Today was one of those days, where you just do the workout that you have planned, despite the high humidity and deal with it.

Let’s back up for a second though.

On Sunday, I had to do some brush clearing, which meant running a chainsaw for a bit. When I run one of those beasties I wear steel toed workboots. Now I haven’t worn anything but my running shoes for almost two years and my right heel wasn’t too thrilled by being encased by those old workboots and developed a pretty sizable blister on it.

Then yesterday I ran 7.18 miles at about just over a 8:40 pace, so my legs were a just a little tired long before starting today’s planned speedwork session.

Which is what I wanted.

Huh????

I wanted to have a workout where my legs were tired to begin the workout, so that I could see how well the old noggin, could push a tired body.

When I started the weather was hitting that 100% humidity level, which sucks, but what can you do other than keep one step in front of the other. However, once I got halfway through my mile warm-up, the rain showers started and stuck around off and on the rest of the run.

Which was okay with me, although it meant running without my glasses on, which makes for interesting running, since my depth perception is pretty screwed up without them..

However, by the second fast repeat, I took off my t-shirt and exposed my unmanned chest to world. I don’t think I scared anyone, but I know it felt a lot better running without the shirt than it did with it on. No I wouldn’t embarrass myself with photos what I look like without a shirt on. 🙂

It gave me a chance to see how the Reebok FloatRide Run Fast would do in wet weather – no issues, they had excellent grip and no new blisters came around. Although that right heel blister from Sunday’s brush work did raise its painful side each time I picked up the pace.

A little bit of that if you don’t mind, it don’t matter kind of thinking had to be drawn upon to offset that wonderful feeling of a blistered heel interrupting things.

With the high humidity and tired legs, I knew that the pace was going to be slower than I wanted, just the way it things work in those conditions. Instead I was focusing more on how well I was able to maintain a hard effort level than how fast I was going. Remember hard effort does not mean all-out, it is controlled, but difficult to maintain.

I was able to do 8 x .25 repeats on my road course, despite the construction going on at SD2’s new home site.

• 1 – 1:44
• 2 – 1:47
• 3 – 1:48
• 4 – 1:50
• 5 – 1:51
• 6 – 1:52
• 7 – 1:51
• 8 – 1:49

Like I said not what I call fast, but they were pretty consistent and I was able to make the old body keep moving even though the last four were not a lot of fun. They required me to dig pretty deep to maintain that pace for the full quarter.

However, the four planned 2 telephone pole repeats were out of the question. I was toast at the end of the last quarter-mile repeat and didn’t want to push the issue that much.

While I didn’t complete the full workout that I had planned, I did all eight of the quarters at a hard effort – not all out, but definitely hard.

A very good workout where the Reebok Run Fasts impressed me some more with how well they did in the wet weather.

I woke up around 4:00 AM this morning and immediately told myself that I wasn’t going to the Doc and Mardie 5K today and once I did that fell back to sleep.

MMMM what’s up, to be honest I have been wavering about going to the race, I am not crazy about the course (going up Mayflower Hill in a race situation doesn’t thrill me, I have run that course too many times), even though I am in pretty decent shape, know most of the people, would have had fun and was fairly certain that I would have done well.

However, something inside me besides not liking the course was telling me not to go.

When I woke back up I felt a bit out of sorts, nothing serious, but I felt “off”.

So I made up my mind not to go – again.

When Mary and I talked about what we planned on doing for the day, I told her that I wasn’t going to the race. I think that it surprised her, because I had been planning on running this race for a while. This was despite getting the Reebok FloatRide Run Fasts, how much I had talked about being super impressed with them on Friday’s run last night and how much I wanted to see what they would do in race conditions.

At 7:45 I still thought about pulling everything together and go, especially since the weather was just about perfect for a fast time on that course.

I didn’t go.

No matter what I was doing, I couldn’t shake that feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be racing this morning.

Even so, I counted down to the 9:00 o’clock start and while walking Bennie, I thought about where I would be on the course until I got to a certain time that I thought I could have done.

After that part of the walk, my brain fog, seemed to clear and I felt fine??? I am not sure what was going on, but it wasn’t my race anxiety or anything like that – this was different. I just knew that I wasn’t supposed to run in the race this morning.

Whatever???

Sometimes I really think know that I am a headcase, but instead of ignoring whatever was going on in my head, I didn’t go this morning.

