Stuff Towpath found between his toes

Monday's run went only a hair better than Sunday's. I slept in, so there was no morning run. I felt pretty good during the day, and worked pretty hard to mindfully eat bananas and kiwi to replace the potassium I had sweated out the prior two days. Though I would have preferred waiting until later, I had to run soon after work, because in my haste I left my phone at Scott's house and luckily Jake was able to bring it to the city, so I ran out to the Towpath to meet him at about 6. I got 5 miles of movement before I met up with him, and we took off up the trail to meet with the Glover-Archibald Trail. He was blazingly fast for what I felt like doing. I was thirsty as heck. We stopped for one drink near the Key Bridge and kept going, but I wasn't feeling much better. We started to climb to read G-A, but my heartrate and respiration were racing. I couldn't handle that. I turned and headed back to my office, but once I reached downtown I started to feel faint. I walked for a bit, then ran a few blocks, got some water at Franklin Park. I ran the rest of the way back and felt depleted the rest of the day. I managed 10.5, though. After two days, repeating 100 miles is not going to happen, not when I'm traveling Friday and have a race at which I would like to try Saturday morning.

I was set for a decent bedtime Monday night when, while lying in bed, I saw some movement near my closet door. It was a mouse. I spent the next two hours clearing the closet and cornering the mouse four times before I was able to successfully contain him and release him outside. Then it was 1 am, most of the contents of my room were in the dining room and I was filled with adreneline from my success that it took me a while to fall asleep. When I woke at 7, there was no way I could run with that amount of energy. I made it through work and came home and tried to get 14 in New Virginia Manor, doing four loops of almost two miles each in the middle. I started to get ridiculously thirsty and cut the last loop and instead added on and finished with 13.31 miles. I averaged 7:37s, which I guess was a good recovery run.

Wednesday I once again failed to wake up early enough to get a morning run in, probably because I ran so late on Tuesday. I headed out around 7:30 to do an extended Woodley. I wasn't exactly sure where the mile markers were, but I figured I was averaging 7:00 miles. I thought I was fine until the point I figured to be 10 miles, which I hit in 1:07:50- surely that meant I was running 7:05 pace. Well, the heat and exertion, which I didn't realize was so great, clearly got to me, I had actually averaged 6:47. I guess I was mixing the tendencies for 6:00 miles with the 7:00s. I chilled out the last mile and hit an even 11.

Thursday I woke up and went outside and it felt miserable- the heat and humidity were both out of control. I sat down on the curb to put my shoes on and felt like there was nothing that running then would do for me- I'd be in a sour mood the whole time, and I'm better off enjoying my running, so I decided to cut my weekly mileage to 80, and instead do 11 miles on the treadmill after work. I took a fan with me to get the air moving around me, so I hope this will be a more productive run than my first two tries.

The key to me hitting my high-mileage goals is just getting a few miles in the morning. Four more miles a day would have me on pace for 100, rather than 82.

My trip to Pittsburgh for the Run for Roch has been cut by three days because of a shifting work schedule and the accompanying deadlines. Now my running retreat will be to southwest Virginia, near Pembroke, to my coach's cabin where I will run, read, explore and eat for five days in two weeks. I was hoping my brother Edward would have moved in to Roanoke College by that point so I could visit him, but alas, he won't arrive for two more weeks. In his e-mail to me about the place, Steve followed every description of a good running spot with "take a camera," so I am really looking forward to the vistas and wildlife. Reno was a nice trip thanks to the dry, cool air, but I barely saw a dozen trees.