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8 miles 48:55

Daytona Sidewalks

Sat around all day doing nothing because I had no classes today and the clinic was closed.  The weather was nice all day until about 3:00 when it started to pour.  I paniced.  I feared that it'd pour until darkness and I wouldn't run so I just took off and run.  It stopped raining 5 min into my run but well after I had gotten soaked.  So I continued on for 7 plus miles wet and hot in the humid upper 70 degree weather over dressed from the hat to the shirt and long socks and shorts and overheated.  But it kept me slow and should help me recover for Saturday's race.  The right achilles was still a little tight but should be fine by Saturday.

4 miles 25:23

Daytona Sidewalks

Did an easy prerace 4 miler.  Felt a little flat.  The achilles is still a bit tight which is a little troublesome but hopefully with a good night sleep it'll be better.  I could use a good night sleep too as I'm pretty tired.  Of course having to wake up early enough to get to a race that starts at 8am 160 miles away isn't going to help the sleep cause.  We'll see though.

Suncoast Run for Kids 10k - 1st 30:23.8

I set a new record for both bedtime and wake up time.  Usually any attempt at going to bed early leads to a night where I never fall asleep, but yesterday I was exhausted and passed out at 7:30pm.  Incredible.  Of course I had to get up at 4:30am to drive across the state to make the 8am race start time so a good nights rest wasn't what I got.  It was a nice day for racing though, about 60 degrees and overcast at start time.  Eric Walker set the pace pretty much for the first 5 miles with Tyrone Bell and I running right with him running consistent 4:55 pace.  With about 800m-1000m to go Tyrone made a move and got some seperation on me.  He opened up about 10-15 meters on me with Eric Walker about the same distance back.  We turned a corner and had about 300m left and I opened up a furious kick.  It was incredible.  Arms flailing, legs flapping, and the head bouncing.  It was the type of kick that'd make one observer say "that guy once ran 3:43 for 1500m" while another says "that guy once ran 3:43 for 1500m?"  It was sloppy but it was effective as I closed the gap and quickly went past Tyrone about halfway down the final straight away.  From there I did a lot of looking over my shoulder to make sure I used as little energy as possible because energy was running short.  I was really impressed though by both Tyrone and Eric.  They ran tough and have a ton of potential as they're both young.  They talked afterwards about hoping to join a professional group and I hope they do so because they've got a ton of potential.  The race was good though as I got the win and found I've still got the finishing speed but this is the second race in a row were I've fallen off with about 1k to go.  Obviously it's something I need to work on in the future. 

PM 5 miles 30:05

Daytona Sidewalks

Since last weeks post race evening run really helped in the recovery process I went out for a second run today.  For the first half mile my plantar was extremely tight but it loosened up and I felt pretty good on the run.  Plus NC State beat UNC-CH tarholes in BBall.  All in all a good day.  I'm tired.  Peace.

17 miles 104:36

Daytona Sidewalks

Superbowl Sunday.  I'm taking the Bears 31-13 over the Colts.  Defense wins championships and up until the second half against the Patriots Manning was playing horribly.  If the Colts win I will of course delete this.  Long run day today and I got in a solid 17 miler.  I wasn't sore at all today which was nice but early on I was tight in the plantar and the shin was as well.  They loosened up eventually but I never seemed to.  I just felt tight, espceially in the upper body all run.  Good week of mileage this week (80 from Mon-Sun) with a race involved.  I've got a weekend off from racing next weekend (but not off from learning as I've got the CE9 clinical entrance exam and Part 2 board review all day Sat and Sunday).  I'm going to try and get in a serious week of training this next week, but we'll see how that goes with school. 

It turns out the kid I lost to last week ran a 3:58 mile yesterday.  I don't feel so bad now that he ran away from me.

10 miles 60:33

Daytona Sidewalks

I was way off on the superbowl.  Oh well.  I also spent the day eating like crap.  Oh well.  Ran the usual 10 miles today.  Oh well.  Nothing else worth mentioning.  Oh well.