Then I got ready to run 5.0 miles easy after I got done walking Bennie.

My run out to Notta Road was routine and nothing all that exciting, no flashes of white light, woo music or anything else that was totally weird. It was just a run.

The first 3.0 miles were all in the 8:50’s and the last two were a bit faster, since I had pushed a little harder than usual coming up Stevens Hill. It was your garden variety easy run, where I just put miles on the legs and smiled at the end.

Good run in the Grasse Roads, which seem to be working fine since I performed the heel cup surgery.

I just wish that I knew why I wasn’t supposed to be at the race this morning? Oh well, sometimes I have a feeling that it is just as well we don’t know.

All I know is that I wasn’t supposed to race this morning and didn’t.

Sometimes you just have to use a little common or is that in my case uncommon sense. This morning’s run was one of those kind of runs, I had planned to run for about and hour and fifty minutes in this kind of weather probably 10 to 12 or so miles. However, the temps were in the high 70’s and the humidity – let’s just say it was quite nasty.

To be honest the humidity is 4-0 this week, it just sucks the life out of my running. It doesn’t stop me, but it does change how I do things during a run.

Which meant that when I started I had tempered the expectations quite a bit on the length of time that I could subject the old body to that kind of abuse. I started out comfortably and picked up the pace to a comfortably hard one after the first mile. Then down on Silver St. I just kept it going.

About when I got to the light at the end of Silver Street, my hat started dripping. In this hot/humid weather that is m warning sign that it is time to think about slowing down and that I only have about 2-3 miles of safe running left.

So I finished up the faster three miles and shut down the speed to more of an easy run, so I would finish without blowing up. Even so, going back up the little hills was tough in this weather, so the slowing down had been smart.

I did think about heading out around Colby, but when I got over towards the Mt. Merici school turn, I decided that 6.0 miles was going to be enough. The sun had come out and the humidity was feeling even more oppressive.

Yeah, by this time my hat was raining sweat, which is my cue to get to where I need to be, by the shortest route.

There just was not any need to do more.

Thankfully coming back along First Rangeway, there is a decent amount of shade and I was able to put my head down and just keep plodding along. I finished without any issues – other than my hat raining down a good deal of sweat.

Overall, not a bad run and I did have a couple of pretty good mile splits thrown in there in some tough conditions.

After I got home, I did a little more surgery on the left heel counter of the Grasse Roads, while it didn’t bother during the run, there was still just a touch too much pressure on that wear spot when I am walking around in them to be completely comfortable.

All I can say is that the Grasse Roads must be a fairly special shoe for me, since I am putting up with doing surgery and the ankle bite – something I never do. It must be because, I do run well in them, but I would like them even more with a different style heel counter or one that uses a softer material – one that doesn’t bite my ankles.

Yeah, today I used some common sense for a change and didn’t attempt to do more than my body is capable of nowadays. The higher humidity does affect me differently and not in a good way, than it used to, so I have to be more aware of how the body is holding up in those conditions versus just doing it until I finish what I had planned anymore.

Today I listened just about perfectly for me.

I really sort of dislike days like today, no nothing to do with the weather, which was hot/humid – so it was pretty normal for the dog days of August. No, this morning was errand day, lots of stops, getting things setup, scheduling repairs (house and Clifford), bank stuff, dropping off stuff to Good Will – you know all of those things you never have time to do, but take one day and just get shite done.

Today was that day.

So I didn’t get my run in until after 4:00 and it was still hot, luckily the humidity had calmed down slightly and there was a little breeze out of the North which was nice.

Once I left the driveway, as long as I was in the shade, it really wasn’t all that bad, but it was still pretty warm out there. So I just ran comfortably and didn’t push the pace. I worked on keeping my right foot straight and landing quietly. I know that I still land heel first, but that ain’t changing anytime soon. Continue reading “Summer Running – No Doubt About It – RunLog 8-18” →

Thank you everyone who took the time to wish me a Happy Birthday yesterday and especially those who ate supper with me last night. Your company was fantastic and sharing time together is so important. 🙂

Mary and I also went to the Portland Sea Dogs game on Sunday. I love going to minor league games most of the time, but Sunday’s game was just too hot to stay and enjoy it to the end. We were well-done and sunburned by the time we left after the fifth inning. The Sea Dogs went on to win without us though, so it was a good day. Continue reading “Just A Bit Hot and Humid – RunLog 8-7-18” →