I admire your dedication to recovery jogs. Unless it's something shorter than an 800, I always just stop after a hard interval. This afternoon/evening --- which was surprisingly cold and dreary --- featured an old fashioned hills workout at Ryken. After rendezvousing in the packed parking lot, Joe, Phil, and I did a 1.5-mile warm up around campus amidst the throng of multiple game days (men and women's lacrosse, softball). I must say that it's delightful to have Joe back on track as a dedicated runner. For much of the past couple years, he would only be able to keep up for about half the warm up before falling way back, and when it came time to do the workout, he'd usually do something quite different from my and/or Phil and/or Perry's agenda. But now he hangs right up there with us from warm up's beginning to cool down's end. Anyways, after the warm up we strolled on over to the hill zone. I don't think any of us were exactly ripping and rearing to go for a hardcore hills workout. Joe and Phil had done an intense track interval set just the day before, and I hadn't done any serious speed/strength work in months. Nonetheless we trudged down to the water and braced ourselves for the agony of four standard Einboden hills. Upon cresting the first little hill and hitting the soccer field straightaway at the first interval's onset, Phil tried to take an early lead but I mustered past, achieving the big base first. And, though I could hear his ragged breath right behind me the whole way up the hill, I negotiated the sharp turn around the fence post (an obstacle we didn't have to deal with back in high school) more deftly and opened up a wide lead on the final sidewalk straightaway past Rupert, finishing the first hill interval first in 1:23 whilst Phil came plodding in about six seconds later (and Joe around 20 seconds after that). I definitely took that one too hard, and 1:23 ended up being my fastest split of the set. Oh, and my throat and lungs were on fire. The second hill went in much the same fashion, except this time I finished in 1:26 and Phil was only two seconds behind. We all decided to hang back on the third repetition --- mainly so that we'd have something left for the finale. As such, I ran that one in 1:38 while Phil more or less ran abreast with Joe, coming in around 1:47. Finally, for the fourth standard Einboden hill, I endeavored to go all out but yielded a strong early to Phil and watched him pull ahead as my form faltered and my strength seeped away. I honestly felt like I was jogging as I ascended that big old hill --- even though I was surely striving hard. So, Phil was victorious in that final interval, hitting the sidewalk's end around 1:26 to my 1:30. Joe finished his in 2:00 flat (we later calculated our average hill times, and discerned that mine was 1:29 and Phil's was approximately 1:32. I'm guessing Joe would've been around 1:50). But the workout wasn't over yet! After only a brief respite, we marched over and down to the baseball field's right far outfield for 2 X "Everest" sprints. That interval tract may only be about 75 yards long, but it's damn near vertical. Near the top it becomes less like running and more like climbing with your feet! So, with a time of 16 seconds, I was king of the mountain on the first ascension, as Phil again ran abreast with Joe. But on the next (and final interval of the day), we gave it everything we had and charged madly up. Phil won by a nose, achieving the summit in just about 13.2 seconds to my 13.8 seconds. Though it took a great deal of time, all that hill running only added up to roughly one mile, so after our 1.5-mile cool down we had but a modest four miles for the day --- but felt the pain of many more.

You’ll at least have decent weather tonight. I think today will have the lowest chance of rain for the next few days (at least up this way), and the temperature is supposed to top out slightly north of 60. I’m planning to run 11 miles tonight due to potential family commitments tomorrow. I work only a few miles from an NCR Trail parking lot, so I’ll be going there directly after work. However, I realized on the way into work that I had forgotten my watch at home. I actually figured that would happen last night. The Forerunner’s batteries were all but dead, so I had no choice but to put it in the charger before going to bed. Regardless, I’m forging ahead and will be running blind tonight. There’s a parking lot for the NCR Trail almost exactly 0.5 miles from the start, so I’ll just run out to the six mile marker and back. Should be pretty interesting. I’m still kicking around the notion of doing the 15K this weekend. I’d like to see what other races are happening in the area this weekend. Charmcityrun.com provides the best list of races local to me, but it appears as though I can no longer access that site from work. If anyone can access that website and let me know if any races are listed for 3/28 or 3/29, it would be appreciated. Joe – Any thoughts/predictions for the race this weekend? Or is this purely going to be a test of your current level of fitness?

BTW, Colon may be a trail run, and the ground is wet, so who knows what times will be like...

If you maintained a nonstop 8:00/mi pace, your 5k time would be 24:52.

I did an 11 mile run on the NCR Trail this afternoon/evening, so it was mainly flat. As I mentioned previously, I forgot my watch when I left for work so I was forced to run blind. However, I discovered the iPod nano has a stopwatch function, so I was at least able to see what the total run was, though not the splits I've been used to seeing. I was actually pretty astonished that I finished the run around 1:34:30 (I forget the exact mark). Offhand I think that might be an 8:40ish pace, but like I said, the run was pretty much flat. When I tackle more hilly terrain, my long run pace has been closer to 9:00 - 9:15 recently.

I've run St Mary's lake a couple times, and I don't think times on it compare at all to a road race -- much slower. Aha, I was waiting to hear explanation of an "ominous staring cows" comment I saw by DR elsewhere -- now it is clarified I did a long run today -- unplanned -- and it wiped me out -- had to huddle on the floor drinking some liquid food thing in the bathroom, b/c I had nausea and wasn't sure what I could hold down. Then I got a blanket and laid down huddled under it and fell asleep for a short while. Just utterly wiped out. Think maybe the heat & sun had something to do with it. However, I did walk by the governor -- ok, this long run had walking breaks in the middle, as I ran to Maryland Day, walked around a bit, then ran back. Probably won't even see the governor in the middle of a long run again.

Sounds like you should take a recovery week, Perry. Did you refuel with gel or anything during the course of your running today? I think nausea following a long run is usually due to a lack of sugar or electrolytes.