the finish.

In the last 2k, I tried to hold it together and just race. I had been battling back and forth with some people the entire time, and I won and lost some of those in the closing mile.

The real kicker today was the course alteration for 2008. Because of the drought in Georgia, the finish line changed from Piedmont Park to the intersection of Ponce de Leon and Juniper. Normally, runners make the turn from Peachtree onto 10th street, when you're home free: flat and downhill for the final kilometer. But this year, the extra surprise was yet two more hills, making an uphill finish. This damn-near killed me. I pumped my arms, kicked, but my efforts were futile. I had no kick whatsoever, coming through my last mile in 5:31, though I had rallied, relatively speaking, after my minor blow-up at mile 5.

There is a silver lining on every cloud, however. For one, Valerie seemed happy with her race, running a PR despite pretty minimal training.

I finished 62nd, which is higher than any other year (last year was 75th). My time, 10 seconds slower than last year, may actually be an improvement. Supposedly, the change in the finish adds 25 seconds. I'm assuming I'd have secured a course PR if the last mile wasn't changed. I'm slightly disappointed because I've run faster here and placed higher every year I've run, but with the new finish I'm not beating myself up too much about it.

So, all in all I'll take it for what it's worth. I had one bad mile, but so was everyone around me at the time. I raced OK, but better than I have in the last few months. The goal now is to take what I did today and run the same overall pace at the Annapolis 10-mile, which is several weeks away and a similar course with similar conditions.


Anyway, happy 4th of July, everyone...!

July 3

AM: 7 miles easy, strides

Pre-race jog around Memorial Park and Bobby Jones. Felt OK, though the strides were crisp.

July 2

PM: 13 miles easy/moderate

I got in a medium long run after coming home from LaGrange, running around Memorial Park, up Peachtree Battle, and throwing in a couple of loops at Westminster. The heat returned--my shorts had that dry, salty residue on it after the run.

I was exhausted after today. I walked 18 holes of golf in the afternoon, which probably contributed to that.

I've been setting new sleep PRs in Atlanta. So far, it's been 9-10 hours/night, plus naps! I needed it, apparently...

July 1

AM: Ladder Workout - 2k, mile, 1200, 800, 400, 3x200, 11 miles

Staying at Ed's house in LaGrange, I went to the only track in town (LaGrange High) while Valerie and my family toured the Callaway estate.

Surprisingly, LaGrange wasn't unbearably hot, though I had to fight a stiff wind on the home stretch.

With Peachtree on Friday, I gave myself a little extra recovery: 600 jog after the 2k, mile, and 1200; 400 jog after the 800 and 400, and 200 jog for the 200s. The goal of the workout was to get 1 sec/lap faster for each interval. I did that, though I was a little faster toward the end and a little slower on the 1200 than I wanted.

Splits: 6:18, 4:57, 3:40, 2:24, :66, :31, :31, :30

June 30

AM/PM: 10 miles easy, pull-ups

Valerie and I went to the River around noon. The heat and humidity baked us a little bit. I felt pretty tapped afterward again, though the back trails provided some nice shade, at least. Easy recovery day for me.