10 miles 59:47

Daytona Sidewalks

After morning classes I had a 2 hour break so I snuck in a quick little 10 miler in hopes of getting in a double day.  I've been doing great lately on getting in double runs.  It was like Dec 12th when I went for a double run and realized I hadn't done one in awhile.  So I checked my logs to see just how long it had been since I had a normal double day and it had been 1 year and 364 days exactly.  Since then though I've been getting them in often and they're going well. 

PM 5 miles 30:05

Daytona Sidewalks

Got in a double run and some pullups.  Felt pretty good.  I noticed a bump on my foot on what I think is the tibialis anterior tendon.  It's kinda big but it doesn't hurt.  I'm going to wait it out and see what happens.  It's on the same leg that has the achy achilles but not the leg that has shin aches and plantar problems.  God, listen to that list of aches and pains.  Gotta love running.

Daytona Sidewalks

Did a fartlek workout of 1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1 min on with 1/2 recovery.  It's one of my staple sidewalk running workouts even though today I did almost all of it looping around the Big Tree baseball field to keep on soft surfaces.  I felt pretty crappy and run down on the warm up but as I got into the hard running stuff I felt pretty decent.  I was going around 5 min pace or a tad under for the slowest interval (the 5 min one) and was really running the shorter ones.  It was a warm day which isn't unusual for Florida but it was very dry out so all my sweat dried up on me and left me with a solid salty layer which later led to some wonderful chauffing.  But it was still a very nice day and I had no classes and have non tomorrow so I'll try and keep the complaining to a minimum.

12 miles 72:35

Daytona Sidewalks

It's a nice sunny warm day with little humidity.  I wound my way through the neighborhoods of Daytona beach for about 12 miles feeling pretty good in the process.  My mileage this week is going to end up being really high, possibly record highs depending on if I double up tomorrow and how long I workout for on Saturday.  That's good though.  I'll take next week down and that should suffice for freshening up my legs for my 5k on the 17th.  Clinical Entrance Exam is tomorrow and I feel like I'm waaaaay behind in my studies.  It could be a late night...

10 miles 60:44

Daytona Sidewalks

The morning began with 4 hours of exams for CE9 (clinical entrance exams for 9th quarter students).  It was pretty exhausting and after a big lunch it was nap time.  No double run today.  It's fine though because my mileage is 93 for the last 7 days which might be an all time 7 day high.  My alltime set week high is 92 but I think I hit like 94 in a 7 day stretch when I spent a week in Boulder because my car broke down moving from California to Florida.  That was a lot of typing to say I didn't feel it necessary nor did I have to time to do a double run.  I'm going to get on the track tomorrow so hopefully the easy day will freshen me up a bit.  I've got board part 2 review though from 8-5 Sat and Sun so we'll see what I can get done on the track. 

10 miles

Atlantic High School Track

After being in Board review all day I made it over to the track at dusk half awake and still full from an enormous late lunch.  Not exactly ideal.  The plan was to get in some speed work since the previous Saturday I raced a 10k and then Wednesday got in a long workout giving me a couple of longer stuff but little turnover.  I decided to do 5 X 1000m with the last 3 broken down to 600-400; 500-300-200; and 500-300-200.  2 min recover after the full 1000's and the next interval distance recovery after the breakdowns.  Times were 2:46; 2:46; 94, 62; 78, 45, 29; 78, 45, 29.  The 1000's felt much better than the breakdowns.  I was hoping to go fast for the breakdowns overall and really had to work to do what I did.  It was a long week and I wasn't in the best situation for running so maybe that explains the lack of speed.  We'll see.

15 miles 93:03

Daytona Sidewalks

Wow, I felt like crap on this one.  It took about 10 miles for my shins and plantar to stop hurting.  I was really stiff and It was a miserable run.  I'm in need of tomorrow's recovery run and bad.

