retired

No, not me, anyone who might stumble on this humble little blog. My silver shoes have been put out to pasture. They are now moving to the slow retirement home. Went past the 500 mile mark. Pretty fun stuff. I've never kept track of miles before, but I would say it was well worth the effort. I'm not entirely sold on the idea that a pair of shoes has a limited number of miles, at least not these. They still seem to have a lot of bounce, but not in the forefoot area and that is where some of my right foot pain had been coming from. I will continue keeping notes on my condition and feeling and see if the next few weeks with newer shoes makes any difference.

Legs are still not fully recovered, but they are certainly getting there. A few short 5 milers tomorrow I think should do nicely, then bball on sunday and running will be played by ear. Moving the long run to Monday, then the week will be comploded and I'll hardly be able to walk. Fun stuff.

8(8.5)miles. 40 degrees. SM 504-retired

making progress

Leg was a little better today. There was still some soreness and tightness in there, but after massaging it last night I think that helped the stiffness. I thought about how the leg felt and reconsidered the reason. I know think that it was from basketball, and all the jumping around off that leg probably overworked the muscles since they haven't been used for sooo long. Well it overworked the ones that haven't, and the ones I've been training simply couldn't handle the extra load of sprinting and jumping all of a sudden. Just another dumb oversight by me. But hey I do what I can and I have fun while I'm doing it.

The rest of this week will be spent recovering the leg, then I'll start all over again after the game on Sunday. Hopefully the second time around won't be so bad. TGIF tomorrow and hopefully an 8-10 mile at normal or slower pace.

6(6.5)miles. 35 degrees. SM 496

karma

All my running, especially the 70 miles last week, finally caught up to me. Today was pretty much a breakdown. I could hardly run because the left leg just had nothing to give. It was completely tired, but I tried to push through it. The miles were really tough on the leg, but I tried to get in as many I could. At 6 I was beyond ready to hang it up for the day. I'm hoping maybe another light day tomorrow and then try for a 8 then a 10 split run on the weekend.

6(6.55)miles. 35 degrees. SM 490

First of many.

Nike is having maintenance on their site right now so no graph. But I'll still let you know how the run went I guess. Started off with killer pain in the left leg. It was so tight I could hardly get it off the ground. I read back through my log and found the culprit. Last week it was sore and hasn't had enough chance to recover. The good part is it was only sore for 5 miles, then loosened up and I could run with relatively little tightness at all. But those first 5, man, I felt like was dragging that leg along with me.

I am getting excited about running again. I'm so tired of seeing my old PR's and can't wait for a new race. The good news, only 1 month till my next 10k!!! Man I gotta start climbing some hills round here. Well I did today, thats for sure. A nice long 10 miles with 3 trips up the HH. The awesome part is I'm getting better at hills. I've found a way to conserve energy and still maintain a nice pace coupled with consistent breathing. Most of the action comes from the ankle, allowing some of the larger muscles to rest. It got a lot colder when the sun set. It was nice at 37 degrees in the sun, but once the sun went down behind the trees it dropped by about 5 degrees. I did my 7:00 cooldown on the treadmill inside. I enjoy doing that because it just feels like I'm not completely abusing myself that way. Almost...almost like I'm taking care of my body. Too bad my toe's can't say the same.

The track meeting went well. It was over in a heartbeat. Coach Jacobs is to the point and gets stuff done, thats a definite. I kind of like that, but I hope I get to do some stuff to : ) Oh in case you were wondering about the title I named it that because I put in a lot of 8's, now I hope to put in a lot of 10's in the next month. 13 miles is going to be a walk in the park... (Except for the running it part, and only a portion through an actual park).

10(10.60)miles. 37-33 degrees. SM 484

good and bad

bball

April and I tried out a new church today. It is pretty close to the house and we've been wondering about for a little while. We liked it okay and are willing to give it a chance. While we were leaving I saw a sign up sheet for a league and figured I'd join since I haven't played basketball (in any form) for 4 or 5 years now. On the way out I saw a man who was taking the list and figured I'd say something to him. His name was Steven and he was really nice. He told me he was making the teams today and that there was an open gym later and I was welcome to come. I grew excited at the notion of basketball in any form and told him I'd probably come.

