Voice Cat LLC & voice-cat.com

nkrichards wrote:Sounds like this group training encouraged you to try some new things that are paying off!

Well, the body is used to it now, Nancy.

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:And no to your question on the tempo run. The idea of the tempo run is to run at LT (Tempo) pace for the entire prescribed number of miles to build fitness. So no to the walking.  As for true VO2 Max runs (speed work), you can take a walk break in between the intervals.

Thanks, Miche1e.  It seemed too easy to be useful.

Mark B wrote:

ounce wrote:

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Looks like a successful run.

Mark B wrote:Nice run! It appears you gave your pursuers the slip.

 -Tally-ho!

Yes, I believe it was a good run.  I think my body has built up enough new muscle fibers and adjusted to Houston Fit's training regimen to where it's not as difficult as it was a month ago. 

Mark, without a smile on that cat's face, the cat looks like he's being held up (or that he's trying to alert you that Fluff is creating another internal waterfall).

Cat? It's supposed to be a fox! (You know, fox and hounds? Oh well. That's what I get for going anime style.)

Well, I probably would've made the connection had you not had so much fun with Fluff.

Julie wrote:Sounds like a good run last Sat. It's always nice to see training pay off.

It is, Julie, especially with traditional Fall weather showing yet.

Thanks for stopping by, y'all!

So, I thought I wasn't this far behind on posting my runs, but it appears that I owe 7 reports.  Except for 1 run (which just happened to be the Oct 5 long run ) temps were not below 66 degrees and averaged around 70 degrees.  We're still hitting 92 degrees, here.

Okay, so this is the first run since the Sept 26 12 miler.
Monday, Sept 28
I remember being a little stiff on this Monday after Saturday's 12, but I needed to run the 8 because my body needs to adapt to running stiff, even if the pace was slow.  I can only baby it so much, as the marathon is 11 weeks out.  168 is the desired cadence & the temp was 74 with a dewpoint of 66.

8 miles, 1:51:35, 13:56 pace, 141 avg bpm, 149 max bpm during mile 3, 167 avg cadence, 0.69 m avg stride length
1.  13:49, 138 bpm, 168 spm, 69 sl
2.  13:46, 142 bpm, 168 spm, 70 sl
3.  14:10, 141 bpm, 166 spm, 69 sl
4.  13:39, 143 bpm, 168 spm, 70 sl
5.  13:45, 140 bpm, 168 spm, 70 sl
6.  14:11, 140 bpm, 167 spm, 68 sl
7.  14:05, 141 bpm, 166 spm, 69 sl
8.  14:08, 142 bpm, 167 spm, 68 sl

Boy, that was a slow run.

---

Tuesday evening, the 29th.  Incline running.
I'm sure there are steeper inclines to run in Houston, but not that evening.  I did what I could and hit 86% of max HR.

---

Thursday evening, Oct 1.  4 mile tempo run.
My objective was to run each mile a little faster.  I believe the last mile was to run it easy, but after running hard, my definition of easy is walking.  But I did run it well and ran all 4 in 80 degree weather.
4 miles, 51:10, 12:47 pace, 156 bpm, 169 max bpm during mile 4, 166 avg cadence, 0.76 m avg stride length
1.  12:42, 145 bpm, 166 spm, 76 sl
2.  13:08, 158 bpm, 167 spm, 74 sl
3.  12:23, 158 bpm, 166 spm, 76 sl
4.  12:39, 164 bpm, 166 spm, 77 sl

I was pretty tired.

3 reports down, 4 to go.  Next up is a 14 mile long run on Monday, the 5th.  Thanks for your patience.

Slow is I'm sure beneficial anyway. How is your new business?

Julie wrote:Slow is I'm sure beneficial anyway. How is your new business?

Hey, Julie, thanks for commenting.  Yes, there are times when slow is beneficial and I generally don't mind a slow run, if it fits with the big picture.

