13:25

Showed up to run with Jake at WVC. Jake still beat up. I was tired too but feeling better. We warmed up for 3 miles and I ran 3200 meters in 13:25 which is my fastest yet on this program. The splits were negative. I ran 6:46-6:39. I was able to complete the workout but did not feel strong. Jake ran 6 laps and dropped out again. I wish I could help him but he has run himself into the ground again (DEEP...DEEP...into the ground) which is something I have done now and then in the past.

We warmed down around campus after the trial. We skipped the 100's and as a result I did not bury myself.

Jake is heading off to Texas for four weeks so I am on my own. He left me some wise words.

"Don't change anything."

In the evening I came back to the track and ran another 3 miles. My legs were a bit stiff from the morning workout but they loosened up. I was thinking that this would be a good time to add in those lost 100's but then thought better of it.

10 mile day

The Railroad Track World

I ran early. The railroad track world seemed deserted. I did my 9 miler keeping the pace easy throughout the whole run. I felt the pull of the college track but decided to get myself 45 minutes out and away from the house so that it would take close to that time to get back.

Very nice morning. Slight breeze going on. Not hot at all. The mild weather is great but it can't last. It has to get HOT eventually.

I was glad I took Sunday off. While I would not go so far as to say I felt like Mr. Wonderful, I did feel stronger as the run went along. I now know (as I did before) that I needed to get away from doing 4 days in a row. The problem of raising my mileage is still there. What I know in spades, is that it has to be done in 4 days. I need the other days off. So, I either extend my runs or double. I am not so sure I want to do either. I just want my time trials to get faster over time. So whatever it takes to do that.

If I had been a pitcher

This is what I could best call a day that I should not have run one lick.
However I ended up doing around 5 miles of piddling running. There are just some days that are best forgotten. If I had been a pitcher I would have been bombed in the first inning.

S-L-O-W

75 minutes of pure s-l-o-w as I could go running starting at just past 8 AM. I drifted over to the college via the long way (Jollyman Park) alternately running on all of my favorite surfaces. Concrete, Trail and track. Samurai Runner and I introduced ourselves. He told me he runs 5 miles a day (on the track). Geisha-Woman (except I think she is Chinese) does not make eye contact with anyone she does not know. I will give it to her though. She runs, skips rope and then grunts through a series of belly busters and push-ups. Her grunting sounds like the last part of sex so at least I know what she sounds like when she is on the verge of having an orgasm. It's a nice additional touch.

2400 meters in 9:55

Photo of a Arnold Palmer Drink


It was Jake and Rich at WVC day. My plan was to run 2400 meters (6 laps if you are counting) at slightly ahead of date pace for two miles. We warmed up for 3 plus miles and then I took off and ran 9:55 which was slightly ahead of my goal. I realized that I was tired going into the run but I kept nailing 100 second laps and then ran the last 800 in 3:15. We then ran 6 x 100 with a 300 meter jog. We warmed down by running around campus. Age graded my 2400 meters was a 7:50.

Jake is still recovering from his cold. He did well on the 100's but only did 4 of the 6 laps. I told he he was still over-training and that his body wasn't recovering.

We settled things by going out for coffee.

Next week the plan is to run two miles (3200 meters actually) at date pace. Then Jake is gone for the month of June so I will be on my own.

In the evening I went out and ran another 3 miles with the club. It was around 85 degrees but I was well hydrated after drinking 3 Arnold Palmer's (Ice tea mixed with Lemonade) during lunch and felt decent. I ran with Russ and talked about the Doolittle Raid and the Battle of Midway. Typical Russ-Rich history talk. Stacy called for Dr. Rich and asked me about a butt-pull. Luckily, I am covered by liability insurance. Turns out she ran some aggressive hills. Something she was not used to doing. She paid a small price. I told her to go sit on an ice pack twice a day for 15 minutes and to stay off the hills for a while.

I think I ran about 11 miles total.

It Didn't Work

I slept in and then lounged around the house drinking coffee and surfing the web. I finally went out about 9:30 AM and ran 75 minutes. Actually this was one of my old 80 minute courses and I added some distance to it because I have been covering ground a bit faster these last several weeks.

It didn't work.

I added distance and still came in at 75 minutes. My HR ran between 140-148 most of the way.

Bay to Breakers was yesterday. My time for the 7.63 miles I ran in 1981 converted to 12K or 7.456 miles would have put me in the top 50 again. In 1981 I finished 88th place and just ahead of the first woman.

