Let me tell you a story. I slept about 4 hours last night. I had to get up early for a phone call with the UK team. I have a sore throat and a cough. I keep thinking it might go away, but then it doesn’t. My ankles are tight. My shins hurt. My right knee feels a little sloppy. I sucked down a quart of orange juice before heading out and it’s not sitting well. My nose is constantly running everywhere… over my lips, down my chin and onto my shirt, except when I mistakenly breathe in through my nose and send a shot of the hot salty mucus down the back of my throat. I keep feeling like I could lose the orange juice at any moment. I almost throw up into my mouth a couple times, but manage to keep it down.

Of course, almost none of that is true. I really don’t have much of an excuse for my poor performance today. Sure, I may not have slept as well as I wanted, and I may be a little sore, but it could be a whole lot worse. So I still need to figure out how to get it together again. Last May I was running pretty well before I stopped running and only rode the bike. How did I lose so much (mentally)?

The only good thing about today’s “run” was the consistency, but I think it’s easier to be consistent when you’re barely jogging. I keep feeling like I’m close to being able to really run this route, but it never materializes. I hope it does soon or I may be out of luck.

I wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t sleep much last night. My legs are sore in the wrong places; I may be starting to develop shin splints. I had very little energy, but I went out to run anyway. My run was turning out how you would expect… poorly. I was walking a lot. I was even considering turning around at mile 2 and heading back for just a 4 miler.

But then I saw George Oscar Bluth, Sr. from Arrested Development asking me what was keeping me from performing… and then I finally found a rhythm.

I was starting the down-hill portion of my run, so it didn’t require a lot of strength or endurance to keep going, but I knew the big hill at the end would come calling eventually. I managed to mostly jog up that last hill, which made my overall time just slightly less than it was on Monday. If I had not walked those first two miles I might have put together a pretty good run. Maybe next time.

We walked around the San Diego Library and then several miles through Seaport Village and then out along the San Diego Bay past the convention center and a few of the big hotels with Charmaine’s parents, who are visiting from out of town. I didn’t plan well and brought a “change of clothes” but not a change of shoes. My change of clothes included shorts, but not flip-flops. I was stuck wearing my loafers. I went without my dress socks, so I wouldn’t completely embarrass everyone, though I’m not sure how successful I was. Anyway, that’s not the right set of equipment for walking miles and miles. I wound up with several good blisters on my feet. Ouch.

But that didn’t stop me from getting out there today. I haven’t had anything close to a blister in my running shoes in what seems like forever. Even when I’ve gone 10+ miles, my feet have been perfectly fine afterwards. So I figured I would be fine running on my blisters. I was right. I don’t think they bothered me too much. I may have compensated and changed my form a bit, but mostly I didn’t think about them at all.

It was a nice temperature for running today. It was foggy last night and most of the morning, so it was still fairly cool when I headed out. I still found myself struggling though. I want to blame my lack of energy on the walking we did yesterday, but I’m not really sure what my problem was. My left ankle was really tight and at one point I came to a complete stop at a lamp post and stretched it out. I felt so much better after that, and I was able to actually get a few miles of running done.

Of course, I still died at the end and walked up the big hill. It’s really disappointing that I can’t stay running for my whole run anymore. I seem to remember that I could keep it together back in the day. Maybe I never did. I don’t think I’ll be looking it up to check… I’d rather just figure it out right now and run all the way back home. At some point I need to stop being happy with just finishing the distance and actually start to improve. Maybe Wednesday?

It was another hot day out there today. It wasn’t as extreme as Wednesday, but it was still plenty warm. I ran out of water somewhere between mile 4 and mile 5, but didn’t notice until right when I needed it most… and then I walked the rest of the way home.

I had a bit of a rough start. I ran about half a mile, then walked about half a mile. Then I got into a decent rhythm and ran almost all the way to the end of mile 5, which was great. It wasn’t fast, but it felt pretty good. Then I realized I was completely out of water and I really needed some. I was even starting to see mirages of drinking fountains as I pushed through to the end of mile 5. It was heart breaking to find out I had nothing left.

I probably wouldn’t have been able to run up that hill at the end anyway, my pace had been falling apart through miles 4 and 5, but we’ll never know. I did try to jog a few times during that last mile, but it never stuck. I wasn’t too disappointed with the outcome, and I wasn’t feeling sore anymore. Maybe on Monday I’ll actually be able to run again?