5 miles 30:52

Daytona Sidewalks

Got my run over with early.  I didn't feel too hot and then after a long day of classes made an even longer drive to Boone for a short period of time.  Fun stuff.

10 miles 58:59

Bass Lake

Hey, look at that, a run not titled "daytona sidewalks."  With all the little nagging aches and pains coming into this run, a long day prior, and a little altitude mixed with hills you'd think this would be an awful run for this Floridian but I had a little bounce to my step early and felt none of my nags.  It was a mid 30's and misting type of day so I can't blame my good run on the weather.  I was considering a double run day but was wanting to back of for Saturday's Edison Festival of Lights 5k so in the evening when it was pouring rain my desicion on not doing a double run was a lot easier.  A lot easier.

7 miles 41:24

Bass Lake

I was planning on doing two measured miles around bass lake which is my typical pre race workout but those plans changed quickly once I stepped out of my car on the 23 degree day with winds absolutely howling over the exposed lake.  So instead of destroying myself trying to run 5 min pace around the like while giving a 4:30 pace effort I just ran the mostly covered trails and did an unmeasured 10 min tempo.  It was solid.  Well, I'm sure the pace was significantly slow but the effort was appropriate and that's all that matters in a threshold type effort.  Then Ryan drives all the way back to Florida.

10 miles 60:13

Daytona Sidewalks

It's amazing how 2 runs on the trails in Boone can freshen one up.  I felt like a had a bounce in my step today and all my aches were gone.  Not too shabby.

4 miles 25:27

Daytona Sidewalks

Did the normal pre race 4 miler.  Didn't feel as good today as I had the previous couple of days.  Edison should be a fast race with good competition so hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow.  It's an evening race which I prefer to early morning ones especially when the weather is nice and cool which it is today.  Lets hope it lasts.

Edison Festival of Lights.  It was a cool 60 degree evening in Fort Myers but it wasn't ideal for racing because the winds were howling.  This is a pretty fun meet because it's the start of a big parade.  On the 5k course, which is an out and back, there's a constant wall of people preparing for the parade and cheering on the runners.  The race was pretty uneventful though.  Last year this was the most competitive 5k I ran and the fastest on the roads in 14:22 so I backed off this year to be prepared for a similar race.  That didn't happen.  The first 800m or so was led by a crew of high school kids going out way too hard just to be seen.  Then after that I was setting the pace early.  If was a comfortable pace for me but I sensed that the two guys going with me, Jason Bodnar and Paul Mwangi, weren't going to be able to keep it.  I was right.  Right before the mile marker Mwangi came surging up beside in a move that said "I'm here to race" which I responded with a move of my own which said "you're here to race for second."  And then the race was over.  A 4:42 opening mile was too much for the competition to handle.  Hitting the 2 mile in 9:25 I had a big gap and was running comfortably.  I pretty much just ran an even paced run all by myself in this race as I ended up winning by 30 seconds even with my opting against kicking the last 600m in favor of hamming it up to the crowd and waving my way in.  Lazy of me.  I wish there had been better competition since I tapered for this event.  Had I known it would have been such an easy victory I would have trained through it because I've got a lot of races coming up.  Good run though.  I was really comfortable and it's a fun event.  Probably my favorite road 5k I run.

15 miles 92:37

Daytona Sidewalks

Did my usual 15 mile sidewalk run in Daytona with a thunderous backdrop of cars driving 180mph in a circle.  I felt pretty good despite having drank the night before and staying up all night.  (3/26 for the yearly count).  It was a fun night and I didn't mind paying for it this morning and I actually didn't suffer much on the run.  Since the race wasn't an all out effort I wasn't sore at all.  I'm thinking I'm going to try and get in a solid track session on Tuesday. 

