I've spent the previous 10 days or so in a more or less perpetual haze... for some reason, I'm always tired. I'm going to back off the intensity a tiny bit this week and see if it's just because last week represented a step up in intensity from when I got back from Atlanta. I'm planning on doing between 40 and 45 miles this week, maybe not quite as fast as I've been doing them (in retrospect, I've actually been running my mileage so far pretty hard. When I think about how fast I've been running this relative to how fast we customarily run at Tech on regular runs, I've been going substantially over this speed).

Monday: Down at the beach again.

Miles: 8

Tuesday: Ran up into the hills above Palos Verdes. Started off a little quick for the first 2.5 miles or so, then ran up to the old Peninsula cross county course. Ran the course as a hill workout (it's pretty much all either up- or downhill - seriously, there's maybe a half or three quarters of a mile of relatively flat terrain on the entire course). After I got off the course, ran the other 2.5 miles back again. Picked up the pace to somewhere around 6:30 on the way back. Felt surprisingly easy, particularly given the hill running :-).

Miles: 8

End of the week

Another 8 miles down by the beach today. Legs felt a little tired/sore on the way back. We never really went above 35 - 40 mile weeks in high school, so (to be honest) my body never really got used to 50 mile weeks (even my freshman year, I don't think I ever got very far above above 50 mile weeks, and that was three years ago). It's not a huge deal, it's just sort of minor nagging discomforts that I'm noticing. Hopefully my body will adjust to it soon and stop being such a whiny bitch.

Miles: 8

Total miles for the week: 52

Goal for the week: 45 - 50

Another 9 miles up in the hills today. Eh.

Miles: 9

Another 8 miles, down by the beach this time. I ran at night today, felt a little better than I did yesterday. I think the midafternoon head was getting to me.

Miles: 8

Ran 9 miles up in the mountains again today. Tired.

Miles: 9

Hill run

Went a little shorter today than yesterday to give the knees a rest. Instead of going for a long run, I went up into the hills about Palos Verdes to do some trail running and get in a hill workout. Put in a good 2 mile fartlek/uptempo.

Miles: 7

Start of a new week

Went for an 11-mile run today down to the Hermosa Beach pier. I went out a little earlier today than I've customarily been going for the past week. It was considerably hotter, and I was definitely feeling the heat by the time I got back. Still a good workout, though, and a good start to a the week. I'm going for 45 - 50 miles this week.

Miles: 11

Feeling better

I woke up feeling better this morning, so I went for an 8 mile run today. The running felt a lot better - I was probably doing between 6:30 and 6:00 for most of the distance. I didn't quite get as much mileage in this week as I wanted to, but the mileage that was there was good mileage. I think that should be my strategy for the rest of the summer - not really high mileage weeks (I'm not sure that I should go much over 50), but just making sure that the mileage that I put in is good mileage. I'd like to get up to 50 next week - I think that over the next two weeks it should be my goal to get to the point where 8 miles is my standard workout distance.

Miles: 8

Total Miles for the week: 38 (I was going for 40, so I guess I didn't end up all that far behind - still, if I hadn't gotten sick I could easily have gotten up over 40. That would have been good, too).

Until next week, then.

AAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Shit, I think I'm getting sick.

Wednesday, July 18: Went for a good 8 mile run on Wednesday afternoon up on some trails in the PV hills with some old high school cross country friends - it was nice getting off all the asphalt and concrete in Torrance.

Miles: 8

Thursday, July 19: Got sick, and my knees were killing me. Felt like shit, didn't do anything today.

Miles: 0

Friday, July 20: Got on my feet today and went for a 5.5 mile run. Still sick. This week started off pretty well, I thought, but the past couple of days have pretty much ruined the plan. I had originally planned to get over 40 miles this week, but that's pretty much not going to happen now. Goddamn it >:-0. Well, with any luck, next week will be better.

Miles: 5

Monday: I thought I'd test out my legs and try to go for a slightly longer run on Monday, so I ran down to the beach at dusk and started running along the beach to the Redondo Beach Pier (around an 8 mile round trip starting from my house). It was really nice - my legs felt good, it was nice and cool out (it's been surprisingly hot here the past week or so), and I got to enjoy a beautiful sunset while I was running. After I'd hit my turnaround point, I was heading back to my house when I ran into an old high school cross country friend who also happened to be heading to the pier (back where I had just come from). I figured that it might be nice to have some company (I've been doing all my runs solo thus far) and since this day was supposed to be my long day anyway, I figured that I'd just turn around and run back to the pier with him. It was also pretty nice just being able to catch up on what was going on with some of my Torrance friends (it turns out that one of our best friends from high school just got engaged to his longtime girlfriend). Anyway, by the time I ran back to the pier again and took the long way home (so that I could run by where my friend had parked his car), I had done a total of about 12 miles at between 6:30 and 6:00 pace (I threw in some fartlek sessions to taste), running generally negative splits (I probably finished up around 6:00 minute pace). The part that really surprised me was that although that was considerably longer than I had planned on running, I ended up feeling pretty relaxed and pretty strong at the end of the run. All in all, I'd say that it was a pretty good day. I guess this whole consistent training thing might be paying off.

