The Starting Gun

Back in the saddle again!

2009-09-01T17:33:00.004-04:00

Yes, it's true. After many months off, I am back in training for my next marathon, the National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer (or as better known around here, the 26.2 with Donna).

So, what have I been doing since my last marathon? In the running world, not much. I ran the Disney Half Marathon in January, the Gate River Run in March, and the Vestcor Bridges 5K in July. And that's it. Seriously.

Why have I been such a slacker? Because my wife and primary cheerleader took so much time off. Roughly nine months. That's right, I have expanded my empire to include one more crazy Carlson -- James William, born 7/30/2009.

And, yes, he is Super Cute.

But now I'm back, and I've been running for the last month. I'm still doing the Galloway method, but I have lost *every* bit of endurance I had from the last marathon, so I'm starting from even lower than I did last time. I'm running in the 3/1 group (my magic mile was 9:56), and it's hurting, but I'm doing it. Last weekend was six miles, including bridges. Serious ouch, but I did finish.

Hopefully, I'll get back to writing this on a more regular basis. But this is my true announcement.

I'm back for more!

I Did It!

2008-12-11T10:43:00.001-05:00

Yes, my very first marathon has come and gone. I promise I'll write more about it as I wrap my head around it, but I did meet my goal -- I finished.

Las Vegas Marathon
December 7, 2008
5:17:52

2008 Carrabba's Summer Beach Run Report

2008-09-07T14:43:00.005-04:00

Yes, yes, it has once again been a bloody long time since writing, but I've actually been stocking up on things to say. Hopefully, in this way, reading this will be slightly more exciting than reading "I got up. I ran. It was good." But that is neither here nor there right now. The item of immediate importance is last night's race. You might have been able to guess, but it was the 2008 Carrabba's Summer Beach Run.

The Summer Beach Run bills itself as "Florida's Oldest Footrace", and given that this was the 44th running (meaning that it started in 1964, if you're arithmetically challenged), I'm not going to argue with that. So they've had a lot of time to get it right. And they're pretty good at it. I'm sure this came in handy this year, as the run was postponed two weeks because of our unwelcome visitor (Fay). Luckily, Hanna left us alone, so we were able to run last night without a hitch.

The run itself is pretty simple. Get out on the beach, run 2.5 miles south, turn around, and run back. Of course, there are a few reasons why this is not quite so easy as it might sound:

We have great sand for running on the beach here, but we're still running on sand. Hard packed sand don't quite work as well as pavement.
It's a beach. It's not exactly what one would call "level". Again, it's probably some of the best for running, but it definitely slopes.
Some of our beach seems to have disappeared thanks to Fay. It was a little tight at the beginning (there were 1163 finishers)
Oh, my God, was it hot. Low 90's during the day. Probably got all the way down to the high-mid 80's by race time. Oy.

So there we were. Lana and I went "early" so that we could get a parking space, and we got to the beach about an hour before the race started. For some reason, though, we never even thought that on a really nice day, crazy people would want to go out to the beach for any reason other than a run. Jacksonville, however, appears to be just chock full o' crazy people -- and they were, indeed, all at the beach. Parking was rough. But after driving around for a little while, we actually found a good spot (right on A1A) and proceeded to wait for our good buddy Dreama. There's just not enough room in this blog (or even the entire internet) to explain Dreama, so we'll just leave that completely alone.

We got our chips (well, I did... Lana has gone ahead and made the purchase of a personal ChampionChip), and headed over to the starting area. There was still 15 minutes before the race started, so we got to warming up. Before we knew it, they were starting to give directions. Now, if you've ever been to a 1st Place Sports race, they are consistently wrong when they give directions. It's really interesting. Every time... they say that you run out, turn to your right, and run back. And every time, you run out, turn to your left, and run back. We really don't even listen to them anymore.

And that means that I'm sure the next race is actually going to be different and I'm going to get lost. I'll end up in Fernandina with no idea where the course is. That's my luck.

After the directions, the announcer led a tribute to John TenBroeck, a founding member and longtime leader of JTC Running, a member of the race management team for 1st Place Sports, and one heck of a nice guy. On Friday, he lost his battle against cancer. John was one of the pace leaders for the Jacksonville Galloway Training Group, and you could always count on his terrible, terrible jokes to completely distract you from total pain. He was also the voice that you would hear at the finish of the races, and (from what I hear) he would do the award presentation also. He was a wonderful man who gave a lot to running, and he will be missed.

After a minute of silence, the cannon started, and the race was on! We were led (once again) by a group of our military men and women running in formation -- if you've followed me for a while, you'll know that my picture of this group was a picture of the week last year. Well, about 40 seconds after the gun sounded, I crossed the start line and got on my way.

Now, to go back a couple days, on Wednesday night, I went on a training run. I had The Perfect Run. The one we love. The "Even the Russian Judge Likes It Run". I was flying, and everything was great. It was cooler than usual, my shoes felt right, the traffic was light, and it seemed like every part of the run was downhill. I felt so good that I added another half mile to the run. I ended up finishing four miles in 34:36. Yeah, FIGJAM.

So, going into the race, I was thinking that I should be able to run it pretty dang quickly. But with the heat, I figured I would push for a little slower than the other day. I figured that about a 9:00/mile pace would be right. So that's what I went for.

Now, here we are, we've just started running this five mile run up and down the beach. And there's really not much else to say about it. Except that I cannot figure out why people/tourists are still standing on the beach *IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROWD*. Seriously. There's 1000 people running at you, and you're just hanging out in the middle of where they're running. And making them run around you. Or you're letting your kid dig holes in the beach right where people are running.

Sometimes, I really don't like people. But I love gatherings.

In any case, there really wasn't much to report, except that I couldn't get my water at mile 1. The rest of it was pretty uneventful... focusing 100% on that spot 15 feet ahead of me so that I didn't run into a hole that some kid had dug in the beach. Oh, and looking for Lana.

But that 9:00 mile that I was shooting for? According to the Garmin, I ran 5.08 miles. And I did it in 45:03. Not half bad. Of course, the *official* results are a little different, since there's no chip time. But let's compare and contrast with last year, shall we?

2007:

ID #	PLACE	CLASS PLACE	NAME	AGE	TIME	PACE
258	455	61	Bill Carlson	35	54:10	10:50

2008:

ID #	PLACE	CLASS PLACE	NAME	AGE	TIME	PACE
251	274	38	Bill Carlson	36	45:34	9:07

In a nutshell:

I lost almost 10 full minutes. Oh, yeah... that's a PR.
I improved 23 spots in my age group
I improved 181 spots overall (for men).
I'm older
And apparently, I registered at just about the same time each year.

Dang. I'm good.

Coming up next? More training. After that? The Expedition Everest Challenge at Disney. And that's when my race season really starts going.

Wish me luck!

GPS - Revived!

2008-08-26T12:52:00.002-04:00

When I got home last night, I tried the trick for resetting the Garmin (Forerunner 205, for those who came here searching on "Forerunner 205 reset"). Specifically, the trick is to hold down the Mode and Reset (Lap) buttons for three seconds, and the power button. Lo and behold, it came back up with no problems. At the time, I was really hungry, and there is no run planned for today, so I just rejoiced at that and let it charge its battery, so I don't know if I lost any of my settings or my profile, but at least it's back up!

Garmin. Stronger than a tropical storm.

Soggy, but fine

2008-08-25T11:29:00.004-04:00

I'm finally posting after Fay came through late last week and did, in fact, mess up my training. In fact, it stopped both our Wednesday run and our long run on Saturday. Honestly, that had more to do with the beer at the hurricane party, and the fact that it was a "short" 8 miler this weekend, but still, it was rough to go that long without running.

The damage was pretty minor. We had a branch down, and some massive bits of our neighbor's scrub pines in our yard. The back yard turned into a swimming pool that was about an inch or two deep, so I couldn't even get any cross training in. Our neighbors had to cut down a tree that about split in their yard, and another neighbor had a big limb come off their tree, so we do have a pretty impressive pile of debris sitting in our cul-de-sac:

Annoying, but it obviously could have been much worse.

However, this morning, as I was getting ready for my run, I found a possible tragic victim of the storm (and it's accompanying power flickers) -- my Garmin 205. It won't power on anymore. I haven't had a chance to try to reset it yet, so I'll check that out after work, but it was terrible to have to run without it. I guess Lana's right... I'm a gadget junkie. And I need my fix. Hopefully, I can reset it with the Mode/Reset/Power buttons, but if not, at least a replacement is relatively cheap at Amazon right now.

At least the Nike+ was still working, so I was able to look at that. It reported 3.56 miles in 32:52 at a 9:13 pace. Not bad for a pretty easy run. Oh, and I also ran with only one of my knee braces on, and it felt a little wonky (like I need to do some exercises for knee stability), but not bad. I had been having some pain with it, and I'm wondering if I've gotten to the point where the knee brace was helping to cause that. I'm going to keep evaluating and see what I can figure out.

Trainus Interruptus

2008-08-19T08:59:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning, I decided to sleep in after staying up to watch the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget (Jeffrey Ross is H-I-Larious), so I ended up going on my run last night. It was 82 degrees outside, and just starting to sprinkle, so the humidity was off the charts. Still, I managed to get 3.5 miles in in 32:52, so it was good. One part that I especially enjoyed was that I tricked myself -- the first part of the run was pretty tough, so I told myself that I would walk when I got to the half mile mark. Then the Garmin beeped, and I just kept on running, and the funny part is that things felt *much* better after that! I'd heard of using that trick before (I think I read it in one of Jeff Galloway's books), but this was the first time I actually remember trying it.

In any case, it looks like tomorrow's run may not be happening. And probably not gonna happen on Thursday either. Or Friday for that matter. If you've been watching the Weather Channel, you know that Tropical Storm Fay has decided to make the entire Florida peninsula her home for the next few days. Well, here's the current chart from the National Hurricane Center:

Edit: The picture got updated, so now it's showing people in the other parts of the state getting rain. Trust me, when I posted it here, it showed a line directly over Jacksonville.

See that part up in the orange section (the Tropical Storm Watch area)? The part that has the storm just kinda hanging out for Thursday and Friday?

That's where I live.

And I don't really want to run in galoshes.

The Streak Ends

2008-08-04T11:36:00.002-04:00

That's it. It's over. My long streak of not posting is finally coming to an end.

Actually, there's one more streak that ended this weekend, as well -- my streak of PR's in every single race.

Ever since I started back running after my injuries, I've been getting faster and faster.

I started back in March with the Gate River Run 15K. Of course, since I'd never run a 15K before, that became my PR (which I should be able to beat quite handily next time I run one).

I followed that up with a performance in April at the Citistreet Corporate 5K, where I came in at 28:xx (wasn't chip timed, and I don't rightly recall what my actual time was), and that was the gun time. My Garmin had me at 27:xx. It was a good race.

Then, in May, I went down to Orlando for the Go Red For Women 5K. Great race, except for pulling a muscle in my calf. I managed to run most of it, and I ended up doing remarkably well. I finished in 26:48.

After that, in June, was the OE&S Run for the Pies here in Jacksonville. And even with the horrible food and the day at the beach before the race, the competition managed to spur me onto my best performance to date: 25:35!

And, of course, there was the Peachtree on the 4th of July, which had to be a PR, since it had been a long time since I'd done a 10K, and I got hurt doing that one, so the 1:01:37 that I timed myself at will stand as my PR there.

So last week, I realized that fitting right into my training was the JDR Bridge Run here in Jacksonville. As a matter of fact, I had PR'd at this race last year -- and it was the first 5K I had ever done in less than 30 minutes. So, I felt pretty good about it. I still threw a 3.5 mile run in the morning to try to keep my mileage at something, and I was nursing the nastiest blister I've ever had, thanks to a combination of new inserts and 14 miles, but there I was, at the starting line, ready to run for 3.1 miles straight, and go over two large bridges -- one of which has that nasty metal grating across the center span, and the other one being much larger.

And I did it. The first mile felt great, as is evidenced by the fact that I finished it in just over 8 minutes. Holy crap -- last year, I did that first mile in 9:30! I love being able to actually *see* accomplishments. Of course, as I started going up the first bridge, things slowed down a bit, and when I got to that nasty grating, I *really* slowed down. I've got a totally rational fear of falling on that stuff, especially after this year's Gate River Run. But once I got off the grating, I picked up a lot of speed on the downhill side, grabbed some water, and got ready for the second bridge.

Oh, boy, is that bridge bigger. It's not nearly so intimidating as it was last year, since this is now one of my training bridges... in fact, I've done this exact run many times now, so really, it's just a matter of powering to the top. And I was doing OK -- the Garmin said that I finished mile 2 in something like 16:40, and that was before I reached the top of the bridge... but it was also well before I got to the two mile sign, so I must have been weaving in and out of the crowds. No matter, I was still doing pretty well, and I had the whole downside of the bridge to go.

So once I crest the bridge, I start hoofing it. And I'm passing people, and running like the wind, and I'm feeling pretty good. And then I got to the bottom of the bridge and realized that the rest of the way (about half a mile) was pretty much up a gentle slope. Still, not something my legs wanted to do at that particular moment. I hit the three mile sign just as it hit 25:00, but I was getting tired. I ran into the finish, saw Lana playing around on her phone, yelled at her to pay attention, and came in for a strong finish.

Chip time: 25:56. Not a PR, but not a bad performance, either. And the Run for the Pies has a *very* quick course. So I still felt really good about only be 21 seconds off.

Jacksonville running is fun.

2008 JDR Bridge Run
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Randy Pausch, 1960 - 2008

2008-07-25T15:35:00.003-04:00

Randy Pausch, Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, died today from complications from pancreatic cancer. See the full story here.

If you haven't seen his "Last Lecture", it can be viewed on YouTube. I recommend that everyone view it, as it has been an inspiration to thousands of people, has spawned a bestselling book, and has introduced a number of people to a fine individual and one of the truly great educators of our time. In addition to the Last Lecture, I also recommend checking out his lecture on Time Management, given last year at UVA, where he was also a professor for many years.

For those who have watched the lectures, seen him on Oprah or talking to Diane Sawyer, I can tell you that he was every bit as authentic as he seemed. While I was at UVA, Randy was my thesis advisor, and is one of the people most influential to the way that I both conduct myself personally and professionally, along with the methods I use for better engineering and coding. His classes were always extremely entertaining (at least to the folks who got the good grades), and that was one of the main reasons we all learned so much from him.

Unfortunately, I haven't spoken to him since shortly after graduating from college, and sometimes I wondered if he knew just how much he had touched the random lives he intersected through the years, but I'm pretty sure he'd gotten some idea of it through the correspondence he'd gotten after giving the lecture.

Rest in peace, Randy. You will be missed.

Bring It On!

2008-07-03T11:36:00.004-04:00

Yes, yes, I know I haven't posted in two weeks. I'm a bad blogger. And this one ain't gonna satisfy anybody who actually cares about my running, either, but I'll give a quick update:

Boot camp hurts. Badly. Those are muscles I haven't used in 20 (OK, 17) years. Damn.

It feels good to be swimming again. Not this week, but 2000 yards last week in about 50 minutes was pretty good. It'll only take a little longer to get back to my all-time high of 5000 in 59:50. But that was when I was 16. And it was non-stop (for the Swim-a-thon). And it was just about the last time I used any of the muscles that we're using in boot camp.

Ran a 10-miler on Saturday. Unfortunately, when you use MapMyRun to create a new route that you've never really done before... well, it doesn't show fences. So we got lost for a little bit. But we managed to adjust and it actually came out remarkably close to my goal distance. And it didn't feel too bad. And it took less than two hours, so I was happy.

Getting Lost for 10 miles
Find more Runs in Jacksonville, Florida

And today... we drive up to Atlanta.

And tomorrow... we run the Peachtree!

Wish me luck!

FIGJAM

2008-06-15T11:38:00.004-04:00

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

2008-06-11T11:11:00.003-04:00

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:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/fl/jacksonville/41704276"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Galloway Yates YMCA 6 mile&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/united-states/fl/jacksonville"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Runs in Jacksonville, Florida&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

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!

2008-06-04T17:25:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-02T15:26:00.003-04:00

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:

Five Miles at the Beach
Find more Runs in Jacksonville, Florida

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.

Catching Up

2008-05-29T17:15:00.002-04:00

Wow. It's been waaaay too long since I posted, and Lana hasn't even tried to get the blogosphere to yell at me yet. Something must be up. Are y'all getting ready to throw me a surprise party or something?

It's OK. You can tell me.

Fine. I'll make sure to act surprised. But in the meantime, let me mention what all I've been up to, and try to keep it relatively short.

Wednesday, 5/21
Went to my second yoga class, ever. And this one was way different from the first one. The instructor wasn't nearly as much of a hippie chick (hugs were not mandatory on our way out), and the work was much harder! I was hurting for a while after this one. Plus, she kept telling us to stretch our chest and "breathe in the space". Huh? You can't breathe in space. There's no oxygen there. Nutjob yoga teachers...

Oh, and I had a run that morning, too. It sucked. It was hot.

Thursday, 5/22
Nothing at all. It was awesome.

Friday, 5/23
Skipped out of work early and headed to the local bar. Tried some good beer. Figured we would start our weekend of eating terribly off right. Left the bar and headed up to the UVA/FSU baseball game during the ACC Championship Series at the fabled Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville. Ate more. Cursed the powers that be for making college games dry. It's just not right. Don't they know how boring baseball is without beer?

Oh, and I twisted my knee at one point during the work day. Then I rolled my ankle that night in the parking lot.

Saturday, 5/24
Got up and went for a run. It was really hot, but it was only 10AM this time, not noon. Still, it was a great run. And now I'm worried that I have to be hurt to run well. I really hope that isn't the case...

Then, we headed over to my folks' house in Panama City Beach, FL. It's a long, boring drive, but it's always worth it to head out there and see them. This is actually the first time I've been out there during the tourist season, so it was interesting. And they have a local outdoor mall that's recently been finished, and it's pretty cool. Ended up having much beer, and then German food... with a 1-litre Hofbrau Maibock.