Thanks, too, for asking about Voice Cat.  I've narrated 4 audio books on Amazon's ACX.com, which is what feeds their Audible.com on audio books.  They are contracted as a 'Royalty Share', which means I get 20% of the net sales of the audio book, instead of getting paid on a 'per finished hour' basis.  Per Finished Hour means recorded, edited, and mastered.  Industry average is 6.2 hours of recording, editing, and mastering for 1 per finished hour.  The fourth book I did at a 7:1 rate, so I'm coming along nicely.  I'm just about finished recording my 5th book, which is 124 pages long, printed on 8-1/2 x 11 paper.  Then edit and master it.

Revenue on a Royalty Share book is slow, unless it's a popular author, but these first 5 books are essentially a learning curve on recording, editing, and mastering.

Getting work on commercials is very tough, plus I'm sending emails to various companies, specifically radio stations in a 125 mile radius of Houston and I even sent some emails to race directors for recording the pre-race instructions they can run in a loop before the race starts.

So, it's moving very slow, two months into the gig, but I enjoy the recording, editing, and mastering.

Good to see the reports again, and to know that you're also making progress on the new gig.

Time to catch up on some runs, if I can.

Monday, October 5.  A long run of 14 miles with a nice morning temp of 62 degrees with a dewpoint of 58, so conditions were ripe for a nice run.  Did that with an asterisk.

14 miles, 3:09:08, 13:30 pace, 144 avg bpm, 156 max bpm during mile x, 167 avg cadence, 0.72 m avg stride length
1.  13:31, 141 bpm, 167 spm, 71 sl
2.  13:30, 140 bpm, 168 spm, 71 sl
3.  13:27, 139 bpm, 167 spm, 72 sl
4.  13:41, 140 bpm, 167 spm, 71 sl
5.  13:47, 138 bpm, 167 spm, 70 sl
6.  13:25, 140 bpm, 167 spm, 72 sl
7.  13:31, 141 bpm, 166 spm, 71 sl
8.  13:32, 143 bpm, 165 spm, 72 sl
9.  13:22, 147 bpm, 166 spm, 72 sl
10. 13:28, 147 bpm, 167 spm, 72 sl
11. 13:16, 148 bpm, 165 spm, 73 sl
12. 13:37, 147 bpm, 165 spm, 71 sl
13. 13:22, 150 bpm, 167 spm, 72 sl
14. 13:33, 151 bpm, 166 spm, 71 sl

It was a good run with a negative split of some amount.  But there were 4 itsy-bitsy downsides.  4 chafe spots in 2 new areas, plus 2 surprising spots.  My manufacturer of compression shorts no longer make the one that I've had for 10 years.  I tried a new pair and it gave me 2 of spots.  The other 2 places were under the upper arm in a shirt that I've worn for 8 years.  They were not causing any troubles during the run, but oh the pain afterwards.  I thought I only had two spots, until I hit the shower.  

But it was a good run.

Mark B wrote:Good to see the reports again, and to know that you're also making progress on the new gig.

Yes, I need to get caught up on them.

I am making progress, but it's slow.  However, my ability to edit is getting much better where I can now splice a word in between a couple of words and look at the RMS (the squiggly visual line that shows when someone talks) and know whether I need to delete a squiggle or not.  The quicker I can edit, the quicker I can go on to another book.

Thanks, Mark.

Wednesday, October 7.
I intentionally missed the Tuesday evening track work because the plan was the silly 8-400 w/400 recovery.  I knew the following week's track work was 3-800 w/400 recovery.  So on this day, I ran 3-800 w/400 recovery.

800 #1 - 11:31 pace, 146 bpm, 168 spm, 82 sl
800 #2 - 11:16 pace, 151 bpm, 170 spm, 84 sl
800 #3 - 11:04 pace, 154 bpm, 171 spm, 83 sl

No problems noticed.

