FIGJAM

Yesterday, we had some friends come visit us, and one of them is an avid golfer (and really, really good, too). He told us that he had recently heard Phil Mickelson's nickname on the tour -- FIGJAM. It's an acronym for [censored for parental eyes] "Fudge, I'm good. Just ask me".

Now, that being a great story in and of itself, it seems that it would not make a monumental blog post. So, why bring it up? Well... I'll get to that in a second.

Yesterday was a scheduled 7 mile long run. However, as mentioned before, the OES Run for the Pies 5K was scheduled for last night, so I did a not-so-quick four miler in the morning out on the beach. Turns out that at the time I went out (roughly 7AM), the tide was in and there wasn't a lot of room for running on the beach, and the sand was pretty loose. It wasn't my best effort, but hey, it was a "long" run (even though it was the same length as my morning run on Wednesday). And besides, I had some more to take care of that night.

We then spent the rest of the day eating badly (I had corned beef hash and eggs with hash browns and lots of toast for breakfast), and going to the beach, getting some sun, swimming in the ocean, and basically, wearing ourselves out. We came back to the house at about 5:00 and were all exhausted, and I don't know about the others, but my legs were pretty weak. So we showered, got ready, and headed out to the race.

And it was hot. And parking was nowhere to be found. Finally, we found a good spot, got our timing chips (well, Kathleen and I did... Lana got a personal chip from the Princess Half Marathon, so she was trying it out in this race). First was the Mizuno 5K Championship, where the qualifications were 17:00 for men, and 20:00 for women. And holy crap, are these guys fast. Most of the entrants seemed to be local, but the overall winner was Ryan Woods from Boone, NC -- in a time of 14:40. A 4:43 pace. Wow. It was an impressive race.

After that, it was time for the open race. This is set up so that more average schlubs like us can get medals -- the really fast guys run in the championship race before, and in some age groups, they give medals away 15 deep. Unfortunately, the start for the open race was the same as the finish for the championship race, so once everyone finished the first race, the almost 600 people running the second race had to run into the start (and push around so we could all fit behind the mats).

Oh, and did I forget to mention just how hot it was? It had to still be over 80.

But then the cannon shot, and we were off. The race started by running up Hogan St., which very quickly turned into a fairly steep incline away from the river. Now, since my legs were hurting, my first thought was "This is not good". But then I got slightly clearer thinking, and realized... "If we're going uphill here... we'll be going downhill for the finish!" Yeah, that kept me going for a lot of the race.

The race itself was pretty uneventful. The course was an out-and-back, but with a couple turns in them... an interesting notion. I spent the first part of the race running even with Kathleen, and just a few dozen yards behind Paul. At some point, I passed Kathleen, and kept running, focusing on Paul every now and then... I've never really had a chance to run a race with Paul, but I know he's finished the Gate River Run 15K in 1:40, and that's one of my goals, so I really wanted to keep up with him.

And we ran. And it stayed like that for a while.

We got to the first water stop (at some point after the mile split, but I never saw the sign for the mile), and this is when I realized that at some point in the last mile, Kathleen had passed me. How did I know this? Because the water stops were in the wrong places, were too crowded, and were too small. And we couldn't tell they were there, even as we were coming up onto them. And with the heat, they were necessary. So, as we were running, Kathleen had to run in front of me to get to the water (not obnoxiously so... just enough to surprise me that she had gotten in front of me). And Paul was still there, just ahead of me.

Then we got to the first turnaround, and I noticed that I was actually catching up to Paul. He was right there! Of course, after I turned around, I noticed that Kathleen was right there. It was a tight race. And it really was a race. At least for me. Because it wasn't long after that I actually passed Paul. And then I didn't have anyone to chase... but I had people chasing me. Which is still a mighty good incentive for me.

Yeah, I'm a little competitive.

But we were on our way back. And I passed the two mile mark, and got to the second water stop. Again, it was in the wrong place, but at this point, it wasn't that crowded, and I actually got a great nab on the cup and was able to take a drink, and dump some water over me without really even breaking stride.

And then we were nearing the end. We were on the last long straight stretch before turning for the finish, and we finally got a good breeze. It was still ridiculously hot. And for much of the course, we were getting no breeze, running on blacktop, and crowded with a few hundred of our closest friends. But now, it was feeling good... sweet breeze, and getting toward the end. We ran around the building, and into the home stretch. And the hill. That one from the beginning that hurt so bad at the beginning was suddenly the greatest thing I have ever seen.

And I was flying.

I kicked as fast as I possibly could, and crossed the line. And damn near collapsed.

Kathleen crossed the line 17 seconds behind me.

Paul was 58 seconds behind me.

And me? Oh, I did it in 25:35. A new PR. By 1:13.

FIGJAM.

One Week

Oy... it's been another whole week since I wrote anything here. I'm getting bad. And I expect people to start yelling at me (and I expect Lana to yell at me more) if I keep this up. Come on, guys -- this is a team effort.

