July 29

AM: 12 miles easy

Ran through Rock Creek Park, up and down the Tilden Road hill, and then back on the Beach Drive shoulder. We're in the thickest, toughest part of the summer right now in DC/Maryland: today was another morning where I came back from my run soaked to the bone with sweat, and my easy runs are considerably slower than they are during the winter.

July 28

AM: 25:00 warmup, 7+ miles progression run plus cooldown, 12 miles total

PM: 4 miles easy

I met Dirk this morning for three progressively faster laps around Meadowbrook, which is just a hair longer than 7 miles. I desperately needed a good workout, and today wasn't too bad considering that we ("we" meaning I) probably took the first lap out too quickly. I paid for it on the last one as Dirk thundered ahead and I struggled to hang on, my breathing labored, without going into the red zone. I still finished with my last lap as my fastest (barely). Thus, the workout can still be called a success. Next time, I'd like to start a little slower and finish a little faster.

I wore my heart rate monitor, which shows the effort increasing with each faster lap. The air was thicker than mud this morning with temperatures in the mid-70s with 95% humidity when I went out the door, causing me to sweat more than Gary Williams in overtime by the end of the run.

I finished the workout just under my goal marathon pace. Once the weather cools down and I have a few more miles under my belt, this same effort is going to be quicker.

Splits: 13:25 (163 bpm), 13:11 (176 bpm), 13:09 (180 bpm, hitting 183 by the end)





Also, I found an interesting passage in Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning that helps explain how I've been feeling lately. It more or less sums up everything I've been going through:

"What's much more common that overtraining is overreaching. Unfortunately, this zone is where many marathoners spend much of their time. Overreaching occurs when you strong together too many days of hard training. Your muscle fatigue is most likely primarily from glycogen depletion, and you may simply need time for metabolic recovery. A few days of moderate training combined with a high-carbohydrate diet should quickly remedy the situation. Overreaching can also be caused by dehydration, lack of sleep, or other life stressors on top of your normal training. In all of these cases, your body should rebound in less than a week when the extra stress is removed" (emphasis added).

Have I been training normally, but hard? Yes. Have I been dyhydrated, sleeping poorly, and had "other life stressors"? Yes, yes, and yes. Unfortunately, these extra stressors have yet to be removed, but this does reassure me that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel in my present training funk.

July 27

AM: 10 miles easy

Ran in the morning with Dirk in Rock Creek Park. Legs felt slightly better than yesterday, albeit not too great, either. I just did some core work when I got home after work: too much stuff going on this week with the move to North Carolina coming soon.

July 26 (96 miles/week)

AM: 16 miles easy

Ran a warm, humid run at Riley's Lock with the GRC team. I never quite found my stride today, feeling a little bit off the entire time. No snakes, fortunately.

I welcome my coming recovery week next week after the last three weeks "up." I need it right now, plus I have to start packing up our apartment to get ready to head out of town.

July 25 - Crystal City Twilighter

AM: 3 miles easy

PM: 5k race, 16-something-awful, 9 miles total

Another week of the summer, another disappointing effort. Tonight I ran my slowest 5k in years, and on a fast course. The race went out quickly, and I hit the mile in 4:50 with plenty of company. But then, well...bummer.

Rather than bitch again about how I fell apart so horribly, I'm going to look at this a bit more analytically and objectively ("we can build on this"). In the last four summers in Maryland, I've run a fair amount of races in the months of June, July, and August. None of them have gone well. Twilighter in 2007 was OK. Peachtree this year was also just OK. Every other race I've run in that period has been so forgettable and well off the sort of times I throw down in other parts of the year. By the time fall racing comes around, I'm ready to go to battle.

