Bret

PM - easy 6 on the treadmill at lunch.

PM - on the treadmill - 6 x 600 at 5k pace with core/strength routine between each rep - 2 mile warm up and cool down. 

Read an interesting article on the Contador case - fascinating discussion on the science of blood doping and masking and lengths professional riders/team will go to. Interesting point made is that the motivation for doping may not be in order to prevail over the opponent as much as it is to avoid falling behind others who are (or are at least suspected of) doing the same: http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2012/behind-scenes-contador-cas-hearing-michael-ashenden

Oh yeah - easy 7.5 miles outside in the summer-like (86 degree) heat.  Did a few striders at the end.  Little sore from the workout yesterday but overall felt decent.

PM - on the treadmill - 4 miles easy to moderate, then 3 miles at about 12 seconds faster than MP - then 1 mile easy.  Felt better on the faster miles than on the first 4 easier ones.

PM - lunchtime - easy 6 mile recovery run followed by 8 striders.  Felt ok today - the weather is ever so slightly cooler too - so that was nice.

AM - nice morning - ran over to the high school track for a warm up of about 2.5 miles then did 3 x 800 @ and average of 2:49 - Satisfied with the workout - but did not felt great or like I was floating through the effort - enjoyed an easy cool down and made waffles when I got back home.  Plan to head up to Brooksville later, as I have a friend doing a 50 mile race "Fools Run" - on the Croom Trail. 

AM - easy 6 miles before work.  Felt fine - not great - but fine.

AM - nice solid confirming workout this morning on the track.  Nothing long or crazy fast.  Easy 2 miles then 4 x 400 @ 5k pace with 90 sec rest then 2 x 200 with a 200 jog/walk rest.  Ended up running faster than 5k on the 400s (87, 82, 79, 77) and the 200's were at 36 and 35.  Body felt good.  Confirmed that I am reasonably fit, not sick or injured and ready to roll.  Flight leaves later this afternoon for Paris.

Travel day - arrived in Paris around 8:30 am local time - did not sleep much on the flight and so took a couple of short naps during the day between walking/sightseeing with Tracy.  Easily walked about 3.5 miles over the course of the day.  No proper actual run.

AM - got about 7.5 hours of solid sleep last night - and so went out this morning for a light sightseeing run. From my hotel at the Place de la Concorde - up the Champs Ellysees to the Arc du Triomphe and back down the Champs - over to the the banks of the river Seine - along the Quai - which is mostly cobbles and not easy to run smoothly.  Kept me from pushing the pace.  Stopped for a few photos.  Weather was crisp and cool - in the mid 40's.  Felt really heavy and jet-lagged.  Headache and my legs were leaden.  Good thing that I have a few days before the race to acclimate.

AM - an easy 2 miles around the Tuileries - hard packed soil and crushed rock surface - with a few striders.  Weather was good - bit overcast and in the mid 40's.  Tomorrow calls for about the same at race time.  Felt ok - wish I felt great - but can't have everything.  Nothing is injured, I am not sick and I plan to stay off my feet as much as possible today.  Have had a nice couple of days visiting my daughter here.  Good amount of strolling and sightseeing.  Went out to Versailles yesterday. 

AM - Paris time - I had a decent effort of execution on a race plan, but the time did not translate.  I kind of expected that, because in the weeks leading up to the race I noticed my HR when at MRP was a good bit higher than I can comfortably cover the distance.   My early training was delayed because of an injury - I think I could have used another month of training to realistically have been ready. 

In my race plan, I just decided to cap my effort at my highest aerobic HR and hope that it would translate to my goal pace per mile.  I have done that in my last 4 races - and I have come pretty close to my goal time in each race.  Unfortunately, that did not happen today.  However I executed the race plan perfectly (with a couple of exceptions (water stops) - will discuss below) - but the time was just not what had hoped it would be.  Ended up hitting nearly every mile at between 7:05 and 7:10 for most of the race and was strong enough to finish with 7:02's for the last two miles. 

Paris is a difficult race in some respects.  The course in on very old roads, many of which are cobblestone.  Also, there are lots of turns and three tunnels with sharp ups and downs going in and coming out of them.  It was quite windy today too, with gusts in the 25 mph range and seemingly in every direction.  In addition, there are only water stops every 5k and no gatorade at all.  They have one station at mile 21 for Powerade.  They don't hand out cups of water, instead they are small platic bottles with lids.  You have to open the bottles in some cases.  And, they are only on one side of the street.

I missed the first 5k water stop as I was on the wrong side of the street and could not navigate through the runners to get to it.  At the 15k stop, I decided to use a gel and to put an electrolite tablet in the water bottle.  Not easy to do whilst running with gloves on.  So, I ended up stopping and refueling that way - which cost me about 45 secs of time.  I did that 4 different times on the course - so my overall time was a bit inflated because of that. 

In any event, the rest of the race went reasonably well - but I just never felt like I was a groove or comfortable the whole race.  In addition, just knowing I was slower than planned for most of the race was a bit of a negative mental thing I kept reliving at each mile split.

The race itself is pretty cool with beautiful scenery and essentially every major sight/monument is seen during the course of the race.  I also began to like the kilometer markers - even though there are 42 of them, they go by much faster than the mile markers (which they only sporadically mark in the race).

