7.2mi, 70:52

Bel Canto, "Unicorn"
The Delphines, "I Want You The Way I Want You (Not How You Are)"
The Reputation, "The Stars of Amateur Hour"
Jay Semko, "Due South Theme '97"

Odometer 1: 50mi

WX at 0600: 71/22, DP 69/21, BP 30.02/1016, winds W 1 fog, RH 94%

Today was easy, easy, easy. Z1 almost throughout. Day two of the 7x5 experiment continues.

Splits:
1.4: 14:06
2.0: 35:46 (21:39)
1.4: missed the split
2.4: 70:52 (22:33)

7.2mi, 63:21

New Model Army, "Running in the Rain"
Throwing Muses, "Mania"
New Order, "Dream Attack"
The Go-Go's, "Vacation"

shoe odometer 2: 14mi

WX at 0700: 73/23, DP 71/22, BP 29.70/1005, winds WSW 21, light rain showers, RH 94%
Actual winds were attenuated by surface cover.

Z3 throughout. I waited too long in the morning to start, but nonetheless caught the tail end of Tropical Depression Gaston. I like running in the rain, but the winds were deceptively low at ground level. Stronger maybe than usual since I took a day off between runs, but I think this coming week will mark an increase in mileage to see if I can sustain a week of 7 milers back-to-back. We'll see. With a physical fitness test coming in a month or so, I need to start doing some more deliberate speed work, which I of course, eschew because, well, it hurts.

My usual trend of progressively negative splits continue:
1.4: 12:46
2.0: 30:53(18:07)
1.4: 43:34 (12:41)
2.4: 63:21 (19:48)

7.2mi, 63:51

Some Girls, "Just Like The First Time"
"Jester" from the computer game Terminal Velocity
Juliana Hatfield, "My Enemy"

New shoes to alternate. Asics Gel-Cumulus V, last of the model year. Odometer 2: 7mi

WX at 0700: 68/20, DP 66/19, BP 30.06(1017), winds calm, RH 93%.

Relatively indistinguished run with one key observation-- which is that I suffer greatly on hills unless I have some momentum from going downhill or from sustained level ground.

Doing some hip-pocket analysis, it would imply that I need to do more strength training since I don't seem to have a lot of issues with endurance beyond that indicator.

Whether I'll get off my fat ass and actually hit the weight room is debatable, of course.

4.8mi, 46:14

The Lemonheads, "Tenderfoot"
Corrosion of Conformity, "Holier"
Velocity Girl, "One Word"
Little Red Rocket, "Back to Where I Started"

WX at 0700: 71/22, DP 69/21, BP 30.15/1020, winds NNE 2, RH 94%

shoe odometer: 43mi

After yesterday's run, I guess I should've expected to feel as utterly shitty as I did this morning. I very nearly slept in, but I need to actively break myself of that habit. I haven't ever felt as slow as I did today, and the splits reflect:

1.4: 14:01 (14:01)
2.0: 32:54 (18:52)
1.4: 46:14(13:20)

Of course, it's one thing to cognitively know you're going slower than 9 min/mi, and yet another to realize it at the gut level.

7.8mi, 68:30

Throwing Muses, "Drive"
Throwing Muses, "Saving Grace"
theme music to Most Extreme Elimination Challenge
The Connells, "Fun and Games"

WX at 1300: 80/27, DP 69/21, BP 30.19/1022, wind NNE 8, haze, RH 69%.

Z2-3 no man's land with some walking. I'm inclined to discount the 7.8mi measurement because I don't think I could go almost 8:30 pace for almost 8 miles and still feel as goddamn slow as I did.

Almost entirely hills and sand, which is why I'm even more leery of saying 8:30 pace.

I've been more or less tapering (not for any good reason) since I jumped yesterday and decided to not work out later.

4.1mi, 35:03

Stabbing Westward, "Bizarre Love Triangle"
Inspiral Carpets, "Gimme Shelter"
The Cure, "Lament"

WX at 1300: 82/28, DP 64/18, BP 30.13/1020, winds ENE 6. RH unavailable at the time, but it was probably in excess of 85%. First afternoon run in a while. While I wasn't tight from just having woken up, the heat more than compensated.

Z2+ combined with heat, dirt, and some sizeable hills made for a run that felt faster than it actually was.