40 mile Week.

I got up early and ran an easy 4 miles to take my weekly total to 40 miles. I then showered and tried to drive up to Santa Rosa to see my mother but the Bay to Breakers traffic was so bad that I ended up in the parking lot also know as 19th avenue. I would have taken an alternative route but I was too far gone and running out of time. Also many of the side streets were cut off due to the race. Finally I had to give up and head back home. Called my mother and she understood. We had a nice long phone conversation while I was sitting in auto alley. This is the second time this has happened to me. The last time was Memorial Day several years back.

Which reminds me. Next week is Memorial Day so don't deja vu again.

The picture at the top is what 19th Avenue used to look like in 1937. Note that the street is torn up because the city was widening the road. My take is that they didn't widen it enough.

Dogmeat

I ran with the club this morning at WVC. I did the warmup and then some, the workout (stayed in the back with the dogmeat runners) and then ran around the college. All in all maybe 8.5 to 9 miles total.

Jim Howe told me that he has been reading my blog now and then.

6:18!

he said pointing his finger at me.

I was straight up with him. If I can drop the time of that trial closer to 6 minutes maybe I will try a race or a club run. Then there is the 2 miler. Got to get that down too. I have to see it.

Jake was at breakfast. He is pretty beat up between the very high mileage and the cold he is battling. I would have taken a 5-7 days off but Jake has run right through it. I would rather run too but my body won't tolerate it and recovery is slow. If I take the time off I come back faster.

Neighborhood Run

75 minutes of easy running this morning. I did trip on a small low retaining wall rounding a corner into a driveway and went down but I had on my trusty cycling gloves and came away unscathed. I bounced right back up, checked for damage and outside of a bruised thumb I was fine so I just came on running. I had planned to run over at the college but the whole track and soccer field area was swarming with kids wearing Kiwanis shirts and it was quickly obvious to me that I needed to get away from there (It was crowded). My run basically ended up being a tour of the local neighborhoods.

6:18

Key workout. Wednesday morning with Jake. He showed up with a bad cold. We warmed up for our usual 3 miler but I could tell that he was dragging. He ran almost 3 hours Monday including time on the eliptical trainer. His body broke. Not the BIG broke. Just a small warning. A cold.

I offered to forget the mile time trial and just go run 100's but he declined. He wanted to have a go at it.

I had run 6:27 last time out and wanted to improve on that effort. I told Jake to start out ahead of me and I would try and catch him. The local PE class was doing 6 laps on the track so I knew would have to run around them. Jake lumbered around the first two turns and I took off thinking that while this didn't have to be painful that I would still need to go out faster than 3:30 like I did last week. I came through in 98-3:16, then threw in a 96. Jake had dropped out and was hanging around the finish waiting to go run the last lap with me. I saw 4:52 which had been my target. Jake caught right up on my shoulder. It helped to have him there. I kept picking it up and as I came off the turn I just went into a fast strider all the way in and saw 6:18 flat as I crossed the line. Age grade that and it's a sub 5 minute effort. I ended up running a good part of the last two laps hugging lane two as I passed the PE class. Briefly, in my age graded glory, I was the fastest man on the track.

Jake and I walked and then we did our 8 x 100 with a 300 meter jog. Jake stopped at 6. I think he was just out of gas. Then we jogged around campus, changed and went out for coffee.

In the evening I went back out for a social 6 x 800 at a very easy pace. Dinner with the Pick, Dimitri and Ray afterward.

Another 4th day-in-a-row run.

Another 4th day-in-a-row run.

I took off at 8:30 AM and ran just under 80 minutes. No HRM. Just clock timed.
I made sure the pace just drifted along at a very slow tempo. Ran into Ohio and we chatted about the Cleveland Browns. He's been a fan since their first year which was 1946. Samaruai runner and fat cell phone gal were on the track along with a few others I didn't know. I just kept to myself except for stopping to talk with Ohio.

Legs felt OK.

39:24

This is a good example of a book that could really mess up my running. It's not that I don't agree with its philosophy which is to run fewer days but harder and cross train, it's just that it doesn't work for me. It was simple. I looked at the workouts that I would have had to run when I was at my peak 25-30 years ago and I realized that those very workouts would have destroyed me.

Bottom line. Good book but not for me.

Today: Sunday: Weather: Sunny, cool and very little wind.