---

Thursday evening, October 8.
This was a tempo run. 4 miles - 1 mile easy, 1 mile moderate, 1 mile faster and 1 mile recovery.
3 miles, 37.14, 12:24 pace, 157 avg bpm, 173 max bpm, during mile 3, 167 avg cadence, 0.78 m avg stride length.
1.  13:04, 147 bpm, 165 spm, 75 sl
2.  12:12, 159 bpm, 167 spm, 78 sl
3.  11:53, 167 bpm, 167 spm, 81 sl

I was really trying to run harder on the last mile.

---

Friday morning, October 9
9 miles as the 'mid-week' sorta long run.  It was 70 degrees with a 70 degree dewpoint.  Gone is the cool morning, again.

9 miles, 2:00:29, 13:23 pace, 148 avg bpm, 163 max bpm during mile 9, 167 avg cadence, 0.72 m avg stride length
1.  13:44, 118 bpm, 167 spm, 70 sl
2.  13:36, 149 bpm, 167 spm, 71 sl
3.  13:32, 146 bpm, 167 spm, 71 sl
4.  13:08, 148 bpm, 167 spm, 73 sl
5.  12:43, 151 bpm, 166 spm, 76 sl
6.  13:16, 149 bpm, 168 spm, 72 sl
7.  13:23, 153 bpm, 167 spm, 72 sl
8.  13:17, 157 bpm, 167 spm, 72 sl
9.  13:13, 160 bpm, 166 spm, 73 sl

This was a hope-I-could-do-it run.  And I did it.  I don't really remember much about the run, but it looked pretty consistent across the splits.

Monday, October 12
This was supposed to be a 14 mile run, much like the preceding Monday's 14 miler.  About mile 3, I was getting signs that the body didn't want to do 14.  At the critical mile 5, where I turn left for 4 miles, then run 5 more home OR turn right and just make it 9 miles.  I turned left, even though the body was telling me otherwise.

Note to self:  Listen.  Temperature had a little to do with it, but the body was not wanting to play that far.

7.21 miles, 1:39:08, 13:45 pace, 139 avg bpm, 148 max bpm during mile x, 166 avg cadence, 0.71 m avg stride length
1.  13:27, 134 bpm, 167 spm, 71 sl
2.  13:26, 139 bpm, 168 spm, 71 sl
3.  13:47, 138 bpm, 164 spm, 71 sl
4.  13:31, 141 bpm, 168 spm, 70 sl
5.  13:26, 140 bpm, 167 spm, 71 sl
6.  13:37, 140 bpm, 167 spm, 70 sl

Just wasn't the day to do that.

Tuesday, October 13.
This was a track workout at a local high school.  It consisted of 4-800 w/400 recovery.  It was in the 80's, but the humidity was very, very low.  So low, in fact, the heat index at 5 p.m. was 89, when the ambient temp was 93.  Strange things.  Our run started around 6:45 where the sun was just about to be too low against the trees.

One thing that I need to really accustom my feet to (remember about the PF pain back in August and September?) is a longer stride length.  And I have to do this slowly.  I think I can do the track workouts at a longer stride length, but must baby the stride length on a regular run.  In fact on the coming Thursday run, I tried fartleking a longer stride for 50 feet on, 50 feet off.  It's a theory.

800 #1 - 11:21 pace, 152 bpm, 165 spm, 84 sl
800 #2 - 11:08 pace, 160 bpm, 168 spm, 85 sl
800 #3 - 11:29 pace, 165 bpm, 168 spm, 83 sl
800 #4 - 10:35 pace, 165 bpm, 170 spm, 89 sl

As a reminder about my stride, I get extended length by rotating my hips so my leg moves rearward further.  The run seemed to have gone well.  I think the low humidity and the sun being down helped #4.  No foot pain.

---

Thursday, October 15  4 mile tempo run
1 mile easy, 2 miles harder, 1 mile easy at Memorial Park.  It was during mile 3 where I thought about fartleking the extended stride length.  I don't remember the temperature.

