Sun 10/28 - PM 65 minutes incl. Mayor's Cup in 27:10

The time is a personal worst on the FP 8k, for whatever time comparisons in cross country are worth. In terms of quality of effort, a more valid measure for this event and course, today's comes in ahead only of the times I've dropped out. Woke up less than refreshed after hanging in until the end of another 4+ hour world series game, very stupid of course (and a big fuck you to Fox while I'm on the subject for the late start time, extended commercial breaks, inane taco talk, and useless commentators). After the mini-taper of the past few days, legs felt okay but not great, although the soreness in the hammies returned with surprising intensity afterwards. Splits of 5:00 (too fast but I didn't realize it at the time), 10:35, 16:47 at 5k, and 21:47 at 4 miles. People started passing me after the first trip up the hill and after two miles I continued to sink like a stone relative to the field despite trying to hang with various people who passed by at a rate slow enough to stay in contact. The split times indicate this, I never threw in the towel but was unable to muster any kind of stick-to-itiveness. Lit up by 4 people in the last 150m and utterly powerless to do anything about it, as the extremely shallow well was completely dried up by then. Of course, I was able to catch my breath and walk out of the chute while those four were still gasping with hands on knees, which says it all in terms of how I was unable to tap into whatever fitness I have developed recently. Further emphasizing how poor this race was is the fact that it was a relatively fast day, the course was firm and mostly dry with no traction issues although the wind was gusting strongly enough to slow the times a bit. Six weeks ago, with the same weather and course conditions as today, I would have run under 26.

The slide that started about a month ago continues unabated, each race since Labor Day has been worse than the one before. Unlike the half-marathon, there was no $300 check to serve as solace for running like a dog. The effort in the local yokel Maynard road race seems like it was done a million years ago by a different person. In truth it was a different person as evidenced by the fact that the two times we did the "classic" Lincoln tempo this fall I ran a faster pace with less effort than today. Coming home from the AZ vacation more tired than when I left helped grease the skids to exhasution, since then (and before then) it's the same old story of staying up too late. As ever, the tired strung-out mess I'm in is my own fault and things can be turned around, which begins and ends with getting to bed earlier. Although there's also the matter of the ill-advised pilates-type exercise I added to the stretching routine about the time things really went south, in hindsight it's making my hammies feel worse and it's past time to stop doing it.