I went out and ran my 5 miler pushing my HR up to 70% as quickly as I could. It was much easier getting my HR in the zone today than yesterday. Still, I ran 39:24 which is faster than the 40:27 that I ran back in February.


http://lastrunnerstanding.blogspot.com/2007/02/short-5-4027.html

It was Sunday and no Samurai runner on the track today. Just walkers, kids and 3 Tae Kwon Do students doing their martial fist jabs by the track just in back of the bathrooms.

A Strange Run

Yesterday: Saturday: A strange run.

I warmed up with my club for 3 miles staying at the back of the pack. Then I put on my HRM and ran another 3 miles perplexed that it was diffuckt t drive my HR "up" into the usual zone. I was not leg tired or exhausted. My HR just stayed low. Finally I tacked a 1000 meters on the end of my run at 70% and did it at a 7:13 pace. My HR didn't even hit 70% until the last 200 meters.

What is the heck is going on? Either I am in the shape of my 60 plus or my max HR dropped 15-20 points over the last few weeks.....;-)

I thought that perhaps the HRM was malfunctioning but I checked my HR manually 3 or 4 times during the run and got the same relative reading.

There is nothing in my workouts to indicate that suddenly I have a big breakthrough. The 7:13 pace for the 1000 meters wasn't exhausting but it wasn't that easy either. I had to push!

As I said. A strange run.

Time Trial

I showed up at WVC and ran a 3 mile warm up with Jake. We then went down to the track and ran a time trial mile. Jake's goal was sub 7 minutes. My goal was faster than the last time (6:44). I did feel lazy though and decided to run with Jake for the first two laps and then pick it up. So it was 1:44-3:30 and then I drove a 90 second lap followed by an 87 second lap. 6:27! Jake ran 6:50.

We followed this with 8 x 100 meters with a 300 jog averaging in the 18's for most of them. I nailed a 16 on the last one and Jake ran a low 17.

We then jogged around campus. Maybe 8 miles total.

The 5 miler That Wasn't

It was already becoming warm as I hit the road at a little past 8:30 AM. I kept my HR down under 140 most of the way but on the way back picked it up a bit glancing at the watch and thinking, "Wow! I haven't run a 5 miler this quick in years."

SENIOR MOMENT!

SENIOR MOMENT!

It took another half minute to realize that I was running a 4 miler, not a 5 miler.

So much for the fastest in years training run.

Anyway on the mundane side, the woman in the picture is Paris Hilton's mother Kathy. She was 22 when she had Paris in 1981. So now she crawling towards 50

Someone wrote:

Ever wondered where Paris Hilton got her strong moral fiber? I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but I suspect it may have come from her mother. The folks at ohnotheydidn't have some images of Kathy Hilton shaking her breasts in a see through shirt with her daughter Nicky Hilton in the background. Paris is nowhere to be seen, but I can only assume she's standing somewhere off camera, helping out the homeless and not being filmed having sex.

Why do not rich people hate rich people? There have always been folks like this around. Some of them have even ruled great empires. Cleopatra loved to party.
I wouldn't stow Paris Hilton away in some dank jail cell where she would be hidden away from public view. I would have her clean garbage every weekend on the side of freeways like the rest of us. Give her the reflective vest and let her go at it. We need her as badly as she needs us. She needs us to pay attention to her and we seem to have a sickening need to pay her that very attention she so craves.

Down Week

This next seven days will be the infamous "Down Week" Where I run about half my goal miles. I plan to do this every 3rd or 4th week as I climb up the mileage ladder. It is pure Galloway from his original 1984 book on running. Eventually, if I can handle it my weeks will look like this.

45
40
45
20

Early summer weather has arrived. It is supposed to be in the high 80's or low 90's today.

38 Mile Week

I ran 8 miles today. No HRM. I decided to run one of my known 8 milers and forget measuring heart rate. I did run on the clock beginning at 9:02 AM and finishing at 10:16 AM. I stopped for traffic several times and to piss so it probably took under 74 minutes running time. Faster than the 80 minutes it was taking me several weeks back. The key point was that I didn't push.

This was a 38 mile week. I did this in 5 days which is very similar to what I use to do in 5 days years ago. I would hit 38-40 miles on Friday and add in another 20-25 miles during the weekend. Right now I have no aspirations to replicate that sort of thing. This is all another experiement on whether at age 62 I can handle higher mileage.

So far the secret seems to be:

. Run most of it very slow.

. Run most of it alone.

. Make sure you run only one only hard day a week.

. Make sure that one day is not too hard.

. Take days off.

