Fri 9/10 - PM 75 minutes

Area 51. Chose to forgo the pond, which wasn't that difficult a choice given the continued overcast windy, cool conditions. The main reason to hit the refuge though was the flat terrain to prevent any aggravation of the hip flexor. Started slow, very tired and sluggish, but over time the pace increased and both hips felt better. Encouraging on the whole.

Thu 9/9 - PM 85 minutes easy plus 20 minutes in Walden

Newly problematic right hip flexor was about what I expected it to be today, i.e. deviations from the flat and slow are problematic. Took it slow throughout as a result. Extremely frustrating, waiting for it to heal and hoping that jogging won't exacerbate it in the meantime. Left adductor felt better by comparison but still somewhat stuck. Fun times. Overcast and windy all afternoon, gave things a gloomy feel. Decent sized waves on the pond, at least by pond standards. Water still plenty warm enough of course, as the jellyfish can attest but getting out and being raked by the wind wasn't that pleasant.

Wed 9/8 - PM 45 minutes

Things came to an abrupt halt today when I strained a hip flexor on the right side doing walking lunges as part of circuits. Despite the fact that I've been doing them each week for the past month, I wasn't doing them properly today and paid the price. Bagged the rest of the workout, did a few easy laps jogging before calling it a day. The decision not to even try to get to the pond was made easier by how tired I was feeling as well. Hopefully this latest bit of outrageous fortune will be more of a blip than a major setback, remains to be seen.

Tue 9/7 - PM 75 minutes very easy plus 20 minutes in Walden

Dragging ass today, to be expected after the past two days but somehow it still came as something of a surprise. Run was similar to last Monday's, only a bit shorter. Stayed in the woods around Walden while avoiding the more serious terrain. Sticky air has returned but not to the extent that it was last week, and the temp was at least bearable. Persistent SSW breeze made for some waves on the pond.

Mon 9/6 - AM 80 minutes incl. Mt. Greylock road race

Never easy, this time seemed a bit harder than usual though. Still, able to finish the thing off and hold off the nearest competition with a time under 54 minutes in cool sunny conditions. Didn't sleep especially well last night after the owl serenade at 2:30. Also still feeling the deep-seated exhaustion that's been plaguing me since last week's slog through the heat and humidity. In hindsight, packing three hard efforts in 8 days was not the smartest thing ever. As such, felt quite lethargic warming up. Not much of a warmup as a result. More than happy to let others set the pace early, that lasted a little over the mile before I found myself unwittingly and unwillingly in the lead. The early steep switchbacks were particularly onerous, mainly because I wasn't fully alert yet. Just before halfway it felt like I had overestimated what pace I could reasonably recover from on the lower steeps before the middle, flatter portion. At this point I was convinced I would be passed and left behind. Came close to being passed at the water stop but after that some kind of second wind kicked in and I was able to maintain a higher work rate for the flatter stuff. The one notable hill between 5 and 7 miles nearly put me under which left me very worried that I'd get hauled in on the final mile, an uphill death spiral. Focused on short strides and being efficient and this ended up being enough. Finished feeling more wiped out than I have recently after any effort, I dug deeper on this one to be sure. Cooldown was a light jog in the summit parking lot before eating lunch and then hiking down on the AT, which was good except for the ridiculously steep descent off of Prospect Mtn. Left adductor and psoas sore but not to a debilitating degree, happily.

Sun 9/5 - AM 1:55

Quasi-long run in Williamstown. Very similar route to two weeks ago without the NW Hill/Hopkins Forest part--i.e. Stone Hill to Mt. Hope, around the back of Deer Ridge to Hopper and back on 43. Psoas still bothersome but not as stuck as yesterday. I had concerns that it would plague me throughout the run, getting worse as I went along but not as bad as that. Took a half hour or so to wake up fully after getting nearly 9 hours of sleep last night. Deep-seated exhaustion right now. After dropping down Potter and Hopper road for a good while, hit rout 43 and picked up the pace substantially the rest of the way in. Gusty winds were mostly at my back when I did this but plenty of swirling. Dry and cool compared to what we just went through earlier in the week.