Front Range Runner

A week on the wagon without a sponsor

My name is Christian, and I have a problem.

Whenever I go running, my nipples feel like they've had a fight with a cheese grater.

And lost.

Until I found these little bandages that are circles about the size of a quarter with little square bandages in the middle.  These little suckers work really well no matter how much one sweats, and they come off with minimal pain.  Between these and appropriate amounts of Body Glide my runs have been pain free.  Especially for this ultra-humid morning runs.

This week I ran the following schedule:

Monday - 3 mi @ 9:45/mi
Tuesday - 3 mi @ 9:45/mi
Wednesday - Rest...
Thursday - 4.5 mi @ 9:35/mi
Friday - 2 mi @ 9:34/mi
Saturday - 6 miles (still have to do it)

I've discovered that running in the mornings is good.  The two reasons running in the morning is good are:

Coolest time of the day.

Wife not pissed because I've left her with a spastic baby.

I've found that a happy wife is very conducive to my running.  The only thing I need to get better about is stretching after my runs.

rest day & rebounding

No run today.  I still need to get the info from my last run yesterday into my journal and here from my HRM.  There was a big T-storm this evening and we had to run some errands after work (all were yarn related for Brynne) so I decided it would be good to take a break today.  Tomorrow is another stride work out.  3x8 minutes @ 9:48/mi and 2x4 strides with 2x4 minute rests in between.  Should be fun.

Also, I wanted to tell you all about Urban Rebounding.  Is this some sort of way of red-lining neighborhoods to make way for gentrification?  No...  It's the new "As seen on TV" pseudo-exercise scheme.  The baby woke up two days ago at 4 am and so we decided to see what was on TV.  We fell across this gem of an infomercial.  According to the good folks of UR, it's more efficient than running.  They define running as a sub-15 minute pace on a treadmill.  One of the best things about this scam, err, program are the video covers:

Yes.  Urban indeed, and quite non-threatening. 

Or this overtly masculine cover:

This all begs the question: why are we still running.  It's  not to late to make RBF into the REBOUNDING Blog Family.

props to my baby momma

for sticking to her running plan for the past two weeks.  You can read about her adventures here.

Did I mention that my awesome wife bought me an xbox (and xbox Live) and way too many games for starting my new job?  Amazingly, it hasn't gotten in the way of my running, either. 

Anyway, I went for my run on Sunday, which was pretty good.  I've pretty much discovered that running in the morning is pretty hard compared to other parts of the day.  Like Jank said, it's oppressively humid in the mornings and oppressively hot in the afternoon.  I've taken to running in the evening, around 6-7 pm or so.  Maybe 8 at the latest, but that's pushing it.  I'm able to do that because I do a 0630 - 1615 work day, so I get home around 1630 and do chores (and maybe sneak in a bit of xbox'ing).  Then I try to bribe Brynne into going running or walking with me. 

Anyway, we've been doing the Daniel's plan pretty steadily.  He has you do "strides", which are basically high cadence intervals where you focus on turnover and smooth footing.  I'm doing 30 second intervals with easy one minute recoveries in between.  They're amazing, and even while pushing the stroller, I was able to maintain a 160 step cadence. 

As for training, Brynne is about to move me to a 7 day training plan - lot's of active recovery in there.  I think it'll work for me, since I tend to not be very sore and it'll force me to be good about stretching and the like.  I've decided succumb to peer pressure of Brit and my wife and go for the Las Vegas marathon with the rest of the RBF.  See 'ya there!  That gives me two months to recover before the Houston HP marathon.  w00t!

What else.  Work is going pretty well, and I have got to admit they've got their stuff together, more so than other places I've worked.  I think one of my co-worker's husband is planning on doing Katy Fit too, so that should be cool.

Can't wait for December.  Maybe I'll be able to run with a short sleeve shirt by then.

Oh yeah, I probably need to change the name of this blog now.  Dang.

slowly but surely

Did my long run today.  It was a 34 minute run at 9:45/mi (average).  It was pretty sunny and humid this morning, and I didn't eat anything other than a small banana before going on the run.  I also pushed the jogging stroller with John inside.  He's quite a bit heavier than the last time I pushed him in that thing.  Maybe it was all the water in the air that was increasing the friction against the jogging stroller.  Brynne went running too, this morning.  She's been running more lately, and has been bitten by the running bug, amongst other bugs.  Like the flies that chase her on the bayou trail.

She also wore her super cute green/blue running outfit that makes her look like a track star.

Awesome.  What a way to start a Sunday - family morning run!

Hola amigos.

It's been a while since I rapped at ya'.

Anyone know the reference???

Anyway, it has been.  I started my first week of work this last week, and finished my first 5 day work week after last week's two day work week.  Next week I only have 4 days (I get every other Fri. off).  I love my job, but the learning curve is pretty steep.  I'm learning all I need to do my job as a geophysicist.

As for the running, I'm still following a Dr. Daniel's plan, and it's working pretty well for me.  I only missed a single workout due to being really tired, and I've stuck with it for the rest of the time.  I've been going pretty slow, but I'm really trying to acclimate to the heat out here.  It's brutal, but I think I can do it...