So, where do we start?

Token Guy

I haven't yet mentioned it, but Lana did -- we signed up for a boot camp thing. Although it starts at 6PM, so it's not really like boot camp. Plus, it's at our gym. And they're personal trainers, not drill instructors. But I'm sure it'll be good. Of course, when I signed up, I signed my name as "Bill -- Token Guy". And when the guy running it called back to let us know we were in, apparently, I was still the only guy in the class. This should be fun.

Oh, and it turns out that I'm likely going to be traveling next week, so I might even miss my first two sessions that I paid dearly for.

*sigh*

King of the "Hills"

Saturday was long-run day -- six miles was on the docket. I decided that if I'm going to do any sort of good run at the Peachtree, I should probably get some hill runs in. There's just one problem with that: I live in Florida. We don't have hills. But we do have the next best thing. So, I got myself up nice and early (6AM) and headed downtown to run the bridges. The route was pretty similar to this one, except that I ran the boardwalk on the Southbank:



Interestingly, though, when I pulled into the YMCA where I park my car for these runs, the Galloway getting started group for the 26.2 with Donna were pulling in, as well. This is the group I was running with last year, before I hurt myself. I'm wondering if it might be worthwhile to run with them again, even if I'm training for a marathon that's more than 2 months before the 26.2 with Donna. I could always run more after their training runs are done. Any thoughts?

It was a pretty good run, but there were two things that happened that made it less-than-spectacular. First, it came to my attention that in the middle of long runs, especially when not running as a group, it gets hard. And this was a six miler. I'm training for 20 miles beyond that. The mental part of the run is going to be very difficult... and I think I'm just now really figuring that out.

Second, this was my first experience with the middle-of-the-run-emergency-bathroom-needed-and-I-mean-right-now event. I do feel like I've crossed a milestone in my training, but that was not pleasant while I was out there.

In case you're curious... I found one. And there was much rejoicing.

And then, after that, we went drinking for six hours while I was wearing a kilt and we were playing mini-golf (at the Jaxbars.com Annual Putt-N-Crawl). And it was good.

Monday

I didn't have a clever title for this one, because it was just a normal run. 3.5 miles around the neighborhood. It looks like I've moved up my base run to 3.5 miles instead of 3, so that must be a good thing. It was another great run -- about as fast as last week's. And everything felt good. And I finally figured out why it is that I was preferring to do my standard course backwards -- because it turns out that when I do it the "normal" way, there's an incline near the end for over half a mile! Granted, it's not that much... it is still Florida, but it's definitely noticeable.

Oh, and this run? It was the "normal" way.

Missed Opportunity

We were going to go swimming last night, so we brought all our swimming gear. And then there was lightning as we were leaving work. And we didn't have the rest of our workout gear. So we bagged and went home and watched TV. And it was wonderful.

Which brings us to today...

This morning, I got up at 6:00 to go on my (now standard) 3.5 mile run. Lana actually got up 15 minutes later, but somehow, we ended up leaving the house at the same time. She's just more efficient in the morning, I guess. I'm still stumbling around and this morning, trying to find running gear. Yep... it's time to do some laundry. But my nylon shorts loved me today.

We went off on our warmup walk together, but right when it hit five minutes, we split off, and I went to do my "normal" 3.5 mile run. And the stars aligned... and my run felt awesome from the get-go! Usually, my first half-mile is a little slow, but today's first half-mile split was something like 4:19! I was running my .44 miles in 3:31! Yeah, I know those are odd splits to put into this, but dangit, I was happy. What it ended up being was:

4.0 miles (yep, I extended it half a mile again. It just felt sooooo good!)
36:54 -- including walk breaks!
9:11/mile pace -- again, including walk breaks!

Oh, and my last running part? 8:00/mile average pace. I was hoofing it.

Bring on the Run for the Pies!!!!

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

It's Wednesday, and that means it must be yet another running day. Now, I know (even without looking back over the archives here) that I've had some really rotten runs lately. Well, with perseverance comes goodness... today's run was fantastic! Let me try to set the scene:

On Monday, I got up for my run at 6:30. Of course, I had to actually go through the motions of getting out of bed (which was really hard), and then getting some food and water in my system before running, making sure I knew what I was doing, getting dressed, getting out the door, warming up, running, and cooling down. After all that, I wasn't quite to work as early as I would have liked.

Today, I got up at 6:15. And got out of bed at probably about 6:18. Not too bad... still only had the alarm go off once (although I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to turn the dang thing off for a while). But then I got up and stumbled out to the living room to start the process of getting going. And that's where I was suddenly confronted by the massive pile of cardboard boxes that we've been storing up recently. Well, confronted by the pile... *and* the knowledge that today is trash/recycling day! So, the first thing I got to do in my less-than-awake state was to break down the boxes for recycling and run around the house to make sure all the trash was out the door in time for the trucks, which usually start showing up around 7AM. And then I had to eat (Gu Chocolate Outrage today... yum!), get some water, get dressed, etc. And I was out the door at something like 6:47. Still not bad.

