CIM, week -7

44.11 miles.

As hoped, I finally did the full 10X800 Yassos. Holy crap that was one of the hardest workouts I've ever done. I'd hoped for 3:45s, but I averaged 3:51s. Supposedly, this is a good high-end estimate of the fastest marathon I could run right now. I'd be *thrilled* with a 3:51. I'm not sure I'm ready to try to hit that, but I'm pleased with the idea that it's an option.

Of course, despite my 44, the training schedule called for 51.

Yesterday I *had* to finish our taxes as it was the last day to send them in after filing for an extension. Unfortunately, due to ridiculousness with E's company's 1065 that I discovered last weekend, what should have been a simple fill-in-one-remaining-blank on our 1040 exercise took me from 8 AM to 12 PM.

Next year, we are committed to hiring a CPA. I sacrificed at least 4 weekend days to our taxes for 2010. Historically, I've hesitated spending the money to have someone else do our taxes. It isn't rocket science, it's just arcane and takes a ton of time. Generally, I hate to pay people to do things I know I can do -- especially if it's a good thing for me to have a very solid understanding of what's being done.

But, given that I haven't had a weekend where I didn't have to work for my business or E's business in at least 4 months, at this point, E and I agreed, we need to actively offload the least profitable weekend work I've been doing because it gets in the way of things I want to do.

Back to the run -- come noon yesterday, no way could I head out in the heat and do 8 miles without food. I could snack and head out, but then I'd miss my only opportunity for weekend brunch with E (which is one of my favorite events of the week). So, while I enjoyed Hwe Dup Bob and E noshed Sushi, I struggled to find a way to fit my 8 miles in the afternoon, after digesting, but before an early dinner with friends.

Finally, I admitted that I had enough work, gardening, running, and social obligations for the day that something was going to have to take the hit. Winner? The run. Plus, I wanted to join E for some delicious sake with lunch. I did. It was lovely. And gardening in the sun post-sake felt great.

That's the main lesson I've learned this training cycle. Between traveling, work, social obligations, family, and general life, my running often takes a hit. I've modified at least one run per week for the last 7 weeks, and I've flat out skipped 6 workouts in the last 7 weeks. Several of them I've replaced with walking miles, which is better than nothing, but in terms of strictly following a training plan, I suck.

This lack of discipline in running is not new for me. I wrote about it back in 2008, a few weeks before I set my still-standing PR for a 10K and a few months before setting my annual mileage record of 1391.38 miles in one year.

This year, despite blowing off and rescheduling workouts on a weekly basis, I'm still on track to kill the annual mileage record. I'm currently at 1304, so as long as I stay healthy and actually complete CIM, this year will be a new high-water mark. I'm hoping that the increased mileage and pseudo-committed training will bear some PR fruit as well, but only time will tell.

Finally, after the rest day, today's 16 was great. I got a late 10 AM start (2 cups of coffee and an old-fashioned powerbar pre-race), but headed up the foothills to a local junior college, and made myself do a mile on the track at goal race pace, before running down the hills home.

With 3 miles to go, my Amphipod was empty. So I ducked into the CVS to fill it with cold Gatorade.

I'm not going to lie, I really wanted to stay in front of the fridge (yeah, I steamed up the door, just standing there). But, the looks I was getting from the other patrons made me realize I was very stinky. Ooops. It was hot today (83F when I got home). And I'm a sweaty, stinky runner after 13 miles in the sun.

The checker was not thrilled with the sopping wet $20 bill I pulled from my Amphipod pocket and he was very careful not to touch *anything* I handed to him, scanning the Gatorade bottle from as far away as possible with his light gun, and going so far as to grab the garbage can and bring it up to eye level so I could throw out my Powerbar Energy Blast trash.

Take home?

I'm hard-core enough to be disgustingly gross to the CVS staff and patrons, but not remotely hard-core enough to strictly follow the high-end of the Hanson Brooks Marathon Training Plan (for non-elites).