Today was April's sisters birthday, so we hung out with her and grandpa at our house for a while and ate subway. After that I said my goodbyes and booked it to the gym since they were playing 2 hours and I was already nearly an hour late. Things went well I started off doing really good. I was always good at basketball, and I still had a few moves left from the hibernation. In fact I may have gotten better somehow. I had a few steals, lots of boards, but unfortunately I'm not the shooter I was. I used to record how many shots I would make since I was in 4th grade. So yeah mostly just layups. It was a lot of fun and I think I may have impressed or surprised a few people. Of course my calves are raging since I've been running so much, so it probably looked like I played everyday.

We ended a little early so I got a good 45 minutes in. I was breathing HARD. I could feel my pulse and worked up a really good sweat since I played the entire time we were there and it was full court too. There are more opportunities to play and I will take them. Sure I risk injury, but it is fun and something different I can add to the schedule to keep things fresh. It also is a heck of a VO2 max workout.

Got home and put in another 6 miles. My right hip jolted yesterday. I would say popped, but it wasn't that drastic. Today it is sore at the hip connection. The best way I can explain the pain is to stand on your right foot then lean your upper body to the left. where you feel the hip jut out is what happened yesterday, only at 7:00 pace on one of the friggen cul de sacs. I am really growing to hate them. Not so much running wise, but risk of injury wise.


6(6.6)miles. 46 degrees. SM 466

an observation

As I have read quite a few blogs in my short time as an aspiring runner I've come to a conclusion.
1. My first half marathon was trained for quite poorly. That doesn't mean I didn't train hard or anything. It means that I was out of shape, but could have been in better shape by race day. I didn't prepare well enough. I should have been putting in longer runs. Of course the excuse here is that I was definitely out of shape and the second would be that I had little knowledge of proper training to begin with. Those things considered I did all that I could, but looking back could have done better. Here is the objective evidence.

Most people list their PR's. This is perfectly fine and I think it really says something about the persons condition. Most people that have similar PR's to mine (my current ones that is) have much better half marathon times. an example or three:

mile: 5:35
10k: 43:40
1/2 marathon: 1:35:44
marathon: 3:26:32

Cal. Int. Marathon 3:36
Half Marathon 1:40
10K 44:37
5K 22:00

5K - 21:50
1/2 marathon 1:39
marathon 3:36:40

and my own is currently 1:50:53, 43:50, 20:47. My half was the first race back, so it shows lack of training, whereas the 10k is just as fast as others posting 10-12 minute faster half marathons. That disturbs me. I know I have some footspeed left over from high school and that could account for the difference. My biggest ray of hope is the first example with the 10k that is almost exactly what mine was before the summer put up a 1:35 half. I think I should be able to do that as I feel much better than I did before the summer, and have been training smarter and more consistently than then as well. The only bad thing is effort. Maybe these people had a bad day, maybe they took it easy. It is hard to compare race effort from a time, but that is why I got 3 examples instead of one. There are also the factors of the course itself, as well as conditions. But normally a PR will happen during moderate conditions as there is never really a perfect race.

My 10k is coming up real soon. I am looking forward to it because it will gauge how good my base is. I dare not say speed as that is something that won't come till just after, so it will be interesting how FAST i can go from SLOW running.

a few nice ones

I messed up this morning and put the wrong sensor on my ipod. The result was a 3 mile run that wasn't tracked. The awesome part of today was busting out sub-7 paces without really trying to. I watched the Gebrselassie videos last night and really payed attention to his form shown in the first video. I tried to mimmick it this morning and wound up with a 7:11 pace over 5 miles. That was AFTER the three mile run that didn't count.....

I took a nap this afternoon for some recovery. Today is the last day this week and I wanted to get as many miles in as possible. I wanted to do a double since earlier this week and really tried hard to get out again. So I got up way after the alarm clock went off and headed out around 5:15. I was finished by 6 and put in 6 miles. Again I was using the same methods as I've been working on, head looking out, getting a good push off, and keeping my arm swing low. Much to my surprise when I checked the run tonight it was faster than earlier this morning. Now in all honesty fastness isn't something I should care about, but I find it interesting what is capable when a few slight changes are made. I ended up with a 7:04 pace! That is crazy compared to what I normally run, and the awesome part is the effort was the same.

I think it just shows that my base is good and the work is really paying off for me. Climbing starts after this next week, but I may push it up and just start it this week. Well now that I think about it that is probably a bad idea. I still have one more goal to get, a 20 miler on Sunday. After that I will be holding steady on long runs and focusing on building strength over the next month and a half.