No projected run tomorrow since I have yet another parachute jump in the morning.

estimate 10 mi, 1:29.53

Morrissey "Irish Blood, English Heart"
Morrissey, "Suedehead"
Theme music to the (ancient) computer game M.U.L.E
The Bats, "Courage"
Mike Oldfield, "Moonlight Shadow"
Corrosion of Conformity, "What(?)"

WX in Richmond VA at 0600: 61, DP 61, BP 30.10r, winds calm, RH 100%

Shoe odometer: 38mi

Slow start at Z2, Z3 finish. I ended up breaking some brush unintentionally but based on perceived effort and time, my best guess is 10 or so.

Jump 50, Ste Mere Eglise DZ, A/NT

No run today.

I did get a nice view of Raeford, NC before doing my first-ever jumpmaster pass exit from 3,000 feet above ground level with a MC1-1D parachute.

Literally every other jump I've done is from 1500, 1250, or most commonly, 800 feet AGL.

Jumping from any of those altitudes just doesn't prepare you for a descent measured in minutes (rather than a minute or two if you're lucky), in a steerable parachute.

There are times I feel apprehensive about jumping out of planes. That apprehension almost always goes away as soon as I'm out of the plane. There are times I think I might miss this, and maybe doing colossally fucking stupid, yet intensely entertaining activities like static line parachuting shouldn't be part of my job description, but it sure is fun, and by god, I even get paid extra to do it.

4.8mi, 45:48

The Goo Goo Dolls, "Naked"
The Goo Goo Dolls, "Girl Right Next to Me"
The Goo Goo Dolls, "Another Second Time Around"
BT, "Somnambulist"

WX at 0600: 71/22, DP 71/22, BP 30.07(1018), winds SW 6 mist, RH 100%

Shoe odometer: 28mi

There are days for recovery runs, and today was it. I felt like crap, mostly because of sore hip flexors from yesterday's trail run. Most of the lactate was worked off by the end of the run by my legs were still smoked. Z1 continuous. No regrets.

Splits:
1.4: 13:37 (13:37)
2.0: 32:38 (19:01)
1.4: 45:48(13:09)

potential relook of times

According to MrSID and imagery of the area, my 4.8 route is actually more like 5.2. If that's the case, the times aren't nearly so glum as they might entail, for competition.

This is probably worth a GPS trace to see how far off the computer's estimate really was.

estimate 7.2mi, 69:01

William Ackerman, "New England Morning"
Michael Manring, "Hopeful"
Chris Stamey, "14 Shades of Green"

WX at 0600: 68/20, DP 68/20, BP 30.07/1018, winds NNE 3 fog. RH 100%

The big difference between yesterday's and today's 100% relative humidity was the killing fog. Today's start was slower and more sluggish than usual.

This is a deceptive time if only because I spent about 6 minutes thrashing through the woods trying to find a bypass to a pond that's not really bypassable. I wasn't dressed to go cutting through heavy forest, so I decided to cut it back.

The majority of this run (about the middle 4mi of it) was over dirt and sand. While this slows me down a lot, my knees feel better and I still got a lot of work in due to the conditions. My form tends to be efficient to make up for lack of raw power (which might reflect itself in my abject lack of leg speed), so if I'm not running on pavement, I suck.

5.0mi, 44:52

Antonio Vivaldi, Allegro from Violin Concerto in A minor
Body Count, "Bowels of the Devil"
Juliana Hatfield, "Get Off Your Knees"
Background music to start menu of the computer game MechCommander

WX at 0600: 62/17, DP 62/17, BP 30.16/1021, calm, mist. RH 100% supposedly but I didn't feel that way.

Shoe odometer: 23mi

Generally easy run, but getting markedly faster toward the end.

Splits:
1.4: 13:06
2.0: 30:58 (17:51)
1.4: 42:57 (11:59) (note a 1:07 negative split!)
.2: 44:52 (1:55)

6.0mi, estimate 53:12

The Cure, "A Forest" from Concert
The Cure, "A Forest" from In Orange
The Chiffons, "Sweet Talking Guy"
The Cure, "All I Want"

WX at 0645: 68/20, DP 68/20, BP 30.17/1021, winds NW 3 light drizzle and lots of mist. RH 100% of course.

Z3 aerobic. Had to walk one or two times since I damn had to take a pit stop during the run. In spite of that, having taken 3 days off beforehand led to a fairly good, painless run, even on the uphills. After the first 25 minutes, it was definitely a good run.

estimate 7mi, 65:40

Corrosion of Conformity, "Indifferent"
Georg Friedrich Handel, Water Music

WX at 0600: 71.1(21.7), DP 66.9(19.4), BP 29.92(1013), winds SSE6 mist. Best guess RH was about 80%.

