SIX SIX EIGHT

22 AUG12 – 24AUG12                       SIX-SIX-EIGHT        

WHEN                                     Early PM / Late PM / Morning

TEMP                                      74 – 79 F

CONDITIONS                        Mostly Sunny

AIR CONDITION                  Heavy air; NWS ozone warning

RUN                                        6.0 / 6.0 / 8.0

TIME                                       61.0 / 63.5 / 82.5

RATE                                      10:10 / 10:35 / 10:18 mpm

WEIGHT                                 191 lbs

HEART RATE                          1 min post run:        124 bpm

                                                Midday resting:       68 – 76 bpm

INJURY THREATS

Losing toenails (ignore)

Left heel sore in morning, but not during run

MILEAGE YTD                      264 mi (422 K)

COMMENTS

These last three days have been interesting.  I haven’t been energetic, but my ability to go the distance is there in spite of how I feel.  Even though I feel heavy, my times have been only slightly slower.  Two days ago, however, there was compatible competition on the track.  In my third mile a young guy started running.  I held him off, but he overtook me before two more miles.  I worked it and took him over in the next mile then buried him before I finished my run at six miles.  I expected that my time would be significantly faster, but it wasn’t even under a ten minute average.  This was very disappointing, but again I felt good that my ability to do the distance is without question. 

With that in mind, today I set out to run a little farther.  And so I did, in spite of feeling fatigue and heavy ozone-laden air.  I took split times and found that my first three miles were at a 10:40 average, the second three at 10:20, but I finished eight miles in 1:22:33.  So, that means my last two miles must have averaged 9:45.  Now this is what I would expect when I get in shape, that I can turn out decreasing times as a run progresses.  This is how I ran when I was young.  I would line up I races back in the pack, and warm up in the first two miles.

A word on sweating.  When I was first trying to get into shape, there is no surprise that I sweat heavily from the first lap.  By the time I was running a minimum of three miles, I didn’t reach full sweat until the end of the first two or three laps.  Now, however, I hardly sweat the first couple of laps and don’t reach full sweat until the third or even fourth mile.  I take this to be a good sign of metabolic efficiency.  I read somewhere that runners sweat sooner than non-athletes, but on a micro-level, and so they stay cooler longer.

Today and yesterday I should say I pushed to a near limit.  Both days, I had a couple of waves of nausea after the run, nothing major, no dry heaves, but a warning to avoid going too far, too fast.  Strangely, two times this week I had serious hunger pangs while running.  This is not something I remember ever really happening.  I hope it’s the last complaints of my gut before it disappears.