8(8.5)miles. AM 40 degrees- longsleeve/shorts. SM 454
6(6.5)miles. PM 50 degrees tshirt/shorts. SM 460

long run graph from earlier this week

I promised to post this and so here it is. As you can see I conserved energy the last 3 miles of the first half, then negative split the second by a large margin. I'm not sure if you can see that full size so I took a screenshot below.

multiplication

It's odd that this run turned out so smooth. I felt like I was running smoother. I worked on keeping my head up. I have a tendency to look at the ground in front of me while I run which makes my head slightly of out alignment. I noticed this yesterday and worked on it today with good results. The motion was definitely more fluid, but I can also attribute that to recovery. Only a slight twinge in the calf today, but it was hardly noticeable. What I did notice was an increase in strength and in pace, or at least I thought. I was kind of surprised to see a 7:32 when yesterday I felt like I was dragging.

Multiplication. This makes four days in a row of 8's. I really like that. It seems so consistent. Oddly the runs weren't, each day felt completely different. I'm totally loving the embedded graphs though. It cuts out a lot of work for me and looks pretty nice too. While looking for Haile's running form yesterday I found some good background info of his life including interviews with the man himself. Pretty interesting if you want to check it out. There are 3 parts too. Oh just on a side note I forgot the exact number, but I believe he's broken 15 world records, most of those being his own.....

8(8.63)miles. 48 degrees. SM 446

whohoo

I'm excited I finally figured out how to get my run on the blog like the COOL people. For some reason the option wasn't showing before on the Nike site, but I found it. That will save a lot of work for me, so whoo!

running for glory

Post title is an ode to high school. I used to make up fictitious things and concentrate on extravagance of terms like glory, perpetuation, mortality, etc. Those were the things that made me run like a crazed freak the last lap of any race. I'm not sure what my splits were. Splits didn't matter. Time didn't matter. All that mattered was that I went so fast that I was out of control and attempting to ignore all reason. Those were fun times. As my good friend Ann and the crowd of students by the track used to yell "Rick Flare" it was apparent to everyone that something special was about to happen. Rick Flare, in case you didn't know, was a wrestler who would go crazy at some point in the match and cock his head back and just go WHOOOOOO! real loud. I would get so hyped up by two words, especially the "flare" part because it sounds like a rocket or something, that I would yell Rick Flare right back and burn off a lap. It was a psychological thing that probably wasn't the wisest thing, but it was fun and always worked.

Now this was about 9 years ago now, and I can hardly remember it. I can only take accounts from good friends on the actualities of what happened, because as I stated I wasn't exactly coherent at that stage. What I do remember is not wearing socks because it made me faster, wearing spikes as much as possible, and being superstitious about my pre-race day routine, right down to breakfast, what route I took to the bus, and countless other things I've forgotten. I also remember laying around a lot at track meets. I would go run an event, take a nap, and hope that someone woke me up before my next one (I always ran 3-4 events). I remember running a 4:59 mile right before I had to run the 2 mile after it at our last meet. I really slacked off on that mile because I knew I had to run again.... hehe.

Someday I hope to get back to that point of non-awareness in some respects. If I'm ever doing really well, I'll remember to sprint the last 400 meters and yell something. It was my trademark after all.

So today's run was pretty much the same old story. I did manage another 8 miles! This is really awesome. I normally take a day off or cut mileage, but running through the recovery has been interesting. My body has really responded well, and that is encouraging. It could mean I can increase mileage after my half is over and be able to handle it. Some people can only go up to 60-70 and they start breaking down rather quickly. I think efficiency has a lot to do with that. I could see people pounding out miles with bad form (which may or may not be the case) and paying for the increase. I feel smooth when I run, but there are times when I feel the opposite so it's hard to tell. I plan on watching the elite runners a lot in videos and hopefully picking up good things from them. I know I learned a heck of a lot just from watching Ryan in the trials. I would like to see more Gebreselassie although it's hard to find good quality video of him, youtube makes him look like mario.

Track meeting next Tuesday. Not sure if I'll get to run that day, but I'm kind of starting a new thing. Only take complete recovery days on days like that. Where something is scheduled or happening that I have to attend. I could always run in the morning or something like that, but I think it would be wiser to rest and prepare for whatever is planned. I like the idea of running everyday possible even if just a few miles, it just seems right for me.



