Arie's Running Blog

6:20AM start, 70F, ~80% humidity. Relatively easy run after my speed work yesterday. It's going to be a rest day tomorrow (hooray!) and then a long run on sunday.

0:48:53

6:15AM 70F ~70% humidity. What a great run. The relative low temperature and humidity helped a lot. I fet great all the way. I was careful not to start too fast. After 8 miles and some major hills I still felt good. At mile 10 some more hills came and they were difficult but after those I felt great. The last two miles were very strong. My average pace was 7:55 !

1:34:59

After the run I took an ice bath. I filled the tab with cold tap water and got in it in a bathing suit. I let my boys pour ice into the water. They loved it. After 5 minutes in the cold water I felt it was enough. My legs didn't hurt at all the whole day after. Afternoon I felt very tired and the 1 hout nap I took was a life saver.

6:15AM 70F, ~80% humidity. First day of the cut back week. I did what seems now like a really short distance. Pace was good (8:05). I hope to get to do some hill training tomorrow.

0:29:54

I jogged 0.5 mile from the parking lot near the gym to my favorite hill and then did 4 hills repeats. The hill is about 200-250 meter long and the slope starts from very mild and raises to medium from about 1/3 the way up. I tried to run lifting my knees as they say you should do (why??). I think I did OK. I took 1:15-1:20 minutes to do each climb.

Then I jogged 0.5 mile to cool down and did 4 miles on the tread mill (average pace 7:50). Did negative splits and it felt good.

0:31:19

9:15AM 85F, 65% humidity. These were not optimal conditions. Nevertheless, I felt very light and my pace was surprisingly fast for the heat (average 8:06). The route was the familiar one between the two campuses and I added two loops on the East campust. It suppose to cool down a bit tomorrow. Eventhough it's my cut off week, I might do some 400m intervals with in my run tomorrow (I'm planning to do 5 miles).

0:51:51

While running the second loop around the East Campus, a lady that was walking toward me said something like "You're cheating because I just saw you a few minutes ago". I decided to take it positively and think I'm just unbelievebly fast :-)

9:15AM, 80F, 60% humidity. The over cast made it feel not too bad. I planned to do some speed work but my schedule didn't allow it. I will try tomorrow. Instead I did my regular run between the campuses. The pace was good (8:00 falt on average).Last night my wife and I crushed shortly after the kids went to bed. I felt really rejuvinated this morning.

0:38:00

9:15AM 78F, 50% humidity. Really nice conditions this morning (relatively speaking) and these nice conditions will be here for a few days. I went to the Duke tracks and did 5.25M (I didn't count well the laps so I did one extra - my stop watch revealed that ex post). I included 4 x 400m speed laps in them (1:39, 1:43, 1:43, 1:37) with 400m jog between. I ended with 2 miles (7:50, 7:35). Walked a bit to cool down after I stopped my watch. Over all a good work out although my legs were a bit tired. I should definately do the speed work in the middle of the week rather than on Friday. But these 400m repeats were an extra and I'm OK with the not so fast pace I did them. I really like Duke's tracks, it's an excellent facility.

0:40:35

The Olympics starts tonight and I know these are usually not a big deal here in the US. But is is hard to exagurate how much I am excited about them. Looking forward to watching the openning ceremony tonight and the competitions in the following days. I plan to watch mostly the track and marathon (GO! RYAN GO!) races and some of the swimming and cycling races and of course the beach volleyball (wink)...

6:30AM 67F, 60% humidity. Finished the cut back week with a shorter long run. The first 2-3 miles were an effort. They are hilly but beyond the terrain there is also the fact that my body is not warm yet. The cooler weather was great. It started to rain toward the end. The pace was really good (7:47 average)

1:05:48

6:30AM, 66F, 75% humidity. Weather has been good to us here in the south east. My speed has improved a bit and it was also the cut back week that helped. I did 8:02 on average where the second half was under 8:00.

My left foot really hurts. I'm not familiar with the English terms for the different body parts and muscles. The upper part of the foot close to where it connects with he leg hurts. I had something similar with a previous Brooks shoe. I think it's an issue with how they tie. It hurts more on the down slopes and on flat surface and much less on up hills. It was the first time I enjoyed the up hills :-) Icing it helps some.

0:46:37

My wife and I watched the Olympics on NBClast. I ended up going to bed close to midnight but Wow! what an amazing 4X100m relay swim! What a drama. The victory over the French was so sweat. The determination of these swimmers is really inspirational.