I seem to race well during the winter, fall, and spring, but for some reason the summer seems to be my achilles heel. Why do you suppose this is? It's a two-part issue for me, and it's all related to the heat:

1.) Recovery

As previously mentioned, it's pretty damn hot during the summer. Last night was no exception with temperatures still in the 80s when Valerie and I were driving home. Training the way I tend to train, with a higher volume approach, tends to leave me needing a fair amount of recovery. In the cooler months, this doesn't seem to be a problem, but during the summer, I just feel trashed all of the time with the same amount of running workload. That this has happened to me four consecutive years leads me to believe that, hey, maybe there's something to this whole heat-related recovery nonsense.

2.) Acclimation

The one race I have run well at in the last four summers has been the Annapolis 10-Mile. It's helps that I've won this race; if I'd had my butt whipped there one or both years, then I perhaps wouldn't sing the same tune. Annapolis is at the very end of August, which I gives me the better part of three months to acclimate to the heat (it's just as hot there as any other race). For Peachtree this year, I ran in a sweatsuit on my shake-out runs to help acclimate to the heat. Though Peachtree was a lot cooler this year than in years past, I ran my best time on the course there this year. I have not run in the aforementioned sweatsuit since, and I have not raced well or put together a strong workout since.

A lot of my teammates at GRC have told me that they know I can run faster than I've been running lately. I tend to agree with them....just not during the summer. I've definitely learned from this, and next summer I'll most certainly race less frequently than I have in the last few years because at this point I almost think it's counterproductive. I may get physiological benefits from toeing the line in the heat, but running shitty races can't be good for my psyche, ego, or confidence.

Give me a few months, and once the weather gets a little cooler, I'm pretty confident that I'm going to feel ready to race again, guns blazing. No more racing for me for a little while. It's time to train.

This will be aided by the fact that I'll be moving in less than two weeks, saying farewell to Maryland and DC for a little while.

July 24

AM: 10 miles easy, 5 x :10 hills sprints

PM: gym

I worked from home and set out for my run around lunchtime. It was uncomfortably warm, and I kept the pace very easy. Hill sprints afterward felt crisp, and I even took an ice bath afterward because of the 5k tomorrow evening.

July 23

AM: 12 miles easy

Slow today for a little more than 1:25 total, though I ran plenty of hills. The humidity was obscene at 90% when I went out the door. I did get a 60-second rain shower about an hour into the run, but I felt drained by that point. Today was one of those runs where you get home and say to yourself, "OK, I'm glad that's over."

July 22

AM: 7 miles easy

PM: 3 miles @ tempo, 800 jog recovery, 6 x 300m @ mile pace w/ 100 jog recovery, 10 miles

I met Bain and Murphy at B-CC for some track work, but when we got there it was probably the warmest and muggiest day we'd had for a workout all summer. It was soon obvious that we were hurting during the tempo run: my HR was holding pretty steady at 175 bpm, but the effort was not nearly as smooth and relaxed as one would want a tempo run to be. We then collectively decided to play it safe and cut out tempo run short by a mile (it was supposed to be a 4-mile effort). My stomach was feeling less than fantastic, anyway: don't ever eat lentil soup on workout days.

After some jogging and a bathroom break, we hit the 300s. It was still almost 90 degrees outside when I got back into the car.

Splits: 5:22, 5:21, 5:27, :53, :51, :49, :50, :49, :49

July 21

AM: 10 miles moderate, 5 x :10 hill sprints

PM: 4 miles easy

I felt better than I've felt in a few days this morning, and also when I ran easy with Valerie after work. My legs showed signs of life. That's a good thing because I'm planning a bigger week in terms of mileage than I've seen in a while; plus, I'm pretty sure I'm racing a 5k on Saturday night with the GRC. It wouldn't be a big race for me, but I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from last weekend, and I want to show I have more fight in me than that.

July 20

AM: 5 miles easy

PM: 10 miles easy

Morning run was easy through the neighborhoods and through Meadowbrook.

After work, Dirk and I ran an easy out-and-back on the Capital Crescent. Pleasantly mild weather, for July, anyway.