1.  13:10, 147 bpm, 167 spm, 72 sl
2.  12:27, 158 bpm, 166 spm, 77 sl
3.  11:57, 160 bpm, 167 spm, 80 sl
4.  13:15, 156 bpm, 167 spm, 73 sl

Overall, it went well.  Saturday will be a 12 mile long run and the weather is supposed to be cooler than 70 degrees in the morning.

This post makes me caught up on my runs.

The Houston Fit bunch had a route of 9 miles planned. My bunch was going to run 10 and I wanted to run 12.  So, I decided to drop my car off Friday evening at Memorial Park, walk home, and run the close to 3 miles from home to Memorial Park.

The weather was very cooperative on Saturday.  A front had come through on Friday and the drier air was filtering in Friday afternoon.  Starting temp was to be in the mid-60's.  When I woke up, it was 66 degrees with a dewpoint of a glorious 50 degrees.  In fact, after the run at 8:30, it was 74 degrees with a dewpoint of 41.  There was a 5-10 mph east wind that was ventilating some very cool air through the area.  Excellent conditions for a nice run.

Next Sunday, the 25th, is the Houston Half Marathon which is the first race of the Warm Up Series for Houston on January 17.  I think that's 12 weeks away.  With as much as I've been only able to pretty much trod along on runs, I wanted to see if I could turn it up a notch and put together 12 miles around or below a 13 minute pace.  I don't believe the weather will be like this for the race, as rain is forecast for the 2nd half of this week.  But this run would, at least, help my preparation for the next 12 weeks.

12 miles, 2:33:20, 12:46 pace, 148 avg bpm, 160 max bpm during mile 11, 167 avg cadence, 0.75 m avg stride length
1.  13:08, 141 bpm, 167 spm, 73 sl
2.  12:57, 144 bpm, 168 spm, 74 sl
3.  12:49, 144 bpm, 166 spm, 76 sl
4.  12:58, 146 bpm, 167 spm, 74 sl
5.  13:15, 144 bpm, 167 spm, 73 sl
6.  12:39, 148 bpm, 167 spm, 76 sl
7.  12:50, 149 bpm, 168 spm, 75 sl
8.  12:36, 149 bpm, 168 spm, 76 sl
9.  12:10, 152 bpm, 168 spm, 79 sl
10. 12:12, 151 bpm, 167 spm, 79 sl
11. 12:53, 152 bpm, 166 spm, 75 sl
12. 12:52, 151 bpm, 168 spm, 75 sl

Boy, that humidity and breeze made a big difference during the 2nd half.  I was looking at the my watch at the Current Pace setting and was a little startled that I was doing 12's early on and that continued on throughout the run.  I was using my group is coming up my heels as a bit of a motivator in the middle miles.  I started seeing other runners around mile 7, so even though they were faster or were going the opposite way, I sped up some. 

At the point of coming back into Memorial Park, I realized that I was going to be about a mile short.  So, I just ran what I needed on the crushed granite 3 mile loop and called it a day.  No new pain.  But after we had finished our core workout, I went over to the area where I could get my hamstrings worked on.  They were very tight.  Man, that girl had me on my back, then used my legs as if it was a wishbone on a turkey by pushing on one leg up in the air and holding down the other.  It's what it needed, I guess.  That afternoon, I iced it and gave it some TENS love.

Good run.

Nicely run, Doug!  Your training is progressing well.

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Nicely run, Doug!  Your training is progressing well.

+1  Sounds like a good run.  Take care of yourself though...

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Nicely run, Doug!  Your training is progressing well.

nkrichards wrote:

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Nicely run, Doug!  Your training is progressing well.

+1  Sounds like a good run.  Take care of yourself though...

Nicely run, Doug!  Your training is progressing well.

Thanks, Miche1e.  I'm not quite convinced, though.

