Week in Review: July 18-July 24

Great week in training this past week.  Toward the end I was fatigued enough to mail in my last run and just struggle through it, and I think I’m doing precisely the right thing by taking a recovery week after 2 consecutive challenging weeks.

Things of note: 

• My dad was here.  That was particularly cool.  He came down to visit Deneb and me and Nataly and Jackson and see the digs.  I think he came away pleasantly surprised.  It’s too bad he was here for such a short time, we didn’t get to do too much while he was here.
• I did my first one way run to Cuevas. I’ll write up a separate post about that one, it’s more than deserving, but Bermejo to Cuevas is likely to make regular appearances on my training routes.  Take a trufi to Bermejo and get out, have the driver deliver my bags to Cuevas…
• Wind really messes with me on my interval sessions.  Hard to get a real read on the effort/pacing when the interval is done with a headwind or tailwind.  Had me thinking about the consequences on my run yesterday.  The problem is non-linear.  I expect I’ll write a whole post about that one too…
• Finally, I took an unscheduled day off.  I’ve got some crud in my chest.  Not sure what it is, but every morning for going on 10 days, I hack up a good chunk of lung.  The only other symptom is a little sinus congestion.  The day I took off was rainy and cool.  Without the rain/cool/crud trifecta, I’d’ve run, but…

Here’s the chart:

Click for more gory detail…

On the weather and nap time...

Today, truly spectacularly bad weather coupled with a very nice cuddle with Deneb at nap time threatened to derail my running plans.

Throw in me feeling overly tired from a couple of tougher days of training Wednesday and Thursday, Jackson having decided to eat something that didn't agree with his lower GI (resulting in my being awakened to a panting, needing relief dog 4x last night), and a pretty strong desire to just chill and watch a movie and I had decided to bag my workout entirely before even sitting down for lunch.

But something changed while I lay there with a slowly drifting off to sleep Bean.  I was thinking about the Space Coast Marathon.  I was thinking that I have a legit shot at a top 10 placing (depending on the folks who show up and my form).  The rain stopped.

It's still overcast.  It's cool.  Perfect weather for a run.  Too bad today was marked "Recovery".

In deference to my general malaise on the morning I took 15 minutes out of my scheduled workout and kept it out - toward the end of my run I was feeling really good and wanted to do more...
Thanks for reading and be safe out there,
J

Overcast and kind of cool.

Got out for an hour today even though I woke with a hacking cough.  It faded as the morning went on and is most likely a lingering effect from the party on Saturday - there was lots of smoke in the air.

One thing which is really remarkable here is how people react to the cooler weather.  As the post title notes, it's overcast and kind of cool, really rather pleasant actually, but the way folks complain about the cold you'd think we're in the dead of winter close to one of the poles.  I just don't get that.  To me, this weather doesn't even warrant a long sleeve shirt and shorts are fine.  Doing the math, it turns out it's actually 71 degrees outside.  Not cold at all, but people are wearing jackets and hats.  When high summer comes I can see I'm going to be miserable.  Oh well.

There was a weird odor outside while I was running.  Sort of like a wet dog.  Not entirely unpleasant, but not real enjoyable either. It was a familiar smell, but I couldn't place it and I'm probably glad I didn't.

Anyway my run was really pretty uneventful.  Lots of sand.  I went 6.75 miles in 1 hour with an average heart rate of 157 beats per minute.  Pretty laid back.
Thanks for reading.
J