Turn your rut into a groove.

pm--3.5 I had to get my confidence back, so I eased into it. Treadmill miles--1 warm, 2 @ MP, and .5 cool. Felt pretty good despite the pit stop at the beginning. 

I was pretty dehydtrated yesterday. 1 maybe 2 trips to the WC to get rid of something the color of apple juice. 

am--6.5 Ran up into the desert from Middleton park. Twas fun. Ran up w/ Willie and Casey then back w/ the girls. Felt a ton better today. Note to self: stay hydrated during the hot summer training. 

pm--6.5 I basicaly suck. Slept through the alarm. Missed practice. Felt like a heel. But I tried to make up for it w/ a speed workout. Warm-up--1 mile--followed by 12 x 400 @ 1:29 w/ 1:00 (pretty much 200 meters) for recovery between and 1-mile cool-down. Ended up being right around 50 minutes. Tough workout.

This is my first firm commitment to my marathon plan. We'll see how it works.

am--6 Barefoot warm-up and parkway run. The run felt pretty good, and the pace was pretty steady. My hamstrings are a little tight from the hamster running yesterday. Practice was sparsely attended. Perhaps it's the holiday weekend. 

am--7 Barefoot warm-up, run into Hell's Hole w/ Rob and Cowboy, barefoot striders. The pace was moderate for most of the run. Some of the boys are working for varsity spots. 

am--6 Ran to Sandburg's Pond and then to the soccer field for some barefoot miles on the grass. I really love these days at practice. 

pm--9 Hit the TM @ .5 % incline to run some MP miles. Started with 1-mile warm-up, hit 7 miles @ 7:19 per mile pace, then cooled down for 1 mile. This run gave me some great confidence. The pace required focus but was groovable. The tv images for just over an hour were LeBron, LeBron, LeBron.

am--6.25 Mustang Pass out, Power Line back. Love the trail. 

am--11.75 A few neighbors and I drove out to Kolob this morning to run the Wildcat Canyon Trail. This is the same trail you use to access The Subway. It also connects to the West Rim Trail. We ran from the trail head to the West Rim Trail and back. The trail is beautiful single track and is very runnable. It begins in the pines and works its way into the oaks. The temperature was perfect, probably due to the elevation. We started at ~6550 and hit a high point at ~7000. It took me a minute to get used to the slightly thinner air. The highest I've hit down home is ~3850. Accummulated elevation ~1300. I would definitely run this again. The only downside is the drive. Great way to end a week. 

pm--5.5 A long day after a longer day. I was ~15 "en route" from home to Madison, WI. First flight was canceled, so I connected to Detroit. Silver lining--I got to watch Fabregas pass Iniesta into the World Cup winner. He should've played more. He made Spain dangerous. Anyway, back to Madison. Today was the first full day of my summer residency. I got to the dorms around 5:30 and decided to hit my old faithful. 

I can honestly say that I would fly to Madison just to run this loop for a week. From the dorms, I followed the shoreline of Lake Mendota to Picnic Point, extended it to Raymer's Cove, then follwed Lake Mendota Drive back to the Lake Shore Path. I triple love this run. All but about 1/2 mile of it is runnable on dirt. The Lake Shore path and much of the road around Madison has a worn dirt shoulder, perfect for running. Utah take note. The rest of the trail through the trees seems to be covered in a light mulch made of soil and wood chips. It's golden. I'm going to try and hit this run every day I'm out here.

pm--6.75 WiSCONsin is hot. (The emphasis is for other phonetically slow folks like myself). When the sun is out and the humidity is above 50%, it gets toasty. Not like 105 in the desert but toasty. The humidity, however, is a new variable for me. I would take it over the high desert heat any day.

Yesterday I didn't get out. Sleep caught up w/ me. But today, walking home w/ a headache, I saw UW's nationally ranked crew rowing on Mendota and just had to get out. So i medicated and took off. 

The route was from the western barricade at the boathouse to Raymer's Cove, via Picnic point. Mostly beautiful single track. Pure heaven. The only down side was the amount of perspiration that I built up on the run. My clothes must've weighed 5-6 pounds. Good run. This should be the 1 I hit at least once a day while I'm out here.

am--13.5 Went w/ a classmate who is training for a half marathon. We went down through the UW Arboretum and looped around to Lake Monona, up to the terrace, which I've heard was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, down State and back home. The pace was easy, and the run felt good. This week has been weird. I've had a hard time adjusting my sleep patterns and also difficulty juggling school, school work, socializing, and running. I might get out to the heavenly single track this evening. We'll see. 

It's my daughters birthday today, and I'm missing her. 

pm--8 Headed out w/ every intention of running my dream trail along the shores of Lake Mendota but ended up running into a couple of old-school trail runners--Al, Tom, and Louis, the dog. They took me exploring into the Eagle Heights Woods. I'd never been there before. It was a nice chatty run at an ultra pace. Tom is heading out this weekend to do some 50 in Minnesota. Runners are the coolest. 

pm--7 Did some more exploring in the Lake Shore Preserve. I actually found some nice climbs in the Eagle Heights Woods up to the Indian Mounds. 

pm--7 Interesting run tonight. Last night, my cohort had a parting dinner and get-together at music at the square. It was Beatles night, so that was cool. Needless, to say my run suffered to non-existence. When I woke up this morning it was pouring rain. So I hoped that it would calm down, so a later run would be possible. 

It did calm down, and I went out on the heavenly Lake Shore Preserve. A few miles in, I realized I might be running in the middle of a good old-fashion midwest thunder storm. Then I was. Soon it turned into a crazy downpour. And something strange happened. 

The last 2 weeks I have succumbed to the suspect habit of using shampoo as a body wash, and, every few days, it tripled as a laundry soup in the shower. I would wash my running garb to save a few bucks. (The washers and dryers are pay-as-you-go). Well. long story short, apparently, I hadn't been rinsing out my clothes well enough because about 15 minutes into the downpour my shoes started to sud. Suddenly, I was running on bubbles. Kind of funny.

I finished up the run with a quicker mile. The combination of rain and foliage reminded me a lot of Fiji. That was nice. I was saturated at the end of the run, but I realized that the folks back home would trade a run like this in a heartbeat for the hot summer runs they're hitting at this point in the year.

pm--8.25 Some TM miles w/ ~4 @ MP. The power went out for a minute in the middle, so I got a quick drink. Working on recovering from a few weeks of tired legs and overeating. 

am--4 It's good to get back and run w/ the kids. Warmed-up w/ .5 barefoot then ran 3 x 1 min. and 4 x 30 sec. hills. Felt pretty good. 

pm--5.75 Easy recovery miles on the TM. 

pm--3 XC camp @ Pine Lake. I really, really struggled on this one. Too soon after dinner. 

am--5 Out around Pine Lake and back. 

pm--3 Up the Powell Point road and back. 

am--5 Out and back on the main road w/ the girls. They're great. 

pm--2 Around in Tevas and Levis.  Missed out on saving a horse.

am--13.5 Drove about 7 out on the Great Western Trail, ran back to camp, and then ran back out to the car w/ the kids. I wasn't expecting this, but it was great. 

pm--4.5 Every once in a while, my father-in-law decides to buy the fam running shoes. He bought me some new Brooks. I had to try them out, so I hit the TM. The shoes felt great, and I hit 2 MP miles @ 1% incline.