10 miles 60:34

Daytona Sidewalks

Just the normal 10 mile run.  I felt pretty good.  Nothing worth mentioning.  I was still a little upset over backing off and not running too fast this weekend until I saw the prerace article with a picture of me in last years race http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070217/SPORTS/702170462 and then compared it to the post race article with a picture of me at the end of this years race http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070218/SS07/702180408 .  Clearly for this years race i was a little more comfortable.  I'm guessing the difference came in the first mile where we went out 20 seconds faster last year than this year.  I remember really digging into the well early last year and this year I didn't at all so that's kind of nice.  Maybe I'm just lazy. 

Embry Riddle Track

Wanted to get in some speed work with the mile track race coming up this weekend so I went over to Embry Riddle and did 800 (800rec); 4X400 (200rec); 4X200(200 rec) in 1:58; 61,61,60, 61; 29, 29, 28, 28.  I was just hoping to hit 2:00-2:03 on the 800 so when I cruised to a relatively easy 1:58 I was pretty pleased.  It's a fast mondo track and I'm looking foward to running what I think can be a fast mile time this weekend on it.  Today's workout has me thinking I can run a lot faster in the mile than what I thought a few days ago.  Hopefully the early pacing is good and I can finish strong.  That type of speed for a full mile is something I haven't attempted since 2004.  Literally, I haven't raced anything shorter than a 5k since 2004.  But at least now I've got some confidence in what I can do.

10 miles 62:29

Daytona Sidewalks

My plantar was killing me today.  I felt like I was running with a limp early and even when it loosened up after a few miles there was still a good deal of pain in every step.  This was my slowest 10 miler of the year by 30 seconds.  I had intended on doing a double day but decided to scratch the second run and instead I dumped a couple of bags of ice in the bath tub and had a little cold tank time. 

0 miles 00:00

Living Room

The plantar was a little looser today but apparently from my altered form on the previous day's run i was getting pain in the 3rd metatarsal bone area which is immediate cause for concern.  As the day went along everything started to feel better but there was still a slight pain in that area so I decided not to push things and to take the day off completely.  I iced it up real well and took some anti inflammatories and will reacess tomorrow.  If it's feeling better tomorrow then I'll assume it's not bone, which it probably isn't anyway, and I'll go ahead and race on Saturday.  If it's hurting on tomorrow's run attempt then I might be taking a few weeks off.  Lets hope it's the former.

4 miles 25:12

Daytona Sidewalks

The foot felt a lot better today so I took it for a run.  I noticed there was slight pain when I focused on it but it felt good.  It's still the type of pain that worries me but since it got significantly better in a day I'm going to go ahead and race on it tomorrow.  I figure either it's just a mild strain that will be fine or it's mild bone that will take a month to heal.  At this rate though I'd be training on it anyway going halfassed so I might as well put pressure on it and if it's hurt after the race I'll be forced to take the time off.  That might not make too much sense or it might be briliant.  Especially with my schedule and not having a big money race for 5 weeks and the late spring track season.  We'll see how the mile goes tomorrow.

