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.
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 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.
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!
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!
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.
I have to admit that I've been a somewhat-lazy lazy runner lately. I'm trying to get some results (stuff from the thesis) into a journal article. That's a major pain in the ass and I don't recommend it to any one, unless you enjoy that sort of masochistic thing. So, my running has suffered. Since Sunday, I've logged a whopping 9 miles, and I'm doing a tri tomorrow at my alma mater. 12 miles - woo hoo!
Today I managed to sneak out for a quick 20 minute run. I did it sans Forerunner & iPod - I didn't even have a digital watch on! It felt good, and the weather was pretty cooperative. I was only able to get out for 20 minutes because I was running some models and had to meet a friend in downtown Boulder. At least I got out, though.
On Sunday I'm flying to Houston for two days to learn more about where I'm going to be working and to find some form of living arrangements. Apparently there are running trails near my hotel, so I might have to try them out before heading out to my future employer.
Apparently there's a Velodrome near where we're going to live. I've always had this sick desire to try riding in a crit, and I have pretty decent handling skills. Perhaps I'll pony up the $ for a USCF license and try it out. I figure it can't hurt (unless I crash and get run over by a track bike). I'll let you know what happens. Besides, a single-speed groupo can't be more expensive than Campi Record, right?
Anyway, I'll report on my to-be-pitiful results at the race tomorrow. I'm sandbagging the swim to give myself plenty of wiggle room.
Today is supposed to be our last day of good weather for the rest of the week. The weather is supposed to get colder and rainy tomorrow, so I decided to take advantage of this fine Colorado spring weather and go for a run outdoors. I headed out at about 1830 MST for a four miler, and I just wandered around Golden. It was pretty outside - we're in that rare time of year where the mountains here in the front range are green before they dry out and get the golden appearance.
I wasn't feeling great for the first two miles but I found my groove and chugged along. I think it has something to do with the wackiness of the past month. Ended up with a 9:14/mi pace, which I was pretty happy about. I've been trying to keep my pace between 9:00 and 9:48/mi according to my performance and Dr. Daniel's data tables (see book on left column).
I'm so glad that graduate school is almost done. Getting the thesis and defense ready was really stressful, and it was getting to the point where I couldn't go for a run because there simply wasn't the time. Things have calmed down significantly, and now I'm trying to get some last minute details ironed out. Plus, I can get back to my running.
Also, I'm almost done with Dean Karnazes's book. Although his writing style leaves a little to be desired, the book has been an interesting read. It definitely gets me psyched up about going for a run if I read it on the ride home. I've also learned some interesting tidbits of information from the book:
Pedialyte (or its generic counterparts) is an excellent electrolyte drink for endurance running.
It is possible to pee whilst running.
It's possible to maintain an active ultra running career with a family and a job.
Although I don't think I'll be gunning for 195 mi distances, I definitely want to tackle 50km and 50 mile events. Luckily I have a wife who understands my love of running and is pretty supportive. I know that not everyone is so lucky.
I think for the rest of my time here in Colorado, I'm going to focus on building speed and doing less distance. I want to be able to take advantage of the gain in speed I'll get. As for distance, I think I have a good base, and I can always build speed. Besides, at faster paces, I'll be able to cover longer distances in the same time that I would have run up here at 6000 ft. There's a couple events I'm eying down in Texas:
The Palo Duro Canyon run. Perhaps the 20km or 50km event. Not sure yet.
The Houston Marathon. Flat and fast, baby! In winter too!
Some random trail races around Austin. Gives us an excuse for a weekend getaway to the hill country.
We ventured up to Boulder for the Earth Day 5k at the CU Research Park. It was a pretty fun race: good schwag (no, not the smokable kind -no pun intended), running celebrities (like Buzz & Galen Burell), and a flat and fast course.
Of the adjectives I would use to describe my performance, I would not use the following:
strong, fast, well-paced
I did 7:15/mi for the first two, but sort of blew up on the third. My ankle was bothering me, so I lost nearly one and a half minutes stretching it out. I also was having a difficult time pacing myself well. I was speeding up and then slowing down. Perhaps I should have worn my Forerunner.
The good thing about this race was that I learned one important thing: speed work!
Nearly all of my work thus far has been focused on distance. While this is great and all, I think I need to incorporate some speedwork into my weekly plans, since this is what will eventually make me faster. I also want to take advantage of my to-be-new-found speed when I move down the lower elevations. Speed work will also be good for me because I will be stretched for time in the next 2 weeks. Replacing longer runs with speed workouts will free up some time so I can be a good dad & husband and still run.
I'll have a chance to redeem myself next week at the Blaster Blast on the Mines campus.
Earth Day 5k:
25:00 minutes
