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Weight this morning: 155.2. Five pounds away from my lowest point weight-wise since I started this blog, fifteen pounds from goal weight. Officially my body mass index is 24.3--"normal" range is 18.5 to 24.9, so I'm on the high end of the not-overweight range, but the BMI tables don't really account for the fact that men usually have more muscle mass than women. Body fat estimate using hip, neck, and various waist measurements is 18.74%.

Ran 6.2 miles, 1:00:16, pace 9:43, avg HR 134, max 150, splits 9:58, 9:22, 9:36, 9:55, 9:51, 9:35, and a 9:47 pace for the last .2. Biked 24.31 miles, 1:45:43, avg speed 13.8, avg HR 119, max 150. It's really hard to get my heart rate above 150 on the bike any more. I rode out of the saddle all the way up a really long hill and 150 was my top HR. I'm slightly ahead of my weight loss pace of 2 years ago. Then I was 158 on Sat. Sept. 6, eventually plateauing in the low 150s by the end of September; this morning I was 156.2, and am hoping to be below 156 tomorrow morning. I ran the 5k that's this weekend in 23:49 in '08, and 24:12 in '09. It will be interesting to see how much I can beat those times by this time. My goal is to be under 23 minutes.

Hope everything is okay and that you had a nice visit with your husband. Have you found out anything about your knee? Hopefully it's nothing serious and you will still be able to do your marathon on Oct. 31.

Weight this morning: 156.2. Ran 8.01 miles, 1:16:44, pace 9:35, avg HR 134, max 152, splits 9:38, 9:40, 9:34, 9:21, 9:13, 9:48, 9:52, 9:30. Played 3 games of racquetball and practiced about 20 minutes.

Bike ride, either 30.91 or 30.81 miles depending on whether I believe my bike odometer or my Garmin, time of 2:29:27. Average HR was around 109, max 150 (omitting bad data from early in the ride). Even going up what's probably the toughest hill in the county, I could only get my heart rate up to 150, so I guess that's a good sign about cardiovascular fitness. Ran 6 easy miles in 1:05:33, pace 10:53, avg HR about 125 and max about 143. Not sure what to do about the screwy heart rate readings the first mile or two. For the week, 61.72 miles on the bike and 25.26 miles running.

Ran 4.2 miles in 39:09, pace 9:19, splits of 9:38, 9:02, 9:45, 9:15, and pace of 7:25 for the last .2. Heart rate data were completely screwed up.

Took yesterday off. Thursdays are really busy this semester, and my legs needed a little more rest anyway. Today: Ran 8.06 miles in 1:16:29, pace 9:29, avg HR 134, max 146. Splits were 9:28, 9:37, 9:56, 9:21, 9:28, 8:58, 9:18, and 9:42. For the month of August, I had about 117 miles running and 193 miles of biking, as well as a few thousand meters swimming and roughly an hour on the elliptical machines. Not a great deal of weight-lifting, but pretty good month for aerobic working out. Only have a measly 3 pounds or so weight loss to show for it, but at least I'm in better condition. We'll see whether it pays off with breaking 23 minutes for a hillier 5k course next weekend than the ones I've run sub-23 on before.

Tues. afternoon: 3 miles, 30:59, pace 10:19, avg HR 129, max 153. Just trying to rest my legs from Sunday's effort. This morning I ran another 4 miles, 40:52, pace 10:12, avg HR 128, max 139. This afternoon: 21.81 mile bike ride, 1:47:30, avg HR 104 and max 130.

Weight this morning: 156.8. So, no weight lost over the past week. Not that this is a bad weight for me, I'm well within the "normal" weight range for my height now, and more than 40 pounds less than I was 3 1/2 years ago, but I think my ideal weight (assuming no changes in muscle mass) would be about 140. I ran about 30 miles last week, so I guess I need to do at least 40, or some combination of running and something else that adds up to that amount of exercise, to keep losing fat.

Easy ride, 9 miles, pace 12.1 mph, HR 105, max 145.

Only a couple of days ago, I found out that there was going to be an informal half-marathon here today. The organizers are planning to make it an official event next year, but this time they just threw together what was more of a timed group run than an official race. Since I was already signed up for yesterday's 5k, I wasn't sure I'd do this, but eventually I figured what the heck, I can always take it easy if my legs don't feel good. So, I did my first half marathon this morning, and it went pretty well, especially considering that it was an extremely hilly course. The course was just a wee bit short, 13.05 miles, and my time was 1:59:46, so I achieved my goal of breaking 2 hours. (I suppose I should thank the organizers for giving me a free 20th of a mile! ) Overall pace was 9:10, average HR was 142 and max was 159. Splits were: 8:34, 8:37, 9:47, 9:09, 9:18, 9:28, 9:42, 9:46, 9:21, 8:59, 9:04, 8:51, 8:50, and the last .05 was at a 7:45 pace. It's amazing the difference in the fields for the 5k race in Indy I ran yesterday and this race. I placed 22 out of 166 in Indy yesterday, not because I ran much faster than I usually do but because it was a pretty slow field. Today I was 35th out of 50, even though I ran what to me was a pretty good time. We have a lot of good runners here in Bloomington anyway, but for whatever reason nobody who showed up to this race was slow.