Oy.

Sunday, 5/25
Ouch. That was way too much to drink. Got up, went to church, went to breakfast, and ate a *ton*. Then we went to a Cajun festival... do *not* attend a Cajun festival when you are too full to eat anything, and too hungover to appreciate very loud zydeco music. It's a bad combo.

That night, we decided to just eat at the house, because, of *course* we can eat healthy. So we had bacon-wrapped scallops, boiled shrimp, and red beans and rice. Oh, and deviled eggs, just because my dad's deviled eggs are the best ever.

Monday, 5/26
Memorial Day. Got up and went for a run around PCB... or at least from my parents' place to the Wyndham and back. It was hot... I was slow... It was terrible. I ran the full first mile before a walk break, but I ended up on 1/1 ratio because it was so miserable. Bad.

After that, we got to visit the park where Dad volunteers (Camp Helen), and then we headed home. It was a great weekend, but my folks are not diet-friendly. At all.

Tuesday, 5/27
Decided to actually go to the gym and cross-train for once. Rode the bike, did some lifting, and then rode the bike some more. Pretty uneventful, except that I haven't been to the gym in so long, I forgot what weights I use for lifting.

Wednesday, 5/28
Apparently, I should be using less weight than I did on Tuesday. I'm a little sore. Thank God I didn't work my legs, since I've got a run this morning. It was actually nice and cool (only about 70F), so things were feeling pretty good. But I did run a bit out of steam at the end. I really need to do something about my really poor running in the morning. Maybe it's whatever I'm eating, or has something to do with my hydration, or my lack of being totally awake, but there's something going on there.

Thursday, 5/29
Seriously, it's been this long since I posted anything? Wow. You guys must hate me. In any case, I'm sitting at work right now, getting ready to head to the gym for my next round of cross training (i.e., bike and lifting). Today, I'll focus more on legs (no run tomorrow), and hopefully, I won't be in too much pain tomorrow morning.

I'll let you know in another week and a half.

It Didn't Suck

2008-05-20T13:40:00.003-04:00

Or, "If You Think My Shorts Are Tight..."

Last night was my first-ever yoga class. I'm not even sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. The teacher was a total hippie, which was interesting. It started with some relaxation, which was a nice way to start the class... some quiet music, the teacher spritzing some supposedly pretty-smelling stuff into the air, and lots of quiet. I almost fell asleep.

I liked that part.

After that, I guess we got into the more stretching part of the day, and this was a bit... difficult. Lana said that I was doing well, but I couldn't help but notice that I was not *nearly* as flexible as most of the people in the room. Yes, it was my first time, but dang! These folks ain't natural!

At this point, I can't say that I have a "favorite" position, but I do have several least favorites. Basically, anything involving my hamstrings is going to be awfully high on the list of "Poses That Suck". It's pretty obvious at this point that my hamstrings, as well as my calves, are very tight.

To go along with that, it's also painfully (and I chose that word carefully) obvious that I really should continue on with yoga. I may try again tomorrow, or it may have to wait a week, but yes, I will go back.

Oh, and thank God there were other guys in the class. That made me feel much better.

Monday Musings

2008-05-19T13:58:00.002-04:00

As I was out on my runs on Saturday and this morning, I noticed that I was having a bunch of random thoughts. So, to the best of my recollection, here they are:

It's true... if you run long enough, you will have bad runs
And sometimes you'll have some great ones!
If you run in the morning, it's definitely a good idea to eat something first. Otherwise, your legs just quit on you... or on me, anyway.
Headbands may look really stupid, but they are one honking great idea when it's 85 outside
Running when it's 85 outside is a really, really bad idea.
Even in North Florida, morning runs are good. Evening runs are good. Noon-time runs are very, very bad.
Even though that was the best run I've had in a while.
Calibrating a Nike+ doesn't really make it entirely accurate. I just made 5% off in the other direction.
I love my Garmin

Basically, I've had a few rough runs in the last few weeks. My legs have just been like jelly, although my Saturday run (at noon... in North Florida) actually felt really good!

I did roughly 3.5 miles on Saturday (my first "long" run of marathon training), and about 3 miles this morning. I can tell you that 85 degrees and sunny seems to treat me better than not eating anything at all and having half a glass of water. Today's run was rough. I did my first mile in a good pace, and then I just completely ran out of energy. My legs were heavy and tight.

So, in an effort to at least get the tightness out of them, I'm braving new experiences... I'm going to my first yoga class tonight with the wife. I am not flexible and I have no balance, but hopefully I'll at least be able to have some fun with it.

Go Red For Women 5K Race Report (Finally)

2008-05-15T10:01:00.013-04:00

OK, it took almost two weeks, and a little bit of berating from the wife, but here it is, as best as I can remember:

It was a gorgeous Saturday morning in Central Florida as roughly 1600 women and 160 fellas gathered together to do something to help women, or celebrate women and running, or something like that. I'm sure it was a good cause. Quite honestly, though, I really just signed up for a few very important reasons:

It's a 5K with a medal. How often does that happen?
It's the last year they are running it, so last chance for a 5K. With a medal.
My wife was already signed up for the 15K the next day. Despite the fact that my first race back from injury was a 15K, I just don't think I'm quite to a point where I'm ready to go that far yet. Even for a medal.
And, hey, it's yet another excuse to get down to Disney.

But that's neither here nor there. Let's start at the beginning.

As with any other Disney race, it started with waking up way too early for civilized folks. Luckily, this was just a 5K, so it didn't start until 7:00AM, but we still had to be there before 6:45 to pick up my race packet. I didn't know at the time how much I would appreciate having that much time to sleep in (and we'll see more if holo wahini ever posts her race report -- sure, she wrote a little bit, but not an actual report), but again, I digress. We woke up dark and early at something like 5:45 AM, after which I spent a few minutes blindly stumbling around, muttering a bit, and attempting to put on running clothes. We grabbed a quick snack and got out of the hotel with lots of time to spare.

...which means we got there really early. And there wasn't nearly the lines I was expecting to pick up race packets. I guess most folks were either locals that were able to pick them up the day before, or people who had come from out of town and had time to pick them up the day before. Either way, I got my number, I got my shirt, I got my chip, and I was ready to go.

One side note -- the wahini did get my shirt, because the web site had said that it would be a women's shirt. From what I could tell, it looked like a plain ol' shirt to me. But I'd already signed up with her size, so, whatcha gonna do?

So there I was at the starting gate, putting myself toward the front of the 9:00 - 11:00 pace group. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the space that we were given (not packed in like sardines just yet), and the fact that there wern't all that many people there (for a Disney race), but I got to wander around a bit, warm up a little, and do some people watching. Mostly, it was nice to watch the sun rise...

At roughly 7:00, the far-too-perky-for-that-time-of-the-morning race hosts brought Minnie herself up to start us off on the race, but I think that either her recording broke, or she just didn't like us very much, because when one of them asked "Isn't this a great crowd?", she just stood there.

Awkward...

But then we counted down, and were off like a flash into the wilds of... the Imagination parking lot at Epcot. Yes, because the park is only so big, the first mile or so is run through parking lots, with cones set up to show the course. Like any other race, it was crowded at first, and you had to duck and move to get around people, but eventually, it did thin out. And honestly, having the course start out through the parking lot wasn't bad. At the very least, if you had to step outside the course to avoid a crash, you weren't having to step up onto a curb, a median, or some uneven ground. My knees thanked me for that. But when I finally got a chance to look at the Garmin, I realized that I may be going a little too fast: 8:17. Yeah, I might want to slow that down a bit. So I pulled back a little bit, just to make sure I had enough gas for the second mile, let alone the third. I do also have to make a mention of seeing the cutest little Minnie:

But we went around the parking lot, into a cast member parking lot, and got to mile marker 1 right around the back of Test Track. Of course, since this is one of our favorite rides, I had to try to get a picture of it, too... but on the run. There was no stopping for me at this point... I made the first mile in 8:42!

From there, we went around the corner, hit the first water stop (on both sides of the course -- I love it when they do that), and ran past what I think was the Universe of Energy pavilion, and out to Epcot proper, complete with giant golf ball. From there, it's just a simple run up and around, and...

OUCH!!!!

What the hell? All of a sudden, on the slightest of inclines, my left calf started hurting like crazy! I hadn't heard a pop or a snap, or anything, but my calf just did not want to run any farther. Of course, I did. And I'm more stubborn. So, against all sanity, I decided to keep going. It's a character flaw. But I did slow down a little, and I eased up a bit to where it wasn't hurting terribly bad. And as I kept going, it kept loosening up and feeling better. So on I went, past the various beach-themed topiaries (it was during the Flower and Garden Festival), past the fountains, and up towards the World Showcase.

Once I got up to the various countries, my leg was feeling... OK. Not great, but good enough that I could still run on it. So run, I did. There wasn't much going on in the countries, but I do want to point out a couple things. First, I actually was able to get a pretty decent picture of Norway while running:

And secondly, they very nicely had the torches lit around the water:

At some point in there, we also crossed mile marker 2. And believe it or not, I was still going strong. I must have picked back up before getting hurt, because my second mile came in at 8:42! All of a sudden, I'm thinking to myself that it was possible for me to come close to last week's time... as long as I don't walk. In the last race, I took a couple walk breaks in the third mile, and dangit, I wasn't going to let that happen again -- injury or no!

Of course, from there, it was pretty boring... I was just focused mostly on running a good race, making sure my leg was still attached and feeling OK (hey, I may be stubborn, but I ain't stupid), and trying to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And after heading out of the park, I was on my way. The Garmin was still showing that I was doing remarkably well -- apparently, I did my third mile in 8:42, also! It was amazing how evenly paced it was. I've never run a race like that before -- and that was even while hurting for half the race. But I still had .1 miles to go... and it was time for the kick. And others around me were picking it up, too. I managed to pass a few people, but there was this one really tenacious woman that I just couldn't shake... and she actually passed me at the end. But still... 26:48! WOO HOO!!!!

Oh, and holo wahini was waiting for me at the end. I heard her cheering and gave a little wave as I was hitting the finish line. And then I had to wend my way through the chute, get my medal, Powerade, banana, and blueberry muffin thingy, and then go try to find my wife in the crowd. So, I started heading over to where I had last seen her. And... no wife. Thoughts of the Gate River Run started flashing through my head again, but this time, we had phones. I gave her a call, and she mentioned that Leana had finished shortly after I did, and that she was going to try to meet up with her, which we eventually did, and she's just about the nicest person ever. We also got to meet her folks, who ran the race with her. Of course, we had to get the obligatory photo:

Naturally, after standing around and chatting for a while, Leana went off with her folks to clean up and attack the day, and we went on to breakfast... and my leg had tightened up so badly that I could barely walk! So, there was one more stop for the day, and I know Lana would never let me live it down if I didn't post this photo, too:

Yes, that's me in the medical tent, getting checked out. It's fun having multiple knee braces, and trying to figure out why my leg doesn't want to work anymore. But, I just pulled it, and he gave me an ice pack (and I was very careful not to get frostbite!), and we went on our way. To make a long story slightly less long, it hurt for most of the day, but it did start relaxing in the late afternoon, and by dinnertime, it wasn't that bad at all. It's still a little tight, but I've been running twice more without a problem, so I'm just keeping track of it, massaging and stretching, and trying to take it easy for a little bit. Two PR's in a week and a half was a lot of work... especially when the improvement was almost a full minute! But I got some good rest in, and now we are starting the actual training for the Las Vegas Marathon. And to keep us motivated, we actually signed up a couple days ago. We're in it. And it's gonna be great!

BTW, all the pictures are available from Flickr.

FYI, here is the course from MapMyRun:

2008 Go Red for Women 5K
Find more Runs in Orlando, Florida

A Weekend Full of PR's!

2008-05-04T20:31:00.002-04:00

Yes, my wife and I both got PR's this weekend at the Minnie Marathon Weekend in Disney! I ran the 5K, and shattered my previous best:

26:48

I'm too tired to do the full race report now, but suffice to say, I'm thrilled!

Nike+ SportBand Review

2008-05-01T17:44:00.003-04:00

For a couple days, we'd been planning on going for a run last night. Unfortunately, when I got home, I was greeted with the sight of a sleeping wife on the couch. Yeah, she slacked out, but she did look awfully cute, too. So, I berated her a little bit, put new Yankz shoelaces in my running shoes, and got ready to head out the door. I figured that after my performance last Thursday, I should go ahead and try to do another 5k or thereabouts, and see how well I can do, and how long I can go without a walk break. So, I put on my Garmin and my Nike+ and headed out the door.

For starters, I should mention the "install" process. Everything works remarkably similarly to the Nike+iPod setup -- the system comes with a small sensor that supposedly gets installed into the sole of a Nike shoe. Of course, I just recently got a pair of Brooks shoes, and I'm really not a fan of Nike, but luckily, Lana had previously gotten a little pocket for the sensor that attaches to the laces using Velcro, so I was still able to go ahead with my run.

I wanted to make sure that I had the running part of the whole thing properly timed out, so I left the Garmin waiting to start until my warmup was complete, but I did start the Nike+ for the warmup. To sync, you simply hold the big button down for three seconds, after which, it will attempt to find your shoe sensor. It will ask you to walk around until it can find it. Also, if there are multiple sensors around (such as at the start of a race), you may have to walk away from the group to sync up the sensor and the SportBand. Once you sync the system, you just press the button to start, and press the button again to stop. Finally, you can end the run completely by holding the button down for another three seconds. It's pretty simple, even if it took me a couple days to completely realize what to do. But that's because I'm an engineer, and I don't read instructions.

So, I completed my warmup. According to the Nike+, I did roughly .2 miles in 5 minutes of walking. When I completed the warmup, I started the Garmin, and proceeded to watch both for the next 3.1 miles.

For starters, let me mention that I have not calibrated the Nike+, and it showed. It was generally off by a bit -- at some points, the Garmin was showing my pace at 9:45, and the Nike+ was showing at 13:00! But most of the time, they were both pretty close to each other. From what I could tell, it seemed to be somewhat based on the length of my stride, and as I was running, I actually used that to note that I did need to shorten my stride. So in that, it actually helped. And I'm sure this will be corrected when I decide to calibrate the thing.

As for the rest, I like this product. The connectors seem to be solid, with snap-like connectors both to hold the band on your wrist, and to hold the module into the band. However, the connectors are deep enough to ensure that they will not accidentally become undone, but not so deep as to cut into your wrist at any time. When not running, you can use the connector as a simple watch (showing time only). When you are running, you can set it to show you current distance, current pace, time, or calories burned (if you entered your weight into your Nike+ profile).

As far as the online environment goes, I'm pretty sure that has been talked about more times, and significantly better than I ever could. But if you haven't seen it, I recommend just checking it out at http://www.nikeplus.com. It's well worth the time, and the online community was one of the major reasons that I made this purchase. Well, that and the upcoming rainy season in Florida, which will make me run inside several times.

So, let's move on to things that I am not particularly fond of. The display has no backlight, so it is nigh upon impossible to see in dim light. I *love* that the 'face' of the watch is removable and plugs directly into your USB port for updating, but the fact that the face is curved does make it difficult to plug into a slim laptop when it's sitting on a table. The only time that this is a problem is when you need to leave it plugged in to charge. Of course, I understand that this is so that it fits around your wrist better -- and I certainly don't fault them that. It's just something to be aware of. Finally, as a geek, I have to point out that the Nike+ Utility (no iTunes requirement) is only supported on Windows and OSX, so if you're a Linux user, I guess you're out of luck for now.

Other than that, I absolutely love the thing. It's light, it's comfortable, and it's small. For the time being, I'm still going to wear my Garmin anytime I'm running outside, but when the Nike+ is calibrated, I could see a time where I cease wearing the Garmin for my more standard runs around the neighborhood. Until that time, I'll be happily wearing both, and looking like the absolute gadget geek that I am.

Oh, and BTW, I was able to complete the 5K in under half an hour (~29:45), and without taking any walk breaks. And I felt pretty good about that.

On to tomorrow's Go Red For Women 5K!

Thursday Night PR!

2008-04-25T09:48:00.003-04:00

Yes, last night's 5K was a great run, and I did get a PR. Not only that, but it was just a fun race.

You see, last night's run was the CitiStreet Corporate 5K, and a part of that run is that teams from different companies around the First Coast would run and compete against each other. Now, those of you that know me also know that I work for a computer company, and we spend the vast majority of our days sitting at a desk, exercising nothing but our fingers. Well, I was able to get a team of nine people from my company together to run the race. Some had run before, most had not, and some were just walking to support a good cause (Girls on the Run). But the responses I heard last night and today were almost entirely positive, and a few of the folks from last night are even talking about continuing to run, and even entering upcoming races!

Now, of course I knew this would happen, but it still feels pretty good to help get other people hooked on this running thing. That way, I won't be the only nut in the office.

In any case, back to the run. It was a nice flat course, around the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium and Veterans Memorial Arena. The course was kinda strangely wrapped around on itself, but it ended up being very easy to follow, and with surprisingly few sharp turns.

During training, I'd been having a friendly competition with one of the guys in the office on our training times. He was doing mostly treadmill work, but he was also a high school triathlete, and he's in pretty good shape. I was not a triathlete (although I was a swimmer in high school), and I'm still not in pretty good shape (although I'm getting better). Along the training, we were doing rougly 10 minute miles each. Not bad, especially since I'm still trying to get my runner's legs back. In training, I had been doing mostly 5/1 run/walk intervals. But I am competitive.

So, the gun goes off, and after about 30 seconds, we get to the starting line, and he takes off like a bat out of hell! Now, there's no way I'm going to let him completely run away from me, so I pick up the pace a little, thinking that I'd catch up with him, remind him that there are, in fact, 3 miles to run after that first tenth. Unfortunately, it took a little longer than a tenth of a mile to catch him -- I finally did at about .4 miles in, and at one point, I looked at the Garmin, and saw that I was running a 7:35 pace. Now, some of the folks in the RBF can keep that pace going for 3.1 miles. I'm not one of them. So I slowed down (quite a bit), and we both ran along until about the first mile mark. Now, at this point, I'm still feeling really good, despite the fact that I have yet to take a walk break. So, I just kept running. And at some point right around there, I turned around, and my buddy was no longer with me.