Shoe odometer: 18mi

I need to sit down with a map and paper and map distances old school style. I don't have any SID imagery of the DC area, and I don't have the ability to map with FalconLite (as far as I know). I do have a 1:50,000 CADRG of the area so there's a good start.

Hills were difficult again. After hitching up on the trail that handrails the George Washington Parkway from the Key Bridge, (near Theodore Roosevelt Island) I realized that it was just like driving. You take a wrong turn, you're stuck with it! By the end, I was hoping I'd be able to Zen my way back to the hotel before I hit the wall. Lots of Z3, some Z4 going uphill. Z2 mostly downhill.

The hills in Arlington are officially no joke. Neither is the traffic. The trail is the place to go, but I need to print out the guide at www.rundc.com (which unfortunately requires Java) so I have something to work with.

There were a lot of curvy Beautiful People in form-fitting technical garb on the trail, though. There were some bikes, but they were pretty good about signaling so they didn't run me down.

Not fast due to the extensive hills near the end. Some parts of the run were quicker, but they were also downhill!

estimate 4.0mi, estimate 32:40

I don't remember what was stuck in my head.

No WX report.

Shoe odometer: 11mi

I didn't log time and since I was picking some unbelievably bad places to run in Arlington, Virginia.

Arlington is a difficult place to run for a number of reasons. I never cued on the large number of high-grade hills in the Arlington area. There are very few areas that are actually flat. Most of the running I did was a credible up or down.

Couple this with all sorts of major roads converging in the same place (US 50, I-66, George Washington Parkway) and you really need to do some good scouting of the route before you decide to try to play chicken with traffic as I did this morning.

Followed by 10 universal machine lat pulldown @ 120#, 10 universal machine bench press @ 120#, and more significantly, 15 universal machine leg press @ 300-600lb. The latter is significant; I think I'll start working on those in some attempt to build fighting load speed and more leg speed.

4.8mi, 42:38

Juliana Hatfield, "My Enemy"
Little Red Rocket, "Back to Where I Started"
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian Easter Overture
unnamed 75th Ranger Regiment running cadence (I guarantee you won't find this one in print or on tape)

Z2 continuous. Today started with ambitions of 7 and dropped to 5 when I realized that hard days back-to-back repeatedly are a dumb idea, regardless of how you might initially feel.

I think that's the most difficult part of a training plan - trying to balance listening to your body versus the grand plan. I also think most people tend to train too hard on the days they need to go easy.

WX remains good. I don't know how long this will last:
At 0700: 66(19), DP 64(18), BP 30.1 (1019), winds N 2. RH 93%. It was noticeable more humid this morning, although there was some altocumulus cloud cover.

6.1mi, 56:27

Corrosion of Conformity, "Holier"
Michael Nyman, "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" from The Piano
The Cure, "All I Want"
Corrosion of Conformity, "What(?)"
Hilary Duff, "Come Clean"
Michael Nyman, "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" from The Piano (again)

Very slow start, Z1, 13:09.
Initial 1.4mi split, 13:00.
2.0mi split, 18:29.
Final 1.4mi split, 11:48.

WX was good once again. It'll pass later this week, but I'll enjoy it while I still can:
At 0700: 60(16), DP 59(15), BP 30.18(1022), Calm. RH 93% but I'd never guess it.

What's the meaning behind all these negative splits?
1 - I did absolutely NOTHING yesterday in terms of running.
2 - The first 3 miles of this run was all burning off lactic acid and unlimbering. (Didn't stretch this morning.)
3 - With that gone, the last 3 miles or so was totally unhindered. The last 1.4mi split is significant.

And yeah, I run to Hilary Duff. I really need to be going faster to sustain the right tempo for "Come Clean." (The other song I like as running background that requires the same speed is "The Stars of Amateur Hour" by The Reputation.) That's why most of the run was punctuated by Michael Nyman.

7.2mi, 60:56

The Cure, "A Forest" from Concert
The Vapors, "Turning Japanese"
Blank and Jones with Robert Smith, "A Forest" (radio mix)

Shoe odometer: 7.2mi

The fastest 7.2 loop I have done in recent memory, by splits:
1.4mi: 11:55 (8:30/mi)
2.0mi: 17:09 (8:34/mi)
1.4mi: 11:55 (8:30/mi)
2.4mi: 19:56 (8:18/mi)
(Mean 8:28/mi).