Miles: 12

Tuesday: My legs were feeling a little sore today after the run yesterday, so I ran about 5 miles today at medium pace, just to get some mileage under my legs while not really stressing them. I'm going to be meeting with some old cross country friends to go a bit farther tomorrow.

Miles: 5

This went better than I thought it would

After my less-than-stellar performance yesterday, I decided that I was going to go a little easier today to give my legs a rest and let them get used to running again after having taken that week-and-a-half off. I also decided (at Matt's suggestion) to try running a little bit later in the day than I usually do (particularly since it was a lot hotter today than it usually is out here by the coast - most of the time, we get these nice ocean breezes that keep everything pretty cool). I started out pretty slowly (say 7:00 or 7:30 pace - I haven't really been tracking my pace that carefully, since I've mostly been running by feel) because after my run yesterday, I was expecting a lot of bitching and moaning from my legs. And for the first few miles or so, that's what they were doing. Around 2 miles into my run, I ended up stopping at a gas station and just stretching out for around 5 minutes or so to work out some cramps in my quads and calves.

And then a funny thing happened. I'm not sure if if was because the sun was starting to set and the temperature was cooling down to more reasonable levels, or if I just started to find my rhythm, but after having taken that stretching break by the gas station, suddenly the running just seemed much easier. After I started moving again, it just seemed really effortless, and my mile times probably dropped down into the 6:30 or 6:15 range without my really having to think about it. As I got to the final turn in my run, where I would normally turn onto the road that would take me back to my house, I figured that since I was feeling pretty good today, it would probably make sense for me to run a bit farther than I had originally planned, and try to capitalize on the fact that the miles were flowing pretty easily today. I have an old high school friend that I hadn't seen for almost a year that lived in the general area, and I decided that I could add on some more mileage by running by her house and stopping in to say hello. So I turned the corner, heading in the direction of her house, and as I entered her neighborhood...

...I realized, once my keen powers of navigation kicked in, that I had no idea how to get back to her house. Fortunately, I had some extra mileage to cover, and I figured that I could just integrate "exploring" this area into my workout. I decided that the best way to do this would be to pick random streets and run down them until I either saw something that looked familiar or until I had run far enough that I was convinced that I was leaving her neighborhood.

In the course of doing this, I happened to run into one of my old high school teachers who lived in that neighborhood, but who didn't recognize me because I have much more hair now than I did back then. She also gave me kind of a weird look (probably because I was wandering through a residential area at nightfall, looking around for this girl's house, which she might have construed as looking for potentially unwary victims for... whatever it is that sketchy-looking people do with their victims). I suppose I should be thankful she didn't call the cops on me, or loose her dog on me, or something...

Anyway, about two miles later, I eventually found my friend's house (turns out that all I had to do was take the second right on the first street that I had turned onto, and then run about half a block). Unfortunately, she hadn't yet returned to California from Yale yet, so I wasn't actually able to see her. Oh well; at least it made for a good workout (and I made a special mental note to remember the way their next time :-). I might get a chance to visit her when I'm on the east coast later this summer -- my sister's going to Tufts next year, and I'm thinking about taking a train down to Yale to visit a couple of old high school friends that I haven't seen in about three years now.

In other news, I got a preliminary draft of a camera ego-motion algorithm working today for use with a 3D LADAR unit as part of a SLAM algorithm that I'm working on for my senior thesis. W00t!

Miles: 7

Total miles for the week (2 days): 14

Initialization...

So at Ian and Matt's suggestion, I've created a blog to track my training over the summer (I was vigorously assured that "all the cool kids are doing it").

As for the actual running thus far, I'd been working out since the end of the school year regularly, and since I was living at home at the time, I was eating better and sleeping better, and feeling pretty good about the whole running/fitness/not-sucking-at-life thing. And then I went to Atlanta for that robotics contest...

...and judging by my performance this afternoon (my first run since I got back last night), I kinda suck again now. I ran about 7 miles down by the beach today, and my legs were pretty unhappy about it. Goddamn it :-(. I guess we'll just have to see how tomorrow goes.

Total miles: 7

Also, I had a couple of questions regarding workout habits:

1. How have people been handling balancing work/research and running? It seems like they both take a fair amount of time/effort to do properly...

2. This problem might be unique to me, but I seem to have a hard time staying focused when I'm working out; my mind kinda wanders all over the place because I start getting bored from just running (this usually happens about 3-4 miles in). What do people do to keep their minds occupied when they're working out?

3. What is the sound of one hand clapping?