Ah, the joys that training can bring...

So I just kept on running. At mile 1, the split clock read just about 9:00. My Garmin read 8:34. At mile 2, the Garmin said something just short of 18 minutes. Well, at that point, I decided that with 12 minutes to finish before my goal time (30 minutes), I might as well take a little break. I'm not sure at this point if that was really a good idea, because I only walked for about 15 seconds and I could just feel the lactic acid performing a blitzkrieg assault on my thighs. I ran again, and then took another walk break around the 2.5 mile mark, mostly because the wind was picking up.

Coming around the next corner, though, I saw a bunch of people hopping up on the sidewalk, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that... I had to stay on the road and make sure to go around the sign directing us to the right. I don't know why, it's just a pet peeve of mine to see people running around the other side of the sign. I know it's not *that* much of a difference, but it irks me. Oh, well... to each their own.

Coming up on three miles, I see the clock reading 27:00. Holy crap! I can run a tenth of a mile in a minute, and until now, my PR was 29:03 at last year's Vestcor Bridge Run. So, I put the spurs to it... as much as I could at that point, anyway, and I cross the line at:

28:20 Gun time!

Which, according to the Garmin, was 27:47.

The unfortunate part of this is that there were no timing chips, so now I have to do it all again next week at Disney. Luckily, that's a pretty flat run, too.

But for now, let's do the happy dance for me!

(Oh, and yes, I still have a couple other posts to get to... the Nike+ review will come shortly)

CitiStreet Corporate 5K 2008
Find more Runs in Jacksonville, Florida

New Toy!!

2008-04-23T21:11:00.002-04:00

I guess I'm one of the first to get the new Nike+ SportBand. As you can tell from the new widget on the sidebar, I've tested it out by running all the way from my house to the end of the cul-de-sac. I know... I'm a rock star. But so far, I think this is going to be great, and it'll do wonders for trying to track mileage and performance when running indoors, like when it gets too hot or there are too many hurricanes around for outdoor running.

A full review will come after running in my 5K tomorrow.

Weekend Running

2008-04-14T13:24:00.002-04:00

Saturday was absolutely beautiful here in North Florida... but a tad warm (about 87 degrees). And with my folks coming into town, both Lana and I decided that the time before they showed up could be much better spent getting the house in order. And hitting the driving range -- which was fun, but showed that any game I had last year (which was none) has completely gone away. It may even be negative now. I kept finding balls on the ground behind me... I may have been hitting backwards without even noticing it.

Sunday, we woke up bright and early and ready to run, and found out -- after we had gotten ready, mind you -- that it was pouring down rain. And it continued to pour down rain all morning. So, we headed off to church, and then off to brunch, at which point the rain had pretty much stopped. The only problem is that when my folks come to visit, well, we don't starve. So, a food coma and some watching of the Masters later, we finally got started running.

4.03 miles in 41:00. I was hoping to keep it below 10:00/mi, but it wasn't all *that* bad.

I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but we're about to go on a cruise to Key West and Cozumel, leaving Miami on Thursday. I'm definitely bringing running gear, and would love to go for a run in Cozumel, but I'm also going to bring the Garmin and make sure to wear it as I'm running around the track in the boat... and to see if it works plotting the running course in MapMyRun. That should be interesting.

But mostly, I just can't wait for the cruise.

Lana said it all

2008-04-11T16:15:00.003-04:00

If you read my lovely wife's blog, you already know this. If not...

We got into the Peachtree 10K! Woo hoo!

At least now I know what my 4th of July plans are going to be.

Of course, Lana posted more here. Check it out!

A good run, and a quick endorsement

2008-04-10T10:05:00.002-04:00

That last post was pretty short, eh? Well, there's a reason for that. I posted it over the phone, while in my Jeep, on the way back from my run. Text messaging? Heck, no! That's not nearly high-tech enough for the likes of me. No, this came from Jott. Jott is a service that will take voice calls and transcribe them into emails, text messages, and even blog posts and twitter updates. They even have an interface to the calendar I use (30 boxes). It's not perfect, but it's pretty slick for sending short messages out without being one of those jackasses that try to text and drive at the same time. Oh, and best of all? It's free. Of course, that means they won't be giving me anything special for this fantastic review, but hey, the thing just plain works.

Anyway, the run yesterday was great! Of course, I'm running in a new area of town (near my new gym), and I don't know the area very well yet, so I was putting potential routes into MapMyRun and I thought I had found a really good one -- except that I got there and it was a gated community, so I had to turn around, and get back to the gym to do the same route I did last week. For some reason, though, this week just felt much better!

I was running a 5/1 interval, since it gave me so much trouble last week, but things were just... happy. I wasn't slowing down at the end of the running period, and my walking phase was nice and relaxed, but going at a good clip. Obviously, I'm still not back to where I was before my multitude of injuries, but still... making good progress.

I promise my next post won't have nearly so many links in it.

3.13 miles in 30 minutes...

2008-04-09T20:13:00.001-04:00

3.13 miles in 30 minutes and 50 seconds, more to follow. listen

Powered by Jott

Brooks Review (and some other stuff, too)

2008-04-04T10:52:00.003-04:00

OK, I've been a bad blogger. I went out and got new shoes, ran in them, and never even posted about them.

The verdict:

Love them.

That's not to say that the Saucony shoes I had before are bad... maybe it's just the running with the orthotics in that make those so nasty. But the Brooks seem to have more stability in them. I ran about 3.5 on Monday with the Brooks (and the new knee brace, socks, shorts, and shirt... I was looking like it was the first day of school), and they ran great. The support was fantastic, the cushioning was unbelievable, and the fit was spectacular... even in the 12's.

So, since the last entry, I did 3.5 on Monday at a 4/1 interval, and 3.4 on Wednesday at a 5/1 interval. Wednesday was pretty dang hot down here, and I was soaked through by the time I finished the run, but it felt pretty good. I did take a wrong turn at one point, and I was slowing down more than I wanted to at the end of the 5 minutes, so I think I'll be staying at that pace for a while, just to work on the endurance necessary to keep it there. I figure that if I can build myself up to the point where I can average about 9:30 in the running part, I'll be doing pretty well for the 24th.

Yes, there's a race on a Thursday... it's the Citistreet Corporate 5k, and I'm trying to get lots of my work folks to discover the wonder of running. So far, I've got one guy that'll be a good competition (he'll probably kick my butt, but you never know), a couple who say they're walking, one who is going to sign up for a 5k "mosey", one who rides his bike to the neighbor's house, and two that are saying they're going to need somebody holding up a jelly doughnut for them to follow. Oh, and one that registered to help out the charity (Girls on the Run), but may not actually do any walking or running. But he may show up for the post-party with "free" beer.

Yep, these are the folks I work with. Hopefully, at least one or two of them will get the bug after they see what a race environment is like. I managed to successfully avoid ever wanting to run in a race until I actually did it once... and now look at me! I'm a freakin' running blogger!

So, on on to this weekend and (hopefully) getting in the pool for some cross training.

New Shoes

2008-03-31T10:36:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend, I went out to our local running store, 1st Place Sports in Jacksonville Beach, and picked me up a few items:

New socks (specially made for the overpronator, whatever that means)
A knee wrap... my left knee has been giving me some problems lately, so I'm going to test this out this eventing.
NEW SHOES!!!

I love getting new shoes. There's all the excitement that this one won't have the shortcomings of my previous shoes... there's still lots of life left in them, so I'm not retiring the old shoes just yet, but they have so much room in the toe box that my feet slide around too much. So, the new shoes are:

Brooks Adrenaline GTS 8

And, oddly enough, they look *just* like the picture in the link above.

The interesting part is that I've been wearing size 10.5 - 11 for years now. And when the very helpful staff measured my feet, they came out at 11.5. And what's even stranger than that, when I tried on the 11.5 shoes, they were too tight -- I had to move up to 12! And that wasn't just the Brooks -- that was with New Balance and Saucony, too.

I wonder if I'm melting into my feet or something.

But, in any case, I have wonderful new shoes that are just itching to be tested -- so I'm going to do that tonight! Stay tuned for the results of my first run.

This just in: Treadmills are boring!

2008-03-20T14:15:00.002-04:00

Honestly, I feel really bad for the folks up in the frozen north that have to spend most of the winter running on silly little machines while not actually going anywhere.

Here's the setup: As you know from my previous posts, I'm just coming off a severe lack of running and need to get back into shape. I was supposed to run on Monday, but an influx of green beer kept that from happening. So I needed to get out and run again yesterday at some point. However, North Florida was supposedly expecting some tremendous rain, along with winds rivaling those of the Gate River Run (see previous posts for the recap of that experience).

Given that sort of weather, I decided that it would be a whole lot easier to just go to the gym and run indoors. I jumped on the treadmill (for the first time in even more than five months) and set it to warm up. I selected a simple 5k loop program, and set the incline at 2%. All well and good. After a few minutes of warm-up, I kicked the speed up to a nice, relaxed 6mph (10:00 mile) and settled in for a 2/1 run/walk ratio.

And it killed me. I don't know what it is, but that dang treadmill just really hurts! When I have no problem cruising along outside at anywhere between 8:30 and 9:30 during a 1/1 training run this past weekend, I was struggling like hell to keep up with a 10:00 mile on a stupid little rolling rubber mat. Of course, it doesn't help any that there's no scenery, and no downhill stretches, but dang, that's just depressing!

Luckily, we're in the part of the year where the running is best around here -- daylight saving time has kicked in, but the weather isn't too hot. Hopefully, I'll get a lot of good *outside* runs in while this keeps up.

But I still hate the treadmill.

Round's a shape...

2008-03-15T12:15:00.002-04:00

Today was my first training run since October. Since my new target marathon isn't until December, I'm definitely not in full-blown training mode for that yet (plus, I've been sitting on my butt for a few months, so not quite ready to get up to that kind of running yet), so today was basically just trying to see what I can do.

The answer is... "not much".

Ironically, the 15K last weekend seemed to me to be a bit easier than today's slightly-more-than-2.5 mile run. I know I get swept up in competition, and I always do better when running with other people, but dangit, Lana was doing an 11 mile run today, and I am just not ready for that yet. Of course, she's running a half marathon in a couple weeks, so she should be pretty good for that distance. But I digress.

If you want to learn more about Lana and her running exploits, check out her blog, holo lkaiki.

Now, back to me. She was going off on her 11 mile run (yes, I know I said "back to me", and then started talking about Lana again, but it's all setup to my story), and I decided to take this time not to sleep, but to get up and do my own run. I've spent the entire last week recovering, and I'm starting to feel pretty good, so I thought going out for a quick jog through the neighborhood would be a good way to kill some time. And it was. But my running definitely wasn't feeling quite like it did back in October.

Within the first mile, I was *tired*. Now, since this is my first training run back, I wanted to take it nice and easy, so I was doing a 1/1 run/walk ratio. And I was still *tired*. And i was doing about a 12-minute mile. That was odd, for starters, but I guess it's to be expected. I do need to get back into some semblance of shape.

The other thing to note is that this past week, my hip has been bothering me a bit. Not a lot, just a bit. I've been having some intermittent sacroiliac pain, but that seems to have pretty much gone away, and I've been having a little bit of pain in my right hip, most of which I just attribute to no work, having a strange stride as I try to overcompensate, and the fact that I'm not exactly a svelte runner. That being said, it felt a little tight today, but it didn't hurt, so that's a good thing!

And there's one other thing to note. As I was in the middle of the second mile, I happened to catch a glimpse of my shadow. After first thinking, "Dang, that's a good-looking shadow," I noticed that I was bouncing up and down more than I remember myself doing back in the day. I'm pretty sure if I was doing that over the course of the 15k, with my lack of svelte-ness pounding on my hip, knees, and ankles, that it could lead to some of the pain I was feeling over the last week. So I'm going to be working on correcting that and trying to run, instead of just bouncing.

But that's the story of my first run. It was short, flat, and dry. Oh, and it's about 75 right now, according to WeatherBug, so it was a little warm, too. But it didn't hurt.

I'm back, baby!

2008 Gate River Run Recap Part II

2008-03-11T20:55:00.003-04:00

"You don't train for a 15k, you just do it."
...with apologies to Barney Stinson and the writers of How I Met Your Mother

Greetings, faithful readers! When we left off, Lana had just found me in the crush of people running the Gate River Run. I swear, the girl has eyes like an eagle! And I wasn't even wearing my big orange shirt anymore... as it turns out, running == warm, even when it's cold and blowing outside. But that's another story. As it is, I suddenly had a running buddy. Of course, at this point, the lack of training was starting to catch up to me, and we decided to be walking buddies for a little while. But not very long... Lana was on a mission, so she left me and my walking ways after just a couple twists and turns.

Of course, at this point, we're in the neighborhoods of San Marco, and one of the greatest things about this race is the community support. People come out of their houses and make little parties... they sit out on their lawns and have breakfast, cheer, and occasionally even hand out water or oranges to the runners. This is also where we started seeing more of the bands that the race organizers set up along the course... I heard it was 10 bands on the course, and I believe it! But, with all these people cheering and hootin' and hollerin', I started getting a little excited. And there was this one incredibly encouraging group that somehow encouraged me to sprint. And, never being one to deny my fans, I did so. What I didn't know at the time was that during this heads-down sprint of at least 20 yards, I somehow passed Lana.

Following this, we continued through neighborhood, and up Hendricks until we turned into another neighborhood. We were coming up on mile 5, and around this point, I started looking for Lana. She had left me behind, after all, and I *should* be catching up to her by now, right? See above, re: I didn't know at the time. I actually spent the rest of the race looking for her at just about every chance I could. That'll teach me to sprint in a 15k.

In any case, we were running by a park where I came upon... another band! I don't even remember which one it was (sorry, guys), but what I do remember is that there were smoothie cups littering the ground, which stuck out quite a bit from the standard paper Wendy's cups that the water stops had. Somewhere, somebody had set up a smoothie stop... and I missed it! Now, if that ain't encouragement for improving next year, I don't know what is!

Of note, at this point, I also noticed that my camera died. We lost the charger somewhere in the house, but I thought I still had enough juice. Guess not.

From there, we ran up Atlantic for a little bit, and then into historic Saint Nicholas. At least, that's what the sign read. To be honest, I've never been into this area, but it seemed nice. The people were friendly... to the point that one of them gave out a beer! Of course, it was the guy running in front of me that actually grabbed it, but more power to him. He was faster... that day. Further on, there was even a group of folks blasting 80's music out of their house and dressed in vintage hair band gear. Best laugh I had on the course that day, guys. Around that point, I definitely needed it.

Why, you ask? Well, one of the other treats of running through St. Nicholas is that as we headed along Nicholson Road, we could catch glimpses of the future. Off to our left was that torture device we had been hearing of all year, and been dreading all morning... the Hart Bridge. It was just barely peeking out, mocking us as we struggled along. I refused to fall into fear, and I rose up and challenged it! "Not today, bridge", I huffed. "I'm looking forward to beating you!"

If only I knew.

Once we got back out onto Atlantic, things were looking up. The wind that had been beating us down all day was suddenly at our backs. I took this opportunity to run as much as I could... my mantra became "Run while it's flat". And that I did. But it was not to last... this occasion was cut short after about half a mile by... it.

It doesn't look like much from afar, and I really wish I had some pictures from going up the bridge, but it didn't disappoint. Honestly, I think that if it hadn't been for the wind, I think it wouldn't have been that bad. Now, that's not to say that I would have been dancing up the span, but really, it was just a big, long, hill.

If it hadn't been for the wind.

The light breeze that had been guiding our way so far suddenly turned into a tempest, in Florida, would normally have a name. The news reports that I saw was claiming 40mph winds, but I really think it must have been even faster than that. People were honestly hunkering down and fighting through the wind! Every now and then (twice, I think, as I was going over), the wind would die down, and everyone would suddenly fall about two feet to the left as they didn't have to struggle anymore. But don't worry, the wind always came back immediately.

And once I reached the top (finally), I looked at the Garmin. According to it, I had about a mile left, and I was at 1:47. Oh, my God... I actually have a chance to break two hours! After not training... at all! I couldn't believe it! And that's when it happened. The fuel hit the fire. And I was running! I ran all the way down the bridge. I had to stop for a second since my shoes became untied, but I tied them really quickly (some tme, I'll have to explain how I tie shoes), and got right back to running... and it hurt. As I was heading down the ramp, I just couldn't run any more. I had to walk, but I was coming up on the stadium... and the finish! So, ok... I'll just walk for a second. After all, I suddenly had a time to beat! So I walked. But not for very long.

As I came up on the stadium, the emotion just took care of me, and I just had to run for all it was worth. I screamed through the tunnel (passing several people as I went), and burst onto the field! And there were people in the stands. Still! After two hours, people were still watching the scrubs like me finish. There was cheering, and there was the finish line on the Jumbotron. But I still had to finish. Now, let's see... when I crossed the start, they told me it was seven mintues in, so if the clock says anything less than 2:07, I should be OK, right? I look up, and...

2:05

SPRINT!!!!

And then it was done. It actually ticked over to 2:06 before I crossed, but my official chip time was 1:58:52. I did it!

And then I realized what kind of idiots we were. Here I was, in a crowd of 12,000 people, with absolutely no plan for meeting up with the folks that I showed up with. If you look hard at the MapMyRun course, you'll notice that I didn't turn my Garmin off for a while, and it kept the track running as I wandered around the stadium, looking for anyone. And wouldn't you know it, that eagle-eyed wife of mine found me again! She's good. Of course, we still had two more people to find, and no phones. We managed to wander back to the car and wait... and that's when Dar showed up. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. And pulled out a lawn chair. And a yoga mat. And a hammock (seriously), and laid out in the cold wind and long sleeves and sweatpants, and waited. Finally, we got a call from our long lost fourth member that she was able to get a ride back to the house from someone else, but by this point, we had already missed the afterparty, and Lana missed her massage.

