It's going to be a very tropical Christmas - weather in the 70's and sunny. Pretty nice if you ask me. I ran 3 miles yesterday - in shorts! Felt pretty ick for the first mile, but definately got into a groove. I've been trying to work on my form - and not bouncing when I run and trying to "run on eggshells". I definately noticed that it upped my pace a bit.
Today - 3 miles and 5 tomorrow.
Know what happens when you take a cranky toddler and a not-cranky wife to confession at a church with too few confession services? I really PO'ed toddler & wife! We got there half-an-hour early just to beat the line - you would think we were waiting in line to buy Star Wars tickets or an XBox 360. As it happened, we waited for 40 minutes, then decided to try and go later on this week. Very disheartening indeed.
On a happy note, I ran 3 miles today. It felt good, but I think the nice cool weather we're having here in Houston made it much more pleasant. I think this year will go better because I won't have a jump from 40 degrees F to 90 degrees. I'll experience the transformation from warm to friggin' hot. I don't know my times or paces since I didn't wear a watch. It was fun - a lot like running in college used to be. Now if I can just shed weight like I did back then...
Tomorrow - 2 miles. Should be nice and easy. I will listen to Grateful Dead, J. Cash, and some Phish. Dang hippy.
Greetings.
It's been a rough couple of months. Training, traveling, and several health problems have been an impediment to my running for the last couple of months. That and a lack of discipline on my part for the last couple of weeks. But it looks like there is definitely a light at the end of the chute for me - I'm adapting a Hal Higdon plan for myself, and it looks very reasonable. Also, my wife has been gracious enough to be cool with me coming home a little later so I can work runs into my day after work. Luckily this will not be a permanent solution, as I figured out a way to beat traffic and get an awesome workout, too.
By February I should be able to commute to work by running. The freeways out here have government roads that are closed to motorized traffic, but not to pedestrians. I am trying to work up to being able to run the 6 miles from my house using these paths. Who knows.. Maybe if I get fast enough (read: 8 min/mi for 6 miles) then maybe I can commute both ways! Anyway, I'm starting out small but I think it will be quite do-able.
Work has been going quite well, although I was nearly hospitalized while ago when I got pretty bad... Come to think of it, I should have gone, but I didn't. I now know what to do if it happens again. Anyway, I'll be updating my links and start making rounds on the RBF. I don't even know if anyone reads this any more, but I'm getting going again!
Good luck!
I have a marathon in December, so I should really start ramping up the milage. Today's run went quite well- 9:10 min/mi for 5 miles. Felt good, but very hot because of the late start and high humidity (it rained an inch last night).
Man.. I cannot wait until fall and/or winter arrive.
Another week down. I went running when I was supposed to, and even had fun! I've started thinking more about the LV Marathon in December, so I best start doing the mileage ramp in anticipation of it... And booking our flight there - I'm just excited to be running in a place that has no humidity! It's freaking hard work out here cutting through all that moisture.
Other than that, I have another KatyFit session tomorrow, and I probably should look at what time I need to be there tomorrow. Then it's off (hopefully) to the Great Texas Mosquito Fest. in Clute TX with some folks from work. It's a celebration of things Texan and everyone favorite parasite.
Five miles tomorrow. I won't overheat this time...
I went running today for 35 minutes. I managed 9:09 min/mi and felt pretty good. The heat was pretty brutal and I definately was feeling it. It's amazing to me that the same pace (9:10 min/mi) can have completely different percieved exertions at different temeperatures (it was ~100 degrees outside tonight).
I did see something totally wack today - an overweight woman wearing garbage bags under her clothing. Perhaps she thinks that fat will magically turn into sweat.
Registered for the Vegas marathon. We'll be there.
Things keep just getting better. Except the weather. The weather here really sucks lately. And the road I commute to work on is flooded right now, too. On the plus side, we drove to a Praire Chicken Wildlife Preserve today after Mass and ate some ice-cream at Sonic. I picked up a little pecan pie action, too.. Got to get some energy for my runs. Tomorrow is a 35 minute easy run at about 8:30-8:45/mi. Saturday's run was pretty awesome, but I wore a little too much clothing and sweated like a pig. Finished about 30 seconds behind the main pack of my group, but figured out how to prevent that from happening next weekend. Did all my runs this week and plan on doing them next week.
Something interesting from Houston: did you know that there is a YMCA named for the former Enron chief Ken Lay. Seriously, it's the Ken Lay YMCA. At least the man did some good with the money he, uh, made. A YMCA subsidized by little ol' gradmas in CA.
Well, my first week of Katy Fit is drawing to a close. I managed to make all my runs this week, two of them in the wee hours of the morning. It's been stormy in the evenings, so my only recourse has to run at 5-6 am. The only bad thing about it is that it's still #@$ing humid outside. I lose ~ 2 lbs. for a half hour of running. Time to invest in some Gatorade Endurance (with lots o' salt & potassium).
This weekend I have a 4 miler at ~8:15-8:45/mi pace. That's on Saturday morning and I'll be sure to let y'all know how it goes. That said, I'm going to enjoy my rest day tomorrow and try to entice my wife to take me to eat mudbugs & pecan pie tomorrow evening.
'night!
I went out for the pacing run for Katy Fit, and I managed a solid 8 min/mi for an easy 5 km pace. This means I get into the "Green" group, which means I can probably make it to the Boston qualifying group next year or so...
It's a great motivator and I've been pretty good about the running in the past week.