The first half mile was terrible. I did a five minute walk to try to get muscles moving, but they didn't want to be awake any more than I did. But I fought through, and after a mile, I realized I was moving pretty well and getting into a good rhythm. And then, after another half a mile (or so), it happened... I was really moving. And it was almost effortless.

Yes, today was one of those great days we all wait for. Everything was working for me. My legs felt great, my lungs felt great, my energy level was way up there, and the temperature was only low 70s. It was... perfect.

So, the way I've been doing my weekday training runs lately is to run 1/2 mile, then walk 1 minute. After that, I finish out the second 1/2 mile (bringing total run-walk-run to 1 mile) and walk a minute. It seems to be averaging out to be about .06 or .07 miles walking, followed by .42/.43 miles running. And so far, it's been working pretty well. Monday, I was doing OK, but not great... it was something like 5:15 to finish each half mile. Good for a training run, sure. But not magical.

Today... I was finishing in 4:45... and that included the walking! I felt so freakin' good that I tacked an extra 1/2 mile at the end of the run, just because I didn't want to stop. Of course, then I had to get to the whole "going-to-work" thing, but I really didn't want to.

For everyone's entertainment, here is the lap pace chart from MotionBased for this run. It took a couple laps for me to realize I had to hit the button, but I think it gets the point across.

I love days like this.

I love Jacksonville

I absolutely love living here in Jacksonville, FL. Granted, it's a little rough when I realize that I'm going to have to start getting up even earlier to have a chance at running in less than 80 degree weather, but still... this is one great city when it comes to running.

On Saturday morning, I woke up and decided that I didn't want to run in the neighborhood. That's pretty understanding, I think, as I've been running just around the neighborhood for so long, it's just gotten ridiculously boring. I needed a change of pace. So I picked up the MacBook and signed on to MapMyRun, looking for a good spot to run.

What I found was that Jacksonville Beach from 16th St. South to the Neptune Beach border and back is almost exactly five miles (which is, conveniently enough, the distance I was going for). So I got my gear ready, and since it was already 9:30, I made sure to bring a fuel belt full of water and G2 for my hydrating purposes. Yeah, I'm getting smarter. Just don't bet on that continuing. History would be against you.

In any case, I headed out to the beach and went down to 16th South, where there's a good amount of parking. Which was... all.. full. Of course, my brain was slightly working when I realized that I could park anywhere I wanted to on the course, and just run the whole bloody thing, starting and stopping at that point. While this would generally be obvious, I'm sure, to most of you, this was a breakthrough for me. Especially for not even having had coffee. I was proud.

So, I headed up to the massive amounts of parking around the Jacksonville Beach City Hall and found a spot with no problem. I proceeded to sunscreen up (*very* important) and get moving. It started pretty slow, but moved into a pretty good pace. I was doing a 3/1 ratio, mostly because of the heat, but it felt pretty strong. The course I had chosen told me to head up 1st St. , and head back down 2nd St. But that just seemed... boring.

So, instead, when I got up to Seagate Dr. (the first street in Neptune Beach), I took a right instead of a left, and headed onto our beautiful beach.

For the record, let me stress that in no way am I advocating that people start coming to Jacksonville as a tourist destination. We have fewer tourists than probably any place in Florida, and I'm just peachy with that. We have far fewer idiots than the areas around the mouse, or those sun-baked folks in South Florida. But if you want to visit Jacksonville as a runner's destination, I'd love for you to show up, and I'll even show you places to visit.

Our beaches are perfect for running. They are very wide, even at high tide. They are hard-packed sand, which means that although there's much less stress on your ankles and knees, it's still not that much additional effort to propel yourself down the sand. And finally, it's relatively flat, so you don't get the same problems you would see running on the side of a steeply-crowned street. Plus, you get the standard breeze off the ocean, and even the occasional eye candy, no matter what your preferred candy may be. It's a winner.

But more than that, there's also some great runs in other areas of town. We have a race coming up in a couple months called the JDR Bridges 5K (formerly, the Vestcor Bridges 5K), which starts and ends downtown and runs over two of the scenic bridges crossing the St. Johns River. This is the equivalent of hill training in Florida, since it's the best we got, but it's also the first race where I broke 30:00 in a 5K. We have runs that go through beautiful and historical areas of town, such as the Gate River Run, heading through San Marco, or the Ortega River Run, which is a five miler on the other side of the river (which I didn't run, but Lana said it was great). We've got generally quick courses, but we have the oppressive humidity to make it still a challenge. And we've got enough variety that I should be able to keep it from getting boring for a long, long while.

And I've only started to explore.

In case you're curious, this was my five miler on the beach:



Note that, while the map looks like I was running in the water... not so much. I was very much up on the sand. I wish I'd brought a camera. Next time, I promise.