9:30AM, 74F 60%humidity. Weather has been amazing in the last 3 days. Running felt so much better this morning. I did 4 loops on Duke's East Campus. Each loop is 1.65M and I did them in 12:54, 12:35, 12:43, 12:32 (in per mile terms: 7:49, 7:38, 7:42, 7:36). Heat and especially humidity has such a negative effect on me.

0:50:43

I'm still suffering from a pain in my upper left foot. It's sort of close to where I tie the laces. I so much hope it's not a stress or overuse related injury! I usually hurts a lot in the first 1-2 miles and then not so much after that.

9:30AM, 67F, 70% humidity. Can you believe it? 67F in the middle of August? What's going on with the weather? It must be due to this global cooling that everyone is talking about.

 Anyway, the run was easy and pleasant (8:14 pace which felt very easy). I still have this pain in the upper part of my left foot. I'm afraid it is some kind of tendonitis related to the tendon which goes on the top of the foot (and whose name I don't know). 600mg of Ibuprofen take care of the pain after the run. Also the first 2 miles are more painful than the rest of the run. I really don't know what to do. Should I stop running till it goes away? Any advise will be appreciated.

0:47:44

9:30AM 72F, 65%. Not bad weather for this time of the year. I was supposed to do 7M with 5M tempo in them today but my left foot still hurts quite a bit. I didn't want to agrevate it. I did 5 mile over all and just 3.3M tempo in them. I did one mile warm up at 8:45 and my foot was hurting. So I went on and did just 3.3 miles at 7:15 average pace. Itas a really good effort. Then I colled down with 0.7M at 8:30 pace. I hate to do less than planed but I think that I had to. Over all I think my left foot is getting better. It may be just a bruise from tying the shoe too tight. I will experiment with different tying techniques. I also might try to run with my previous pair tomorrow and see how it goes. 

0:38:46

No running today. I decided to let my foot rest an additional day. I am going to rest tomorrow as well and see how it goes on sunday. I hope it's not a stress fracture. I'm really starting to panic. Not running made me feel a bit down this morning but I think it's the right decision.

6:45AM 68F 70% humidity. After two days without running I felt well rested and anxious to run. The pain in my left foot was almost gone. I used my old pair of shoes. I had a little less than 700 mile son them so they are suppose to be still OK. I decided to drive to the American Tobacco Trail which is 1) a trail surface and 2) roughly flat. I didn't have any plan in terms of distance and decided I'll play it by the ear. The trail is 3.75M and I parked at the north end and decided to run it back and forth. After these 7.5 miles I felt great and had no pain so I turned around and started to run it again but this time till the 2.5M mark point and then back, after these additional 5M I felt good but a bit tired but I, for some reason decided to top it of with an additional 0.6M to make it a half marathon. As you can see in the splits below, I got slower at the last 2 miles but overall did it in a very nice pace and was able to finish strong. Also, if this was an official race time on a certified course, it would have been a new HM PR. A couple of hours after the run we went to the swiiming pool with the kids. The water wer sooooo cold but I loved it. It was great for my muscles. The only problem was that mu nipples were burning from the cold water and chlorine. I still have chafes there.

Splits:
3.75M @ 29:22 (7:50)
3.75M @ 29:41 (7:55)
2.50M @ 19:36 (7:50)
2.50M @ 20:26 (8:10)
0.60M @ 04:39 (7:45)

1:43:45

Tomorrow I'm going to go back to my new shoes and see if the pain returns.

8:45AM 75F 70% humidity. Tried my new pair again and the pain came back big time. This run was really painful. I think I should ditch these shoes and go back to the ridgid stability shoes. It didn't hurt a lot after the run but I don't think I want to go on with these shoes in hope things will get better. I did a very slow pace, especially at the first 1.5 miles. Over all I did 8:43 and I think I can safely assume that this can be more or less a marathon pace for me. If it wasn't for the pain in my left foot I felt I could keep running and running at this pace.

0:55:45

8:45AM, 71F, 85% humidity. School has started for my boys and we are getting up early. That means I will have to run only when I get to my office. So today I ran again between the campuses and did 2 loops on the East campus trail. My left foot still hurts but I see improvement.  Pace today was faster than yesterday (8:17 average) and I was working harder but still not too bad.

0:53:02

Tomorrow an easy day, probably just 5M. On Thursday speed work. They installed completely new tracks in my sons' school and I am excited to try them. They suppose to be one of the best in the state (at least I know why we are paying so much tuition).

8:15AM 74F 80% humidity. School started for my boys so I get earlier to my office after I drop them off. I did a short one today and took it easy (average pace 8:14). Tomorrow I will try to do speed work if my left foot will let me.