Oh - and I saw fireflies on my run last night- thousands of them swarming in the bayou where I run.  That and a frog.  Brynne saw (and got freaked) by a snake going across the path.  Maybe I'll see a snake.  All I've seen are rabbits, frogs, and a very flat armadillo.

The running is pretty flat out here, and most of the people are rollerbladers.  To each their own I suppose. 

BTW - Jank has moved his RSS feed.  You can get it here.

Night!

Ugg.

First long run of the week, and actually since I've moved down here.  It was supposed to be 5 miles. 

It ended at 4.35 miles.

Humidity sucks.  I have my work cut out for me.

fatty fatty fat fat..

Ok...  Houston collectively needs to get on a treadmill or a bicycle.  I've never seen so many overweight people in my life!  I suppose I can understand, with the heat, awesome food, and over-abundance of fried/grilled/seered tastiness on every corner.  But, it can't be healthy.  I feel like twig boy out here, especially when I go to the pool.  It's a pretty big shock coming from the Front Range.

Ok, REALLY! I'm running for real now...

Ok.  After much work setting up the new house here in Houston, I finally went out for a run.  Actually, I went out for an early run on Saturday morning, but that was for a mile and half: just to make sure the knees and stomach were alright for greater endeavors. 
Anyway, today's run called for running for 30 minutes with 6 strides (high cadence for 30 seconds followed by normal cadence for one minute).  It felt pretty good to get out there, but my legs know that they've not done that much lately.  On a good note, I toned up my upper body with all this moving.  Plus, with the new cooking that's been going on in the house - the whole family has been eating very well.  And I've finally gained control over portions.

As for running in the heat and humidity...  Well, I'll just be hopefully that I'll acclimate.  It's harder to breath than I thought.  I think I'm not used to the heat generated by my body either.  I'm sure that I'll just keep attacking it and I'll eventually get better.  I'm doing a 4 day/week training plan from Dr. Jack Daniels, adapted by my wife.  It's pretty good, and focused on getting me ready for the Katy Fit Training program.  I'm hoping to do the Houston HP marathon at 8:25/mi, and I really think I can do it.

Other than that, I was very fortunate on my run today.  I went out while it was still sunny out.  About 1.5 hrs later this is what our little yard looked like:

The ground was still pretty saturated from yesterday's storm and it was flooding pretty well.  At least the bayou where I run should be nice and pretty for tomorrow's run. 

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that the pool at our apartment has swimming lanes!!!

I'll have to sneak in some off-day swim workouts to, uh, flush lactic acid and stuff...

Good night!

Returning to normal...

Sorry for not writing in so long.  It's been a crazy month thus far...

So far-

I had to do more work for a paper after my thesis was submitted than I had to do for the thesis - IN TWO WEEKS!

Graduated with my MS

Moved from Colorado to Texas (driving with a baby 10 hrs a day)

And moved into my new place down here (and unpacked).

My folks also came in - my dad flew in from Iraq for my graduation.  It was good to see him, but the day after everyone left the move began in full.  Needless to say that over the past eight weeks my running has been non-existent.  Mostly because I've been worn out from the moving.  I'm getting plenty of exercise lifting stuff and shuttling it between rooms or between the house and the garage.  Brynne made a plan for me based on the work of Dr. Jack Daniels.  I'm doing the Red plan - training for marathon training.  KatyFit starts up in 7 weeks, so that gives me some time to start running before things start in full with my training group.  I'm also planning on doing some Friday night crits if possible.  There's a Velodrome about 200 ft from my house as the crow flies, and I've totally got to take advantage of that. 

Tomorrow is my first run for a very long time.  I'll report how it goes.  I think it's about a four miler or something in that range.  My plan has me running 5 days/week with strength on off-days.  I'm looking forward to it. 

On the life front, I really like living down here.  I actually enjoy the heat, and you just deal with it.  Complaining is really sort of silly when it's going to be in the mid-nineties for the next couple of days.   The heat has also done funny things to my appetite.  I can't eat as much as I used to, and if I do, I definitely feel it right afterword's.  I still drink too much water - as an artifact of living at 5300-6000' for a couple of years. 

I also had a great realization today.  Trail running out here will be sweet.  There can't be any nasty 15-30 minute climbs out here.  They'll all be short, so suffering will take on some other pleasant manifestation. 

Have a good night!

Won't be front range runner much longer...

Well, these last two months have spanned from sucky to awesome. I'm really sorry I've been so bad about blogging lately. I guess it's sort of appropriate that I haven't written anything lately, since I haven't been able to run in nearly two months.

I finally finished & defended my thesis, and then had to run a lot of models to get some results for my advisors for their paper. I had to do as many model runs as I did for my thesis, except this time around I only had 2 weeks to finish the runs, and I lost all of my data at one point, too. So, because I was up all day and night coding and writting, I really wasn't able to get much running in. The crappy weather didn't help, and also get the house prepped for the move. My parents also came into town for graduation, too. And the visit to Houston. And my right foot (which is currently missing some skin on the sole).

Luckily, I'll start running again down in TX. I haven't put on any weight because of all the stress & coffee. As of now we're living in hotels, and tomorrow we start our road-trip to TX.