5k race this morning. Nice, flat course along the canal in downtown Indy, so if my asthma hadn't decided to act up a bit this morning, I may well have set a PR. As it was, between the flat course and the hard workouts starting to get me in good shape, I had my best time of the summer, 22:49.3. Placed 22nd overall out of 166 and 3rd out of 7 males in my age group (45-49). Guess I should have stuck around for the awards ceremony! I forgot to start my monitor when the race began so I don't have heart rate data for the first mile (not that that's been accurate lately anyway), but best guess is my average HR was about 160, max of 168. Mile splits were 7:14, 7:24 and 7:30, so I guess that leaves 0:41.3 for the last tenth. This afternoon: 1000 meter swim.

Friday: Ran a slow, easy 2 miles (21:04, avg HR around 125) just to test out my legs. Muscles just under the tendons on the outsides of my knees were pretty sore the last couple of days. Went for a swim later in the day, 1000 meters.

It may depend on which one you get. I have a Stick and I don't like it because it's too flexible and doesn't press down nearly as hard as having my whole body weight on a foam roller. TP Massage Balls are pretty good as well. The one thing I don't like about foam rollers is that rolling your calves is basically an upper-body workout because you have to support almost your entire body weight on your arms for however long you're rolling. My shoulders are sore by the time I've done my calves thoroughly, and then I have to do my shoulders!

Yeah, injuries are a major bummer. A lot of times with knee pain like that that comes out of nowhere, though, it turns out to be nothing serious and almost as mysteriously goes away. I was having some pain on the outside of my left knee a few weeks ago, and after a few occasions of rolling out my IT band on my foam roller (a wondrous invention for massaging away minor aches and pains, if you don't have one), it went away. So although I think it was an overuse injury caused by something being off about my cleat position and/or saddle position on the bike, the cause of the knee pain was that something was tight farther up my leg. Of course, it could be anything from something really minor that will go away soon like mine to something really major. There seem to be a ton of different things that can cause knee pain, so definitely have a doctor check it out pretty soon. Runner's World's Web site has an article on knee pain that lists some of the causes and where in your knee it would be hurting for a particular injury, so that would be worth checking out.

Weight was at 156.6 this morning. So, probably 6/10 of a pound lost since before my long run on Sunday. Bike ride was just shy of 15 miles this afternoon (don't have accurate distance data on my Garmin due to turning it off at one point, and I don't feel like getting up to look at the bike odometer). Time was about 1:15, average HR was about 114 and max was 159.

Tempo run. 1-mile warmup, 11:11. Heart rate: No idea, probably between 120 and 125. Even after making sure the chest strap was tight enough and that the sensors were moist, I can't get accurate readings for the first mile. Anyway, the rest of the run was 5 miles in 40:37, around an 8:07 pace. My goal pace according to the training plan from Runner's World that I'm very loosely following was 8:16, so I beat that quite handily, and this is by far the fastest pace I've run 5 miles in. Splits were 8:17 (avg HR 143, max 169), 7:54 (avg HR 150, max 158), 8:11 (avg HR 155, max 172), 8:22 (avg HR 163, max 175), and 7:50 (avg HR 161, max 172).

Weight this morning: 155.6. First breakthrough on weight I've had in almost 2 months--I weighed 157.2 in late June and hovered between that and 160 until now. I'm a little ahead of where I was at this time in '08, when I eventually got down to 150. Last year I wasn't as successful at shedding body fat, only getting to 160, so it feels good to get past that. Went to get a bike fitting today. Set me back $150, but I think it will be worth it--there's no reason why biking the amount I do should cause my feet, knees, and shoulders to hurt! Everything felt much better afterward, though I still need some adjustments, such as a better footbed, to help my foot issues. Rode some indeterminate amount--somewhere between 5 and 10 miles, I guess--on the trainer at the bike shop, and then another 9.52 miles afterward. Entirely city/stop & go riding, so average speed was only 12.5 and HR was 102, max 131.

