Sluggish and then strong

I met up with Dimitri at Foothill. He wanted to milk every bit of value from his time by running tempo and fartlek on the track. I wanted to do the exact opposite. I was feeling sluggish and so I jogged around for an hour going pitifully slow at first and then later on speeding up to a 9:20 pace. That's 6:50 age graded to put it in perspective. So the last 30 minutes of the run was actually strong.
So it was like two workouts. One half abysmal and the second half acceptable.

Interesting workout today. My buddy Tom continues to have vascular issues related to his heart. He really can't run. He's headed back to see his cardiologist. My other friend Danny did the workout with me. We were both "off" our game but went ahead anyway. I wouldn't characterize the workout as hard but it wasn't a walk in the park either.

600-600-800-600-800-600

The first two reps were sluggish. But we got faster as we went along while avoiding upping the perceived effort. The 800's are in bold.

3:00, 2:57, 3:45, 2:51, 3:40, 2:47. 

The 800's were our strongest showings. Next week I move to three of them.

Big day

Big day!!!! 8-9 miles total.  Ran for an hour with Danny and Tom ( Tom was dragging ) in the morning and then walked three miles roundtrip with Bob to Tom's Cafe for lunch. It was a good day to die ( Hoka Hey ) but I survived.  Had a great convo with Bob on the best way to run The Double. This has been an ongoing thing with us. But honestly, I have never run The Double. May never run The Double.

81 minute run in the hills

Dimitri and I ran a variation of our usual routes up and down the Los Altos Hills. We clocked around 81 minutes when it was all done. We did take a wrong turn but ended up back at the college anyway. My legs felt recovered from Thursday. We made sure the run was at a very easy pace. The hills were enough work.

8's again

It was a full house this morning. Tom, Danny, Vince and myself. My legs felt better this morning. Not 100% but good enough to run the 8's. We decided to run 5 x 600 plus 1 x 800 (stepping up). Everything seem to come together though. I did feel the pace but I found that whether I pushed or ran relaxed the result was well under an 8 pace. Numbers like 2:51, 2:48, 2:46 kept popping up. Even the 800 was 3:42. I kept mumbling about backing off but I seemed grooved into a certain pace.

The hangover from Sunday's run was still evident but nothing like Tuesday. But I did pay a price.

On my way to 6 x 800.

Run in drag

Dragged through the workout this morning. 60 minutes plus dog walk. 7.5 miles total. Just not my day ( except for the dog walk with Lucy...that was good ). Probably a hangover from Sunday. I was not recovered yet.

64:29

Dimitri and I ran the Moody 7. Up and back. Nothing fancy ceptin I wore the HRM and vowed to get up into the 70-75% range and stay there. Steady state run...Legs felt good and loose so we went for a course record. Note to all. Course record somewhere in the low 74's.

We hit the top in 37 flat. Our best by 7 minutes. Came back in 27:29. Whola! New record. Shocked by the improvement. I was looking for low 70's. This one is gonna be tough to beat.

Circling the track

Ran the track for an hour straight with Vince and Danny. Hardly ever do this sort of thing for an easy run. It was kinda fun. "Just follow the line," Vince said. Just follow the line. 

Turns out Vince (good guy that he is) gave blood late last week which explains why he was "tired" on Tuesday. He had no idea that no good deed goes unpunished. He'd given away 1/10th of his oxygen carrying capacity. It takes 6-8 weeks for the body to replace the deficit. 

Easy Hour

Easy hour. Cool and sunny. I wore my cycling gloves to keep the chill off my hands.

Danny kept me company. We passed Vince who was walking on the track and did not make direct eye contact. He mumbled something about being tired. We left him alone. It was strange though.

My legs were still recovering from Sunday's hard run back down from the Park.  Quads felt sore. You never know in this old guy's running life. Some days you just don't have it but you just grin and joke your way through the run.

A good 75 minutes

Dimitri and I ran our usual course wining up to Palo Alto Park and back. My legs felt heavy going up and I was surprised that we got to the park entrance in just a tad over 45 minutes. We cooked coming back down. Legs started to feel great and we arrived at the end in the low 75's. So overall, a good run.

The weather was overcast and moderate. I wore a T and running shorts.

Gung Ho!

8's

Ran my 8's today except I'm beginning to think I better start calling them seven and a half's. (7 1/2)

After a good warmup I ran 8 x 600 averaging 2.48. Danny ran most of them with me and that helped big time. Anyway, much faster than two weeks ago. I didn't push the pace. I kept the effort even but I was just faster. Once again, we were off the track and using the tennis court loop instead. Much more fun that way.

I've been hesitant to use the HRM to gauge HR but the time may be coming. I am doing these by feel. I am getting faster at 600 which means it is time to go longer.

Torrid run

Ran early at WVC with Danny. At one point I ran close to 70% of max hitting a 9-9:20 pace. Age graded that equals a sub 7's. Low 9's are torrid these days.