I would recommend it as a fun race - but probably not one to do if you want to PR - of course today I understand there was a course record of 2:05:11 - so what do I know.

Anyway - that's the report.  Heading out now for some lunch at a quaint cafe.

Au revior.

No formal run today - spent some time wandering around Paris - went out to Montmartre and climbed the steps to Sacre Couer - which is pretty steep and a lot of steps the day after a race - but as the day wore on, my legs felt just about back to normal.  Couple more days here visiting with my daughter then we head home on Thursday.

PM - 5 easy miles around Paris - over to the Eifel Tower and around Des Invalides - and back to the hotel.  I think the walking around I did the last couple of days including a day trip yesterday to Chartres really was good for my legs, because they felt almost normal.  Cold and rainy - got to wear my new bright orange Asics wind jacket with the Paris Marthon emblem on it.  Heading home tomorrow.  We've had a nice visit with my daughter and relaxed on this trip.

Travel day - Long trip home from Paris through Miami back to Tampa.  Extremely travel weary - and half sick - went to bed at 8 pm.

AM - with about 9.5 hours of sleep - I felt good enough to do an easy 3 miles this morning.  72 degrees and 91% humidity.  After 8 days of 40's with wind and rain in Paris - nothing could feel better than a shirtless run in Florida weather at 6 am. 

PM - lunchtime - did 3 more easy miles with the vibrams - to make sure I went slowly.  Steamy out.  Felt really quite good. 

AM - easy 8.5 miles.  Quite humid this morning - some low pressure system with storms in the Gulf are supposed to provide for a rainy day today - but nothing yet.  Was probably a bit longer than I planned to go - and could feel that my glycogen stores are not quite back at capacity in my legs. 

AM - 3 miles easy before church.  Then 1 mile of swimming in the afternoon.  Seems I have been recruited to a relay team for the St. Anthony's triathlon next week - and of the three runners - I am the least poor at swimming - so I will do the swim, Ken will bike and Richie will run.  Great that I have a whole week to be ready.  Heh. 

PM - lunchtime - run around Carillon Office Park - quite breezy and unseasonably cool outside today.  Little sore from yesterday's swim.  Not sure why, but I dropped in a MP mile in this workout - probably just enjoying the last cool days until October.

PM - went for a swim at lunchtime at the North Shore Pool.  Could not ask for nicer weather.  Got in about 1600 yards.  Will try to get a run in after work.

PM - 6 untimed easy miles after work.

PM - lunchtime run of about 7 miles around the Carillon Office -- did a spin up and down a few of the parking structures.  Quads still have a lingering vague deadness to them post-marathon or could be from the swimming? 

PM - after two days of business travel that did not allow for any training - I jumped on the treadmill this afternoon for an easy 8 miles.  Heading down to the St. Anthony's Tri check-in with Richie and Ken for our relay team.  Staying at Richie's house tonight in St. Pete to allow an extra hour or so of sleep before the race.  I have swum just twice this week and before that I think I may have done some swimming in January and February.  Obviously my preparation cannot suggest anything but mediocre expectations.  Ken has been riding a good bit and Richie is nearly fit for running so, I think they will be good to go for the second two legs.  If I can just not do too poorly...

Race Report of sorts - St. Anthony's Triathlon - Olympic Distance Tri - Relay.  Had a pretty good time today.  Got up early at Richie's house in St. Pete and headed down to the start.  The swim route was new this year, so I was a bit thrown-off by having to basically go in the opposite direction than I am familiar with - and having no sense of pace - I just swam to what felt right and tried not to go off course in the open water swim in the bay.  Water temps were nice at 78 degrees - and although there were some swells - it really wasn't bad.  Ample amount of kicking and bumping during the race resulted in one heel kick to my eye and my google filled with salt water - but nothing too awful.  Odd water (as opposed to beach) start had us treading water for 5 mins before the gun.  Had a very pedestrian effort on the time - of a little over 36 mins for 1500 meters - for which I have no explanation.  I felt good and comfortable and thought I was swimming quite well in fact.  Alas, two years ago, on a different course in the full event, I swam over 6 mins faster. I guess I should have expected to go slower with little to no training and just coming off of the Paris Marathon 2 weeks ago, but just not that slow. 

Ken had a nice bike leg averaging 20.6 mph over the 40 k's and Richie had a very good 10k run of 37:50 which gave us 4th Place in the old men's relay competition (Male Masters).  Our nearest competitor in 3rd was over 9 mins ahead of us (so even if I swam to what I thought I was able to do, we still would not have placed any higher).  Interestingly, when I did this event in 2010 individually my time was 2:31 and in this competition in a relay  today- our time was 2:30.  Obviously, my overall contribution to the effort was the poorest - but we had a fun time nonetheless. 

Had to run about a mile to get to my car after the swim to get to church on time - hence the 1 mile in the log.

AM - easy 3 miles this morning - as I resume normal training mode.  Easing back into it.

PM - 7.25 miles at lunch with Richie around Carillon and Feathersound - Did a "post-mortem" of the relay tri from yesterday.  Plenty warm today in the upper 80's.  If he did not ask me to run, I probably would have stayed inside on the treadmill.