training 7/26-8/1

7/26- Indoor 10K time trial. Time was 42:18 (#2 all time, :35 off). I should be pleased with this one but the PR drought continues. In fairness, I wasn't completely fresh and probably still had a little excess glutamine in my system. I'll try to quit that stuff again soon. I'm sick of excuses and explanations. I want a PR now. 1st half: 20:47, 2nd half: 21:31. Miles 4 and 5 were both near 7 but a hard fought last mile allowed me to beat my Peachtree time by 9 ticks.
Grade:B+/3 credits/distance=6.5

7/27- flew to Albuquerque, stopped in Santa Fe and ended up just south of Pueblo, CO. No running.

7/28- Garden of the Gods 5 mile run in 39:15 at 6500 ft. elevation. Difficult to assess my performance. Not only was I more than a mile high, it was also an extremely hilly route. I went out conservative but turned in a strong 6:40 5th mile mostly downhill. Incredible scenery. The altitude was not the only thing that took my breath away. .5 cool down.
Pikes Peak summit loop at 14,115 ft. Covered a half mile in 3:55 with a decent pick up at the very end.
Grade:B+/2 credit/distance=6.0

7/29-Treadmill broken at hotel so I had to resort to laps around the parking lot. Ended up covering 2 miles in 13:15 at nearly 5,000 ft. elevation. Decent performance. I am free from the glutamine but still need taurine.
Grade:B-/1 credit/distance=2.0

7/30- Escalande Park hard tempo run. Battled mile high elevation and a strong wind and turned in a strong time of 34:40. Flat route, mountain views. Awesome all the way around. 1st half: 17:16, 2nd half: 17:24. Overall pace of 6:56
Grade:A-/2 credits/distance=5.0

7/31-Cherry Creek bike trail run with views of the downtown skyline. 8 miles in 61:40 (7:43 pace). Not as strong as previous day but still a solid performance. 1st half: 30:55, 2nd half: 30:45. Needed more water than expected probably due to altitude. Groin area was a bit sore possibly due to excess taurine. If I can get off that stuff too, it would really be awesome.
Grade:B/1 credit/distance=8.5

8/1- Jet lag in the morning forced me to postpone my run until mid afternoon, which meant it had to be indoors. It would be so awesome to be free of the taurine but that's not happening now. I crashed out just after noon and woke up feeling awful so I took 500 mg. of taurine and it helped but wasn't enough. Hoped to run 7 miles to bring my weekly total up to 35 but hit the wall after 3 miles in 23:47 with a rapidly slowing pace near the end. This was my worst day in more than a month.
Grade:F/1 credit/distance=3.0

Weekly summary:
Not too bad in terms of distance for a vacation week but I have to train harder than this or the PR drought will continue. My fitness is no worse than it was a week ago but how I wish I could be free from this taurine. I was in a foul mood much of the day on Sunday.
Distance=31.0/ GPA= 29.6/10= 2.96