8(8.62)miles. 52 degrees overcast. SM 438

getting there

Legs were better today, but definitely not 100%. Especially the left calf. It was tight and still pretty sore for at least the first 3 or 4 miles. It was a gorgeous day for a run. I mean just downright incredible. A nice cool breeze around 55 degrees or so and clear blue skies above. I only had to run 6 today, but felt like I was just getting the leg warmed up and I went out fairly slow so I knew I had plenty left. Saw the pugs again, but stopped this time and walked the cul de sac and petted them. The black one was nice, the white still wanted to bark at me. Once I had let them jump all over me for a second or two I was back off. That was a nice break at 2 miles and I think it helped loosen up the calf.

Still it wasn't an easy run. The legs were definitely tired. I'm not sure if running will ever be easy, and I'm not sure I ever want it to be. I guess when that starts happening you go faster or longer or both. Fortunately this is the base phase and these runs are supposed to feel that way, so it is a good thing. I start my "climbing" phase next. It sounds a lot better than hills. That will be interesting and a good change, although it's the same thing except for one day a week.

8(8.6)miles. 54 degrees cool breeze. SM 430

still a little sore

Nothing special to report. An 8 mile run around the hood. Only once up the HH, and that was way too much already. The legs are still sore from the long run. They started feeling better at 3 miles today. Hopefully they'll be good to go tomorrow, although not sure about the rain situation. Redid the schedule for this week and should be able to get 60+ miles in if I double up Saturday. That will be huge since this is my highest mileage week of my program. Warm again today, but it's supposed to cool down now.

8(8.5)miles. 65 degrees. SM 422

6 on the sticks

er.. legs. whatever. 6 miles around the hood for some recovery. Started off pretty badly as I was sore from yesterday. Not so much sore as beat up. I felt like I had been through a washing machine or whipped around through a tornado somewhere. First mile was pretty much ouch and ouch, but by the fourth mile everything was feeling warmed up, my own remake of the wizard of oz tin man. Not very hard run really, took it real easy and careful. Left quad was the most sore, and the right ball/toe connection didn't hurt until after the run.

Tomorrow I have to work the concessions at the basketball game. It's part of my track coach penance. I chose to go to the late game, varsity I assume, so that I could get my run in before going. We got out a few minutes early today so that was nice. I was done running before April got home at 5:30. She went for her run when she got back. Pretty cool that she has been working out a little more frequently. It also helps that the time...is...slowly...going back to normal again.

Tried out the new shoes. They got mud on the soles today, that means time to break them in : ) Looked at yesterday's graph. Pretty self-explanatory. I'll upload it sometime, but all my screenshot programs were deleted when I reformatted by computer and I haven't put them back on yet.

6(6.5)miles. 67!!! degrees. Zoom 6

the time machine

Some of you may have seen this movie, probably the recent re-make with Guy Pearson. It wasn't all that good of a movie, especially when compared to the original made in 1963 or so. As you probably guessed a scientist creates a time machine and travels in the same spot while the world changes and evolves around him. In a sense he can watch everything move and grow and die and yet he is just still and safe inside the machine.

That was me today. I was just in time machine mode. The legs were the machine and I was just along for the ride. People came and went, then new people, and after them, more people. 2 1/2 hours of this. Yes the soccer complex is nice, but I really need to expand out to a trail or something longer than 1.1 miles. All told it was about 18 laps around. Now 18 is just a number and in now way depicts the effort of a long run. These are miles, and I am running them. It is no easy task. For the first few miles I was just calculating, how many more times will I have to run it now, and so on. At 8 my right toe connection at the ball of my foot started hurting. It didn't let up for at least 6 miles. That was painful, but it didn't really bother me because I was running whether the toe said ouch or not.

Passing by people. Over and over. Same people, then after an hour, new people, new dogs. One dog jumped at me, grrreat. No big deal. Kept the legs turning. My goal that got me through this was trying to run the last half faster than the first. That is what we running folk call a negative split. Not an easy thing to do. So I almost made my last 8 in under an hour, but was about a minute and a half off (even with kicking my own butt). Still close is good and I was close. At 4 miles left all I was doing was math and I knew I'd be cutting it close. The legs were burning though and I was breathing pretty good too. Still kept going. Didn't have much left for the last mile like I thought I would, but pulled it through to the finish.

I'm not sure what drove me to run that fast. It's not like I was in a real race (and you shouldn't be racing an event you haven't even run before......) But I guess that's just me. It's what got me decent times in high school, so why not. Well a good run overall, I'll have to check ipod and see the splits. I'm kind of leaning towards slow slide. We'll see.

