Instant lunch

 I have been progressing well.  I was fairly convinced the pinched nerve in the back was the end of me.  My left leg is still a bit numb, but not enough to impinge training.

 I have simplified training.   I cover 6.3 miles 6 days a week and the long run Saturday.   Put in 55.1 miles last week.   On Tuesday and Thursday I light out on a tempo run.  Generally 2-4 miles and keep the weekly tempo total to 6 miles for now.  Because there is no pressure to hit certain times the effort is challenging, but worth it.  I actually averaged 8:37 on the last 4 miler.

 I am also working on weight reduction.   The goal is at least 172.  Started at 185 and at 181 now I see a difference.  I try and get in most of the calories alloted.  If I go to low then I'm about ready to go back to the Way of the Fist Track Club.  

 Bought a new pair of Hoka Clifton's.  I like them and all, but the 13's are definitely a clown show. Managed 11:35 pace in them for 17.2 on 50/50 trail/pavement.

And away I did ride

 Marty you big dog, nice run at the Mesa Marathon.  8:14 miles is pretty stiff for a 63 year old.  Loaded up and truckin'.  Nice work!

 Was please today with my 16.2 miler at 11:36 pace.  All on pavement.   No walking today.  Been having a decent week.  Two things stick out.  The first is when things go well early on one tends to want to set big time goals.  Stand aside can't you see we got the ballgame on here goals.  I just need to finish Ice Age under 12 hours and not perish.  Take it easy bromotron.  The second is when one decides to stay with long distance running later in life, you have to be willing to find the well oiled machine feeling sometimes an hour or so into the effort.  Pack a lunch.  This ain't no school dance.

 Years ago when I laced up a few times for marathons, I became aware of something that is difficult to manage or recognize.  If one is well trained and you start to tire, the brain over rides the system and wants to increase effort.  As if when you tire, the performance is ebbing so obviously more effort is required to maintain the same pace.  Now this might be truer for 5000 meter races, but not true for longer such distances.  My experience has been do not increase effort.  Stay where you are at and manage mile to mile.  I found the pace basically stays the same and you don't have to start this part of the sequence until much later when the slicks are starting to spin.

 That's how it went today.  I grew fatigued, but just stayed the same and in fact told myself to relax and go easy.  What happens many times is I am running 30 seconds faster a mile at the end when it feels like 30 seconds slower.  This is related to the title of the blog.  This is what subconsciously happens.  How far to the barn.

Big boys don't cry

 After the Super Bowl seemed like a good time to concentrate on Ice Age training.   Time to get off the hot fudge and mashed potato diet.  The first thing was go to calorie count.   Not worried about opinions, it seems to work for me.  I've noticed how food tastes much better when eating less.  Looking for better calorie options happens as well.  My challenge is the evening as a good 60% of my calories can be consumed. 

 If I can get to the low 170 range would be stellar.   Just trying to be reasonable.   That's about 1 pound a week.  Honestly, half the loss will be in the first couple weeks, then it will get down to a half pound a week.  I've only done this a couple times and I like this because many of the same foods are consumed in smaller portions.  Sometimes I'll skip a meal so I can add on to another.   Like numbers people do is you make it a game.

 On Tuesday during my jog I decided to air it out for 1 mile.  I cranked up the big engine after 5 miles of easy running.  Not ignorant of how it works I took the rpm's up to the point were you feel like you'll go anaerobic.  Maybe this is called threshold pace, I don't know, but it allows you to set the Kentucky windage for the distance.  It was like old times experiencing the effort.  There is a bit of pain involved and you allow the brain to contrive ways to battle this.  The final result was an 8:41 mile.

 I'm not sure how pain management works.  What factors or influences help us put it aside. Recently I went back through some old clippings as the purge continues and came across this again.

 Mohawk High's cross country team defeated host Laurel 20-38 yesterday despite a school record-setting performance by Senior Dave Dehart of Laurel.

 Dehart toured the three-mile Green Meadows course in 15:20.

 I can honestly say I did tour the course on that day.  Perhaps one of the best runs I ever had.  But until a couple years ago this was largely forgotten.  My last dual meet run.  After graduating in the Spring there were too many influences in life to keep me in order in relation to running.  That's okay.  It motivates me a little bit to this day.  I'm just a running shaman slash bum.  Perhaps I need to lean on cranking up the big engine again.