I slept OK Sat night...not great but better than the 2 nights before. My allergies have shifted into a sinus infection and some serious lung congestion. I had no trouble getting up. My legs felt good. Other than the allergies, it all pointed to having a decent run today. Unfortunately it was not to be. Started off nice and easy and slowly picked up the pace to a conservative LR pace. Let me point out it was extremely humid...the kind of humidity where your shorts are dripping wet. I carried a water bottle. I had drunk at least 12oz by mile 6. My legs seemed less enthusiastic from that point on. Sucked it up along Balcones and Hart. Got a little lost by turning the wrong way on Woodrow but ended up with 15 miles. Got rid of my water bottle and sucked it up and started my 5 miles of MGP on the road. Amazingly I was reasonably close - not great but definately not horrible - especially considering how slow I was on the LR part. Then came the track march of death. Strictly about survival. First mile was faster than my average of the 5 miles of MGP so that was good. Then the last 4 did not resemble any HMGP or 10K pace I have ever run. Just hanging on until the end. Karen didn't seem to care. She was happy that I stuck it out and never actually just gave up. We were supposed to do a 1 mile cool down - I walked 3 laps of the track as my legs weren't into running. In retrospect I'm glad I did. After a 4 hour nap and ice bath, my legs aren't too bad.
Where does this leave me for Boston - I don't know. Since January, I have solidly nailed 2 out of 3 hard long runs. I am going to run less distance and at a faster pace for the last few long runs. I don't see the value of dragging myself around a long run and just making myself more tired. I wish the coaches would give us a long term plan for the taper because I know I need a longer, more aggressive taper than the average.
On the plus side - Jim Gelb had made a spread sheet of 6 people from our Rogue Boston grp last year. Aside from running the first 5K too fast, I was very consistant for the rest of the race and only lost about 1.5 minutes in the hills (I was also the fastest thru the hills). This gives me confidence because I certainly had some very bad runs last year prior to Boston.
On the depressing side, my 16 year old cat is not doing well. She seems to have a surprising level of energy but is hardly eating anything. I have tried everything. Seems she just isn't hungry - she should be ripping the raw fish I serve her out of my hands but she isn't.
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