Bike

• -----
• 1.50 miles
• -----

Rode to the Kiln and back to get wifey an ice cream cone.

Run

• 40m 46s
• 5.00 miles
• 07m 42s /Mi

4 x 1 mile repeats
m1:7:59
m2:7:41
m3:7:22
m4:7:45

Struggled (obviously) on the last mile. Legs felt tired today. Had a 1/2 mile warmup and cool down in there as well.

Strength

• 20m

Run

• 25m 36s
• 3.00 miles
• 08m 31s /Mi

3 miles, moderate pace, followed by 6x100metre strides
s1: 9.0mph
s2: 9.5
s3: 10
s4: 10.5
s5: 11
s6: 12

Feet still feeling pretty good in my new shoes. My arch on my right foot was aching pretty good when I got home last night and a bit this morning, but the left was completely fine, and even the right pain is subsiding now. Hooray for new shoes!

Strength

• 15m

Run

• 1h 35m 28s
• 11.00 miles
• 08m 40s /Mi

ok, I'm officially retarded.
It's 12:30am and I'm sitting in my office right now. Yes, at work. See, the place where I bought my shoes will accept returns ONLY if they haven't been run outside, and of course I'm WAY too impatient/stupid to wait til tomorrow (today) to try them out on a 3 miler. I need instant gratification!
As luck would have it, I have a passkey into our building which, as luck would have it, has a treadmill. Set up the old laptop in front of it and watched the stinker of a movie Elektra from beginning to end.
Shoes felt pretty good, awesome for a first run for me (I have the pussiest feet in the world). They felt great for 6 miles, then my toes on my right foot started to heat up, felt like the shoe was bending over it somehow or something. I don't know... all I know is they felt about a ZILLION times better than my first run with my Nikes last time.
And they should have... I had every girl in the store pulling every pair of shoes out for me to try on. I ended up taking the 2nd pair I tried on, which I'm sure endeared me to the ladies, but I guess I wasn't too obnoxious, cuz they gave me a free mizuno shirt. (Shhhh!)

The run itself was pretty good, exactly what I planned. 2 miles at 6.7 (goal pace), then 3x2 miles at tempo (I did 7.2mph for the first 2 sets, but knocked it down to 7.1 for the last: that was when my toes where starting to ache). Between tempo sets, I ran at goal for a quarter mile. After the tempos, 3 more miles at goal pace. Now I'm sweating like crazy and ready to go home to bed... then get up and come straight on back. Oh, the life of a runner!

Strength

• 05m

• Health data: Sleep: 3 Fatigue: 2 Hours slept: 5

• Health data: Sleep: 3 Stress: 3 Fatigue: 2 Hours slept: 6

Run

• 2h 32m 13s
• 16.00 miles
• 09m 30s /Mi

Todays blog is entitled: Whitecaps in Ditches or Hello Wall, Nice to Hit You!

Wind was rediculous out there, blowing from 40-60k in the city, but I'd have to guess that out here it was closer to 50 to 70 or 80.

Ran an out and back, and luckily the 'out' was INTO the wind. Man, talk about tough. By the time I got to turn around, my legs were getting pretty rubbery and that blister was popping up on my right foot again.

I didn't eat this morning... I felt like exprimenting, so I had a Carb Boom gel and some water before I headed out. This turned out to be a big mistake. After about 5 miles, I slurped back my 2nd gel, but my legs were already starting to feel it by then. By mile 12, I was done. I walked for 2 full minutes, eating my 3rd and final gel (Hammer Gel - Chocolate), and wondered if I was going to make it home. True, the wind was at my back for some of the run, but a lot of it was cutting directly across my port side. Yeesh!
Anyways, got my legs moving again somehow and continued on. I was surprised when I flushed a pair of widgeons out of the ditch beside me, and laughed when I saw how hard THEY were working to pull up into that wind. This, coupled with a little oomph from my last gel got my legs moving a little quicker again.

Around 14 miles was horrific again. I'd turned back onto the highway, and the wind very nearly blew my feet out from underneath me a couple of times. Push, Grant! Push!
Mile 15, thank GOD! 1 more mile to home. Anyone can run 1 mile! Anyone!
Yeah, right. Well, I made it, (last mile in 8:00even) and now I'm sitting here stuffing my face with gatorade and grilled bison on toast. It's the best food and drink I think I've ever had in my life.

And I've gotta go 10 MORE of these miles? Sweet Jesus! Allthough today's run was a man-breaker, I guess it gives me a bit of hope, since I don't think it's physically possible for the wind to blow that hard in the city, so the marathon should be a little easier in that regard. Just keep thinking positve, G.

Anyways, I'm going back to my lunch now. Happy Sunday.

Run

• 04m
• 0.50 miles
• 08m /Mi

Craziest day in a long time. I was 'running' from 6:30am til 12:30 am. I got a ride to the hall to setup for our banquet, and realized I needed some paperwork that I'd left at home, so burned home to get it.

• Health data: Sleep: 2 Fatigue: 2 Hours slept: 3.5

Bike

• 10m
• 2.50 miles
• 15.00 Mi/hr

Wasn't sure if I could get my run in tonight, so was determined to do something. Rode my bike to the store and back, on a nice wide route.

Run

• 1h 22m 20s
• 9.50 miles
• 08m 40s /Mi

Well how do you like that? I actually got my run in tonight. It was an amazing night out there again... the wind was just howling thru the night. The stars were so plentiful it was difficult to pick out even the most familiar constellations, and the crescent moon shone like a street lamp to light my way down the backroads around my town.

According to the plan, this was supposed to be my hills workout, but unfortunately there's only one hill in my town, and you can scale it in about 30 seconds. After I did this 3 or 4 times (and nearly broke my ankle 6 or 8 times. It's DARK in that park at night!), I said to hell with hills. I ended up just throwing in about a dozen fartleks along the way. 9.5 miles is an estimated distance, and is probably a pretty conservative one, as I didn't slow for any walk breaks, my pace was pretty quick, and my fartleks were damned fast (relatively speaking, anyways.).

Felt good all the way til the end of the run, then my left knee started to throb a bit again, and the 2 little toes on my left feet started to hurt... guess I was too far over on the shoulder and my foot got squashed or something.
Anyways, I'm just happy I was able to get this in.
It's 1:30 am now and I've gotta get up at 6 for a FULL day tomorrow, so I'd better get the hell off this and into bed.
Night!

• Health data: Sleep: 3 Fatigue: 2 Hours slept: 6