Today: Long run, 13.12 miles (practice half!), 2:07:40, a 9:43 pace. Average HR was 136, max 150, splits were 10:27, 9:57, 9:10, 8:33, 9:12, 9:14, 9:33, 9:51, 10:15, 10:04, 10:21, 9:37, 10:07, and 9:33 for the last .12. My friend Peter showed up at the park for a couple of laps early in the run. It was good to have someone to run with even though it was for a short time. He's a much faster runner than I am (5k times around 18 or 19 minutes)--it's pretty easy to guess which two miles I was running with him!

5 miles at 9:48/mile. Warm-up mile: 10:35, next four were 9:52, 9:32, 9:53, and 9:07. As usual lately, monitor was wildly inaccurate for first mile, so average HR over the next four was around 137, max was probably 145-150. Surprisingly, my legs weren't sore or weary from yesterday's speed workout. For the week I've had 45.5 miles running, my most ever, plus 15 miles on the bike, 20 minutes on the elliptical and a short swim. Hopefully if I can keep at it, I can break 23 minutes in a 5k, but I don't feel like I'm there just yet. Maybe it will happen in the one I'm doing Sept. 11?

Not to be a party pooper, but it's not humanly possible to run 1/10 of a mile in 15 seconds. An 8:15 pace would put you at a little over 25:30 for a 5k. You need an 8:03 pace to hit 25 for a 5k. But I'm sure 25 minutes is doable for you with the way you've been training. I'd suggest for the next time trial that you make the warmup even slower, mix in some walking maybe, and save as much energy as possible for the 5k while still being properly warmed up.

Interval workout today. Unfortunately, even though I thought I had followed the directions for programming my Garmin for an interval workout to the T, it didn't record the splits, so I'm going to have to guess at the times. Did a warmup mile in 11:36, then did 7 quarter-mile intervals with 1/10 mile rests in between and .15 miles cooldown at the end. Best guess, based on eyeballing the pace graph, is that the intervals were all in the 6:30/mile range. Peak heart rates were in the upper 160s and low 170s, lowest during the intervals were in the mid-150s. So, it was a pretty intense workout.

Wednesday: 8 miles, 1:19:25, 9:55 pace, splits of 9:58, 10:16, 9:48, 9:59, 9:23, 9:03, 10:44, 10:08. Avg HR 130, max 152. Afternoon: I was in a hurry, so I just did 1 set flat bench presses, 120, 7 reps, then did 20:40 on the elliptical machine, avg HR 121 max 134, and swam a whopping 300 meters. Today: 8 mile run, 1:16:55, 9:36 pace, splits of 9:44, 9:50, 9:24, 9:52, 9:30, 9:58, 9:25, and 9:08. Avg HR 135, max 152. Bike ride: 15.31 miles, 1:11:35, avg speed 12.8, avg HR 116, max 144.

Monday: Rest--from exercise, anyway. I worked the entire day. This morning's workout: 8 miles in 72:19, pace 9:02, avg HR 144 and max was probably 157 (once again, my monitor gave false high readings the first mile). First mile was a slow, easy warmup of 11:32, followed by a 7-mile tempo run, splits of 8:50, 8:42, 8:30, 8:31, 8:43, 9:00, and 8:27. That's the fastest 7 miles I've run this summer or maybe ever, hopefully a sign of continued improvement. Legs felt pretty good today, no significant aches and pains, and feet really didn't bother me much at all. I'm definitely not cured, but running on the grass most of the time as well as having improved running form seems to have helped. Now I just need to figure out how to stop my cleats from killing the outsides of my feet when I bike! Anyone had foot pain issues when biking?

Well, I suppose I could probably handle a sprint tri, but I'm in no kind of shape for anything longer than that. I only just started swimming, and I have to stop and rest for a few seconds after every 50 meters or so. Today I did my first long run in a while, 10 miles in 1:40:37, a 10:03 pace. Heart rate monitor was acting crazy the first mile or so despite my best efforts to make sure the sensors were wet, so I'm just guessing that my average HR was about 134 and max was about 166. Mile splits were 10:30, 10:29, 9:35, 9:38, 10:28, 10:16, 9:39, 9:58, 10:37, and 9:23. I know it's not the same thing as running 13 miles all at once as far as conditioning is concerned, but I went ahead and ran another 3 miles in the afternoon (time 30:14, pace 10:05, splits 10:15, 10:00 and 9:59) since my legs felt up to it and I'm still trying to cut some weight. Needless to say, it was very hot. Garmin is still giving screwy heart rate data at first; the first mile was just worthless, so I'll average the other two and call 137 my average HR. Went for a swim as well, but had to cut it short to run an errand after 500 meters. Felt good to get in the water.