Ternary Logic

I guess there’s only so many blogging words per household, and the other half, the “long-winded blogger,” has been using most of them lately.

I guess perfume on the run is preferable to marijuana on the run, which I’ve whiffed a couple times recently on evening neighborhood runs.

Thanks to the overwhelming feedback I received regarding the Dallas Half-Marathon in November, and whether to run it as part of my last 20 miler, or race it, or not run …. I went ahead and signed up and the plan is to race it, subject to all the usual disclaimers.

So after we left off last week, I squeezed in a 4-mile tempo and a 20-mile long run as part of a 68-mile week. The tempo was ok, better than last time, not one of my bests. Still on the comeback I guess. There were no faster runners there, so it was just darkness ahead of me, and man oh man was it dark, as I kept missing the ground and hyperextending my stride. But I managed a 24.49 with 6.20, 6.09, 6.10, 6.10 splits, still about 40 seconds off my best. One thing I learned in that 10-mile time trial a couple weeks ago, though, and that I tried to use here, was that any one point may be painful, but it’s probably not getting any worse, so don’t be a baby and just maintain the current threshold. Actually, that worked better in the 10-miler, as the 4-miler did seem to get more painful, even though I wasn’t getting faster.

Long run on Saturday had me penciled in for “14-18” by Gilbert’s schedule. I’ve been trying to do a little bit more than what he has down, since his longest prescription is 22 and I’d like to do 24. 26.2 sort of intimidates me, and I’ve half-a-mind to just run a 26 miler to get over it mentally. Anyway, I ran the first 8 miles with Ty, probably a little too fast (he said 6.45s for a couple but I find that hard to believe), and the last 12 miles ran alone. Route ’twas out Shoal Creek and Great Northern and back over Scenic, and in the middle I threw in some surges. I read that it might be helpful to vary up your pace during your long run and a good way to do that is to surge for a minute or two every 10 minutes. So I did that between miles 8 and 14 and was pretty spent after that, and then came Scenic and I was pretty wiped from there, but I may have managed a sub-7 pace or so down LAB and towards the finish, whereupon I struggled to the very end. But I’ve noticed I recover much better/faster these days, and I felt no ill-effects of the run that day or the next.

Unfortunately, after the run I did cut the ball of my foot open on the rocks in the spillway below Barton Springs. Fairly deep and clean slice, I’ve been able to run, sometimes I notice it, sometimes not.

Wilke on Tuesday. Gilbert had us attacking at the crest of the hill, sprinting to the end, and asked me to clock my times. I managed seven of those ball-busters and we both seemed pleased with my splits.

1000s at AHS today. Times were comparable to others in the past, but I feel different … stronger, not working as hard to run the same pace, quicker recoveries, that sort of thing.

I still do doubles two or three times a week. You’d think I’d be getting more mileage than 65-70. Usually the week starts out strong but by the end of the week I’m doing mental gymnastics with mileage numbers and freetime and the logistics of a family of four and I go through spurts where I’m just sick of it all, of all the smelly socks and sweaty skin and achy feet and 5 a.m. alarms and missed family time and putting more burden on Jessica and my neighbors looking at me like I’m nuts (“he’s running again?“) , but those times don’t last, and I even enjoy solo neighborhood runs now, and every mile I almost always think of December 9th. I think of that day and two little faces watching their dad stride by and I think how I don’t want to disappoint them. I think how I don’t want to fail. I think I should be doing more.