July 19 (93 miles/week)

AM: 20 miles easy

Last year after the Twilighter, I barely finished my 15-mile long run. I stayed hydrated, took some Pepto, and manned up for my planned 20-miler today, running for 2:20 in Rock Creek Park. I had planned on doing it solo to stay close to home in case disaster struck again like last year, but instead I felt good, albeit a little tight. I ended up running about half of it with Dirk, who ran really well yesterday, and Max.

Next week, I'm starting more marathon-specific work. The overall volume is going to go up a little bit. 15 weeks until the Raleigh Marathon. I think that's the one I'm going to shoot for, but I have to roll with the punches a little bit with school starting and moving to NC, so we'll see how that develops. That's the plan for now.

July 18 - Rockville Twilighter

AM: 3+ miles easy

PM: 8k road race, 26:38, 29th place, 11 miles

Ugh, not much to talk about here. For whatever reason, I didn't have it today, starting from the word "go." My legs just felt like they were moving faster than I was running.

It's frustrating because I haven't ever run well at this race. It's managed to chew me up and spit me out every single year, and I have yet to figure out why.

Tonight was pretty much the same story as every year: I went out slower than I felt I was running, ran an awful 4th mile, ran a faster but painful last mile.

Again, like last year and the year before, my stomach waged war on the rest of my body afterward. I thought I had that figured out after a positive experience at Peachtree, but no such luck.

Time to get up, dust myself off, and get running again. I know I'm in better shape than this indicates.

July 17

AM: 9 miles easy, strides

Easy pre-race run with an out-and-back on the Capital Crescent with the Rockville Twilighter tomorrow night. I worked from home today, so I got to sleep in a little bit. I feel fairly optimistic about my chances of a good performance there, given my race at Peachtree, and it looks like we'll have considerably better weather than last year, when it was 90+ degrees at the 9:00 PM start.

July 16

AM: 10 miles easy

PM: gym

Cool, but humid in Rock Creek Park. Feeling a little sluggish consequently. Valerie and I hit the gym after work also.

July 15

AM: 6 miles easy

PM: 4 x mile cutdowns w/ 400 jog recovery, 4 x 200 strides w/ 200 jog, 10+ miles

Shake-out run in Rock Creek Park in the morning.

I hit the track after work with a group of seven GRC guys for a mile cutdown workout. The plan was to start at 5:05 and pick it up by five seconds each rep. We had humid and warm (mid-80s) weather at the start: it is July in Maryland, after all. I felt fine until the last rep. By the time we got there, the roof of my mouth was so dry it felt like a gym floor, and I wasn't going to be able to hit the time on my last lap without going into the well, which I didn't want to do with a race on Saturday. The first three felt pretty smooth and crisp, and the last one was just a few seconds slow. I averaged 5k pace, which was the goal of the workout.

Splits: 5:03, 4:58, 4:55, 4:57

July 14

AM: 11 miles easy

PM: 5 miles easy

Rock Creek Park for both runs. In the morning, I ran the back stables loop. Right when I got around the Ross Drive hill, I passed this woman walking her dog, some sort of beagle mix. When I passed, the dog started this low, deep howling that persisted until I was out of earshot. It was kind of spooky, especially running through the "Levy" area of the trails. And when I got to the top of the hill, I was overwhelmed by the smell of licorice, of all things. I could still hear the dog wailing almost a half mile behind me.

"Well, this is turning into a weird run," I thought to myself. Feeling a bit creeped out, I picked up the pace and made my way home.

July 14

AM: gym

PM: 8 miles easy, 5 x :15 hill sprints

I went to the gym this morning because I'd been neglecting it since visiting Atlanta over July 4th.

After work, I met Dirk and Mike Fleg for a recovery run in Rock Creek Park. Fleg is literally gone all Hollywood on us, and by that I mean living in Hollywood, CA chasing the dream as a filmmaker. He'd been out there for a few months, so it was good to catch up. We hung out for a little bit afterward with VH, ate grilled cheese, and watched the home run derby.