Oh, well... if it were perfect, there wouldn't be any reason to do it next year.

Here's to next year!!!

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/fl/jacksonville/32047556"&amp;gt;Gate River Run&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/united-states/fl/jacksonville"&amp;gt;Find more Runs in Jacksonville, Florida&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Not yet

2008-03-10T22:53:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to write the second part of the recap today. A rough day at work was followed by an awesome massage...

And all the evils of the world went away, if only for a moment.

2008 Gate River Run Recap

2008-03-09T16:44:00.007-04:00

or "Bill and the Blustery Day"

For a whole week, I've been in training for this year's Gate River Run/USA 15k Championship. This year, the course has changed... the start was on Gator Bowl Blvd, just south of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium (or "No-tell Stadium", as my wife likes to call it), with the finish actually being on the field! Of course, leading up to the run, all eyes were on the weather, as the storm that absolutely drenched/buried the east coast this week also hit North Florida.

As it turns out, the rain stopped during the early morning hours before the race, but that left high winds. Very high winds. Like 25mph winds... with gusts up to 40. Heading out to the start, it was coooooold -- about 55 degrees (yes, that's cold in this area). Coffee would have been great, but I gave up caffeine for Lent. That may have been a mistake. I probably should have done what Lana did and given up TV. It would have been much better for me, but then again, it's during basketball season, and that would really hurt. But I digress...

We got to the stadium parking lot just before the 5k was scheduled to start. We still had about an hour until the start of the 15k, but we had a ways to go, and we were hoping to meet up with some of our friends, so we stripped down. I still wore a long sleeve shirt with running shorts, but Lana stripped down to a t-shirt and running shorts -- she must have been jacked up to not freeze in that weather! Somehow, we actually managed to find Megan before the race, but she came in from Chicago late the night before, so still had to run to the expo and get her race number. Lana ran off to find Mike and Chris, but they were already up near the starting corral, so they didn't want to come back to where we were. Lana came and got us and we were off to the start.

Now, since I just had gotten my new brace, had no training, etc., I was thinking that I would be walking most of the race. You know, like my training walk last weekend. So I started heading back towards the walkers... and kept walking... and kept walking. I ended up almost getting back to the car before I found the walkers! Of course, in my mind, I'm already rationalizing that I'm not going to walk the *whole* thing, so I stayed just a touch ahead of the actual walkers. At this point, with 12,000+ of my closest friends gathered around me, Megan was actually able to find me again! Granted, it might have been the orange long sleeve UVA shirt I was wearing, but still, that's a honking load of people!

Then there was The Star-Spangled Banner, the blast of the cannon, and we were off!

Well, kinda. Of course, being back as far as I was, it took 7 minutes before I walked across the starting line. And then there was the crush of people trying to take off, and this was my first mistake (have you noticed that most of my blog entries have that exact phrase in them somewhere?). I started running. Just a bit, and pretty slowly, to get out of the way of the throngs. Then, after about 1/3 of a mile, I saw Jaxson DeVille (the Jacksonville Jaguars' mascot) and his big ol' head flopping along the course, so I had to run up and get a picture:

After that grand experience, I was still feeling pretty good, so I was doing some easy jogging, peppered with walk breaks (of course). The first couple miles of the course are pretty uneventful, just winding through the streets of downtown Jacksonville. Of course, when we were running past the Maxwell House plant, that was absolute torture (see above re: gave up caffeine), but I powered through it. The wind was hitting pretty hard, even at this point, and there were a lot of hats scattered around on the ground where they blew off people's heads -- people obviously more competitive than I am, because I would go back and get my damn hat! As it was, I had to turn mine around so that it wouldn't fly off my head.

Our first major hurdle was crossing the Main Street Bridge. This is a lift bridge across the St. Johns River, and it's annoying to run across. The flooring is this nasty metal grating that is hard enough to run over without the high winds, but the winds made it incredibly difficult! Plus, I'm always afraid to run across that grating anyway. So I walked... and not even that quickly. I mostly just focused on not getting blown away. If only I knew what was ahead of me!

After the bridge, we started running into the historic San Marco area of town. These are some beautiful houses right near the river, and running in this area is always nice. It's generally almost like a realty walk -- come look at the nice houses I'll never be able to afford. But this time was slightly different. First off, there was the time... I was still running a little bit, and as I was pulling up to the 5k mark, I realized that I might actually be able to finish that part in less than 40 minutes! Granted, that's not that quick, but you have to remember that I haven't run in FIVE months. And I was tired. And it was cold. And windy. But I was doing well. And I hadn't seen anything yet.

Around the corner from the 5k mark we found our first ground-level view of the mighty St. Johns... and it whipped up like we were in a hurricane! In all my time in Jax (almost 2 1/2 years at this point), I've never seen anything like it. The waves were crashing over the retaining wall and spraying all over the road

The spray was going across the entire road, and people were crowding on the sidewalk just to keep from getting soaked! And then, while I stopped to take the picture above, I heard someone yelling "Billy!", and turned around to find my wife. Somehow, Lana found me in the herd of 12,000 runners!

But now it's getting late, so I'll finish this up tomorrow. Stay tuned for Part II.

Catching Up

2008-03-03T13:32:00.003-05:00

At one point, I was going to post updates to the physical therapy as I was going through it. Unfortunately, something got in the way. It was boring. It worked great, and the PT was able to teach me quite a bit about knee stability and exercises to help keep the knee stable, but at the same time, the real highlight was bringing in a UVA pennant for them to put up on the walls (which were already chock full o' SEC flags -- but Virginia needed to represent).

In any case, I finished my physical therapy. And it was good. And I went back to the sports doc, who told me that I still have fluid in my knee and likely what was happening was that my kneecap was floating around and banging into things when I was doing some crazy exercises... like running. The solution at this point was to give me a brace to keep the kneecap in place while working out. As an added bonus, the brace has some stability stays on the side, too!

So, here I am. It's one week until the Gate River Run, which is apparently the largest 15k in the country ("USA 15K Championship", according to the website: http://www.gate-riverrun.com). In any case, there's an untimed 5k for charity, and a vicious 15k that everyone says is absolutely fantastic to do. And I really want to do the 15k. I signed up for it long ago, thinking I'd be healed by now, mostly for the reason that the race finishes inside Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars (and to make some of my friends happy, I have to mention that it is also the home of the annual Georgia-Florida game). It ends in the stadium! How awesome is that? They'll put us up on the Jumbotron (which is much larger than the one in Lights, Motors, Action! at the Disney races).

But I've been sitting on my bum for five months.

What to do?

Well, if you're anything like me, you're going to take your new brace and go for a walk. You'll start out with a notion of going five miles and seeing what it feels like at that point, and if you can keep a reasonable pace going up to then.

And if you're still anything like me at that point, you'll be feeling pretty damn good at five miles, and you'll come up with a plan to go up to the local grocery store and get some G2 and walk back home.

And if you're still anything like me, you'll get up to the grocery store and realize that you've gone 5.8 miles at this point, and you'll be incredibly curious to see how quickly you can finish the 10k. So you'll skip the G2 and keep on going.

Finally, you'll get to the 10k point (in 1:28 -- walking), and realize that you're just short of 5k from the house.

So, here you are. It's your first excursion out of the house in a looooong time. You're testing yourself to see if you think you'll be able to walk a 15k next week, and keep a decent time (hoping for less than a 15 min/mile pace). And to do this, you *do a 15k*.

And you do it in 2:12.

And then you can't really walk much on Sunday. Or Monday, for that matter.

But just wait until Saturday!!!

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyfitness.com/run/united-states/fl/jacksonville/638194474"&amp;gt;15K around Kensingtno/Atlantic&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyfitness.com/find-run/united-states/fl/jacksonville"&amp;gt;Find more Runs in Jacksonville, Florida&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

One week in

2008-01-31T17:28:00.001-05:00

Today was my third real physical therapy session, and I think they're going pretty well. We've been warming up with some time on the bike (8 minutes Monday, 10 minutes Tuesday and today), and usually go on to stretches and some basic quad-strengthening exercises. Today, I got a special treat. After those exercises, I got to go on the elliptical machine for 10 minutes to see how things are going!

The verdict: pretty well. I didn't have much pain while I was on the machine (for 10 minutes), and any pain I did have went away pretty quickly afterwards. However, a little while later, my knee is definitely a little sore. At this point, I'm not really sure if it's due to the meniscus or the workout, but I'm going to make sure to mention it to the PT on Monday when I go back.

But I got to do something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike running. Hooray!

Ready for Recovery

2008-01-24T18:35:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since posting. I'm not going to go into the full reasons why now (if ever), but there was a lot going on with me in the last couple months. So, the quick version is this:

Torn right lateral meniscus. That's why I had to stop running.
MRIs suck. Luckily, you can get them scheduled pretty quickly when you need them.
Unfortunately, the sports doctor is not the same way. He's really good... it just took literally *weeks* before I could get in to see him after getting the MRI done.
yadda yadda yadda
I actually did walk two 5k's in that time frame -- the Race for the Cure and the Disney Family 5K at the marathon weekend. Unfortunately, no luck doing the half... :(
I started my physical therapy today!

Yes, it's true -- I'm staring physical therapy in the hopes that I won't have to have surgery on my knee. The injury itself doesn't seem to be that bad. It really doesn't bother me on a daily basis, maybe occasionally flaring up when I'm going up stairs. So we're trying to work on my quadriceps and see if I can get things balanced out properly. Today was my first session, so they gave me some excercises to do at home, and I'll get into it in earnest next Monday.

Woo hoo!!!

Now, this weekend, off to Tampa and the Gasparilla Pirate Festival!!!!

(Yes, I said pirate festival. Quiver with your jealousy.)

Back on the DL

2007-10-22T11:24:00.000-04:00

I know... I still haven't posted the race report for the Race for the Taste. But I've been busy. And, it's just really hard to mention. You see, my knee started hurting in the later stages of the run. It felt good after about a week, so I went on another run, and it flared up again after about three miles. I went to a sports medicine doc, and now I have to get an MRI on it to see what's going on.

Luckily, I've already paid my max out-of-pocket for the year with my insurance. Bring on the free medical!

Anyway, he also said that I'm not allowed to run anymore until things get checked out. So, I still did the Race for the Cure this week... but I walked it:

Chip time: 40:11
Avg Pace: 12:57

Damn, not too bad. But I still hope I don't have to try to walk a marathon...

Pre-Race Report: Disney's Race for the Taste

2007-10-09T20:11:00.000-04:00

Or, "Better Late Than Never".

To truly tell the tale of this race, I need to start a copule days before. Lana and I had gotten into Orlando a couple hours after we had wanted to on Friday, so we just ended up meeting the 'rents at Big River (at the Boardwalk area) for dinner -- I had a nice chicken penne dish -- and some beer. As you might guess from the title of my last post, beer is involved in most of my best stories, but I don't want to get ahead of myself here. Anyway, since we were late, it was pretty much dinner and head to the hotel for bedtime. After all, the next day was a big day.

However, it wasn't big because it was race day. No, quite the contrary. It was the day before, where if I were an intelligent man, I would be taking things relatively easy. But we were at Disney, so that was right out the window. Well, I could at least control myself a bit, right? Well... see above re: Disney. We decided to go old school and head to the Magic Kingdom to let the kid inside me out to play. And he had some fun. We walked all over that park... repeatedly. I won't bore you with the details, but I think I should have been wearing my Garmin that day, just to see what we really did. Maybe next time...

At about 5:30, we decided to leave the Magic Kingdom and head over to Epcot, where we had dinner reservations. I think that by now, my loyal readers have learned enough about me to know that I don't do things in a conventional way. So, what would be the best food for training for a distance run? Of course -- the German buffet!

Several sausages, lots of salads, German cheesecake, more spaetzle than you can imagine, and a liter (yes, a liter) of Oktoberfest beer later, we were ready to move on, so we got out of the restaurant -- just in time to see the fireworks. We waited on them while Mom tried out her "fireworks" setting on her camera (which apparently doesn't work that well), and then staggered to the car and went back home. We finally got to bed at about 10:30.

...and woke up at 4:45. It was race day, and I was actually excited! Granted, I wasn't working on much sleep, but this was the great day that I had marked on my calendar months ago.

My first 10K.

And it didn't disappoint.

But now it's late, and I'll have to continue later... when I have the pictures.

When You Wish Upon A Beer

2007-10-05T17:56:00.000-04:00

I'm about to be getting out of Dodge and heading down to Orlando for the Disney Race for the Taste 10K. This will be my first 10K race, so I'm pretty anxious about it, but at least at the end, there should be some tasty vittles and good beer (Epcot won't actually be open at that point, so I'm making my parents supply the beer).

Expect a race report on Monday night when I get back.

Wish me luck!

Rain, Rain Go Away

2007-10-03T10:30:00.000-04:00

It has been raining here for days. Not off and on for days, but for days straight. The sun didn't peek out yesterday at all. It has been gloomy and nasty. It honestly seems like it has been nighttime since Sunday.

I don't know how people in those arctic regions survive.

In any case, after another long day of work yesterday, I was really feeling the itch to do something, and my wife was stuck at work for a while, so I decided I'd finally take this opportunity to get a run in. During the week. I know, I know... it's not what you'd expect, but I did say in the last post that I was going to do this.

Of course, I've been saying that in lots of posts.

But this time, I meant it!

So, I got to the gym, fought the torrential downpours from this storm that doesn't actually have a name, but seems at times like it should. I straggled through the door, looking like a cat that got left out a little too long. I managed to drag myself over to one of the treadmills, set it to a warm-up, and started walking, at a 2% grade. I started running on it a few minutes later -- not quick, but a decent pace.

And you know what? It felt pretty good.

I ended up running for half an hour, with a few walk breaks in there. I did lower the angle from time to time, as my shins were starting to get pretty sore. It's obvious that I need to work on the strength in my shins at this point. But I still got through it with an average grade of 1.1% (according to the treadmill), having run 2.3 miles. Not too bad, considering how easily I was taking it.

As for the orthotics, well, they felt kinda weird. Not a bad weird, just weird. I know they'll get better as I continue to run with them, but I'm still going to ease into that pretty gently. For instance, I will not be wearing them this weekend at RFTT. But I'll probably wear them for running tomorrow (we'll see if I can't make 2.5 miles at 1.5%, or something like that).

Yesterday was a fantastic example of how running can beat the blues. Even after a treadmill run, I felt spectacularly good -- good enough to get through the rain and get back home for some good ol' country fried steak and taters! I haven't completely embraced the "eating well" portion of my training, but dangit, it was goooooooood!

And now it's raining again. And me without my shoes.

*sigh*

War Damn Eagle!

2007-10-01T21:54:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know that once again, it has been a mighty long time since I posted, well, anything at all.

And it's not really because I have nothing to say. I just don't have any bloody time to say it!

In the last few weeks, I have been given the lead on a new project at work, but unfortunately, my old duties still exist, as well. Needless to say, my running during the week has gone to pretty much nothing.

But the important thing (for now) is that my weekend long runs have been continuing, albeit at a pretty dang slow pace. This past weekend... 12 miles. And it was the longest run of my life.

No, really. My previous longest run was 8 miles. And I learned something.

Twelve hurts.

On the plus side. my leg has been feeling fantastic! I'm definitely ready at this point to get back to some good running. Hopefully, I'll be able to hit the gym tomorrow (there's a Nor'easter tearing through the area right now, so running outside is somewhat less than optimal). And this weekend is the next race in my fall series... the Disney Race for the Taste 10K. Stay tuned for more info, and hopefully pictures!

Oh, and the title? If you're not keeping up with college football this year, Auburn upset Florida in the closing seconds this past weekend, and we were in The Swamp watching it happen. My wife went to Auburn, so I've become quite a fan. It was probably the second most exciting game I've ever seen (see UVA-FSU '95).

Another Brick in the Wall

2007-09-18T12:16:00.000-04:00

So now I know. When you've been taking training easy for weeks, do not try to go out and run like you should be able to.

Saturday's long run was actually not bad. Only five miles, and I was sticking with the slower group, since I was still wearing the old shoes and no orthotics. Hopefully, that will change for this week's run. However, I decided to give the new shoes a try for the race that night. Yes, I know you shouldn't do things in races you hadn't done before, but dangit... those old shoes just aren't working out for me.

The new shoes felt great! There's a lot more cushion in the heel, and that was obvious from the beginning all the way to the end. The front of the foot is a little wide, and had my insert (which I bought for a much smaller shoe) sliding around a bit. The new orthotics don't seem to have that problem when I did wear them in those shoes, though, so that shouldn't be as much a problem when I start running with the orthotics.

Speaking of running with the orthotics, that should be starting any day now! Hopefully, I can get out tomorrow and get some good running time in -- assuming we aren't in the middle of a monsoon, like we were today. It's rough getting up early to be greeted by loud, rumbling thunder. The pillow seems extra inviting when that happens.

Getting back to the issue at hand, though, the shoes felt great. What didn't feel great was my legs. Not the shins... the muscles. I said I was going to run it easy. I didn't. I ran the first couple miles at a fairly aggressive pace for me (about 9 min/mile). As it turns out, without the training, running five miles in the morning and then attempting to jam out 5 more miles at night at such an ambitious pace was, how do you say, idiotic?

At the turnaround, I was hurting. It was pretty obvious that at that point, I couldn't keep up that pace any longer. On the plus side, I was there in just under 23 minutes... pretty dang good for me! However, when I hit three miles, I lost everything.

Now, I had never really hit "the wall" before. I'd heard stories, but it's hard to do when running 5k races. This time, I think I finally get it. My legs simply would not do anything I told them to do! I had started out running a 3/1 ratio, but I finished up running 1/1, and even that was excruciating. And the second half of the run... 31 minutes. Ouch. Most of it was in the last two miles.