It was 85 degrees outside at noon. Too hot to run. But I really wanted to get back out there and see what I could do. I finally dragged myself out there by about 1:00, and it was scorching. It was 88 here on the coast and about 93 just a few miles inland from here (and right where I was heading on my run). I drank a bunch of water before starting, but I still ran both my water bottles empty by the time I hit the 3 mile mark. It wasn’t just hot, it was dry.

There are two schools of thought when running in extreme heat. One says try to walk when you can’t be in the shade, so you don’t over do it. The other says walk when you’re in the shade to achieve maximum cooling. I think I subscribed to both schools of thought today, because I was always walking and almost never running. Did I mention it was hot? Oh yeah, and I was really sore from that run two days ago. I didn’t feel like I pushed hard or anything, but I was really sore out there today.

It seems like I’m always out of town. I’ve been to San Jose, CA almost every Friday-Sunday lately, and we just got back from a 10-day diving trip to La Paz, BCS. You can’t really run (or exert yourself other ways) when you’re diving multiple times each day because it increases the risks of DCI. I’m not complaining, of course. The diving was incredible and I highly recommend it to everyone, but it does force you to take time off of running and biking.

So today was my first day back and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I just sort of took it easy and tried to maintain my pace. I hit a few red lights, but I didn’t let them phase me. I wound up running almost the first 5 miles, which was pretty good for me. I noticed my cadence started falling apart at the end of mile 4 and my quick little steps turned into big tired clomps as I went through mile 5. I gave myself permission to walk home after that, but did manage to jog a little at the very end.

I wondered if there was still some residual nitrogen left in my muscles, but I think that was just me trying to come up with a good “reason” why I was so tired. I just need to get out there more often. Hopefully I will.

I had a rough start today. I wasn’t really convinced that I wanted to get out and run today. My legs were still a bit sore from the activities of the previous two days. But it wasn’t hot today, and I needed to take advantage of that. So I headed out. I skipped my normal downhill start and just cut through on the pedestrian path up to Carmel Country Road. I thought I may be able to make it up and over that first big hill without breaking down into a walk (since I had skipped the first section of the initial hill). No. I broke down mentally and let myself walk about halfway up the hill. Then I just continued walking along the top and down through the entire second mile. I was sweating like crazy and my legs were hurting a lot. I was even starting to convince myself that I should just turn around and head back.

But then I found a little bit of backbone. I said to myself, no, I’m going the full 6 miles even if I walk the whole thing. The run had been completely pathetic up to that point, quite possibly my worst first two miles ever. But committing to going the full distance changed something in me. I started to jog, then suddenly I was running. I was going pretty fast. It was slightly downhill, so it should be fast, and it was. I finished mile 3 under 9 minutes. I walked for a bit while I got my first drink of water (and poured a bunch on my head and back), then got right back to running. I ran almost another 2 miles.

I might have continued running all the way back, but as I got to the bottom of Palacio Del Mar, the road was closed. Not just the road, but the bike path (that I was on) too. They were resurfacing everything. There was hot oil and fresh tar. It didn’t look good. I saw a path down the main road (a private street that I’m normally not allowed to use) and convinced the road crew to let me jump their blockades and run to the end of the road and up onto the concrete sidewalk at the end so I wouldn’t have to re-route back up (which would have added an extra 2 miles to my trip). They agreed and I took off before they could change their minds.

But I lost my rhythm. The truth is that I was probably going to lose my rhythm anyway because the run changes from slightly downhill to very much uphill right after that, but I’m still blaming the construction, since that’s what ripped me out of the great breathing/running pattern I had going.

So I walked a lot of that final hill home, but I managed to pull out an almost acceptable average pace for the whole run.

Here is my scale for grading each mile and my overall average pace.

under 8 minutes (hasn’t happened in real life, only once on the treadmill): Smokin’ Fast
8 to 9 minute mile: Fast
9 to 10 minute mile: Good
10 to 11 minute mile: Acceptable
11 to 12 minute mile: Slow
over 12 minutes (still happening way too often): Walking

My running has really gone downhill. I can barely run more than a mile at a time without breaking down and walking. Today I once again proved that I can run, and that my body is still in control of my mind. I need to get back to sucking it up and just running.

My one “fast” mile (the only mile I actually ran) came while losing elevation. And you thought I was kidding when I said my running has really gone downhill.