Nicely run, Doug!  Your training is progressing well.

+1  Sounds like a good run.  Take care of yourself though...

And thanks to you, too, Nancy.  It was a good run, but being as close as I am to this runner, I need a couple more of these runs to become comfortable that it's the norm.  Of course, the weather will have to be consistently cooler, too. 

Thanks for depositing your two cents!

---
I ran Monday and Tuesday, but don't presently have the time to report the details.  Monday was a 9 mile run in 55 degree weather (this morning it was 73 degrees) and last night was another 'hill' workout in 75 degree weather or so.  Both went fine.

Before I forget, I did not suffer any chafing on Saturday, except in one place that I forget to apply Vaseline.  It's not in a location where I would feel it until I got in the shower.  One of these days, I'll apply, but it obviously doesn't hinder 'performance' because it's been forgotten for years.

Race day weather for Sunday's Half calls for a morning low of 66 degrees and will be very overcast for the entire day because there's a 90% chance of rain for Saturday and Sunday.  2-6 inches, depending on timing and forecast model.

Pacific hurricane Patricia (actually its remnants) gets sucked up on the sub-tropical jet stream at Acapulco and brings lots of rain to the southern half of Texas.  Two years ago, it rained, too.  That was during the time when I was transitioning from my severely cushioned Nike Vomero to the minimal Saucony Kinvara.  I still am wearing the Sauconys.

I'm not expecting a PR for this Half because I'm 20 pounds heavier than last year. 

However, my strategy is:
Mile 1-2:  13 min (not total... )
Mile 3-6:  12:30
Rest:  12:30 or whatever doesn't hurt, be it faster or slower, and pee only once.
I don't think this strategy would work under sunny conditions, unless it was 50 degrees or cooler at the start.  Rain will only make the course less populated.

I see a 50/50 chance the Sunday race will be cancelled.  It's supposed to be a very rainy weekend (Flash Flood Watch has already been issued to cover Saturday morning to Monday morning) as a result of a slow moving cold front, the mid and high level energies from what's left of 200 mph Hurricane Patricia arriving Saturday evening, and a sub-tropical jet bringing Patricia plus Gulf moisture providing the lift to make the heavy rain possible.  We've been dry the past 6 weeks, so the ground will absorb the early inches, which may provide the extra time to stave off some street flooding.

This rain event will not just affect Texas and Louisiana, as it's supposed to travel through the Ohio Valley next week.

Consequently, I'm having to plan on spending Sunday night downtown or parking 3 miles from downtown on Sunday morning and walk 3 miles in the rain to the race, then back afterwards, to possibly prevent being trapped downtown.

Otherwise, I'm ready.  Massage tomorrow morning.

2 p.m. update:  The RD will announce at 8 p.m. Saturday night whether to call the race or not.  My opinion is that unless the RD has some weather knowledge or someone with that, or if we get a ton of rain Saturday, the race will be run.   At 8 p.m. on Saturday, we will just be at the start of the real rain (remnants of Patricia) that will go on until Sunday afternoon.

Our news indicates you're in for some difficult weather to say the least.  Stay safe!!!!

nkrichards wrote:Our news indicates you're in for some difficult weather to say the least.  Stay safe!!!!

Howdy, Nancy.  Yes, but last night and again this morning, the speed has increased so the rain is lessening about 6 hours sooner than yesterday afternoon's models were showing.  Houston and southeast Texas can handle 7 inches before it becomes an issue because we've been dry for 6 or so weeks.  So the meat of the rain will be occurring between 6 p.m. tonight and 2 a.m. tomorrow.

Dallas, on the other hand, is soaked by nothing related to Patricia.  Their rain was caused by the collision of the cool front to the north and the Gulf moisture from the south, which is to be expected in the Fall and Spring.  Austin is getting hammered this morning.

I'd hate to be a volunteer today for tomorrow's race.  Setting up in the rain can't be fun.