So, my results:

258 456 61 Bill, 35, Jacksonville, FL 54:10 10:50

Still, there is one bright spot. I still beat my time from the winter beach run (54:54), despite running five miles in the morning. I'm definitely improving as far as endurance goes, if not in my pacing. I just need to make sure to get back to running more as soon as it's safe for me to do so.

I can't wait!

AUUUUUGH!!!

2007-09-13T13:05:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's right. Augh.

Why augh? Well, for one simple reason. I still can't run!

So, I went to the doctor's office the other morning to pick up my orthotics, and they were in. And they feel great -- a little strange, still, but it actually feels like there's some stability. And then the doc told me this little tidbit:

"Don't run in them until at least the second week".

Yeah, I figured there would be some break-in time, but I'm getting really frustrated at my inability to run! And here I am, still having to go forward with any running that I might do without my brand-spanking-new, mighty expensive, custom orthotics. Now, the bonus is that on a short run, I guess I can start up running with my new shoes and the old inserts, but it's just not the same. Plus it won't help with the long runs this weekend.

Oh, yeah -- I did get new shoes, too... Saucony Progrid Omni 6. I'll have to post a review after running in them for a while, but just walking around in them yesterday felt great! There's a lot more cushioning in the heel than my current (read: old and cheap) New Balance shoes. I'm fairly excited to try them out.

And yes, some of you may have picked up on the fact that I said "long runs" up above... that's for a simple reason. The training group is running 10 miles in the morning. My wife and I will be doing half that (5 miles, for the arithmetically impaired) for a training run, and then Saturday night is the Carrabba's Summer Beach Run. It's a five mile out-and-back run on the sand, and it should be pretty good. It's the same course as the four miler for the Tour de Pain last month, just extended another half mile south.

Yes, I'm running a race.

No, I'm not going to push very hard. I'm going to make sure to take things pretty easy.

But I sure do wish I could have the cool new feet in the race, too.

I'm still here!!

2007-09-10T12:23:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't been posting much lately, but I think y'all know that it's because I haven't been running much lately. Hopefully, that will be remedied soon, but let's start at the beginning.

Previously, on The Starting Gun:
A couple weeks ago, I had gone to a podiatrist to see if there was anything I could do to stop the shin splints that had been hampering me for several weeks. He ended up scanning my feet for custom orthotics and gave me the go-ahead to run again... easily, and being mindful of any pain showing up.

Since then, I actually have run a few times. I went to the gym and tried out the treadmill a few days after the appointment, and it didn't work out too well. I started feeling an aching in my shin, and I wasn't sure if it was just soreness, or if it was the Return of the Splint... so I took it easy and quit after just over a mile. But I was incredibly happy just to run that one mile.

That weekend, I went to the Galloway group long run, which was scheduled for seven miles. I was planning on walking the whole thing, but I ended up running with my wife's group, which runs a 1/1 ratio at about a 16 minute/mile pace. And that went very well -- I barely had any pain in my legs at all! Woo hoo!

I took it easy again through last week, not wanting to push things too hard, especially since I didn't have my orthotics or new shoes yet. So I basically didn't "run" all last week. But this past weekend, I went back to the group for the eight mile long run, still planning on sticking with my wife's group. I figured that it worked so well last time, I might as well try it again!

Before I go any further, I just want to point out that this is not one of my "X Reasons Why I'm an Idiot" posts.

The run actually still felt really great. It was a beautiful run around downtown Jax, including two bridges and the historical San Marco neighborhood. In fact, the bridges we ran were the same ones from the Vestcor 5K about a month and a half ago, and it was much easier this time. Granted, I was running much slower than race pace, too... but I even ran some sprints going up the Acosta.

And what is the outcome of this weekend's run? Nothing worth noting. Sure, I'm sore. But I don't have massive shin pain. I did ice my leg on Saturday afternoon, but it feels fine right now. My right leg is sore as all get-out, so I think I was compensating, but still... nothing bad.

I could not be happier.

Except for one thing. My orthotics are in. I got a call from the doc, and I will be picking them up tomorrow. And I'll be getting new shoes tomorrow at lunch. I'll be careful in the breaking-in period, but I think I'm well on my way back to the running fold.

Insert happy dance here.

Step 1: Mission Accomplished

2007-08-28T15:10:00.000-04:00

After yesterday's adventure at the hospital, I still had my appointment with the podiatrist this morning to see if he could help me out. And I feel pretty good about it. He gave some good explanations about what was most likely happening in my leg, and even some things that can be done about it. The bottom line that he noticed is that I do, in fact, overpronate something fierce. And the running all on one side of the road -- that was dumb. But I'm not in any acute pain right now, and it doesn't look like I've done any real damage.

And the most important thing? I can go back to running. Gradually. And I'm probably going to be even more cautious than he wants me to.

So, when I feel up to it (tomorrow or Thursday, depending on how the burn on my leg feels), I will be heading to the gym to run on the treadmill for a mile and reevaluate after that. I may be able to go up to two, but he told me not to go any farther than that. And yes, Chuck -- he told me not to run on roads if I can at all help it. And, in other news, I will be skipping the long run this week, also, to make sure that I'm happily ready to resume later.

The other outcome was that I'm getting orthotics. Nice ones. Way better than the over the counter ones. At least, for what they're charging me, it better be the best damn feeling in the world. But they should also be a big help. The only downfall is that the doc told me not to go get the new shoes until the orthotics come in (in two weeks -- my follow-up visit). I'm disappointed in that, but I won't be running very far until then, so it'll just have to do.

I'm just happy I can do something running-related again. Hooray!

Code Monkey Get Up, Get Frostbite

2007-08-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

or, "Three More Reasons Why I'm An Idiot".

How many times have you ever heard of somebody getting frostbite in Florida... in August? Not all at once, let's just see a show of hands. Let's see... carry the 1... that leads to a total of roughly "zero".

Well, now you have.

For the last several weeks, I've been icing my leg with the shin splints and trying to take care of it. I've been using either ice in an ice bag or this nifty little ice pack that I got in my race packet once upon a time. Some of you can already see where this is going.

Well, yesterday, I decided to ice my leg again while I was at work. The ice pack had been in the work freezer all weekend, and was chilled and ready for me. So, I put it on my leg. Directly. Without a towel (this is mistake #1 -- I'll be keeping track). Since I was sitting at my desk at the time, and couldn't work really well with my leg propped up, I wrapped it to my leg with an ace bandage (mistake #2 -- they're really piling up now). After about ten minutes, it suddenly dawned on me that I couldn't feel my leg anymore. That should be a clue to take the ice pack off, right? Well... I did! Ha! I bet you thought mistake #3 was coming up -- but not yet.

I took the ice pack off, and it was weird. Really. The skin was obviously cold. But it was actually hard. It felt like there was a layer of ice on top of my skin. This is not going to be good. So, I started trying to warm it up. I pulled my jeans over top of it and started rubbing (mistake #3 -- it turns out that you are not supposed to rub such an injury). But it did warm up, and I started thinking that maybe everything would be OK.

A couple hours later, it was starting to hurt. I looked at it, and it was red and puffy. And painful. OK... at this point, I'm starting to get worried. I'm thinking of all those arctic mountain movies that show people's toes breaking off, and it's not making me feel good. So I called my wife and lovingly asked her to please take me to the emergency room. She, being the wonderful wife that she is, agreed, almost immediately.

She picked me up and took me to the hospital -- the same one that recently hosted me for my surgery. There was actually another hospital closer, but we figured that I'm already a frequent flier at the other hospital, so we just went up there. After all, if I get the card punched eight more times, I get a free appendectomy. But then I had to check in, which was fine, except for the box asking what the problem was.

"Froze leg"

Yep, that's what I put. And that was my explanation for the rest of the day. When I went into the triage, the nurse asked me what happened.

"I froze my leg!"

When I got put in the exam room and the nurse came in to look at it:

"I froze my leg!"

And when the doctor came it, it became almost comical. The conversation was something along these lines:

Doc: "What did you do?"
Me: "I froze my leg!"

Doc: "You burned it."
Me: "So, it's OK?"
Doc: "Yeah, you burned it"
Me: "Whew. I was just wondering, you know, because it hurts and all..."
Doc: "Because you burned it"
Me: "So you're saying I burned it?"

Yeah, she wasn't the most bedside mannered doc in the world, but she assuaged my fears. And she sent a nurse in to give me a tetanus shot (since I don't even remember the last one I had... it was a long time ago). The nurse came in and told us, "I'm just so happy I got to go see the guy who got frostbite!"

I might just be a source of discussion around there for a while.

So, two and a half hours after getting to the hospital, I was on my way back to work. With a burned, frozen leg.

So, please... if you are going to use ice packs, make absolutely sure that you follow the directions, and always use a towel or something between the ice pack and your leg. And I do want to point out that while I at least attempted to write this in a humorous way, I do realize that this is a very serious condition, and I heavily urge everyone to take this seriously. Any more mistakes on my part, I could have caused permanent damage. I have definitely learned from this experience.

But trust me, so long as you keep reading this blog, you will continue to see strange, stupid stories like this. They just happen to me. I don't know why. Remind me sometime to tell you the story of getting tackled off of a rope swing.

But hey, maybe it'll increase my readership.

Next Steps

2007-08-23T09:04:00.000-04:00

Tom asked a good question in yesterday's comments:

Your shins will recover.

What will you do to prevent them from returning?

Fair warning: I am now going to sound a bit like a politician.

I am aware of the dire problem with my shins, and I have a three-part solution to combat this issue:

1. Get checked out
Next Tuesday, I have an appointment with a local podiatrist/sports doc to take a look at things and see what sort of solutions he might have for orthotics, or whatever else he may suggest. I don't know... that's why he's the doctor.

2. New shoes
After getting checked out, I am going to support my local running store and have them take a look at my running and see what sort of suggestions they might have for new shoes. It's a very good shop, and they have a treadmill in the shop for just this sort of thing. Honestly, I thought my shoes were good enough, but I got them at Sports Authority, so who can really tell. Again... it's all about getting the experts to help me out.

3. Change my running
One of the things I noticed when my shins first started hurting is that I always ran on the same side of the street -- running with my left leg (the one that hurts) towards the outside of the street, where it would get more pounding because of the crowning on the street. I'm definitely going to at least change that up regularly, along with taking some of Chuck 's advice and avoiding road running for a while -- treadmills are boring, but they work. Plus, I have nice, soft beach sand here that I can run on also. I'm not sure that would help, but it sure is purty.

I am positive that with the implementation of this plan, I can eliminate the troubles that have plagued my running for these several weeks, so I can focus on the more pressing issue at hand -- that of getting myself ready to run 26.2 miles in less than six months.

Vote Bill.

He Lives!

2007-08-21T08:49:00.001-04:00

First, I would like to apologize to all my loyal readers. I was not in jail, sent to a hospital, or abducted by aliens. In fact, I have simply just been incredibly busy, and still mostly off my feet, so I didn't have anything really run-worthy to write about.

But I'm back. Not to the running yet, but to the blogging. Let me start at the beginning.

Last Wednesday, I went to the doc. He told me to take it easy, ice, and no running for 10 days. So I have stuck with that. I did walk with my running group on Saturday, but things felt pretty OK after that (it was five miles). I have been *very* careful not to work things too hard, although I have not been very good about taking the Naproxen he prescribed for me. Or with icing. I've iced when it bothers me, but not normally... not sure if that's ok or not.

Anyway, I finally went back to the gym this morning to get a little cross-training in. I rode the bike and did some weight work... all no impact type things. And my leg feels pretty good. I'll slap the ice pack on it soon, but all in all, not bad at all. Hopefully, things will be looking much better this coming Saturday, when we are scheduled to do our next magic mile and alter the groups. I'm optimistic that things will be OK, but I'm definitely going to err on the side of caution.

That's basically all that there is to tell. No grand stories. But I'll see what I can do about that later. Right now, I have to get back to work.

Ahhh... it feels so good to blog again!

Back on track?

2007-08-11T13:35:00.000-04:00

After taking the whole week off of running, and attempting to take care of my leg as best I could, things were feeling great yesterday. And, as today happened to be a scheduled run with the Galloway group (and the first one where we are to be put in our pace groups), I thought I would give it a try. You know -- keep things pretty light, don't work too hard, be on the lookout for pain and whatnot. The bottom line is that it mostly worked.

I got to the start about 10 minutes before we were scheduled to begin, and found my pace group. Somehow, since my times last week were so good, I ended up in a faster group than I would have thought. I got put into the 11 min/mile pace group, running with a 4/1 run/walk ratio. And I was thinking that would be OK -- it's about what I've been running during the week, so how bad can it be, right? And the run itself wasn't that bad (I'll get to that in a second), but I got a little intimidated when I heard "we're pacing two minutes slower than the actual race pace".

Say what?

They want me to run NINE minute miles through TWENTY-SIX miles? That's faster than my fastest ever 5K pace!

Oh, boy.

But, I figured that I would give it a shot and see what I could do -- and besides, we had already started the run, so it was a little late to grab another group. And so I went. The scheduled run was 4 miles. And it felt OK. My shin felt a little sore after about two miles, but it mostly went away by the end of the run. It was either that, or I was distracted by my sucking for air at the end and didn't notice my leg hurting. But after a couple miles, we also realized that we hadn't found the turnoff to start heading back to start... so we went another way. It turned out that we didn't go too much farter than we were scheduled to go -- we ended up at 4.62 miles... in 48:20. Average pace was 10:27. And I didn't want to kill myself at the end. My body may have tried to die on its own... but it wasn't voluntary.

It is now a few hours past the run, and I'm attempting to take care of things. I iced my leg when I got home, and am definitely taking it easy. It still doesn't hurt that bad, but I think it has now hurt long enough that it's time to see the doc. I'll be making an appointment tomorrow, and we'll see where things go from there.

Gee, I hope they won't have to amputate.

Saturday, August 11, 2007
Find more Runs in Jacksonville, Florida

Deep Tissue Distress

2007-08-07T09:09:00.000-04:00

Last night, I got my first-ever deep tissue massage. If you have never done this before, by all means, please do not read the rest of this entry -- it may scar you for life. However, if you have had deep tissue assault done to you at some point in the past, please chime in and let me know just how much better it gets.

I work in an office, sitting at a computer, writing code all day long. Occasionally, I have to get up and walk down the hall for a meeting (or to play foosball), but my workday is pretty much sedentary. I also apparently have pretty bad posture, based on the fact that my back and shoulders are generally very tight, along with the "Oh, Good Lord!" scream that my masseuse let out when she got to my back and shoulders. I, of course, let her know of all the parts of my body that were strictly verboten, including my left shin and the area surrounding my surgery scar. Oddly enough, those are the only spots on my body that do not hurt this morning.

From what I hear, at some point either tonight or tomorrow, as long as I keep drinking lots of water, everything just releases and it feels awesome. I sure hope so. Right now, I just feel like a walking bruise.

Needless to say, there was no cross training this morning.

Ouch.

8 Reasons Why I'm an Idiot

2007-08-06T09:10:00.000-04:00

...and three why I don't care.

If you've been following my blog for the last week or so, you know that I've been having some shin pain late last week. Honestly, it felt pretty good on Friday, but that doesn't excuse anything. Also, if you've noticed my run schedule, even if I don't have it posted on the site, I had a race scheduled this weekend. And it was an ugly one -- the Tour de Pain. Three races in twenty-four hours -- a four mile beach run on Friday night, a 5K Saturday morning, and a one mile "sizzler" Saturday afternoon. All done in August. In Florida. So, without further ado, this is why I'm an idiot:

My shin hurt last week, and I still ran the race.
I ended up staying awake until 1:00 in the morning on Thursday night/Friday morning. I didn't mean to. After all, I went to bed just after midnight!
I got new inserts for my shoes, hoping that they might help. I've heard tell that you should never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never never do anything new to your shoes before a race. Luckily, in this case, it worked out OK -- the inserts felt pretty dang good.
My company went to see The Bourne Ultimatum on Friday during work. And I went with them. And I got movie theater popcorn. Not the healthiest lunch before a race.
And then afterwards, I went to Wendy's and got a baked potato.
I forgot to wrap my leg on Friday night, and I still ran the race. See reason #1.
I wrapped my leg for the 5K on Saturday. And I ran the race. And it hurt a bit. And I still kept running.
To top it all off, I ran a full-speed, all-out mile.

Now, truth be told, I ran the first two races kinda hard, but not really. I was really going for just barely faster than a typical training run. And really, my leg didn't hurt that bad after the four miler. It was a little worse after the 5K, and it was even a little worse after the mile, but still not so bad that I couldn't walk on it, or anything like that. I was still walking mostly normally.

Now, as for the reasons why I still don't care that I'm an idiot:

I was hoping for about 44:00 in the 4 miler. I got 40:51.
I was hoping for something around 35 in the 5K. I got a 30:50. My second best 5K time ever.
I was hoping for about 8:00 in the mile, but really expecting something like 8:30. I finished in 7:19. Holy crap!

So, the end result is that I ran three great races, all at faster times than I was thinking I would (and these were times I was hoping for during the race, based on how fast I thought I was going). My mental timing may be off, but I'm just pleased as punch that I can do so much, on a slightly injured leg, with so little recovery time in between. Today, my leg hurts a little, but only about as bad as it did last Thursday. I've decided that I will do absolutely no running at least until Saturday, and we'll see how I feel then as to whether I run the four miles with my group or not. But the rest of this week will be cross-training only. Biking and swimming. NO RUNNING!!!!!

Oh, and I did run the first two races as 3 minutes running/1 minute walking. Thank you, Galloway!

But, to finish it all off, this was the end goal:

Yep, it's my first race medal. Ever.

Clutch Leg

2007-08-03T09:22:00.000-04:00

For much of the afternoon yesterday, my leg was hurting. Not in any specific place, just a general achiness -- and one that I knew that I had felt before. Well, it finally dawned on me this morning where I had felt like that before.

