More Swelter.

I ended up skipping yet another race - the NB track mile on Tuesday night - because my side hurt from Monday's swim. I was unsure why it that day - it felt like an internal organ was rupturing whenever I stood up. But then I reasoned that it must be muscular since a ruptured organ would probably hurt when I sat back down. Anyway - I felt fine again come Wednesday morning - although a little bummed I missed another race.

Wednesday I did another run/swim. The water was absolutely perfect that day and it felt great. The only downside is I hit my first jelly of the season. It was a large one and it stung bad. Fortunately I was 5 1/2 laps into the six lap swim - so I just headed in. Nevertheless, it has me thinking about paying for the pool again.

Thursday I managed a 30 minute strength workout at night and Friday I did a brutal simmering 4.5 miler. I left early (10 am) wanting to beat the heat - but I was cooked after about 25 minutes. Never fun to run on the hottest day of the year - but somehow I always manage. It's all cooler from here on in though!

Week 5 half plan

This week is hot! Damn hot! Fortunately I didn't have much major planned until Friday. Sunday my wife and I did the Bob Harper (from TV's Biggest Loser show) strength training dvd. It's hard, but good. Unfortunately it trashes the legs for running. I was going to do 9x400s - but between the legs and the fact that my car was in the shop - I ended up just doing part of Lestertown on route to getting my car. Very hot run. But not as hot as today. Today I went from work - just a simple 4 miler. Killer. Ughh. Tomorrow, I'm thinking swim - Thursday off, long run Friday - about 2 hours. With any luck, I'll be running free of hurricane Earl.

500th Post!

I've been doing this blogging thing for some time now! It's certainly helped my running and overall fitness. So: thank you Internet.

Friday I did a fun track workout over at Conn College. I started with a one mile warmup, followed by 2x150 fast, 30 all-out fast (50 lead in) and then 120 all-out fast. It was fun. I think I did the 120 in 17 seconds - although now I think that can't be right. I'll double check this week. I finished the workout with a single 400 interval to get help fill out my distance vs. pace chart. I did it in 1 minute 21 seconds. Then a 1 mile cooldown - good for 3.75 total miles.

Today I went out with a nice large group from work to do 5.7 miles in blistering temps - we went pretty slow: 52 minutes. I'll be looking forward to some swims this week.

I'm also starting to piece together my plan of attack this fall. The goal is to run my best ever 1/2 marathon - mainly by piling on some miles. The problem is that it's starting to get hot and muggy out - so I want to do mostly cross training until September and race is in late September. My solution is to start in August and do this 8 week plan. Hopefully I won't pass out in August. I think the plan is manageable - I have my version of it on google docs.

Shortened Run

I forgot my socks. I went out anyway and cut short my 'long' run - to avoid getting bad blisters. I ended up going for 4.625 miles. I felt pretty good, minus the feet rubbing on the shoes - although even that wasn't horrible. My stomach is upset now - but I'm not certain it's run related. I plan on doing my brick workout Friday (4.5 biking and ~2 miles running), perhaps with a run/swim at lunch. I'm at 16 miles form the week - and should be over 22 again (possible ~28).

Hot and Long

Doesn't sound like a run, does it? But that's what I did today. 6.12 miles in the hot humid sun. I was lucky enough to run into a slower runner, so I did the first half in 29:30 (9:30 pace!) and then did the remaining half in 27 minutes (~8:40 pace - felt much harder than that). That's a tough run in that humidity. Brings my weekly total up to 15.5 miles - with one day today.

Another Knarly Ride

So I've pretty much put to rest my reservations about biking in. I love it now. Did the to and from work ride again - 18 miles round trip (4.5 eq.miles). I still need to get use to my routine - I remembered to shave yesterday, but forgot my belt this morning, so I was walking around work like a belt-less dweeb. Tomorrow I'm crunched for time, so I'm aiming to knock-off work a little early and do my 'long' slow run - but it's pretty hot and humid so I'll be holding it to ~6 miles.