The race was cancelled, this afternoon.  It hasn't been raining too much yet, at 2 inches so far.  But the heavier stuff is due in the overnight period and the energy from the remnants of Patricia are now in the Gulf, just east of Brownsville, and is expected to ride the coast northward.  I imagine the coast will get the 9-12 inches with inland areas getting 4-8.  Four tornados so far, in the coastal counties.

Yipes! I can see why they cancelled the race. Hope you don't live in a low-lying area. Don't need to wake up with an alligator in your rumpus room.

Your training has been going well. Good job managing the niggles as they pop up and keeping them from getting worse.

Mark B wrote:Yipes! I can see why they cancelled the race. Hope you don't live in a low-lying area. Don't need to wake up with an alligator in your rumpus room.

Your training has been going well. Good job managing the niggles as they pop up and keeping them from getting worse.

Nah, flooding isn't an issue.  Hell, if it didn't flood as a result of the Memorial Day 12" rain (with already saturated ground), 9 inches wasn't going to do anything.  Part of the course was probably flooded, since it was next to Buffalo Bayou, about a mile from downtown.

It would've been 'interesting' to make my way down to the starting line, as many of the city photos or tape of the bayou or tops of submerged cars y'all may have seen was near the starting line.  I wonder if the City told the RD the race wouldn't have any cop protection because they would be doing other things related to the rain.  And not being able to get another permit in the future probably weighed on the decision, too.

Thanks, Mark.  I'm figuring to up the pace a little bit as I'm told it's 12 weeks to Houston.  My next race is the 30K in December, the last of the Warm Up Series for Houston.  This past week ended up being a rest week, since we didn't do much and I had a massage on Saturday.

So...a massage in place of the race huh...nice

nkrichards wrote:So...a massage in place of the race huh...nice

Funny how life turns, isn't it?

-30-

Well, I ran 3 miles on Monday to get going again.  I was wanting to do 6, but I went out too fast and the legs were like, "WTF?  Did you file a flight plan for this run?  I didn't think so. "  Wantin' ain't gettin', I guess.

3 miles, 37:44, 12:34 pace, 147 avg HR, 157 max HR during mile 2, 168 avg cadence, 0.76 m avg stride length.
1.  12:17, 140 bpm, 167 spm, 78 sl
2.  12:39, 151 bpm, 168 spm, 76 sl
3.  12:47, 150 bpm, 167 spm, 75 sl

-30-
Tuesday (yesterday), the schedule was for a 5 mile tempo run of 1 easy, 2 moderate, 1 hard, and 1 easy.  After filing the proper flight plan documents, I started out with my Team Fit bunch and quickly became last.  No big deal. 

The HR didn't seem to pick up the strap at the start for about a half mile and it was run with a setting sun temp of 70 with a dewpoint of around 61 degrees.  Really nice with a sporadic, but cool, breeze.

5 miles, 1:00:17, 12:03 pace, 147 avg bpm, 171 max HR during mile 4, 168 avg cadence, 0.80 m avg stride length
1.  12:43, 110 bpm, 167 spm, 76 sl
2.  11:54, 149 bpm, 166 spm, 81 sl
3.  11:55, 156 bpm, 168 spm, 80 sl
4.  11:06, 166 bpm, 169 spm, 86 sl
5.  12:38, 155 bpm, 165 spm, 77 sl

See what happens when you follow regulations?  At the risk of full disclosure, during mile 4, I found this rabbit that wasn't pulling away from me as fast as others of similar build.  I was gradually closing on her until she pulled off to a direction I wasn't.  But I worked at the final 1/2 mile to try to maintain the same pace.

The cooler weather helped, especially that light, but cool feeling, breeze.