IN-DI-GES-TION

I went over to WVC, warmed up for 3 miles with the club and then ran 5 miles by my lonesome for 8 total.

I had that IN-DI-GES-TION feeling again. So it's either the coffee or the banana I had before I ran. Or maybe it is the niacin I have been taking. Something different is kicking this off. I was able to run through it and it quickly went away. So now I experiment and stop taking things. First the banana, then the niacin and if that doesn't work and finally (gasp) the coffee.

Jake showed up at breakfast. He said he ran hard the day after our Wednesday run and is now paying the price for it. I actually felt very good today. I kept pushing my HR up because it was easily staying in the 130's. I was down in the low 8's as I grazed the edeges of 140-142 BPM's. My legs felt good so regardless of my stomach problems and a continuing stiff neck (but seemingly getting better) my running legs feel pretty good.

Sweet and Sour Pork

70 minute minute mid morning, easy-easy run in a light drizzle. I kept my HR in the 130-140 range except for the last mile where I pushed up to 145.

Now for the rest of the story....




For years whenever I had chinese food I always ordered sweet and sour pork. Not the hot stuff. Just the run nohe mill manadarin style sweet and sour pork. About a year ago I went to a Chinese Restaurant and had my favorite dish. Starting about a day later I had a nice case of indigestion that went on for several days until I finally took some Prilosec got it under control.

End of problem.

Well..No.

Six months later I went out to the same restaurant again and had their sweet and sour pork. A day later I had a nice case of acid reflux (heartburn) and this time I had a devil of time getting it under control. Finally between my chiropractor (who had a nifty adjustment that seemed to relax the situation almost immediately) and Prilosec I got it under control again. I also went to a doctor who specializes in stuff like this and he did an endoscopy (God, this is starting to sound like Medical Center) I found out that while my problem was not anything to worry about, taking Prilosec on a daily basis might help avoid these attacks. So since then I have been taking one of those red tablets (almost advil-like in color) every morning.

The problem goes away. I seem to be able to eat whatever I want.

A week ago Thursday, I go out to my local Chinese eatery (a different restaurant) and I order Sweet and Sour Pork. YEAH MAN! Friday comes and goes. I run 5 miles. No problems. No heartburn. No heartburn all day. I am good to go.

Saturday I am out running and in the first half mile I get this feeling like I swallowed an apple, whole. I had to stop and walk until the feeling passed. I feel it again Sunday and to a lessor extent on Monday. All week I had mild (very mild) heartburn.

Lesson for the week: My days of eating sweet and sour pork may be over.

I will be sorry to see it go.

Eating My Own Poison

By the way, I am eating a bit of my own poison. I haven't raced (really) in twelve years. So I am running weekly time trials at various distance and working them down. I started off pacing Jake through 2 and 3 mile weekly trails that were tough for him but easy for me. Finally I thought that maybe I should find out what this felt like so I began going harder running at about 90-95% effort (perceived not Heart Rate). So they are tempo-hard but not painful.

I was not too surprised that the transition from running 9-10 minute mile paced training runs for months to these would be difficult. Pacing Jake, we ran 2 miles (at our fastest) in 14:42 which felt very easy for me. So last week I ran a 6:44 mile. Typical reverse splits going out in a seven minute pace for the first 400 and then gradually bringing each lap down until I had run the 6:44. No sprint though. Just a strong effort. Very similar to the time trials we used to do years and years ago. Strong but feeling that we could have gone a bit.

Jake said that he thought I could run under 14 but the 6:44 mile equates to a 14:22 so I figured if I could run a similar effort for two miles I would run around that. I decide not to worry about the clock this week and just run. I came through the first mile in just over 7 minutes and felt very decent. I pushed a bit on the second mile and ended up running 13:51. Nothing to write home about but perceptually harder than what I had been doing.

Now if I go back to the mile again in the next week or two, that equates to a 6:29. I don't know if I am up to that but I will find out. In any case I believe I will get there eventually. If not in a week or two then in a month or two. The idea is to simply work it and keep trying to push the times down over the next weeks and months. No big agenda. No races planned. Just a "harder" workout. Progression.

I am just trying to get used to perceptually going fast again over an extended distance.

the 13:51 age graded to a 10:54 at age 30. At age 30 I ran my two mile time trials in the 10:08-10:16 range so if I could get down to the equivalent times, that would be nice.

3 mile warm-up, 2 mile trial, 2 mile warm-down for 7 miles total