18(20)miles. 52 degrees. GM 134

fast easy run

okay maybe a little too fast. I went out like a banchee and ended up with a sub 7 first mile. Not exactly the best way to start off an easy run the day before you are doing you're long run. Thing is it felt fine and I followed with a 7:08 and a 7:06. At that point I knew I was pushing the limit and slowed it back down to normal. Pretty fun easy run though! No HH made it easy today, but the legs were feeling good and the silver shoes were streaking.

We'll see if that affects my 18 miles tomorrow. I'm dreading it, but at the same time it will be a great achievement and another step toward an awesome half marathon. In addition to that I've been trying to keep my runs at or over 1 hour. I think that is a good goal for runs. Rather than shorter runs that don't build a lot of lung capacity, the longer ones will keep the heart rate up and lungs open. It seems to be helping. Take a look at the training log to see how that has been playing out, I keep it updated often.

5(5.51)miles. 46 degrees. SM 416

awesome 8

I think today was just a good day for me. First I don't have school, so today was just total relaxation. I cleaned up the house and played a game on the computer for a few minutes. I was fully prepared to go outside and run. I had set up times to have things done by. So already things were going well. The run was good. I almost went down to the track, but didn't feel like wasting gas money, plus I could run right away. So I headed out and did my normal loop. Today the pace was real good. The feet were getting off the ground quickly and I could feel myself running as one whole. A lot of running guides say you should be vertically aligned, and I assume the feeling I had to today is that. It's hard to identify good form for 2 reasons. 1 you can't see yourself and 2 "good form" is subjective and could vary from person to person.

Around 3 miles I was really going well and had just started my second loop. Actually I was already at the top of the HH again, which is 1 mile past my start (the house). So I knew it was going well. On and on the pace just kept coming and it was another day that I felt "awesome". I just never had to search for air and the legs didn't get tired. Even at the end of the run when I was just throwing energy away on accelerations I felt good. I had 8 on the calendar so that is where i hung it up. Now that I think about it, I may have run well because of the weather. It was a nice 43 degrees today, and has been a lot colder. That probably made it a lot easier to breathe in. I read an article in RW that said something like 36-52 degrees is pretty much optimal. Looks that holds true today.

8(8.5)miles. 45 degrees. GM 116

couple decent days

Today wasn't half bad. I got a run in just before noon on the treadmill of about 5 miles. I really wanted to stop before then, but stuck it out so I wouldn't have to run that extra mile in the dark tonight. Treadmill was sweaty and face-paced. Ipod didn't think so though I don't think. Then tonight I got out again for 8 miles doing 2 loops around the neighborhood. Legs were turning over really fast, probably from the repetition I was using on the treadmill. I wasn't very tired tonight and it actually seemed like the morning run made this one feel easier.

Yesterday was the virus. I had downloaded a program that turned out to have some crazy malware in it and it messed up a bunch of stuff. User login things kept popping up. Luckily I already had most of my data backed up and only needed to burn a few dvd's. After that I restarted everything from scratch. That's the thing about viruses and stuff, you can always just start from scratch, and they keep you in the habit of backing up your stuff. So the computer was down yesterday and I didn't get to blog or anything else. I got in a 9 mile run later in the evening. It wasn't a great run and felt nothing like today's. I was hungry and felt depleted. I was running fine, even with my windpants on, but I just wasn't all there. A few more days till the long run. We have Christmas again at April's grandparents this weekend, so hopefully I stay smart and run when I can.

thurs. AM 5 miles. treadmill. BF 99
........PM 8 miles. 32 degrees. GM 108
wed. 9 miles. 28 degrees 16 with wind. SM 411

not so great in 0-8

The drive home today was long and unexciting. April and I were both just worn out from the get up and go and sit around all day in the car. When we got home there were things to put away and other stuff that needed to be done. I decided to hold off on running yet again. The rest of this week will be a good indicator of my dedication. I can either run a lot or choose to be lazy. That's really the only way to explain not running after months of training, laziness. I had planned to run on the treadmill, but a new biggest loser came on, so yet again priorities seem out of order.

I'm sure tomorrow things will turn around. It is definitely colder today. I think it's even colder than in Ohio! We turned on our heat when we got home and after 7 hours I don't think it's turned off. A pretty good night considering a big zero for today, but I plan on kicking my butt this week.