This doesn't sound particularly fast relative to what I posted yesterday, but there are a lot of hills in this particular course.

Contributing factors to today's run: tired legs (some), new shoes (Asics GT-2090), and weather, weather, weather.
This was the coolest morning I've seen in the summer, even cooler than yesterday, and it was good.

WX at run time of 0600: 53(12), DP 51(11), BP 30.01(1016), winds WSW 5.

Tomorrow needs to be a light easy day, though.

6.57mi (10,600m), 50:48 race

Stabbing Westward, cover of "Bizarre Love Triangle"
The Connells, "Fun and Games"

It was supposed to be a 10K. 10K my ass! Where did the other .37mi come from?
Slow start. Indeed, probably one of the most relaxed, slowest starts of any race I've run. By mile 3 I had worked off most of the kinks and by mile 4 I was running at race pace, probably just under 7:30/mi.

Doing the math, the aggregate pace per mile ended up being 7:41. I can live with that, no problem. Given that most of my training runs I'm not coming close to that perceived speed, that's definitely a good sign.

Two contributing factors:

1. I ate a Powerbar and a Powergel an hour before start time. They should have hit about the time the race started. I've used both in 10mi races in the past to good effect.
2. Another piece to this was the uncharacteristically cool weather this morning:
At 0700: T 66(19), DP 64(18), BP 29.83(1010), winds variable 5.
This is literally the coolest day I've ever seen in Fayetteville this (or for that matter, any) summer.

Tomorrow's supposed to be more the same. Looks like I'll be putting in a long run tomorrow!

And, incidentally...

I read Inferno when I was a scout platoon leader in 1996, on the gunnery range, learning how to break things and kill people...

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

~5.0mi, 42:05

Episode 2, Level 1 background music to Doom
Bond, "Allegretto"

Z2 start quickly transitioning to Z3. 1.4mi split 12:37.
Z2-high through next two miles with probable split at 18:13.
Z2 recovery to complete.

Tomorrow is a 10K race, so I'll see what the taper-off does, since I didn't do any exercise yesterday. Tonight should entail some starch-loading.

4.8mi, 44:51

Love Spit Love, "Am I Wrong"
The Cure, "Taking Off"
The Cure, "Too Late"
Morrissey, "Irish Blood, English Heart" (or in my case, should it be "Korean Blood, Japanese Heart")

Z2 almost continuous. Today was supposed to be a recovery day and it was a light easy run. Slow, but that's okay.

WX at 0700: 75(24), DP 73(23) [not in my neighborhood], 29.79(1008), N 7, mist.

It might have been two degrees above dewpoint, but I don't buy that with the monster fog in my neighborhood. Suddenly I think to myself about eventual retirement places, and Arizona suddenly comes to mind...

~7.0mi, 60:16 approximate

Episode 3, Level 1 background music to Doom
Episode 1, Level 1 background music to Doom
Antonio Vivaldi, "Winter" from The Four Seasons
Chris Stamey, "14 Shades of Green"

Z2 start for the first 2 miles, 17:51. Painful, but it always is.
Z3, felt much better (heart rate up and dumping heat as I finally start sweating) for remainder.
Brief stretch of Z4 for about a mile. This was on dirt, which is good since the shoes I had today are the most worn out of the ones I use.

WX at 0700: T 75(24), DP 75(24), BP 29.94(1013), winds NNE 5, mist.

Stretched this morning. Might actually decide to keep doing so, in spite of myself.

4.8mi, 42:58

Juliana Hatfield, "My Enemy"
Michael Kamen, "Main Titles" to Band of Brothers
The Smiths, "What Difference Does It Make?"

Z3 most of the way, excepting uphill segments, the last of which I did at Z4.
I woke up envisioning this as "5 miles of slop," a.k.a, junk miles. Not quite as junk as I thought it might end up.

WX at 0700: temp 75(24), DP 75(24), BP 30.02(1016), winds NNE 8 (heavily attenuated by trees), mist.

One significant difference this morning was stretching before departure. I've eschewed stretching the last few years, thinking I didn't really need it. While there was some study I heard about on NPR's All Things Considered that mentioned how stretching didn't help prevent injury, it does allow for easier running. I hadn't thought about that until recently.
The stretches I did are located at http://www.halhigdon.com/15Ktraining/Stretch.htm for those who are interested.