Twilight Of The Embers.....

Don't fall in love with the way things were 
It'll fuck up your mind, It'll fuck up your mind 

Snow Patrol

Well, it does not appear at this point that my goal for next year will come to fruition. So I guess that some revision will be necessary. The pace of my runs, even with some cruise interval incorporation, just doesn't appear to be dropping very much. weather its from having missed those two years, or more likely, the average 30% decline in aerobic threshold that occurs between the ages of 60-69, it just seems to have currently plateaued. I'll continue to work on it, but whatever I get I will just have to be satisfied with.
The other part of the goal was getting to 4 hour long runs per week. I have had a few hour runs, the longest being 1:11, but also had some shorter ones. 40 minutes always seems to bring some degree of fatigue, and makes getting to that hour more of a drag. Weather this fall and early winter has been the worst in the 11 years we have been here. Cold, wet, very windy, and just fugly. It is sub artic this week. So much for that call for a warm winter. Maybe in the new year?
Weight work has gone very well. So my revised goal is now to just alternate run days and gym days. So one week 3 runs, the next, 4. I will keep trying for an hour on those runs, but won't beat myself up if they end up 45 minutes or more. And I will never do real speed work again, but cruise intervals and tempo runs will be included to keep working on that pace. Heart has been reasonably cooperative. Mostly the afib resets in the first few minutes of  a run, with those occasional days where it just won't. Medtronic guy said my afib has remained at around 1/2 of 1 percent, so the longer it stays this way, the better. In the last 4 months, pacemaker has gone off only 7 times.....5 times in the upper chamber alone, and once a combined upper and lower chamber firing. If that one was not corrected, that could have been the one time damage could have been done. Don't fall in love with the way things were, it will fuck up your mind......