Killer Deep Tissue Massage

I ran a part road part trail run this morning in Burroughs Park. The first 2 miles was run on the road at an 8:10 pace while the last 4 miles was on trails at a much slower 9:45 pace for a 9:10 average pace.
After running, I had a deep tissue massage with a new massage therapist for me at Massage Envy. Kyle put a hurting to my legs; he made my hour sessions with Ute seem like fun. He suggested an hour session on just my legs; I'll have to wait and maybe do that post Chicago. One thing he did point out that I already know is that I need to stretch after every run. I tend to stretch after shorter distance runs but blow it off after running long.

Is It Fall Yet?

I've been following former Woodlands Fit Blue/Green runner Vince Gayman's summer trek from the west coast to the east coast starting earlier this summer. Vince and his wife have biked over 4,000 miles in 60 days. They started from Seattle and are somewhere in New Hampshire as of their latest post. While they've had heat and humidity, they have also had cooler weather as well. I found myself wishing for mid 30's at the start of the Chicago Marathon during the second half of my long run this morning. Actually anything under 60 degrees and 60% humidity would be awesome!!! We are nowhere near that here in north Houston.

This whole week has been a cutback week for me. I had a 12 mile run scheduled for this morning compared to the 20 miles that I ran last Saturday. I decided not to set an early alarm and wound up getting a 6:15 start this morning. I felt pretty good today; I'm pretty sure that I ran a negative split as the average pace for the run kept dropping; I don't track pace per mile but focus on my average pace instead. I ran into the other Fall Fit Chicago marathon runners around the 2 and 10 mile markers this morning. They also had a cutback in their mileage as well today and also opted to run from their homes instead of running the unofficial Woodlands Fall Fit run from Lukes Locker.

I took a quick ice bath when I got back and then cleaned up and watched the LSU/Appy State game. The 10 am start was the earliest start ever in the 80+ year history of Tiger Stadium. The early kickoff was due to preparations for Hurricane Gustav. The rest of my weekend will be impacted by Gustav as well as I will be assisting with checking in and preparing crews to be staged and ready for the storm.

Houston is my environmental chamber.....

I was just reading comments from the 3 US mens marathon runners and Ritz commented about how training in an environmental chamber at 100 degrees and 85 percent humidity was brutal. Kinda reminds me of the last couple of months on the road here.

The past 4 weeks I was supposed to run 16, 17, 12 and 19 mile long runs; I actually logged 0, 0, 0, and 14 miles. So with this weeks schedule calling for a 20 mile long run, I truly had no clue what I was going to end up running. The last time I ran 20 miles was in November 2006 in the NYC marathon. I decided early in the week to cut back my weekday training mileage in order to allow me to focus more on my weekend long run. That strategy paid off this weekend. I ran the first 5 1/2 miles on my own starting at 5 am. I made my way to the Sterling Ridge Y around 6 am and ran the 14 mile run loop with the Yellow Fall Fit group. (The blue green fall fitters have been doing stealth training the past couple of weeks I guess.) It got ugly the last 3-4 miles but I finished the 20 right around a 10:15 pace.

This morning I hit the trails at Huntsville State Park for a nice 7+ mile recovery run. Coach Sara grilled burgers after; an awesome unexpected post run treat!

This week is a cutback week for me; hopefully I'm back on schedule for Chicago now. Time will tell.

Lance Running Chicago

I checked out the Runner's World Discussions for the first time in a month or so and found a thread under the 2008 Chicago Marathon forum that Lance will be running Chicago this October. Based on the comments it seems runners in general are tiring of Lance. I ran NYC the first year Lance ran it and would not have known he was out on the course with me. I'm sure Chicago will be the same for my race; he'll just be one of the many thousands out there ahead of me. Personally, I believe the additional press is good for the sport.
Training has been steady this week; nothing spectacular but not totally sucking either. I still haven't jumped back on to my planned scheduled that was interrupted late July with my bout with shingles. I am trying cutting back on the scheduled weekday mileage to see if I can get in my scheduled weekend long runs. There's a 40% chance of rain here all weekend; hoping for the light drizzly stuff to keep things cool and comfortable.

Longest Distance Ever

Waldo ran his longest distance ever with me last night at the Nature Trail. I had a veterinary appointment with him at 6 last night at Best Friends. I wasn't planning on running with the group yesterday because of the appointment. When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, I put my running shorts on under my street clothes just in case we got out early enough to make it over to the Nature Trail. We got out around 6:45 and had just enough time to get there for the 7:00 start. He did a great job running last night; we ran right under 5 miles. His previous long distance with me had been a little over 3 miles. Grant was his rabbit last night; he definetely ran faster with Grant ahead of us. A couple of times I passed Grant and Waldo would lag behind so I'd let Grant get ahead again. Cloudy skies and a slight drizzle made for decent running weather (can't ever say August in Houston is great running weather).

