taper!

It's about time!
Monday: 0.
Tues: 2ish miles, plus both jobs. I was training someone during the 2nd one, so it was about 9 hrs on my feet, and then I was revved up and could only get about 4-5 hrs of sleep again.
Wed: 16.21 miles, 8.12 with the dog in the morning, and 8.09 or whatever with speedwork in the evening.

What a nice day to run. I can't even complain that it was hot enough for me to smell gross...it was nice to be in short sleeves and shorts. The dog and I took it easy, and we were on the same wavelength too, which was even more relaxing. Plus, he didn't have to go poo at all, so the run was pretty much an unbroken stream of semi-consciousness. I thought mainly about loosening up, keeping things light, etc, etc.

And I thought about dogs. We passed at least 3 other dogs. I should start keeping track. One was loose and not responsive to voice commands--yeah, it was a small cute thing, all the more reason not to let it loose on a bike path with the spandex squad out in full zipping force! The owner said sorry but we just kept running before we could get bogged down by butt-sniffing and painful insincerity: "Oh, that's ok." It's not ok. I have seen just a handful of reliably voice-commanded dogs. My dog isn't one of them, either, which is why he stays on a leash when we're on paths. We're working on it, and sometimes he gets to run around with other dogs off-lead, but not just randomly. And I doubt I'll ever let him off-lead near traffic, even foot/bike traffic. It wouldn't be fair to everyone else.

Anyway, I've gotten into the habit of just shrugging and keeping going when we are slowed down by someone's disobedient dog, 90% of the time. Maybe that's rude but it irks me so much to have someone else's dog pull their way into our space when we're out running on one of the paths, and then to be dealt such an automatic airy 'sorry', like it happens all the time. Hmmmm....?
To the owner's credit, though, when we passed the dog again on our way back, it was on a leash. The leash still stretched much of the way across the path, but this is progress. :)

Oh, I might as well get this rant over with...it's been brewing for a few months: yes, Obedience School teaches you to heel your dog on your LEFT side, but when on paths and so forth, it really makes much more sense to put your dog on your RIGHT side. That way, when something interesting comes across on the opposite side of the path, your dog can be stopped by your leg/body, lol, instead of stretching the leash across the centre and potentially tripping someone. and, no, it's not too confusing for the dog to switch sides. Mine accepted it within minutes. Plus, most of the dogs on the paths aren't heeling properly to begin with, so there's no mold to break. Next week's rant: gentle leaders/Halti's don't really mix with flexi-leashes. That's combining a device that is supposed to stop pulling with a device that encourages it. Common sense, people!!!

Anyway, the 2nd dog was well behaved, the third was not. And we still had a good run.

Phew! I thought I'd left all the angst with the speedwork. It was 3000M repeats, but just 2 of them because we're tapering. oh, yeah! I was still in shorts and a tshirt, but it was starting to cool off, which was pretty refreshing. My stomach was acting up again, though....it's been touchy for the last few days, but started hurting a few hours before speedwork.

However, I did not crap my britches, and I think I've finally cracked this nut: my gut hurts due to diverted blood flow. This is not news. But what this means is that all this blood is going to my legs, because my body knows that something's cooking, and it needs to divert resources. And so it actually does! in short, stomach cramps are now a GOOD sign. WOW!

Because I nailed those repeats. They were too fast, but I got with a couple of faster people, and I knew I was running faster than I should, but I couldn't help myself. It was a good night to run. I just kept telling myself to stay light, stay straight, keep going. It helps that I've run several 2-mile time trials in the past: 3000M is pretty much the same clip. This was much less excrutiating than a time trial, but I still had that sort of rhythm on the brain.

Anyway, my repeats:
12:36
12:26

So, not the fastest I've run at that sort of distance, but what surprises me is how more reasonable that sort of pace feels.

In fact, it feels like I'm peaking, actually peaking. Knock wood! This is like before my 2nd marathon, when I ran a 3 mile 'tempo' run in 20:20ish...all of a sudden, there was more gas in the tank. Very encouraging, especially since the subsequent marathon was a considerable improvement over the first. I'll try to rein it in, though, so that I don't go flat. Just 2.5 more weeks to go...