July 12 (95 miles/week)

AM: 18 miles moderate

I met a large group for the biggest GRC long run in a while on a humid and warm morning, starting around 8:30. The group pushed some of the usual hills in the park, at Tilden and Ross Drive, but nothing got out of hand. We also added a nice lung-buster up Sherrill Drive at the 90-minute mark before using the rest of the run as a cooldown.

I nice albeit chaotic and stressful week. I hope to get in a more "normal" track workout next week before the Twilighter on Saturday night.

July 11

AM: 11 miles easy

Ran on Beach Drive before driving to Durham and back for the day to look at apartments. Not surprisingly, my legs felt awful. Valerie and I found a cool apartment in an old tabacco warehouse under (I kid you not) a giant "Lucky Strike" water tower. It's across the street from the stadium of America's favorite minor league baseball team, too:

July 10

AM: 10 miles easy

PM: 600m rabbitting, 1600 slow jog recovery, 4 x 400m w/ 400 jog recovery, 4 x 300m w/ 100 jog recovery, 7 miles

After taking in an easy morning run with Dirk, I made a last-minute (impetuous?) decision to rabbit the mile for Jake at an MCRRC summer track meet. We went out maybe a second slow at the 200, picked it up to hit the goal :64 at the mile, at which point Jake jumped into the lead and took over: the fox had caught his rabbit. He had it under control by the 600 mark, so I eased off and hopped away to my "laughin' place," which is good because my legs felt like they were covered in tar by this point. I was admittedly playing with fire here having run such a long "shake-out" run in the morning, but I wasn't in the mood to tackle a heavy workout on Saturday morning alone. I added some mile-paced intervals with Billy afterward to call it a day. Good speed workout, and nothing overly shocking to the system.

July 9

AM: 4 miles easy

PM: 9 miles easy

My legs felt stiff today on both runs, probably from 12+ hours in the car yesterday, though the weather was pleasantly cool and dry back in DC and MD. Crummy day at work, too. I'm wishing now that I would have at least jogged a little on Sunday because total rest days usually leave me feeling flat.

July 8

AM: 8 miles hard/progression

I woke up early before driving back to Maryland via Durham with Valerie. I didn't time it, nor did I want to because of the warm, thick morning air. I just ran three progressively faster laps around Memorial Park, finishing with an uphill mile on Howell Mill before shuffle-jogging a half mile for a cooldown. Good effort. Again, I came home looking like I'd been swimming in my running clothes.

July 7

PM: 11 miles easy

After playing golf in the morning with my mom, Valerie, and Josh (where I happily recovered from a 53 on the front 9 with a 43 on the back nine, tying my "course PR" on the back), I ran home from Druid Hills. Tough decision. It was 85 degrees with 70% humidity at 3:30 in the afternoon, turning this run into a concrete death march.

July 6

AM: 13 miles moderate

PM: 4 miles easy

I felt surprisingly strong this morning, running around Memorial Park with a couple of loops at Westminster. The rest day yesterday seemed to work.

Later in the afternoon, I ran a shake-out run with Valerie, dropping by the bank during the run. The break in humidity that we had is now gone. I was drenched after 4 miles at 9-minute pace.

July 5 (72 miles/week)

Rest

No running today...just 27 holes of golf. Peachtree is like a miniature version of Boston: the downhill miles tenderize your legs enough to fool you into going out too quickly, just before punishing you with hills in the second half. It's been a few weeks since I'd taken a rest day, and with an 8:45 tee time at a course an hour away in Newnan, I wasn't getting up for an early morning slog today.

July 4 - Peachtree Road Race

AM: Peachtree Road Race, 32:50, 79th place, 14 miles

Every year I run Peachtree, and every year it's a reminder of just how small I am in the competitive running world. Thanks partially to a loaded American field for the US 10k Championship bonuses to the top-15 Americans, I finished lower than I did in the Boston Marathon. Somehow this year I finagled my way into the elite tent and starting area, so I was able to stretch and warm up with American Olympians Brian Sell, Fam, Abdi Abdirahman, and a host of domestic and international studs.