It was actually warm out. Kind of humid.

Altamont

Dimitri and I ran up the never ending hill that is Altamont Road to Palo Alto Park and came back down Moody via trails, Moody Court and eventually Moody Road (aka Moody). We did it under 75 minutes. A little bit slower than last time but who's counting.

The weather was moderate but with post rain storm, clean air.

We had a good time arguing about whether or not the US should be involved in the Crimean mess. Actually we both agreed that the USA should stay out. I likened Russia's move to Hitler's with the Sudetenland back in 1937-38 that eventually swallowed up Czechoslovakia. That's where the disagreement resided. There's the rub. If the Ukraine disappears back into the stomach of mother Russia then I will be right.

No 8's today

It rained all night but cleared up just before my morning run. I decided not to run the 8's. Instead I jogged around with Danny for an hour. My HR stayed low. Mostly in the 120's. Either I am in awesome shape or this is my new 70%. Of course I doubt the latter and the former. The face that my HR stayed consistent and didn't climb told me that I wasn't running tired. I walked with Lucy before the run so maybe (maybe) I got in 7 miles today.

Busy day:

Walk Lucy
Run
Breakfast
Lunch
Chiro visit for pinched nerve in my shoulder

So goes the day of the retired Silicon Valley Warrior.

Tom-less run

Sunny and cool in the beginning but it warmed up. I did several loops before running into Danny (excuse the pun). I had strapped on my HRM to keep myself under control but it was unnecessary. I bopped along in the 120's maybe hung over from Sunday's 10 x 400.  Danny was overdressed and besides, he was in questionable shape given his recent history of chronic under training and two colds one right after the other.

The workout was 68 minutes total but there was some significant walking in the mix towards the end.

A Tom-less run, he being on vacation in the Caribbean.

Which reminds me of a song.

Love, exciting and new
Come Aboard. We're expecting you.
Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.

Love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore.
Yes LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! (hey-ah!)

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.

Love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore.
It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's
LOOOOOOOOOOOVE!
It's the Love Boat-ah! It's the Love Boat-ah!

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/theloveboatlyrics.htmlull

A bit too fast but.....

I decided to hang out at Foothill Track this morning and run 400's at whatever. It's been a stressful last 5 days and I figured that I'd go do something just to get it in. I warmed up slowly for 23 minutes and then ran 10 x 400 (200 walk) and surprised myself with consistent low 1:50's. It was all done under control. Sub tempo at best and my legs felt surprisingly good. I actually had to back off because I was beginning to nail 1:50 and probably would have gone under if I hadn't put the breaks on.

A bit too fast but not too hard.

6 miles of various

Didn't run until midday but finally went out and got in a 50-55 minute run. Not exactly sure because during one brief stop, I forgot to start up my watch again plus I stopped to talk to our UPS Delivery guy briefly. He's also a good friend.  Anyway, had to kinda, sorta rely on watch time versus stopwatch time. I also walked a mile with Lucy beforehand. Somewhere in there I got six miles of various something. Can't complain about the weather. Cool, hazy and a slight wind. I carried my iPhone in case Sue needed to call me. I made the mistake of turning on the Nike running ap. My pace varied between 10-10:30 on the flats and low 9's on the downhill sections. This closing in on 69 years old is unforgiving. If I age grade it, it's a bit more sane but slow is still slow.

It's been almost 29 years years since I was at my best running-wise.
It's been almost 19 years since I decided to stop racing.
I doubt very much I'll be around for another 29 years or maybe even 19.
I'm not complaining. Enjoying each day as much as I can,

I still get to run 3 days a week. I can walk with our dog Lucy.

Tight run

Tom, Vince and I were running and Danny was walkin'. We did our usual 60 minutes of various campus loops. My legs felt very good but my lower back was tight. I ran on though it.

Altamont

Dimitri and I had another great run today. We climbed out of Foothill College and headed up Altamont Road towards Palo Alto Park. Strangely even though the outbound course was a consistent steep uphill, we got up to the park entrance right around 44 minutes. We took the old way down which is a back road that drops down to Moody Road and then to the college. We got back to the finish in 74 minutes. We jogged a bit of the way into the college to round off the time at 75 minutes.

I wore my HRM which stayed right around 137 going out and back.  The weather was near perfect. Sunny, cool (50's) and windless.

Tennis Court 600's

8's but not on the track. Tom, Vince and I ran 8 x 600 on the half tennis court loop adding in 100 meters to make it 600.

The course ran downhill counter clockwise, turned in at the main driveway and then up towards the bathrooms to finish. No reference points to stay on pace at first. Just effort base. The first one was on the slow side but after that we were under an 8 pace the rest of the way. Actually I averaged 7:33 pace included the first really slow rep.

It was a nice break from the track. It's a fast course because of the downhill sections but you pay it back over the last uphill.