Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

So I had to pay a little for it but they do have internet in the bunks here.  I ran at 4pm and it was only 72 degrees, nice and overcast and a bit breezy.  The elevation here is 4400 so about a half-mile higher than home but I didn't notice much of a difference while running.  Anyway I think I ran everywhere I could, but it's a small camp; I called it good enough at 4.80 once it started sprinkling on me.  8:02 pace.

I might try to run in the morning but we have pretty early starts here and some other complicating factors so we'll see.

8:17 pace in the early evening.  I'll take tomorrow off and make it a 5-run week since my hip can't quite seem to make the last needed repairs to itself.  The hamstring and groin on the same side as the bad hip have been getting a little tight lately so a day off is probably a good idea; I can make it 6 runs next week.

The training I'm doing here involves a lot of running around, crawling, etc with heavy gear and equipment on so I can tell it's taking a bit of a toll on my hip each day.  So I'm still running but am ready to call it quits if I feel it getting worse.  As for my run...

8:11 avg pace.  I sped up to HMP (7:38) for a mere half-mile to see what it was like.  Oh man, it felt like 5K pace.  I sure hope altitude at least has a little to do with that.  Not that I expected to be in the same shape as I was for my race, but it was eye-opening nevertheless.  It's too bad I can only find time to run in the evenings here; it's only 5 degrees cooler than the early mornings in Abilene.  Thankfully, it's also overcast here all the time so still an improvement.

Today's training was less strenuous so my hip felt better afterward; thus I did another 6-miler in the evening.  I was feeling quite slow and heavy for the first 3 miles but started picking it up unconsciously and even finished with a pretty comfortable 7:49 final mile, the fastest full mile since my injury.  Average pace was 8:15.

Long day at work today but a thunderstorm came through afterward and the rest recharged me and made it nice and cool by the time I went out for my run.  It ended up being a great evening for a run: upper 60s and breezy, but the breeze felt nice and cool.

Felt so great the first 3 miles so I couldn't stop myself from doing a short 2-mile tempo in mile 4 and 5. Those were 7:05 and 7:17.  Avg pace was 7:51 for the entire 6.  What a difference a day makes.  Feels like I went from 50% of my pre-injury fitness to maybe 85% in one day.

No run tomorrow but there will be a lot of hiking up hills and stuff so a day off is probably a good thing.  I think I'll make it another 5-run week since I'll be traveling back home all day Friday.

And, in other news, I finially finished my MBA.  That's a big monkey off my back that's been there for 2+ years, I'm dun with edumacation for awhile.

Just happy to get in the miles today.  I sort of set myself up for a bad one.  After some decently strenuous activity in the field I had to eat and then run almost right afterward if I was going to get it in.  Didn't have time to properly rehydrate from the field exercises.  So I plodded/shuffled around until I got to 6.  I'm not sure how, but I ended up with an 8:22 pace though I had to work pretty hard to get it (felt like 7:45 pace or so).  Like I said, happy to just get in the miles.

6 more base-building miles, 8:29 pace.  Felt sluggish again but thankfully the field portion of training here is over so I can recover properly each day.  I'll be back in Abilene on Friday.

Time to take a couple days off - my hip is sore again.  I hope it's from this training and not that I came back to running too soon.  Hopefully I didn't re-strain it or whatever the heck was wrong with it.  It's definitely not as bad as it was when I had to quit running a month ago, so I'll play it by ear.

My hip is still messed up, either from training last week or from coming back too fast.  Either way, I'm sitting out until Tuesday, when I have a PFT (will have to run 1.5).  So the goal now is to make it to that, then just stop running until my hip is better.  Maybe a week, maybe a month.  I just don't want to keep playing this game where it gets worse every time I try to run a decent mileage and then keep having to sit out.  So in the meantime I'll make a half-hearted effort at some cardio.

My PFT was today so I had to run, and it's not in me to take it easy and run the minimums so I ate a handful of ibuprofen and left for the gym.

