Fri 8/14 - PM 75 minutes plus 20 minutes in Walden and hill drills

Lincoln woods. Feeling a bit better than yesterday which isn't saying so much. Feeling like I might get the pace going but an underlying tiredness kept that from happening. The fact I got up in the middle of the night to spend an hour or so watching the Perseid meteor shower had something to do with this.

Thu 8/13 - PM 45 minutes easy plus 20 minutes in Walden

Lincoln woods. Quite intentionally cut back on the length of the run after yesterday's unexpectedly long jog post-circuits. Plenty of stiffness and fatigue of course. Finally reunited with the pond which was nice but would have been even better yesterday. Elliptigo remains in the shop although I was at least able to remove the wheel and confirm it was the tube and not the tire that was damaged.

Wed 8/12 - PM 95 minutes incl. 8x300 and circuits, plus 30 minutes elliptigo

Plans went awry thanks to a sharp rock in the road near the pond. Prior to that, everything went smoothly with a ride over to Emerson Field and a set of circuits that felt reasonably good. Quite ready for a dip in the pond and so rode on up the street whereupon I got a flat on the rear wheel. Thus the plan had to be radically altered to a long shambling "cooldown" through Mt. Misery to 117 back home. Took it easy on the run home but the legs were tired nonetheless. Bitterly disappointed not to be able to get in the water today as the conditions and timing were perfect for it.

Tue 8/11 - PM 75 minutes

Lincoln woods. Heavy rain showers in the morning left behind many puddles but more importantly and annoyingly, a sky high dewpoint by late afternoon. This combined with an even later departure from work than the already late departure I had been promised meant I was both squeezed for time and dripping with sweat. And of course feeling massively frustrated. Tired as well, thanks to there being no opportunity for even the briefest of catnaps before hitting the trail. The juxtaposition of the past few days of delightfully dry conditions with today's tropical mugginess couldn't have been more stark. Absolutely disgusting. Took some of my frustrations out on the last 20 minutes or so of the run, as legs seem to have bounced back well from the weekend with yesterday's strategic omission of running.

Mon 8/10 - PM 60 minutes elliptigo plus 20 minutes in Walden

Originally planned on doing all three legs of the dorkathlon but upon reaching the pond I realized that it wouldn't be happening. This was mainly due to feeling completely dead in the legs although the later start and looming sunset didn't help matters any. A definite relief not to have to do even a cursory amount of running though. Another relatively dry and delightful day.

Sun 8/9 - AM 85 minutes easy

Northfield/Winchester. The tradition of hitting the hills continues, but the intensity and duration I've come to expect from these runs was lacking today. I knew after 20 minutes or so of climbing Louisiana Road and running along the ridge that I still had next to nothing in the tank and so I upon reaching Birnam road, decided it would be an easy jog the rest of the way. In fact, even the final ascent to the TV tower wasn't that bad, apparently if one goes slow enough it mitigates the agony. Right thigh/butt in need of more attention to stretching than I've been giving the area of late and it let me know about it. On the plus side, another warm dry breezy day in a long string of them.

Sat 8/8 - double, 1:50 total incl. 10k road race

AM - 70 minutes incl. Bridge of Flowers 10k. Over a minute faster than last year's race but still light years from a respectable time even for this gut buster of a course. I figured it would be a slog based solely on how little sleep I've gotten the past few nights, with last night being particularly bad after a frenzied evening spent in scatterbrained fashion packing at the last minute. On top of this, right hamstring/psoas which have been getting tighter of late felt stuck and stiff from the moment I started a listless warmup. At the very least, this prevented me from overdoing it at the start of the race, and while the last two miles were something of a deathmarch it was not nearly so bad as last year. Splits:

5:38
5:43
7:32
5:25
6:02
5:46

Right thigh/butt felt like garbage afterward, to a greater degree than expected.

PM - 40 minutes very easy, Norwottuck rail trail. In hindsight should have stuck to the bike instead of doing any kind of extra running today, even with an afternoon nap there was no energy and the right leg still felt like crap despite doing some direct pressure on a few of the problem spots. One of the slower runs I've done in a long while.

Fri 8/7 - PM 40 minutes easy plus 20 minutes in Walden

Walden woods. A bit rushed for time after an afternoon appt., although I wasn't planning on going any farther today regardless given tomorrow's race and early wake up call. Completely forgot the hill drills I was planning on doing however. Continued warm and dry conditions, downright cool at night in fact.