Every single year, Peachtree is both large (55,000 registered runners) and fast. The winner today, Sammy Kitwara, ran 27:22 by himself. On this course, that's a pretty ridiculous time, and just a few seconds off of the course record.

While we normally get swamp-like humidity for this race, at the start the run was a mild 70 degrees with lower humidity than in past years. Coupled with the fact that I was already feeling fit going into this race, I took that as a good sign. My race plan was to go out conservatively. Because roughly 4k-9k in the race is an uphill climb, that meant running PR pace for the first three miles, most of which are downhill or flat. After that, I'd throw away the watch and race.

I hit the first three miles perfectly, with the third coming at the beginning of the uphill section: 5:06, 5:09, 5:13. The only other split I thought I heard was 26:15 at 5 miles, which makes sense because my last 2k is usually run near the pace I average for the entire course (today was no exception). Going up Cardiac Hill in the fourth mile, I passed a few runners, some of whom would pass me back in the later false flats, and some of whom fell for the trap of going out too hard in the first three miles because it feels "so easy." Once the course runs into its hills, Peachtree feels like a cross country race to me because every position is a battle and because I usually feel like vomiting in the last 10 minutes, battling the lactic acid flushing through my legs. But by the time the turn at 10th St came, I tried to stay cool and pull some people in. I was relieved to see that by the time I hit mile 6, I'd be comfortably under my goal time of 33:00.

So even though I finished 79th overall, my worst finish in any race since last year's awful Peachtree, I'm happy with the result. It was my best time on the course by almost a minute, and I managed to control my effort and suffering in the dreaded second half of the race. I ran a cooldown afterward with Melissa, Wilson, and Pacers' Andrew Dumm, and then a little more with fellow Westminster alumni Tyler and Knox.

July 3

AM: 8 miles easy, strides

Pre-race jog around Memorial Park and Peachtree Battle in Atlanta. Because of a slight, steady breeze, it wasn't oppressively hot, even though I didn't get out until 10:30 after sleeping 9+ hours last night.  I would be ecstatic if this sticks around through the race tomorrow morning. I generally felt loose and relaxed. Strides were fine also. Tomorrow should be fun.

July 2

AM: 9 miles easy

Relaxed run on the Capital Crescent with Dirk before driving 11+ hours to Atlanta with Valerie

July 1

AM: 12 miles easy

PM: gym

I kept it really easy both on the run and in the gym. Valerie and I are traveling to Atlanta tomorrow, where we'll be until next Tuesday or Wednesday to run Peachtree and see my family.

June 30

AM: 5 miles easy

PM: 2 miles @ goal 10k pace, 5:00 jog recovery, 8 x 300m w/ 200 jog recovery, 10 miles

I was tired this morning, but no way nearly as much as yesterday. I still felt a little stale starting our warmup in the evening workout. While part of this feeling undoubtedly comes from my workload over the last month, I have to attribute some of the feeling to sitting at a cold desk all day at work. The air conditioning units are on full blast at work. The building used to get too warm, to the point where I'd start sweating at my desk (insert inappropriate joke about company layoffs HERE). Now, the building management "fixed" the problem to the point that there are ice crystals forming around my computer monitor and snow falling from the indoor lighting.

But I digress. I felt just fine once we started the workout: definitely not fresh, but fine. Dirk and I ran the 2-mile in an even 5:09 and 5:08 to hit 10:17, trading the lead every two laps. The 300s afterward felt crisp, and with the exception of #2 in :49 and #8 in :46, I hit them all in :48. Again, Dirk and I traded the lead while also pacing Jake through a few of his reps in his workout. This was the last workout before Peachtree on Saturday, and I can honestly say I'm probably the fittest I've ever been going into what is annually a midsummer's slogfest for me because I'm not quite in race shape yet. Optimism remains high for now.