I used to own a Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, which tends to have a fairly tight clutch. I also used to live up in the DC area, which tends to have lots of bozos on the roads. There were some times when I would take the Eclipse to work in heavy traffic, and it would take near two hours to get there -- and I would be pushing in on the clutch most of the way there. It would wear out my leg something fierce, and it would just get achy all over.

That is what it felt like yesterday! So, henceforth, I am going to call this condition "clutch leg".

From what I can tell, it basically comes from overusing one leg far beyond where it should be used. Now, what does this have to do with running? Plenty. For a while, I was varying my course from time to time and making sure to run it backwards every now and then. After I started running my 3.2 (or 3.3, or 3.4) mile loop around the neighborhood, I've been running the same direction every time. And I'm basically staying on one side of the road, which does have a noticeable crown on it. Since the left leg (the one that hurts) is on the lower side of the road, I'm betting that has something to do with the achiness. So, when I do start road running again, I'm definitely going to make sure that I switch off road sides every now and then to try to even things out.

Of course, I bet everybody out there (yes, even you) are wondering... how does it feel today? Well, it feels pretty good. There's a little stiffness in the calf, but the shin is A-OK. Hooray. And I will still take it pretty easy today, just to make sure.

Shin update

2007-08-02T12:43:00.001-04:00

When I got home last night, I iced my shin and took some Advil. And it seemed to help. At the very least, a pain reliever should relieve pain, right? I'm not sure if the icing did much, though, except to numb my leg for a little while.

Today I'm taking things very easy. I'm still taking Advil, and resting my leg as much as possible. However, it doesn't feel like every other time I've gotten shin splints. Right now, it just feels more like a sore muscle. And any pain I have is on the outside of my leg, rather than the inside where most of my shin problems had happened in the past (although I haven't had any problems for years).

Right now, I'm just going to go ahead with rest. Tonight, I'm going to use the heating pad to get some more blood flow there. Tomorrow... we'll tackle that when I get there.

Thanks for the advice, Chuck and Tom!

Not by the hair of my shinny shin shins.

2007-08-01T09:11:00.000-04:00

Today's run could have been better. I got my pacing a little bit better, in that I didn't go out quite so fast. My first mile (no walking) was done in just over 10 minutes. After that, I did 4 minute run/1 minute walk for a while, and it felt really good. Heck, I was even able to run faster than the garbage truck -- which ended up being a mighty good thing, since I hadn't put my trash out last night. However, after about 2.5 miles, things started to feel less great. My shin started hurting.

Now, I'm not sure at this point whether it was actually shin splints or not (since it was only one leg, does that make it "shin splint"?), but it wasn't quite pleasant. I didn't let it get bad -- I started walking a lot more after that. Right now, it's still a little tender, but it's not a sharp pain... it's pretty dull, and almost feels more like soreness than anything else, but it's still not something I want to take for granted. Any suggestions?

Monday Morning

2007-07-30T09:27:00.000-04:00

Monday mornings never seem to be all that good, but today's run wasn't too bad. Although I didn't get much sleep last night (I didn't even hear my wife's alarm go off... twice), I was still able to stagger out of bed at about 6:10 and out the door at 6:20.

I ran the 3.44 mile loop around my neighborhood, but I definitely started out too fast. I knew I was going too fast at the beginning of the run, but things were feeling so good, I just wanted to keep going and see what I could do. Turns out, I got the first mile done in just over 9:30... almost 5K pace! That's not what I was intending to do, so I tried to slow down a bit, and went to a 4 minute run/1 minute walk structure to try to keep me honest. And the outcome of this hard work? I did the second mile in 10:00. Honestly, I haven't run this course enough to know exactly where the three mile mark is, so I'm not sure what I got for my third split, but I finished the whole thing in 33:51... which seems to be awfully fast. According to Merv's Running Calculator, the pace was 9:50.4/mi. I should have been running about 1:30/mile slower than that.

I think one problem with running intentionally slower is that it just feels like I'm shuffling along, and not really running. I don't know if this is a mental block on my part, or if I need to work on my form when running slower, or what. I feel good that I was able to run so far and so fast, but I also know that I can't keep that up for six months. I hope I'll be able to work on it with my training group when I get back out there.

Galloway Training Run #1

2007-07-29T15:58:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we had our first training run for the 26.2 with Donna marathon to fight breast cancer. The official training program for the marathon is with Jeff Galloway, using the run-walk-run method to help us get to being able to run 26 miles in six months, and getting there injury free. And so far, I think it makes great sense. I'm certainly intimidated by the idea of running 26 miles, but I know I can run four minutes at a time... and I'm absolutely sure that in six months, I'll pretty much be able to do that for really long distances.

Naturally, this was the first meeting, so there was a bit of getting acquainted to be done. We just ran in one big group, running two minutes and walking one minute. It was incredibly easy (as one might imagine), and really smooth. But what was really telling was today's workout. It was actually my first time back in the gym in a couple weeks, and it felt incredible! It started with 10 minutes on the elliptical, which I normaly get about .6 miles done. Today, in the same amount of time, I was able to pump out .8 miles! That's a heck of an improvement if you ask me. The rest of the workout was just lifting and stretching, but that elliptical run was fan-freaking-tastic.

On the negative side, it really struck me yesterday what I have really signed up for. I was getting ready for the run at 6AM on a Saturday, and realizing that this would be the latest I would be able to sleep in on a Saturday until mid-February of next year. Ouch. But I'm just going to focus on how good the running feels.

One other good thing -- my wife signed up for the training program today. She's not sure if she'll run the marathon yet, but running the 5K last weekend really had her realize how much she missed running. I'm really proud of her for starting to run again, and I'm looking forward to running together.

Oh, and here's yesterday's run:

On on to the marathon!

Tomorrow's the day

2007-07-27T13:40:00.000-04:00

At 7:00 tomorrow morning, I officially start my training for the National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer.

It's only a two mile run, and I'm sure a "getting acquainted" kind of thing (I'm really not sure -- I've never run with a group before), so that doesn't intimidate me.

Looking at the schedule and realizing that I will be doing a 10 mile run in less than two months intimidates me a little bit.

I guess I'll hit that when I get to it.

Morning run and motivation

2007-07-25T08:49:00.000-04:00

My wife was supposed to join me on my run this morning, but decided that sleep was far more important. I don't blame her. It felt good. But my run felt even better!

I ran 3.44 miles this morning, basically just adding a couple extra side jogs to the 3.2 mile track I've been running. At the start of the run, my foot was still really hurting, my knee was feeling OK, and my legs were so incredibly stiff I thought they would break right off. It didn't take long, though, for things to loosen up a bit and for my feet to stop hurting at all. I definitely love these inserts.

The last couple weeks have been a little less than motivated for me, so at the beginning of my marathon training, I'm trying to come up with a good way to make sure I do all my workouts. As it turns out, Lifehacker yesterday had this post about the way Jerry Seinfeld keeps productive. Basically, it boils down to having a big calendar on your wall and marking the days you work with a big red 'X'. Once you get enough of those, you won't want to break up the prettiness of the calendar. I think I'm going to give this a try... all I need is a big wall calendar.

How about you guys? Do you have any tricks to keep yourselves motivated during the slow times?

Ouch

2007-07-24T09:28:00.000-04:00

I've been riding my PR high for the last couple days, but there was definitely an issue with the run. It has nothing to do with my previous surgery -- that felt fine. However, my foot started hurting something fierce -- on the arch, right below/behind my big toe. My guess is that it has to do with the way my feet are over-pronated, so I got some inserts for my shoes with every intention of trying them out this morning. Which was a great plan... until I actually woke up this morning.

I woke up, and my knee is hurting. This is actually nothing new -- it's been hurting since a neighborhood football game several years ago -- but the race seems to have put an additional strain on it. But it comes and goes, and I'm sure it'll be OK come tomorrow. Plus, when I woke up, I heard thunder outside. That's just not a way to get me to move at 6:00.

So, here I am, waiting for my next run. If I get a chance tonight, I might head out for a few miles -- especially since this is the last "cool" day we'll have for a while (the high is only in the 80's). We are planning on going to the gym nice and early tomorrow, so that'll be fun.

Oh, and the official start of the training program for my marathon is Saturday morning. It's almost real.

Oy.

Back to the Races

2007-07-22T20:18:00.000-04:00

I have to admit that I started the race thinking that it would be really rough. Those bridges looked pretty rough... even if I did get a taste of uphill last week. I was mostly just happy to be back at a race. Apparently, there were about 900 people signed up. When the cannon sounded (oh, yeah... it was a heck of a cannon), I was way in the back of the pack, but I was able to bob and weave my way through the start and finally get a pretty good pace going. And it felt really good.

The first part of the race ran out Duval Street, for only a few tenths of a mile before turning around and running back through the start -- and that was interesting. It was only about three mintes after the start that the lead cops came through to move us all to one side to let the leaders through. It got crowded, but it also thinned out pretty quickly. I got to the first mile marker, and my split was 9:24. Holy crap! That's a heck of a time for me. And I couldn't believe how great my legs were feeling. But this was before the bridges... I still had that test ahead of me.

We got to the bottom of the Main Street Bridge, and I was still feeling really strong! Most of the people around me immediately started walking, but I kept on trudging up the bridge. I really only remember three cognitive thoughts:
1) I feel pretty good.
2) I don't like this metal grating... wouldn't it suck if I tripped?
3) Oh. My. God. That other bridge is really tall!

It's true. The Acosta was much taller than the Main Street. And I still had that to look forward to. Not only that, but most of the uphill part of the Acosta was still in Mile 2, so I was not looking like I'd have a really good split. But I still wanted to run. I *really* wanted to run at least the first two miles.

At the bottom of the Main Street (downhill is much nicer), there was a water stop. I had overfilled on water at the beginning, though, so I only took a couple sips and dumped the rest down my back. It was still pretty warm, despite the fact that we had a storm come through town just prior to the race which had cooled things down immensely. But the two bridges are really close together, so after only about three blocks, we were back on another ramp... onto the Acosta.

Ouch. It was long. And it burned. And I kept on going. I went a lot farther than I would have been able to not very long ago. Eventually, I realized that if I kept running all the way to the mile 2 marker, I wasn't going to be able to make it to mile 3. So, I started walking. About 10 seconds later, though, I could see the clock. So I ran again... to the clock. This mile's split: 9:32. That's amazing! With the two bridges, I'm still on pace! However, I was also getting really tired, so I started walking again. Bear in mind that this is still going uphill. I walked for about 30 seconds before I started trudging up the last part of the rise and crested the bridge. And again, the downhill was much easier.

I realized at this point that I just might make my goal time if I could keep it going. I tried to keep my pace relatively even, but I was starting to get that adrenaline rush. You know what I'm talking about. So I started kicking -- possibly a little early, but hey, I was feeling great! My legs weren't completely dead, but my lungs were starting to burn a bit. But I just kept on running.

Eventually, I saw the finish... and the clock that didn't quite read 30:00. And I'm thinking that not only am I going to beat 30:00 in my time, but I'm going to actually beat 30:00 on the clock!

How did I do?

           CLASS  Chip       FINAL
ID#  PLACE PLACE  TIME        TIME      PACE
242   257   36    29:03    29:50    9:36

FYI, that's 36 out of 55 in my age group, and 257 out of 392 for men.

And I could not be happier!

Busy busy busy

2007-07-20T14:41:00.000-04:00

Sadly, I haven't had time to run, swim, or blog the last few days -- things have been incredibly hectic and long, between putting in new closets for myself and the missus, and my 15-hour day at work yesterday (which ended up with roughly 4 hours of sleep last night), nothing has gotten done.

My goal now... go to bed early tonight, sleep in (at least until 8) tomorrow, and be ready and rarin' to go for tomorrow's 5K. Of course, it helps that it's a night race tomorrow (7:30PM), so at least this time I won't sleep through it...

Wish me luck!

I lived up to my end of the deal

2007-07-17T09:22:00.000-04:00

Yep, I promised I would run either last night or this morning. Well, last night, I ended up putting together a little workbench so that tonight, we could finish the project of putting closets together. Needless to say, I didn't run then. And tonight's going to be ugly, since my wife's closet is a huuuuuuge mess. Which is rather odd for her, being as anal retentive as she is. But that's neither here nor there.

Since I didn't run last night, I forced myself to run this morning. The alarm went off at 6:30, and I finally got up and started moving at around 6:50. I like sleep. I'm not ashamed of that. I can be good at getting up early again, but it doesn't look like it'll happen this week. In any case, I got up and started my run late... about 7:10. It was a little cooler than I expected at that time (about 74 degrees when I left the house), but that wouldn't last.

My legs were really tight. Especially my hamstrings. It got better as the run went on, but my breathing was somewhat labored the whole time, too. I need to remember to take a shot of Serevant before getting out on the road. But, what's important, is that I ran the whole thing. 3.2 miles. No walking at all. That made me at least a little happy, even when after the run, when my legs started crying. Seriously -- I heard sobbing coming from my hamstrings. At least, I think that's where it came from. I can't really put my ear down there to find out.

Oh, when I got back home, it was 80 degrees. I definitely need to start running earlier.

In any case, I finally ran 5K+, just in time to give me a little shot of adrenaline going into the 5K this Saturday night. I might not finish in under 30 minutes (which is my end goal), but I'll finish, and I'll finish strong.

Trivia: The last time I ran the full 5K distance was in April, before my leg problems showed up. It only took three months to get back where I was.

It's been a long weekend

2007-07-16T11:47:00.001-04:00

Let me just start by saying... I hate redeyes.

My flight out of San Diego didn't leave SD until 6:55pm (PDT) -- sadly, the meeting was complete before 11AM. And I couldn't find any earlier flights, so I went to one of my favorite restaurants... and had much beer. Finally, I ended up going back to the airport... and had much beer. I got to Phoenix nice and early for my next flight, which left at 11:15 to arrive in Atlanta at 6:00 the next morning... and had much beer. I think I was hoping that I'd be able to sleep and that would make me all sorts of happy for the next day.

I was wrong.

I did sleep on the flights, at least as much as I could. However, I got back home and was dead tired. At the same time, my wife was planning on throwing one of her coworkers a birthday party that afternoon (one of those no-guys-allowed things), so I stayed up until just before the party and locked myself in the bedroom to sleep. And I woke up at about 8:00 that night, had some dinner, watched some TV, and went back to bed (after biting the inside of my cheek really hard). I figure I went back to bed sometime after 11, and we woke up the next morning close to 10.

And I was still exhausted.

And we had errands to run.

So, we jumped in the car, got some coffee, stopped by Lowe's, unloaded, went to Target, tried to find a lunch place that was open, had lunch, went home, measured the closets, created a plan for new closet organization spaces, went back to Lowe's to get the closet workings, and headed home.

Now, most sane people I know wouldn't start on a weekend project of reorganizing their closets at 8:30PM on a Sunday. I am not most people, and I am definitely not sane. Start I did. Now, my wife suggested we start with my closet, since it would be easier, so we emptied out my closet, put together all the crap, put it in the closet, loaded everything back up, and it all worked wonderfully. And it only took three hours or so -- which wasn't bad. However, that meant it was now 11:30 at night, and we were just starting to get ready for bed. And I'm still all worked up -- to the point I was simply not able to sleep. Until about 3AM. I think I screwed up my internal clock pretty royally.

Needless to say, I did not run today. I may run tonight to get used to the heat so I can run the 5K this Saturday night. But damn, I'm tired. I promise I will run either tonight or tomorrow morning, though!

The Tale of My Ascent of Mt. Ohellno

2007-07-12T10:40:00.001-04:00

So, I've gotten to San Diego, and stayed up until 10:30, and I was exhausted. But, since I just came from the east coast, that doesn't mean much... I still woke up at 3:00 in the morning. And 4:00. And 4:30. And 5:11. At 6:00, I finally started moving, since I could see that the sun was coming up, and I didn't want to run in the dark in a strange area.

Since it was a strange area, I decided to keep it simple. There's a main road right here with a sidewalk, so I thought I would just run up the road for a while and then run back. That's when I went outside and saw this road...

Now, being from Florida, I've completely forgotten what hills look like. But you guys out west certainly have them. With a vengeance. I'm pretty sure it was about a 60 degree incline. So, I studied the west face of this peak, and came up with a plan. I started my ascent to base camp alpha, remembering to take small steps and conserve some energy. I started a 5 minute run/1 minute walk to head up to the summit. And it felt pretty good. The other part of this trip was to find the Rubio's in the village at the base of the mountain -- and I found it about halfway up. Oh, boy... I better really want some fish tacos later to make that trip again. But up, up, up I went. Finally, when I saw a mountain goat bound past me, I decided that I'd gone up high enough. 13 and a half minutes of climing -- definitely not bad for a Florida boy.

The downhill part was (obviously) much easier, but I'm still remembering to take small steps. I'm not sure what I looked like doing this run, but I'm betting it was kinda funny. I made it back down to the bottom in another 13 minutes, so I still had some time to go, so I turned around and went back up -- and that was the tortuous part. My legs felt like jelly... but they didn't hurt, so I pushed on through. I only went up another couple minutes, found a good marker to turn around at so that I could map my run, and went back down. And that brings us to now.

It turns out that it was a short run... only 2.69 miles. I have to admit that I'm disappointed in that, but it felt good to get some hill work in. It's not like we have them all over the place at home. I definitely feel more confident that I won't die during next week's bridge run.

Training across the country

2007-07-12T10:25:00.000-04:00

Before I get to the tale of today's run, let me first mention a little about the trip out here. I flew out of Jacksonville, through Atlanta and Phoenix, and finally made it to San Diego a little past 7:00 last night (PDT). Two connections... and both were actually pretty good for my training!