I did the pushups and situps (I always max out situps but actually did not get max points for pushups this time; I usually do) then got in a quick warmup and ran the 1.5 miles on the indoor track since it was raining.  I hate the indoor track because it's 3 laps for every quarter mile and you're almost constantly in a turn.  Anyway, I knew I was out of shape but thought 10:00 might be possible (6:40 pace).  I ran a 10:08 (laps 1:39, 1:43, 1:43, 1:45 [6:50 at the mile], 1:42, 1:36.  So, maybe saved a little too much for the end but I did pretty good for the shape I was in.  I think I'm about a 9:45 runner when in the shape I was in for my half-marathon.

My hip actually feels ok with the 800mg of nsaid working on it.  We'll see about this afternoon.

Guess that run yesterday didn't do any damage because my hip feels about the same as it did beforehand.  Good to know it can handle 6:45 pace, because I don't think I'll need to go any faster than that for quite awhile.  I feel like I could start running again now, but I'm going to be smarter this time and wait until there is no discomfort whatsoever (there would be a little now).  No more starting and stopping!

Another bad news/good news item - my deployment keeps getting pushed up, so I have to leave sooner, but that also means I'll be back sooner - almost definitely in time for Houston so I will probably enter the lotto for it, as long as I know I can accomplish marathon training while in Iraq (pretty likely).

My hip has been feeling just fine the last couple days, no noticeable symptoms.  So I took a test run here in east TX (we're at my in-laws').

It was 77 degrees and 90% humidity at 6:30am (yuck).  Ran 8:57 pace on the running trail here, getting slower each mile.  Ugly run, but I never felt my hip act up.  I can feel a difference when I stretch it, but that's it.  Still planning on a day off tomorrow to ease back in.  I kept my stride really short today which is a help, I think.  Well, a help with the bad hip, not running fast but that's not the aim right now.  Happy to be running.

Back in Abilene - I ran an 8:37 pace today.  Last mile was 9:05...I think I need to recalibrate my easy runs until I get back into shape, maybe 9:00 pace for a week or so.

I tried running without a shirt to beat the heat a little this morning.  I think it may have helped a little.  Don't think I caused any major accidents by blinding oncoming traffic with my ghostly torso, but I did run into a cluster of gnats at some point.  They stuck to me.

Got up earlier and started before sunrise.  It helped a lot with the heat.  I ran 8:39 pace but with about half the effort of the last couple runs.  Also, there was a nice headwind coming home which was nice.  It was 78 degrees so the wind was like a fan, not an a/c, but still nice.  I'll run 2 days on, 1 day off for awhile before stepping back up to 6/week.

We're in San Antonio, taking the kids to Sea World.  Before we left this morning, I snuck out of the hotel for a run in the barrio.  It was ok, 8:51 pace and even that was labored.  I thought I was going to get lost at one point since I forgot what street I came from but then I saw the big Virgin Mary display in someone's lawn that I had passed earlier.  Hail Mary, full of grace!  This thing took up almost half the front yard, was enclosed in glass and then had bars around it, presumably so it wouldn't get vandalized.  That, along with the numerous fat guys sitting on their porch giving me the evil eye made the hot humid run go by a little quicker.

Sea World was fun too, the girls made it through 8 hours in the heat at the park with no huge tantrums.

Back in Abilene, I ran in the evening - it was 85 degrees but with the sun hidden behind clouds (possibly for the first time in the history of this town), and a perfect 10 mph breeze, it actually felt ok as I went shirtless again.  Equivalent to a 75 degree, sunny, windless morning maybe.  I ran an 8:10 average pace, so not bad at all.  Afternoon and evening runs always go much better for me.

I think my hip injury (strain) is healed, I'm just gonna have to deal with tight hip flexors, I think.  Weak butt muscles are a contributing factor to that and my injury, according to Dr. Internet.  I've been able to lay with a baseball in certain spots and work out some stiffness along with lots of stretching.  In the meantime, anyone have any favorite glute exercises?

Got out early to beat the heat - it was still 79, but without sun for most of the run.  I ran an 8:28 pace, feeling pretty fresh at the end so it looks I'm getting my lungs and legs back in shape little by little.  This should be my last week to run in the states this year so I'll try to make it count!

An ice-cold 73 degrees for this morning's run.  8:08 average pace - felt great the whole time.

Bonus run - got a late start but it was still low-mid 70s so I got in a short run.  8:20 pace.  Now I can take tomorrow off and get in 3 more this week.