Back in the saddle again!

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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.