We were sitting on the plane in Jacksonville, having boarded on time, which was kind of a surprise to begin with. After a little while, we realized something -- we were still on the ground. About ten minutes after we were supposed to push off (1:05), the captain came on the PA and told us that there was a ground stop in Atlanta due to weather, and he was bringing the jetway back to give us some A/C. At 1:45, he told us that we were going to have to sit for at least another 15 minutes. We finally got clearance to leave at 2:09, which was 5 minutes before we were supposed to land in Atlanta. Now, this guy was one hell of a driver, because he got us there pretty quickly, although it was really bumpy going into Atlanta. We landed at 3:30 or so. No problem -- my next flight leaves at 4:15. Which means that it started boarding pretty soon. I only had to get from B8 to A20, which isn't that bad, but I still went pretty quickly to get there.

Fast forward another four hours, and we land at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, AZ at 5:15. My next flight leaves at 6:15, so this again, shouldn't be a problem. Except that my boarding pass has no gate information on it. Naturally, I would normally find the little monitors and find out where my next flight is, but I'm in a Delta terminal, and my next flight is on USAir. Now, this is where I start to appreciate just about every other airport I've ever been in, including Atlanta. Most of the time, if you're just switching terminals to get to another airline, there is some mechanism to get you there without having to go through security again. Not here. So, I exit security, wander around until I find the exit, catch the bus to terminal 4, and see a loooooong line at security there. And it's important to remember that a plane leaving at 6:15 starts boarding at 5:45. So now it's 5:30, and I'm at the back of this line. It moved pretty quickly, and I didn't have that much of a problem, but let me tell you -- if you're a terrorist trying to get through an airport security line, pick another airport. These guys inspected my ID more than anywhere else I've ever been. Good job, guys, but definitely irritating. Oh, and then I got to the plane and realized that I left my copy of Marathon, by Jeff Galloway, on the other plane. Whoops. Don't worry... I've already hit up Amazon to get another copy.

Finally, I get to San Diego, grab my cab, and head out. And the cabbie was nice enough to take me through the drive-thru at In-N-Out. Oh, was it good...

Now, seasoned traveler that I am, I stayed up until my normal time to make sure that I'm fighting the jet lag. But I did eventually go to bed, which leads to my next post...

On the road again...

2007-07-11T08:13:00.001-04:00

Yep, I'm traveling again. Those of you who know me from way back know that I used to travel for my job, up to and including 100% travel. I've been lucky enough in the past year to have a job that doesn't require too much travel. However, when I do have to fly out, it's been pretty good so far.

Today's destination? San Diego, CA

I love, love, love San Diego. I've said often that if there were anywhere on the west coast that I could live, it would be SD. As a matter of fact, we even spent half of our honeymoon in San Diego, and had an absolute blast there. Now, sadly, this trip isn't going to be nearly as much fun as that was. For instance, I'm staying way north of downtown, and won't even have a car, so I can't really head out to the Yard House for a quick half-yard of some delicious brew. However, I am looking forward to some of the other fine left-coast food that's out there. Oh, yeah... I'm definitely having the cab stop by an In 'N' Out on the way to the airport. And, if I did my research correctly, there's a Rubio's just down the street from the hotel.

Mmm... fish tacos...

Oh, yeah, I'm definitely bringing my running gear so I can try to get a nice run in. I think I found a good course to run right near the hotel, but I'm not really sure. And, since it's a work trip, I'm bringing a laptop with me, so I should be able to blog about the wonders of a hilly world.

Now, let's hope I can get through Atlanta and Phoenix with no problem.

Not getting lost... now that's new

2007-07-10T09:02:00.000-04:00

This morning, I tried the same route that I did on Saturday, when I took a wrong turn. Today, however, the running gods were smiling on me (plus, I had just run it a few days ago), and I managed to get the whole thing in without any wrong turns at all. Hooray me.

The whole thing was 3.2 miles, so just over 5K length. And I did it all in 33 minutes. Now, that's slightly disappointing, as I'm hoping to break my plateau of 30 minutes in the 5K next weekend, but then I started thinking about several things:

Oh... My... God... it's hot. Yes, it's Florida. But it was 76 when I left at 6:50-ish this morning, and damn near 80 when I got back at 7:30-ish. Naturally, that's going to slow you down.
It has been a while since I was able to run that 30 minute 5K, and I didn't do much in the meantime -- except have my leg sliced into and pieces of it removed.
Oh, and let's not forget that the race is running over two bridges in downtown Jacksonville next Friday night. It's going to be even hotter than, plus I get the fun uphill parts of running the bridges.

Now, I don't know how much you guys know about Florida geography, but there really aren't a whole lot of places to do hill training. Inclines pretty much have to be done on the treadmill. Which is boring. Maybe someday, but not today.

Tonight, my lovely wife and I are going to give the swimming a try again. She says her shoulder is feeling much better, and I'm going to see what I can do to have her use it as little as possible. I'm not really sure how to do that just yet, but I'll think of something.

Ooooh, that smarts!

2007-07-09T09:31:00.000-04:00

Sunday morning, my lovely wife and I decided that we were going to go for a nice walk on the beach. It was before 10, and it seemed like such a nice day, so we headed to our local coffee house and picked up some drinks and then headed off to the beach. It was supposed to be a nice stroll. It ended up being a death march.

I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but at one point, we realized that we'd been walking for a really long time. LW asked me if we were going to be walking all the way to the Sea Turtle (a local hotel), and we decided that it seemed like a good idea. We were very wrong. As it turns out, the total length of our nice beach stroll was 6.4 miles. Don't get me wrong -- that would have been great, if we had been prepared for it.

Since we weren't expecting to go for such a long stroll, we hadn't slathered ourselves in sunscreen. And we weren't wearing good shoes. Or good clothes. And we ended up finishing after noon, when the midday Florida sun was beating down on us horrendously. We got burnt. To a crisp. And it hurts. Happily, I was wearing a shirt the whole time. So now I'm just a redneck.

Granted, we live in Florida. It wasn't the first time, and it sure won't be the last.

Moving on, LW wants to learn how to swim better. Given that I was a competitive swimmer in my youth (from when I was 7 to shortly before going to college), she turned to me to be her coach. Luckily, she doesn't have a bad stroke at all... just some tuning is necessary. Unfortunately, I don't remember all that many drills to get that tuning done. And even more unfortunately, she seems to have hurt her shoulder over the weekend, which very much affected her pool time.

Now, since her shoulder is hurt, she's taking it easy. And I am very happy about that. Mostly so that she can have a chance to heal and make sure she doesn't make it worse. Of course, there's a side benefit in that I didn't have to get up at 5:00 this morning to go to the gym. Instead, I woke up at 6:30 and dragged myself out the door. Some things got in the way of my time, so I had to cut my workout short... I just did the 10 minute cardio at the beginning, lifting for about half an hour, and then stretching (well, I threw the basketball for about five minutes, but not well). That got me to work a little after 9. Which means that I still have to get up early. Sigh.

Disappointing. But I know I can do it.

Now I just wish my neck would stop hurting.

Another beautiful Saturday morning

2007-07-07T10:06:00.000-04:00

This morning, I decided to try another route. I've actually run it before, and it's pretty close to 5K length, but I took a couple wrong turns the last time, which made that run more like 3.5 miles. Well, I did it again. Not so bad as last time, but I took a wrong turn again and turned it into 3.3 miles.

I also changed some things up for this morning. I was thinking that it's been a while since I actually ran a complete mile, so I decided to give it a try. I ran the first mile in just about 10 minutes (I don't know what the exact split is -- I obviously didn't know the route well enough).

Still, it felt pretty good. The first mile was fine... and I was taking it pretty easy the whole time. After the first mile, I switched back to a 3 minute run/1 minute walk trek. However, by the time the third mile came along, I was getting pretty tired, and I'm starting to notice that when I get tired, my form definitely starts to suffer. I start running much heavier and flatter. I'm trying to make sure to work on that -- anyone have any suggestions?

Facing the day, pre-dawn

2007-07-06T08:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I was under the impression that I would have to wake up at 4:45AM to get to the gym in time for my lovely wife to make it to power-body-pump-flow-whatever class at 5:45. But last night, the plans changed. She decided that she would much rather do the cycling class that starts at 6:00.

That was the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

I know I've harped on the early morning thing before, and I know I will again, but I just have to say that there is a huge difference in those 15 minutes. 5:00 is reasonable. It's early, but it shows dedication. Before 5:00 -- even at 4:45 -- is insane. That's just gone over the edge.

"When did you get up?"
"Oh, I got up at five this morning."
"Wow... that's early. You must be doing great in your training!"

As opposed to:
"Before five."
"Dude... you're insane. Don't come around me anymore. You're not welcome here. "

See? Those just sound like natural conversations to me.

Now... this isn't to say that I'll never get up at 4:45. If my lovely wife wants to go to whatever random class is at 5:45, I will naturally support that. But I'll complain the whole time. And you'll hear about it.

Oh, and today's workout? Not too bad. 10 minutes on the elliptical, a trip around the weight stations (which felt pretty good), and then 15 minutes on the stairmaster (although not a StairMaster(TM)... it's from TechnoGym). That kinda hurt, but I wanted to change things up a bit -- the elliptical gets boring when that's all you do.

For this weekend, I'm looking at running again tomorrow (hopefully a different route... I'll tell all about it), and then probably swimming on Sunday. I'm excited about that... I used to be a competitive swimmer, so I love getting back to the pool. Plus, my wife wants me to coach her a bit to help her stroke along. Should be fun!

Oops

2007-07-05T09:31:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everyone for their well wishes on the 5k yesterday. However, you know how plans sometimes go awry? Well... yeah. That happened.

The plan was to go to the pub crawl for just a little while. My lovely wife was going to come out a couple hours later, hang out for an hour or so, and then we would head home, ready to relax and get up early for the run.

In actuality, she arrived about 45 minutes after we started and said, "Do you want to split a pitcher?" Now, I've never been able to say "no" to her... especially when I've already been drinking and she wants to offer me more sweet, sweet beer. Then there was an issue where we couldn't go walking around the street with full beers, so we had to chug them to catch up with everyone else. It's a beach town on the 3rd of July -- how come we can't carry beer outside? Sigh.

So, I ended up getting home at about 2:30 in the morning, and we slept right through the race. I kinda figured that might happen, but not in so spectacular a fashion.

But they say that the only real mistakes are the ones you don't learn from. Now I know the truth... no pub crawls the night before a race. I'll get my carbo loading done in some other fashion from now on. But definitely not with so much beer. I hear pasta is good. Or potatoes. Maybe that would be a better way to spend the night before.

So, I don't have a time to report from the race. I did, however, get up and ran my three-loop trip around the neighborhood this morning. And it was hot. And it was humid. And my legs were dragging something fierce. For once, my lungs were feeling mostly OK, but my legs just weren't working past the first mile.

2.9 miles / 33:13 == 11:27 pace.

Oh, well... I know I'll have good days and bad days and going half mad days (any Buffett fans out there?), and today was pretty much expected to be a bad day. Tomorrow, we attempt to get up at 4:45 in the morning to get to the gym on time. But that shouldn't be that bad... we're not going out for beer tonight.

Next race: Vestcor 5K Bridges Run on July 21. And this one, I'm actually going to run.

Oh, boy

2007-07-03T12:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I found out that I screwed up at work. It ended up not being a huge deal, but it was big enough that I had to put everything else on hold until it was fixed. Which took until midnight last night (actually, there was one nagging thing this morning, but that wasn't too bad). Now, if you recall, I woke up at 5:00 in the morning yesterday. Which means that midnight was not a time when I wanted to be awake. And I was planning on waking up at 6:30 this morning to run.

"Planning" is the operative word there.

Now, first, let me mention that my lovely wife did, in fact, get up at 5:00 in the morning to go to the cycling class at the gym. And she left me at home, sleeping. God bless her.

However, when the alarm blew at 6:30, I looked outside, and it was still pretty dark. "Obviously, that's just not safe!", I told myself. So I went back to sleep. Briefly.

I ended up getting up at around 7, out the door at 7:10, and ran basically the same route I did on Sunday. I changed directions, though, and ran clockwise through the neighborhood. I'm trying to keep things balanced that way. The other thing to note is that I ran 3 minutes to each 1 minute walking. And it felt... ok. Not great. I was dragging a bit at the end there. But I think that may have a *lot* to do with everything surrounding last night and this morning. What's most important to me at this point is that I STILL DID IT!!!! It wasn't that long ago where I would have made an excuse, slept another hour, and gotten up and gone straight to work. But not anymore. I'm in training! (kinda)

Oh, and it was a little faster than Sunday, too. 32:17 for the three loops, plus warmup and cooldown. I'm still trying to keep things kinda slow for now.

Oh, and I did sign up for the Celebration 5K tomorrow morning. This should be interesting. I'm not expecting a PR, but I'm curious to see just what I can do. My last 5K was in early March, and it wasn't timed, so I have *no* idea what I can do... but I know I lost a lot over the last couple months.

Plus, there's a pub crawl tonight. Hey, it's a holiday. I'll try not to go overboard, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time I've run with a hangover/buzz/lampshade on my head.

Wish me luck!

Talk About Your All-Time Backfires

2007-07-02T09:14:00.000-04:00

So I've spent the last few days ribbing the wife a little bit about her lack of desire to get up and work out.

BIG mistake.

Last night, she tells me that she wants to start doing some of the classes at the gym before work. Which is great... except for the starting time. Tuesday through Thursday are for cycling, which starts at 6:00. Monday and Friday are for some other class... something having to do with weighted bars... and they start at 5:45. In the morning. Plus, we're trying to carpool to work a little more these days. Hey, that gas is pretty expensive now. Oh, boy.

So at 5 AM, the alarm goes off. It's still dark, and will be for quite some time. And she pretty much rocketed out of bed to go get ready. I stumbled around for a few minutes, trying to get my bearings, and finally got around to getting changed. We checked to make sure that we had everything we needed, packed the days lunch, and were out the door at 5:25 or so. And the kicker? The class started before we got there. On Friday, we have to get up earlier.

That'll teach me.

Sunday Morning Run

2007-07-01T08:26:00.001-04:00

Yes, I've hit a milestone in my running career. If I recall correctly, today marks the first time since high school that I have actually gotten up early on the weekend just to work out. The alarm went off at 6:45 this morning... and I actually got out of bed at 6:50, and hit the road just a few minutes later. Yes, at this point, that's really early for me on a Sunday.

I decided to just run around the neighborhood, which is just about .9 miles/loop. I did a five minute warmup, three loops around the neighborhood, and a five minute cooldown. I ran the three loops in 32:48, but what's way more important is that it felt good! I didn't have the tightness that I had on Thursday, my asthma didn't act up nearly so much, and my legs were still pretty strong at the end. Granted, I was concentrating on going a little slower than last time, but I guess that's what I have to do for my training runs -- especially when I'm just starting out like this.

Of course, as we were going to bed last night, my lovely wife was saying that if we got up early enough so that it was still cool (it was about 76 when I woke up), she might join me. That lasted up until the alarm went off. Her first words of the morning... "Have fun." Of course, she has repeatedly said that she doesn't like running when it's more than 50 outside. Good thing we live in Florida, eh?

Oh, and there's a 5K in Jacksonville on Wednesday morning. And a pub crawl Tuesday night. What to do... what to do...

On the Road Again...

2007-06-28T15:34:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not going anywhere. This is just to signify that I ran on the street, instead of the treadmill, for the first time in over two months this morning. The verdict? Not bad. Not great, but definitely not bad.

The specifics:
I just ran around my neighborhood, but I was feeling pretty tight this morning, so I walked for five minutes to get me a good warmup. After that, I ran two minutes and walked one minute until I had done about two miles (i.e., two loops around my neighborhood), and then another five minute cooldown as I walked back to the house. All told, including warmup and cooldown, took 31 minutes for 2.5 miles. The running/walking portion took 21 minutes for roughly two miles. Sorry I can't be much more exact than that... I don't have Nike+. Yet.

The narrative:
It was raining in the River City as I left the house, but the sun was still blinding... one of those oddities of Florida living. At 7AM, the heat was already starting to make itself known. As I turned the corner, I realized that my achilles area on my right leg was pretty tight... gotta watch out for that. And a short five minutes later... I was running!

It felt good... the first trip around the neighborhood (including the warmup) took about 13 minutes... not very fast, but that wasn't really what I was going for. My lungs were aching, and the sweat was dripping, and I felt great! The next loop around was faster... about 11 minutes, give or take. About a quarter mile more, and I stopped, turned around, and started my cooldown. By this point, my lungs were no longer on fire (which seems to be typical for me... after the first mile, they settle down), but my legs were dragging. It took some effort to keep moving them forward... but I kept with it.

Now, you'll note that looking back over the last week or two since I started going back to the gym, I've only run a couple times... 3 minutes, 12 minutes, 1.2 miles... Today I ran 2 miles in 21 minutes. Granted, this was with walking breaks, but it still just feels great to have gotten that far!

And thanks to Leana and The Muse for their words of wisdom on morning workouts. I definitely like them, and I'm going to try very hard to keep them up.

Finally... there is one other special item of note about today. In exactly one month (30 days), the Galloway Training Program for the National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer starts.

... and I'm only a little scared by that.

Some days, it's hard to get moving

2007-06-27T09:41:00.000-04:00

Today was another day for going to the gym. Actually, I had to get up early with my lovely wife, since we had to pick my Jeep up from the shop (on Monday, it decided that it really didn't want to have a rear driveshaft anymore). So, she set the alarm for 5:30.

I know! I didn't even realize there was a 5:30 in the morning!

But still, just to be safe, I set my alarm for 5:45. And it's probably pretty good that I did. Her alarm went off, she fumbled around and turned it off, and we both just laid there. Doing nothing. Not at all motivated to get up. And both our backs were hurting, for some reason -- but that's not really part of the story. After my alarm went off, I started moving around, resigned to the fact that (a) I had to go to the gym, and (2) I still wanted to, anyway. Now, bear in mind that it was lovely wife who wanted to start going to the gym in the morning in the first place. and we finally got moving. At 5:53. Out the door at 6:20. Oh, yeah... we're quick.