In the next chapter of "Ounce Loves Humidity," we find him gearing up for a 16 mile run, today.  As the story goes, the Thursday workout with Team Fit was cancelled as the Houston Team Fit coaches were having a dinner and other cavorting that coaches do.  It was our responsibility to do the 40 minute 'easy' workout with a 12 mile long run on Saturday.

Since I wasn't going to be able to run on Saturday, I decided to blow off the Thursday run as a rest day and concentrate on doing 16 on Friday.  Thursday morning was beautiful with 54 degrees in Houston.  Since we can't have too much prosperity from the weather department, it was going to be around 69 degrees on Friday morning, as we prepare for another 2 inches of rain on Saturday.  It was 70 degrees with 100% humidity, but there was a steady 5-10 mph south breeze.

So, I set out at 2:30, this morning, with a couple of objectives: complete 16 miles, no new niggles, reduced chafing, and 16 miles of 168 cadence.  I accomplished all but the cadence objective due to the battery on the gnome (metronome) going dead at mile 7.  Had I had battery life, I would've been faster because my 168 cadence would have made me faster.  3 out of 4 ain't bad.  There's no proof that I would've maintained 168 for 16 miles, but I had ran 14 recently and pretty much kept 168 the whole distance.

And the HR strap bonked around mile 11, too, so over all HR numbers are worthless.

16 miles, 3:42:33, 13:54 pace, 162 cadence, 0.71 m avg stride length, 1st half pace 13:19, 2nd half pace 14:29.
1.  13:22, 121 bpm, 166 spm, 73 sl
2.  13:20, 148 bpm, 168 spm, 72 sl
3.  13:24, 147 bpm, 166 spm, 72 sl
4.  13:19, 150 bpm, 168 spm, 72 sl
5.  13:20, 149 bpm, 166 spm, 73 sl
6.  13:19, 151 bpm, 168 spm, 72 sl
7.  13:17, 153 bpm, 167 spm, 72 sl
8.  13:10, 152 bpm, 164 spm, 74 sl (no gnome...watch the subsequent cadences and/or time)
9.  13:27, 153 bpm, 161 spm, 74 sl
10. 13:48, 152 bpm, 162 spm, 72 sl
11. 14:12, 155 bpm, 163 spm, 70 sl
12. 14:17, x, 158 spm, 71 sl
13. 14:38, x, 157 spm, 70 sl
14. 15:10, x, 158 spm, 67 sl
15. 15:08, x, 154 spm, 69 sl
16. 15:19, x, 154 spm, 68 sl

My legs were a little tight for the first 3 miles to where I was wondering if I was going to go the whole distance.  But, I sort of dismissed that scenario and went on.  The last two miles were decidedly difficult, but I figured to keep on running for the remaining 2.  I could do 2.  Also, I went to more of a rolling route than I would usually do.  I'm considering doing an ultra, about this time next year and it has a measly 600 feet elevation gain over 6 miles that one must do 4 times.  So if I'm going to do that ultra, then I might as well start doing the rolls.

Minimal chafing, but I forgot 2 S!Caps before I left for the run.  That factors some into the worse 2nd half.  I knew that I was forgetting something,  before I left.

Don't you hate it when all this technology fails you...

Way to stick with it and finish up the run.

nkrichards wrote:Don't you hate it when all this technology fails you...

Way to stick with it and finish up the run.

Yes, ma'am, and it makes me wonder what the real value of monitoring heart rate during a normal long run.  Sure, it's a piece of data used for comparing, assuring, and confirming the feel of the run.  But my ability to maintain cadence is becoming the bellwether statistic on my long run.  You can easily tell when the battery on the gnome crapped out.

Heart rate is good to see early on in a training cycle to see how the heart is adapting to the training, but I have noticed my heart is the first part of the body to get settled in to a training cycle, so its value in the mid and later parts of a training cycle is for anomalies and not a North Star.  I will be curious to see what a working gnome and weather below 60 degrees does for my cadence on the longest runs over the next 9 weeks.

Thanks for the compliment, Nancy.