DairyKing's Journal, 17 September 2014

Good Morning, FS Warriors! Ughh, speed workout this morning. The alarm was set for 3:30, but again, it was almost 4 before I dragged my a$$ out of bed. Someday I'm going to sleep for a whole 8 hours and see what it feels like. Since the lack of beauty rest has already taken its toll, and can't be undone, there is no hope there. But, I might feel better. Did 400M (1/4 mile) repeats. It didn't take very long to realize that I don't want to move fast at 4 in the morning; in fact, I don't want to move at all. But I did. By the time I got done with the warmup, the intervals and the cool down period, it was basically a 50 minute workout, and I had done 3.17 miles.

Man, you should have heard the coyotes this morning! They were going nuts on two fronts; one being right on the edge of town. I was afraid that a pack had taken somebody's small dog away. It sure sounded like that could have been happening. I have a friend who has lost two miniature dobermans to coyote's; she even saw the coyote carrying her last little dog across the field, and she was powerless to do anything about it. I don't like stories like that, and really felt bad for her. I think after the first one though, I wouldn't have let the dog out without being there with him, or have him on a leash, whether I was in a bathrobe or not. And perhaps I would even take my two friends, Smith & Wesson, along for the walk.

Tomorrow is an easy 3 mile run and then a rest day. Actually, the plan calls for running a 5K race this weekend, with two rest days leading up to that. I'm not doing that, so I'll probably do another easy run and then run a 5K at home. I know it won't be quite as fast without the competitive atmosphere of a real race, but I'll still get the run in. I've noticed my speed has really declined over the last couple years. I've been training to run slow. I should have been incorporating speed runs at least once a week into my workouts. Oh crap! I just went back and looked at my training schedule and I was supposed to run those 400M repeats at my 5K pace, and I ran them all out. That means that I ran them at 3 min/mile faster than I would have or should have. No wonder I'm so worn out right now. Oh well, I'll live. It wasn't that long ago that I ran the Steamboat Classic 4 mile race at a 9:50 pace, and the 5K at a 9:30 pace. Now, I would be lucky to run it at a 12:00 min pace. I never trained very hard or very intelligently for those races. I'm going to see if training hard and intelligently can compensate for being a few years older, and manage to run those races at a 9 min/mile pace. If it can't be done, it can't be done, but at least I'll know I gave it a shot. That being said, don't expect those kind of speeds out of me in the near future - especially for a half. I would be absolutely tickled pink to pull off a half marathon at a 12 min. pace.

OK, so I always start by journals with nothing to say and end up writing a book. I guess if I wasn't so long-winded, I wouldn't have over 700 journal entries. It is what it is. I guess as long as some of you keep reading my rhetoric, I'll keep on writing them. Have a great day. Toodles!