Burroughs Trail Run

After running 14 miles yesterday I soaked in a bath with cold tap water and all the ice from my ice maker. Not a frigid ice bath but effective nonetheless. I ran between 5 and 6 miles at Burroughs park this morning. My Garmin shut off a couple of times during todays run similiar to what it did yesterday. I think I caught it pretty quick and didn't miss logging much of the distance.
I felt good running so ran ahead of the group. Sara stayed with me on her bike up to a point in the trail where she went back to check on the others. I got directions to run down the path til I got to the fenceline and then take a left and follow the fence. That worked fine until I ran out of fence to follow; a little ways from where the fence stopped I came across a body of water so just hung out there a little while waiting for the others to find me. When that didn't happen, I decided to follow the fence back the way I came. I eventually decided to take another path which just happened to get me right back to where we had parked at the start of the run. Being a little shy of the 6 that I wanted to run, I decided I should just call it a day; turned out to be a nice run.

Back in the Saddle Again

Horses definetely were not running wide open this morning but it was good being out running again. Earlier this week, I anticipated running somewhere between 15 and 19 miles; I ended up getting 14. Not bad given the hot and humid conditions that we faced today. My Garmin decided to start blanking out on me today. First time that has happened where the unit just shut down several times in the middle of the run. I guess it was protesting the weather conditions as well!

More Tweaking of the Houston Marathon Refund Policy

I just got another email update/2009 newsletter from the Houston Marathon. If you are registered for either the full or half marathon and are unable to participate, you will receive a full refund of your registration fee through August 31st. After that date through November 20th, you will receive the partial refund amounts that were stated earlier this year.

Sounds like the marathon folks were actually listening to all the complaining going on with the partial refund announcement and subsequent announcement that early start times would not be allowed in 2009.

Personally August 31st is too far away to know if I'll be ready for Houston or not, so I'm all in for the full.

In Memory of Aunt Ching

One of my aunts passed away Thursday morning. I spent Thursday at work trying to wrap things up so I could head out to southwest Louisiana for her wake and funeral this past weekend. I called Dogs Day Inn to board Waldeaux for the weekend but they were booked on such short notice. Thankfully, Sara offered to dogsit for the weekend. I brought Waldeaux over Friday morning and he met Sara's 3 big dogs one by one. They ended up getting along great and had a fun weekend. I picked Waldeaux up Sunday evening when I got back in town; he crashed when we got home. I had to wake him up Monday morning; he's usually up before me but he played so hard over the weekend that he had to catch up on his sleep.

I had the opportunity to visit with relatives that I had not seen in years. It was great catching up with people even under the unfortunate circumstances. They had a DVD playing at the funeral home with tons of pictures from different times in my aunts life. Seeing that reminded me of the colorful life that she led. I heard Kenny Chesney's new single Everybody Wants to go to Heaven on the drive from here to Louisiana Friday afternoon; I think I'll always think of my aunt whenever I hear that song now.

Chicago Hope

As in I HOPE I can start training again regularly soon. Entering week 10 of my Chicago Marathon training and the last 3 weeks looked ugly. My total program mileage for weeks 1-6 was 174 miles; my actual was 179. I then got shingled at the start of week 7; weeks 7-9 program mileage was 119; my actual was 20. That simply isn't going to cut it and I realize that. The plan as I type is to jump back into the program at week 10 and see how that goes. If things don't progress as planned, Chicago can always become a long training run for Houston next January.

Rock n Roll Seattle

June 27, 2009 will be the inaugural Rock n Roll Seattle marathon and 1/2 marathon. I haven't run Washington state yet so that may be my race. I'm still waiting to see next years date for a small 1/2 marathon outside of Seattle. If the date falls on the same weekend as LSU's trip to play Washington on September 5th, I think I'd have to opt for the September weekend. Can't beat college football and running in the same trip!

Duh..... I Didn't Know Appalachian was a State

I came across a Youtube video preview of the Appy State/LSU football season opener scheduled for 4 PM CST August 30th. LSU was actually supposed to open the season with Appy last year; the game was moved back a year for LSU to open the season on the road at Mississippi State on a Thursday night ESPN game. Appy opened with Michigan instead and the rest is history....

Surfing and Running

First attempt at treadmill running in over a year didn't go so great; I got bored rather quickly even with a tv in front of me channel surfing.

I had a bottled water with me while running; not so easy to drink. I guess I normally walk while drinking when I'm out running.

Temperature in the fitness center was 79. something this afternoon; hardly cool weather. Probably warmer than running early mornings outside.

I can't see myself doing any kind of long runs in these conditions; hopefully it will be cooler in the fitness center early weekday mornings.

The rash from the shingles is much better after 2 full weeks now. Pain doesn't feel as deep now either.

Phoenix, Nashville, San Diego, Virginia Beach, Philadelphia, San Jose, San Antonio

WHERE WILL THEY ROCK NEXT?

Elite Racing will be announcing the newest site of the Rock n Roll series Tuesday. The first 20 people to correctly guess the next city will win a free entry.

I've run Phoenix, Nashville, Virginia Beach, and Philadelphia so far and other than start line transportation issues in Phoenix have enjoyed all of the Elite events.