Friday is Saturday

Day 48


Boston Qualifying Training. On most Saturdays I wake up and get ready for football. Today that will have to wait as Week 7 of training comes to an end. Typically the last run is on a Friday, but travel pushed it back until today. A 13 miles run at a 8:15 pace. I am glad that the pace is a little quicker, I need to shake of the earlier weeks run. Jay and I meet at LTF and it looks like we might miss any bad weather. Last night thunder showers were predicted. But so far, the sky looks good, no stars, but no rain either.

I look like and older version of myself and Jay is way too excited

We decide, that we want to take it out a little strong the first mile, nothing to crazy, just under 8 and settle into a pace. Mile one was just that, however we did have trouble regulating our pace for the next two miles and found ourselves far ahead of pace. We adjusted, but neither of us ever found the groove. My left leg was on fire from mile 2 to mile 13. The quad, just above my knee was completely fatigued. Not sure what to make of that, as this problem had appeared to have gone away, now it is back with a fury.


The run was very familiar, with a few challenging hills to build “grit”. However, we were determined to hold pace on the last three miles but found ourselves fast there too. The final time7:58 per mile. One might say well, not bad, but the truth is this was bad.


The beginning was too fast, sure the first mile would have been fine, but the second and third, big mistake. Next, we never found a pace, rather we seemed to yo-yo up and down; this is very tiring. Last, Even though the time was 7:58, 2 seconds under our projected race pace, it felt difficult. Sure, we are at the end of week 7, but come on, we should have cruised this run.


We are both faster than this. So there is some thinking to do on this run and how to put it in perspective. Likely I will look at this week and like Jay, account for a lot of travel and not a lot of rest leading to poor performance. Imagine that.

The positive side… We did learn something today that will be applied to future runs, CONSISTENCY. Though I will still likely hit that first mile faster, my goal is to find pace and keep it going, no more yo-yo on the pacing.

Another positive note, I stepped on the scale with the full expectations of weighing north of 183. Let’s face it, travel, no exercise, late night meetings and meals, this was going to be a disaster.


After showering up from the run, I dried and hit the scale… I paused and really did not want to look, I felt like a man waiting to be announce guilty. “This man has eaten too much… He ate and drank without concern in Chicago, he must be sentenced to fatness for two weeks!"


Tilting my eye upward I nearly fell over, 176! What? That can not be right. I step of the scale, “zero out” the base weight and step back on, now eager to see what it says… 176. I guess all the activity associated with travel and the fact I was not sedentary for any part of the day really helped burn the calories. As I think back, there was no snacking either. 176, not bad.

Pulling into the house, there is much to get done after being gone all week. Errands were run, and chores were completed. A quick lunch on the grill and off to Wil’s football game.

A few last words written on my hand to remind myself to coach up the 7/8 year old boysand the game starts. A couple of early mistakes, but the kids recover nicely. Wil starts the scoring barrage with a 40 yard touch down run. The Irish win with a score of 35 - 0. The boys all played great and there are only a few areas of breakdown that we will work on at practice next week.

Tonight Jack and I will scout the other teams they play next week. Should be fun!