0:39:05

8:15AM start, 70F 80% humidity. Went to Duke's tracks to do speed work. It was quite humid but the temperature was OK and it was cloudy. The tracks were relatively empty. The football team was coming out of their change rooms to practice in a near by field so I had to be careful not to bump into any one of them in some of the laps I did. Toward the end of my workout came two guys who looked either kenian or etheiopian. They were warming up at what seemed to me like a 6:30 pace and after I was done with my run I was able to watch them do some speed work. Wow!

Anyway, I did 7.5 miles total and within them four 1 mile repeats with 0.5 mile cool down in between. here are the splits:
1M @ 8:16
1M @ 7:01
0.5M @ 4:36
1M @ 7:02
0.5M @ 4:50
1M @ 7:07
0.5M @ 4:54
1M @ 7:11
1M @ 8:54

I'm not too happy with my 1 mile times and with the fact that I was getting slower. My foot is still not perfect but that's not an excuse. I think recovery is my weakest point.

0:59:51

8:15AM start, 70F 80% humidity. Nothing special just the regular two laps around the golf course. Did the first lap in 24:00 (8:17) and the second at 23:27 (8:05). Foot still hurt inspite all the experiments I did with tying. Need new shoes.

0:47:27

6:45AM 70F 70% humidity. Drove to the American Tobacco Trail again. I did my Half Marathon on it. I started strong but the last miles were not easy. On average I did 7:54 pace which is great. I "broke" my PR again but it's an unofficial time.

 1M  @ 7:41
 2M  @ 7:36
 3M  @ 7:44
 4M  @ 7:48
 5M  @ 7:36
 6M  @ 7:46
 7M  @ 7:45
 8M  @ 8:07
 9M  @ 7:54
10M @ 8:03  (1:18:00 for 10 miler!)
11M @ 8:21
12M @ 8:22
13M @ 7:45
0.1M @0:56

As you can see I did very well the first 7 miles but not too well after that. But I'm happy with breaking again the HM time.

1:43:25

Yesterday marathon was amazing! Those guys at the front! Wow! 2:06 in those conditions is amazing. Poor guy at the 4th place lost his medal at the last meters. He just hit the wall so hard he couldn't care less about the medal.

9:15AM start 77F, 80% humidity. Conditions were not great and I was still tired after my long run yesterday. I have to admit to having negative thoughts this morning and thinking about taking the day off running. But it all changed when I started running. I actually felt great and although it was hot and humid I enjoyed the run. I think I might have even experienced the famous 'runners high'. My pace was good too (8:10 average). School started today and it was fun looking at the new students filling the campuses.

0:43:40

I tried a new way to tie my shoes and it actually felt much better. I have a doctor appointment on Thursday and I might ask for an X-ray or maybe a referral to specialist.

11:20AM, 80F, 75% light rain. I couldn't run in the morning so I did a lunch run. The humidity was quite bad but the light rain helped. I did my regular run between the campuses and 2 loops on the east campus. The pace was fast (8:03 average) but I felt good eventough I didn't sleep much last night.

0:51:33

It was raining hard this morning (tropical storm Fay) so I went to the Gym. Ran 6 miles on the treadmill doing negative splits (average pace 7:47). Speed work will wait for tomorrow.

0:46:41

8:45AM 77F 80% humidity. Speed work on Duke's tracks. Conditions were brutal. Humidity was awful. My plan was to do 6 times 800 meters with 400m rest. I am glad to say I survived it and did very well for the conditions at hand. Also they were working on the field and part of lane 1 was blocked so each round was actually longer than 400m but I'll count them as 400m. The 6 intervals were at 3:25, 3:28,3:25, 3:27, 3:28, 3:28 which I think is pretty good. Above all I didn't fade at the last 2 intervals (but my 400m in between got slower).

0:52:42

Here are the full splits:

  1M @ 8:07 (warm up)
 .5M @ 3:25
.25M@ 2:17
 .5M @ 3:28
.25M@ 2:26
 .5M @ 3:25
.25M@ 2:16 (+water break)
.5M @ 3:27
.25M@ 2:39
 .5M @ 3:28
.25M@ 2:36 (+water break)
 .5M @ 3:28
.25M@ 2:45
  1M @ 8:55 (cool down)

8:50AM start, 75F, 80% humidity. Again preatty bad day for running. I did two loops around the Duke golf course. Took it easy (8:22 pace on average).

0:48:32

8:15 AM start 75F, 70% humidity. Conditions were very hard. Given that I was very happy with my effort and pace (7:55 on average). The coming week will be reduced milage and reduced effort toward the 5K on Saturday. We went to the pool in the afternoon. The cool water were great for my legs.

1:20:46