After running in Iowa on Friday, what a long strange trip it’s been. I would try to describe what my schedule looked like between waking up on Friday morning and getting home on Tuesday morning, but I think I would probably exceed whatever amount of free memory space this blog allows me. To a travel agent it looked something like this:
MDT-ORD-DSM-ORD-MEM-RDU-ORD-CWA-MSP-MEM-LAX-SNA-MEM-MDT
Four pretty busy days. Did manage to get in a nice long and easy 10 miler while on my Los Angeles layover Monday afternoon – out and back along the Venice Beach/Santa Monica pier. I’m sure I’ve discussed the characters that line this “course” before – medical pot seems to be the hot item now as there were lots of guys dressed in scrubs holding up signs outside their stores that I’m pretty sure did not attend medical school. Weather was great as usual out there, run was good after taking Saturday and Sunday off out of necessity (see above itinerary….).
I traveled back to Enola on the Tuesday overnighter, got a nap in but just couldn’t get out the door to get anything done. Part due to just being tired, part due to plain old apathy. Did get to bed early so that there wouldn’t be a repeat “performance” on Wednesday. I woke up this morning to the remnants of a big storm that blew through last night – high 40’s with some leftover drizzle. It’s May 4th for crying out loud! While I wouldn’t bat an eye at going out in this during the winter, for some reason it’s a struggle to make it happen on days like this. I banged out a ton of errands, including some back x-rays that have been long overdue, then finally got my act together and got on the gear. Aqua gear, that is. With my chronic back worse than normal, and the weather still sucking, I thought the best quality work I could get done would be in the warm water. I had originally though today would be an interval day, but I am going to try that tomorrow. Today I warmed up for 10 minutes then got in a 30 minute aqua-tempo run. I gradually cranked up the jets and treadmill as I went, the last 10 minutes were pretty tough. 10 minute cool down gave me 50 minutes total of good work – no way I would have gotten that work in outside with the bad weather and my worse attitude…
Tomorrow has to get done come hell or high water. I’m not planning on killing myself (Jack Daniels has again pointed out so eloquently that this is item #79 I am doing all wrong), but going to just try to get in a solid set of TBD intervals with a little slower pace than normal but with reduced rest. Don’t know the details yet, if history repeats itself I will probably decide on the workout somewhere between putting on my flats and shedding my warmup shirt. Guessing 600’s or 1000’s, but who knows. No race plans this weekend, maybe a college meet next weekend if I can get my name thrown into the mix. After that I don’t know – I don’t want to interrupt the training too much for an early May/June event, but would rather like to focus on a steady increase in running intensity leading up to the “Judgement Days” of June and July – probably the most action packed period I will ever see. That seems like a long way down the road (starting June 26th), but it is now less than 8 weeks away – time to suck it up, lose the lazy attitude, and keep the eye on the prize. If it would just stop raining…..
