Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday

I have been swamped at work until just now, so my BROTH had to wait. Here's a quick recap of my last 3 running days:

Saturday: I help coach the 8:45 minute pace group with AustinFit every Saturday. Since I am training for a December marathon, I have had to run extra miles before I run with AustinFit to get my mileage up to what it should be (AustinFit is still in the 11-mile range since they are training for AT&T in February). I wanted to do 14-15, so I ran 3-miles at 7AM before meeting up with AustinFit for a 12-mile run. It ended up only being 4 of us, probably because Motive was the next day. We did the Scenic loop, which is one of my favorite runs. It is challenging, fun, and well, scenic. I felt really good overall and Rafael (head coach) and I finished our last 2-3 miles averaging around a 7:30.

Monday: I met up with Coach Thon and Amy for a 10-mile pace run. I was kind of nervous about it mainly because I didn't watch my diet on Sunday very well. I had this sneaking suspicion it might be a factor during the run. We started off slow, but after about half a mile, we quickly started to speed up to our goal of an 8 minute pace. Everything felt great up until mile 6 or so. That is when the GI issues I was afraid of kicked in. Luckily, there was a bathroom coming up within the next half-mile. I told Thon and Amy that if there was someone in there, I would tear down the door and pull them out...and if I were truly capable of tearing a metal door down I wouldn't have been lying! Luckily, no one was there and I was able to enter quickly, telling Thon and Amy I would meet them at the water stop a little less than 2 miles away. I took care of bid-ness real quick (TMI???) and was out in less than 2 minutes. The feeling after something like this during a hard run can be appropriately called the "Other runner's high". I felt like a new man and was determined to catch up to Thon and Amy. I started running at a 7 minute pace and just barely missed catching up with them at the Mopac bridge water stop by about 15 seconds. I was hauling butt!! After our water break, I thought we were going to cool down the last 2 miles, but Thon had a different idea and I followed suit. We averaged around a 7:30 pace on these last 2 miles, with Thon leading the way. Overall, it felt really good! I went for a massage after work on Monday with Ann at Body Dynamix. She rocks.

Today: Well, in short, today sucked. I met up with Thon at 5:30 for a 7-mile recovery run. I felt crappy the entire way, even when only averaging a 9:30 pace. I can attribute it mostly due to a lack of sleep. I am going to try to get to bed at 8 today to catch up. If I can manage that, I will be running 10 with Thon tomorrow morning for a hill or fartlek run. If I can't catch up on my sleep, I will probably settle for 3-4 hilly miles in my neighborhood.

One more thing, my running wife Carrie KICKED ASS in her Ironman Triathlon 70.3!!!! I am really proud of her and can't wait to hear about everything. Check her blog for a great write-up...and to find out how lucky she is to have such a great fiance' (oh, and he's pretty damn lucky too!).