ERAU Invitiational Mile 4:06.49

Daytona Beach

This is the shortest distance I've ever traveled to run a race.  I got in the car and drove to the track and the same song was still playing on the radio.  Quite a nice change from my normal commute to the far corners of Florida.  I only got in the race because Tyrone Bell was coming over to run it and he was bring his buddy Scott to rabbit us.  So why not.  The track is a super fast mondo and I could really use the speed work since the last time I raced anything shorter than a 5k was in July of 2004.  The foot had been hurting but it felt good warming up and there was only moderate plantar pain which was easy to run through.  Race time weather was pretty hot, mid 70's, with the track temperature feeling much hotter.  The race was supposed to go off at 11:25 but I didn't get the memo that it was a running schedule and we actually started at 11:10.  I was literaly on my 3rd stride when they made the anouncement "all mile runners need to be on the line."  The early start wasn't too bad though as it just felt a lot like the timing that my workouts start out with.  I think I'm rambling on about prerace nothings because there's not too much to say about a 4 minute race.  Or is there?  Scott did a great job of rabbiting.  We were out a little quick the first 209 meters (30) but settled in nicely from there.  We went throught the 409m in 59-60 with Scott leading the way followed by Tyrone then me then, well, it was quite some time before the next guy.  We kept moving well but between 600-700 meters the pace slowed a little.  It wasn't a big drop but it was enough to take us over 60 second 400 pace.  We went though the 809 in 2:00-01 with the rabbit dropping out and Tyrone taking over.  Tyone led till about the backstretch when I could feel him falling off pace a little more and I could tell I still had a quicker pace in me so I made my move around him on the back stretch.  A move which I immediately regreted as soon as I did.  Why?  Because I just made a move right into the head wind.  I fought through it well on the back stretch going through the 1009 meter mark in 2:32 then continued through to the 1209 meter mark in 3:03.  I was pushing pretty hard the last lap but the upper body was really locking down and my lungs were burning.  The back stretch was a battle but after I got through it the last 200 went by quick.  I could hear Tyrone a few steps behind me the whole way but he didn't close the gap that I opened up at the 1k mark down any.  4:06.49 for the mile.  Not too bad.  The last time I ran a mile was in 2004 and I ended that season with a 4:08.8 performance in Portland.  That was a pretty uninspired effort though.  I opened that season in Seattle on the track in an even less inspired 4:14 which I followed up 2 weeks later with an 8:02 3k.  So hopefully this 4:06 is the start to some good races on the track.  We'll see how Friday's 5k at FSU goes.  Hopefully the plantar and foot holds up, afterwards the plantar was very sore but the metatarsals were good which I think is much more important. 

13 miles 79:35

Daytona Sidewalks

I spent all day in Board review (yesterday after the race I spent the rest of the day at an AK seminaras well) which was mentally exhausting but may have helped loosen the plantar up since I had the entire day on it before I got out for my run at dusk.  The plantar was hurting bad all day so the thought of taking the day off was constantly in the back of my mind but since I haven't had any of the metatarsal pain I decided to give it a shot.  It hurt bad early but not bad enough for me to call the run and after a few miles it loosened up considerably to the point were I barely felt it.  Perfect.  And other than the plantar I wasn't even remotely sore from the race yesterday.  Amazingly not even my calves were sore.  I cruised through the run on the dreary 80 degree Florida evening with relative comfort considering how I had anticipated feeling.  This week should be real easy up until my track 5k on friday with just a 2 mile threshold workout on Tuesday and the rest being easy miles.  This should really heal the plantar.  Hopefully.

10 miles 59:57

Daytona Sidewalks

I never really felt all that great on my run today but I started out a little quicker than on my average run and kind of kept that up even though I felt flat.  It was also mid 80's and humid which also explains the flatness of the run as that type of day is quite oppressive.  Also I didn't have a weekend and haven't slept in in a while.  The plantar also was still tight and noticable with every step but it didn't ever hurt in a limiting manor.  I got in 3 sets of pullups today after the run as well.  All in all a solid day which resmebles pretty much every other day. 

8 miles

ERAU Track

Did the normal pre-race 2 mile threshold in 9:49 (4:59, 4:50) with some strides before and after and a few drills afterwards.  I felt a little flat just running but that was fine.  What was troublesome was the plantar which is still giving me a lot of troubles.  It's at a point where I don't really notice it during the day pre run but I can feel it hurting every step of the run and it aches afterwards.  I'll keep taking care of it and hopefully I'll see improvement.

6 miles 37:48

Daytona Sidewalks

The plantar ached pretty bad with every step making this run quite miserable.  To top it off I had a code brown in the middle of the run which cost me my oldest article of clothing still seeing use.  It was just a pair of Fila socks but I have been running in them since I was a Junior in high school which is also the first time I ran cross country.  It's kind of sad to think about the loss of these socks which have held up for over a decade.  Most socks last a year then they develop holes.  These...a decade.  But I will get to see them on every run as they're lying on my daily bathroom stop 2 3/4ths of a mile into my run.  RIP Fila socks.