Clouds of mystery pouring confusion on the ground

In general this was a pretty good week as far as the weather was concerned, except for a small window on Thursday morning.  Thursday morning saw sheets of rain and wind gusts up to 67km/h.  Conveniently, my track workout this week was scheduled for Thursday morning.  Lucky me.  I did contemplate waiting later in the day, but I have to get used to running in the morning.  Also, AM or PM, race start time doesn’t circumvent windy and wet conditions.

Josephat and I waged through 3 X 3000m (with two minutes rest) around a puddle ridden track.  I hit the times I was supposed to hit, although I had to put forth a meatier effort to hit those prescribed 72 second laps.  At the end of one straightaway I remember being blown to a jog and putting my arms up, surrendering to Mother Earth.  And then on the next straightaway I always had to pick up the pace to make up for the preceding half lap.  The previous couple of track workouts had been confidence boosters whereas this particular workout was one in which I had to justify the effort and times versus the conditions in my head to convince myself it was a decent workout.

This morning reinforced my belief that my fitness is good and I got to do my favorite type of run.  I guess you could classify this run as a progression run, not quite tempo pace but definitely faster than a normal run.  We started off our run as we normally would for a few kilometers and then the pace slowly picks up to the point where we almost hit marathon pace at the very end. 

I continue to train more on the roads than usual and I seem to be getting used to the harder surface.  I’m also getting much more efficient with drinking my fuel on the go.  I’ve also convinced Josephat to take some gels and drink mix during the race.  He’s raced about 7 marathons and has never taken anything more than water throughout the 42.2kms.  Josephat also has no qualms with going out in 64high/65low for the first half even though after 7 attempts his PB stands at 2:15.

Dr. Trent Stellingwerff has been helping me with my fueling plan.  Here’s a pic of the ol’ doc I took at my last outdoor track race back in September 2007.  That stat always blows me away, I can’t believe it’s been that long and that I have to mention it about once a month, haha.  And yeah, that is Bekele in Gebremariam a couple of seats down.