So, I did my workout -- no running. 10 minutes on the elliptical, weight machines, and then 15 more minutes on the elliptical. And it mostly felt good. The leg is still pretty tight, so I think I'm going to try to go running tomorrow. Nothing big... just a mile or two. I need to try it out on the road (which I haven't tried since mid-April).

However, I have come to one conclusion. As much as I don't like getting up, working out in the morning really is better. First off, it gives you a kick in the pants before your day starts. There's all the stuff about releasing endorphins and such before getting to work. It's significantly cooler here in Florida in the morning (even if it's still 74 at 5AM) than it is in the evening. And, I think most importantly, it's much more likely not to get canceled because of everything else that pops up during the day. Working late can not, by definition, mess up a morning workout.

Has anybody really been able to make afternoon workouts work for the long haul? If so, what's the secret?

Ain't it always the way?

2007-06-25T09:31:00.000-04:00

So, that was a nice little whining session I had on Friday, wasn't it? Of course, I still think it's understandable, given the pain and whatnot, but as luck would have it, I feel much better now! I actually woke up on Saturday morning and went out and played 18 holes with lovely wife and her dad. I'm going to keep you in suspense on my score, but let me just say that I am not good. It was three digits (well into three digits), and I was very much in last place in that group. But there was improvement, and hey, I was just happy to get outside and get some activity in. Beautiful course, too... if you're ever in Southeastern Georgia and get a hankering to play golf, feel free to check out Coastal Pines Golf Club. It's a value course, but it's a fantastic value course!

Yesterday was a good, relaxing day. Which I needed. Because I went back to the gym this morning!!! And there was much rejoicing. Ten minutes on the elliptical, some weight training, and closed with 15 minutes on the treadmill. I wasn't going fast, but I was running. For 12 complete minutes. And I went 1.2 miles. And it felt good. Sure, there were definitely some issues... my asthma was starting to act up a little (but it's under control... nothing to worry about), and my legs were *both* feeling tight. My surgery scar still needs to get some more elasticity in it before things are actually what I would call comfortable. All in all, though, I feel really good.

And I haven't even taken a Tylenol yet this morning.

Although I stress the world "yet".

Probably nothing tomorrow, back to the gym on Wednesday, and then might even get a run/walk in on Thursday, depending on how I'm feeling.

Ahhh! I've been tagged!!!

2007-06-24T21:11:00.000-04:00

Runner Gal Leana tagged me for this, and ain't it great?

1. Find the nearest book.
2. Name the book & the author.
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
5. Tag 3 more people.

Well, as luck would have it, the nearest book to me is actulally "Marathon!" by Jeff Galloway. Ain't I just the best trainer ever... even if I'm not really training yet?

Page 123, fifth sentence actually picks up right after a bullet point, so I'll put down sentences 4 - 5:

"Set up a predicted time, one that you know you could do. Tell your friends about it and see if they want to have a pool. The winner and the marathoner, you, get a free celebration dinner."

Actually a pretty good idea... I hadn't read that far yet. But I might have to try it out. I like food. Especially when it's free.

And now I have to tag thre others. Well, they won't be runners, but they'll be interesting.

The Muse
Heidi Flash
Boozie

30 Days Later

2007-06-22T10:39:00.000-04:00

Thirty days ago, I let a strangely-dressed man cut into my leg and take some stuff out. Now, on any other day, that might be considered strange. But, I actually paid this guy to do it! And now, it's time to check in on how my leg is doing post-surgery.

Pretty. Darn. Good.

Honestly, there's only a very slight twinge in the leg sometimes when I get up from my chair that might last a few steps down the hall. And I noticed just a few days ago that I was crossing my legs without even thinking about it -- which has to be good. So, this is great news, right? I should be able to start training in earnest? (Not to be confused with Ernest Goes to the Track -- they never actually made that movie)

Well, not so much. My mouth is still hurting from the wisdom tooth extraction/dry socket, to the point where I really don't feel like doing much of anything. I get up, go to work, do as much as I can, and then head home and crash out on the couch eating whatever soft food I can find -- which generally aren't particularly healthy. Plus, it's not that much fun having soup for lunch in the middle of a Florida summer (yeah, our first day of "summer" was actually in April).

So, what to do?

How does someone motivate themselves to get up and start doing things when you really just don't feel like it? Honestly, I know that my jaw is going to hurt no matter what I do. And I know that I *really* need to get out and get running (note that full-scale training for my marathon starts in just over a month). It's not like a good two-mile walk would really hurt all that much more, right? Does the motivation just end up being, "Hey, how much worse can it get?"

In my head, I really want to get out and get my leg working again.

But other spots in my head sure don't want that.

One step forward, two steps back

2007-06-18T13:03:00.000-04:00

If you recall some earlier posts, I was supposed to run a 5k this past weekend... the Run for the Pies. However, there was some debate as to whether or not this would be possible, since I got my wisdom teeth taken out last Thursday. Well, let me cut right to the chase.

It wasn't possible.

Honestly, I was feeling pretty good (considering) at the end of last week. The procedure itself wasn't so bad. I woke up at the end of it, but there wasn't any pain, so I could deal with that. I was up and moving around pretty well on Friday, and I was thinking that there might be a real chance that I would be able to get up and walk (emphasis on walk) around the course on Saturday.

Unfortunately, Saturday came along, and my mouth was on fire. I bailed. Quicker than I'd ever bailed on anything. I was in some serious pain. And Sunday brought absolutely no relief. Things were getting worse -- and I'm pretty sure that they aren't supposed to. Or, at least, if it was supposed to hurt *more* afterward, the doctor would have let me know.

So I went in today to have him look. I have dry socket. And it's not pleasant. Basically, something got dislodged and my bone/nerves are somewhat exposed on my lower left side. So, the doc today gave me some stuff that should help. But the wisdom tooth experience isn't going to be leaving me just yet... and it looks like I won't be working out again for a few days.

It'll sure be nice when I'm not falling apart.

A Flock of Seagulls

2007-06-13T08:57:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know... I said it would be weeks before I ran a step. But that was last week. And since then, everything I've done has just felt better and better. So it happened.

I ran.

I ran so far away.

Well, not actually that far -- I was on a treadmill, after all. I was at the gym this morning, going through my workout, which ends with 15 minutes of cardio. According to the "published" workout, it's supposed to be on the elliptical machine, but I wanted to jump on the treadmill and see how things felt. So I set it to a brisk walk.

After about 5 minutes, things were feeling pretty good, so I set it to an even brisker walk (at 4.5 miles/hour).

After 10 minutes, things were still feeling really good, so I started contemplating... should I? It's been a long time since I took a running step, and I am walking pretty quickly. But, golly gee, wouldn't it feel great to actually get some running in?

So at 12 minutes, I kicked it up. Not fast. 6 mph. 10 minute mile pace. For three minutes. And you know what?

It felt great.

A New Beginning

2007-06-11T09:06:00.000-04:00

Today marks the beginning of a number of things when it comes to my training:

First time I actually went to the gym in the morning (in my past life, I would always go in the afternoon)
First time since the surgery that I did a full workout
And... the beginning of my getting serious about working out

That's right. Today, I start in earnest towards getting back into good shape, so I can start my solid training for the marathon next month. Today's workout included:

20 minutes walking on the treadmill (1.25 mi)
Weight training (mostly upper body, but leg press was in there, too)
10 minutes on the elliptical

And you know what? Just about all of it felt good. Granted, not as good as it should be feeling in a month, but my leg is feeling much better since Friday's workout. I must have started breaking down some scar tissue or something, because the leg hurts a lot less and has much more flexibility. It still hurts, so I'm still taking it easy, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm feeling good.

Sleeping in tomorrow... next workout is on Wednesday.

This is gonna be tough...

2007-06-08T18:51:00.000-04:00

OK, so I just got back from my first trip to the gym since the middle of April. Granted, since then, I had done some outdoor running in the meantime, but the doc had told me to not work out as of May 1st. So, it's been over a month since I got any sort of workout. Or since I got to use my nice running shoes.

...until today.

Granted, I didn't work it very hard (30 minutes, 1.7 miles), and I walked (stress walked) the entire thing. And it didn't feel terrible. I made it. But it didn't feel particularly comfortable either. Actually, the worst part was the first eight minutes -- after that, it got significantly easier. I wonder if that means that there was just a lot of stiffness. It's obvious that the scar tissue has a huge loss of elasticity over the skin that was there.

In any case, I'm still banking on a slow return to running. In fact, I probably won't run a step for at least another few weeks. But at the same time, it sure felt good to get back there.

Rapid

2007-06-08T15:08:00.000-04:00

OK, so I'm basically a total geek. I see those stupid YouTube time-lapse videos and think that (a) time-lapse is kinda cool, but that (b) faces are boring. And most of those people really shouldn't put their faces on the internet, anyways. However, I did think that it might be a neat idea to try to chronicle my efforts at healing between the surgery and the marathon. You know, for medicinal study, of course.

This is simply a first cut at this project (no pun intended). It covers the first 2 weeks of healing, so it's short, but still pretty neat. And, yeah, I put the title slide in there so that I could save those of you who still don't want to see it when it was all nasty. Lucky you.

On another note, I actually brought my gym bag to work today for the first time in over a month, hoping to be able to go and get some walking in on the treadmill (it's 91 degrees and humid as hell here now, so walking outside is not an option). I'll update if I can get out of work early enough to go.

Speeding down the long, slow road

2007-06-04T10:58:00.001-04:00

First, there's good news... I had my staples taken out this morning, and got the pathology report on the mass that was excised from my leg, and it was a thrombosed ateriovenous malformation. And what's important to know about that is that it's not something to worry about anymore. The doc said that it's good it was removed, because it would recur and tend to get worse, so now I should be fine... as soon as I heal.

Speaking of that, I know that I said I was going to try to go slow on the recovery, but the bug bit me yesterday. My lovely wife was going out to play golf, and I wanted to try it, too -- my leg hadn't been hurting much at all with a fair amount of walking around, so I thought it would be fine. Unfortunately, it started hurting, and I quit in the middle of the par-5 6th. The wife closed out her nine holes, with me as chauffeur.

Now, granted, it was pretty dumb to try to play golf when I still had staples in my leg. But, to be fair, it was that beautiful we-just-had-a-tropical-storm-go-through-and-everything-is-so-pretty-now kind of day.

Still... other than the extra pain yesterday, I'm feeling pretty good! Losing the staples was a big thing. I'll have to post another picture in a few days to show how it's healing.

Time For Walkies!!!

2007-05-30T17:09:00.000-04:00

Like I said, I just went for a little walk. Just around the office building... three times. It's a grand total of a mile, and it took me about 15 minutes, but I'm definitely not worried about that. What's important is that everything felt pretty good. I'm definitely not having any problems with strength, and I can't wait for next Monday to get the staples out -- that *has* to be more comfortable than right now!

I will now go back to doing my subdued, but entertaining, happy dance.

Still making progress

2007-05-30T10:23:00.001-04:00

And things are still getting better. Yesterday, I walked up the stairs to my third floor office for the first time in a week. And I did it again today. Basically, I'm not noticing any problems with strength... it's more just that I have to move things a little slowly, and I still can't have any pressure put on the healing area. But, I plan on going for a little walk today after lunch... and I can't wait!

And I Ain't No Gimp No More

2007-05-27T17:54:00.000-04:00

This is just a quick update to let everyone know that I'm actually healing quite nicely. I woke up yesterday morning and was halfway to the bathroom before I realized I didn't have my crutches. I have now spent 24 hours completely crutch-free, and with the exception of a little soreness if I move around too much, I'm feeling great! Granted, my wife is out playing golf right now without me, but hey, I still have nine staples in my leg!

Surgery Recap

2007-05-25T11:30:00.000-04:00

That was interesting. As mentioned before, I had surgery on Wednesday to excise a mass from my right leg. The surgery was scheduled for 11:15AM, with the prep supposedly starting at 8:15AM. Naturally, we left all sorts of time to allow for traffic, so we actually ended up getting to the hospital at about 7:45. And boy howdy, was I hungry. I tell ya, I understand the need for the fasting before surgery, but I sure don't like it!

The hospital staff was fairly quick at getting me checked in and into the prep room, where I ditched my lovely duds for a stylish hospital gown. And though it wasn't my best look, I still think I made it work. And then they left us alone. For a while. And we watched Spongebob. Finally, at about 9:00, my wife had to go to work (at which point, still nobody had come to talk to us). And then I was left alone. For a while. And I watched Spongebob. And I laughed...

Finally, the nurse came and gave me the IV. Now, having never had an IV before, this was kinda cool. I'm one of those folks who gets some weird sort of kick out of watching needles going into my skin. And for the last few weeks, I've had plenty of opportunity to see it. I think I'm over it now. But they got me going on the drip, and then took me to the holding pen.

This was definitely a new experience for me... beds lined up in many rows, all waiting for surgeries. Most everyone had a visitor or four with them. The group next to me was taking cell phone calls (not so much allowed), and trying to get even more people back there! That would have been ugly. Luckily, I wasn't there for long. Just long enough to verify what I was there for (and emphasize RIGHT leg), talk to the doc (who noticed that said mass seemed smaller than before), and talk to the anesthesiologist (who had done some work in Maryland before, and offered good advice on where to get good crabs in Jacksonville). They took me to the O.R., strapped me down, and the anesthesiologist knocked me ri...

... I awoke as I was being wheeled into another room for recovery. Another large holding pen. And I was still feeling goofy. I looked at the clock on the wall -- it was 11:15! Hey -- I'm supposed to be having surgery now! Get me in there! Oh, wait... they were too efficient. I'm OK with that. My leg was wrapped up, and I was feeling *no* pain. At all. They told me that I was going to get a visit from the rehab folks to teach me how to walk on crutches. And then they took me to the next room -- which was my final recovery room. I called my lovely bride and let her know I was OK. I guess I was still loopy, since she said something along the lines of "That's great, honey... why don't you call me back when you make sense?" Note: we're still waiting on this to occur.

Finally, the crutch guy comes in and attempts to teach me how to walk with them. I pick it up quickly, but my dressing falls off and I'm finally allowed to see what the doc did to me. Nine staples in my leg. I look like frickin' Frankenstein. Wanna see a picture? It's cool!

(Not for the sqeamish)

After that, my lovely bride came and took me home. And I laid on the couch. And I took hydrocodone. And I slept. And I woke up, ate some soup, took some hydrocodone, watched Lost, and went back to sleep. The next morning, I woke up, took some hydrocodone, and went back to sleep. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Finally, this morning (Friday), I was able to take a shower. And I had to change my dressing. This is actually the point where I took the picture. It really doesn't look that bad, but it's neat. And things are looking better. I'm able to put weight on it at this point. I was able to drive myself to work today (although I won't be going on any long road trips this weekend). I'm still using the crutches for some support, and to be able to move around faster, but I won't be needing them all that much longer. So, I have high hopes that this won't last that long.

Also, I was supposed to go on a business trip next week, and I was able to get out of that. So, hopefully, I can move my post-op up a little bit and I can finally find out what the hell it was they took out of me and I can move on and get back to hobbling/walking/running (in that order). I got things to do and races to see!

On on to recovery!!!

I made it

2007-05-23T20:32:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note to say that the surgery seems to have gone well. My leg hurts, and I'm exhausted, but it's done. Next stop... recovery!

Thanks, everyone! I'll write more later.

Scratch one race

2007-05-21T15:13:00.000-04:00

Well, I just scheduled an extraction of all four wisdom teeth for June 14th. Two days before the Run for the Pies. As my lovely wife pointed out, I'm probably not going to want to do much of anything, let alone run 3.1 miles.

However, what she doesn't know is that this is all part of my nefarious scheme to make sure that I don't try to come back from my surgery too quickly. After all, without the pressure of a race looming, I can take my time and get back into running when I'm actually ready. Personally, I'm down with it. Although I'm still not looking forward to the extraction. Or the surgery.

I probably won't have any updates until after my surgery, but I'll let everyone know how it goes after that. Wish me luck!

Son of a...!!!

2007-05-18T13:13:00.001-04:00

Not related to running. I just wanted to vent for a second. I just got permanent crowns put on my front two teeth (#8 and #9, in that dental jargon), and that freakin' hurt!!! Of course, being able to bite down on things again will be nice. And my smile is oh, so purty. But, damn!

OK, I now return you to your regularly scheduled lack of activity.

One other thing

2007-05-18T09:41:00.000-04:00

Just FYI, it'll be a few days before I have workouts worth writing about. I'm having surgery done on my leg next week (not anything big... the doctor said I should be on crutches for a few days, but that's it). And while I am bound and determined to get back to running as soon as I can, I'm also going to make very sure that I don't try to go too fast for full recovery.

So, there's another added wrinkle. Chances are, I won't be breaking that 30 minute mark in the 5k I have coming up on June 16th, but that's fine. Honestly, at that point, I'll be happy just to do it!

So, any advice for making sure that I don't come back too quickly?

Welcome!

2007-05-16T23:08:00.000-04:00

Well, every blog needs that starter who-I-am-and-why-should-you-read-this-crap post. So... here's mine.

I'm Bill, I'm 34 years old, live in Jacksonville, FL, and I am a beginning runner. I have run several 5Ks in the past, but not quickly... my best official time is 32 minutes, although I can now go faster than that in my training runs. I also ran a 5 miler in 55 minutes in February. But I have signed up for a bunch of races in the near future, and this will be my outlet for talking about the training involved. And what brought on the desire for a training output? Well, tonight I signed up for an official training program so that I can run the National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer in Jacksonville Beach, FL next February (http://www.breastcancermarathon.com).

So, what other runs do I have coming up in the near future?

June 16: Race for the Pies
August 4: Tour de Pain
September 15: Beaches 10 Miler
October 7: Disney Race for the Taste 10k
January 13: Disney Half Marathon
And, of course, February 17: Breast Cancer Marathon

So, here is part of my workout logging, and some therapy. Hopefully, somebody out there will enjoy some of the stories I can tell, and I'm hoping I can learn something else from those who have come before me!

Thanks!