whats going on?

wow, i guess it's been a while, huh... anyway, my buddy darrin and i have FINALLY decided to get off our butts. heck, it's only been like 5 years... anyway, check it out here.

running log - 4/25/06

35 minutes in the dark. alone, but with encouragement.

yeah, darrin wimped out on me. actually, he'd already run 6 miles with his training group for the indy mini, so instead of running with me, he simply encouraged me by sarcastically yelling "looking good" or "c'mon pick it up a little" or trying to hand me water each of the 10 times i passed his house last nite. this was usually followed by me cussing at him. ahhh well, at least it made the run more interesting. and that was good, because i didn't feel especially strong last nite. my pace was pretty slow and i had trouble settling into a groove. but i guess i'm still getting my "legs" back after being off for a while.

on a happier note, my son andrew, who runs track for his middle school, set a 6th grade school and county record monday nite in the 1600. he covered the mile in 5:39. yikes. i can't come close to matching that. he's undefeated in the mile and the 800 so far. what a freak! he and his twin brother nathan are really enjoying track this spring and plan on continuing to run through the summer. way to go boys!

well, no running tonite, but i've got 3 miles or so to do on thursday. yessss!

and they're off...

days 1 and 2 - check!

well the marathon training has "officially" started now. i did 4 miles on saturday and another 3+ last nite. the schedule i am using has me running by miles on the weekend long runs, and in minutes on the weekdays. that's good, plus the midweek runs are never longer than an hour which is important since i do this running at nite and anything too much longer than that in the dark becomes unbearable.

at this point i'm running a nice easy pace for me, in the low 9's. i have no reason to push it, plus i want to enjoy as much of this as possible. darrin and i ran together last nite. he's training for the indy mini in a couple of weeks, and also ironman wisconsin in september. he's been doing quite a bit of biking and swimming, but running? notsomuch. we're fairly close in ability still, so it works well.

i haven't had any muscle soreness after running lately, which is a good sign because it means i'm regaining some of the fitness i'd lost when i was recovering from the surgery. i'm eating too much, though. i still weigh almost exactly the same as i did in january, but i had been a few pounds under. i might start up a food log like i did in january. a food journal is quite a deterrant to eating when after eating something, you have to enter the food and the calories into a database. anyone who wants to lose weight should try this. it's really an eye-opener.

oh well. 35 minutes is on the schedule for tonite. it's a nasty day here and i hope it stops raining before i run later. fingers crossed!

a new goal

day zero

first off, i just want to catch up and say that the transplant went better than ever could have been expected. my sister is doing wonderfully, and i came through it much more easily than i ever thought i would. ok, nuff said about that.

after a couple of years of dawdling around, trying to convince myself that i wanted to do another ironman, i've finally come to peace with the fact that an ironman is just not in the cards for me right now. that doesn't mean i'll never do another one, but it'll be a while. i just do not have the time to adequately train for an event like that. i suppose i could probably get myself to the point where i could finish under the 17-hour cutoff, but i'm not sure i want that at this point. i did alot of running before the transplant surgery, and really started liking it. after thinking about it a bit, i realized that while the best i could do in ironman right now is a total back-of-the-pack finish, i could train enough to become a middle-of-the-pack marathon finisher. run training i can do anytime. i always run at nite anyway, and long runs on weekends are doable. the problem with ironman training is that biking is difficult because i don't really have any daytime hours free, especially during the week. swimming is almost impossible, because the town where i work now doesn't have a facility like a YMCA where i could go swim. when i trained for my ironman a few years ago, i had a work schedule that gave me the morning free (to bike), and was located only a couple of miles from the IU natatorium in indianapolis. this allowed me to get in sufficient time swimming and biking, and i just can't see that happening in the foreseeable future.

so what's the plan now? the chicago marathon. that's my new adversary. tomorrow is officially day one of my 6-month training plan. i've been running semi-regularly since the middle of february, so it's not like i'm starting completely over, but i'm not in as good shape as i was in late january. i ran 4 times this past week, 3-4 miles each time. tomorrow calls for three miles, but i might do more since i'm a little ahead of the game at this point.

i'm very excited to finally have a long term goal. i'm working on some targets that i'll be shooting for, and i'll post them in the coming months. this is going to be a fun summer of training. the weather is already looking up, and i feel great.

day one is tomorrow. i can't wait.

the half

13.1 miles. my own half marathon.

i set my alarm clock for 7:30, and it performed its duty well as i flailed and swatted at it so that it wouldn't wake up everyone else in the house. the weather called for a rain today, but probably not until later. as i lay in bed, i listened closely for any rain-type sounds but was pleased to hear none. i put on my running clothes and bodyglide and went downstairs to have a little something to eat. i turned the tv to the weather channel and was delighted to see that not only was it was already 49 degrees, but judging by the radar, i shouldn't be seeing any rain for quite a while. cool.

i drove out and dropped water at the 4-mile, 7-mile, and 10-mile points of the course, just as i had planned when creating the route. i'm going to carry GU and a couple of salt tablets with me. it was overcast with a slight southerly breeze, aka: a beautiful day to run. i returned home, finished up my toast with peanut butter, drank some water, and put my shoes on.

on virtually all of training runs, i made a conscious effort not to push it too hard. i didn't want to burn out and have it become a chore. but today would be different. i was planning on pushing it as much as i could today. i want to see exactly what the final result of these last six weeks or so of consistent running would bring.

i toed my homemade starting line and pushed the start button on my watch as the imaginary gun went off in my head and i began my journey. the first 8 miles or so is a course that i've run many times in my life so obviously i'm very familiar with it. miles 9 and 10 include a very long hill that i've never run before, and the last two miles are those same neverending rollers from last week's run. the second half of the course is definitely tougher than the first. i knew i'd need to finish the first half in 55 - 57 minutes to have a chance at 2 hours. i started out and tried to run just a little faster than i usually do. i've been running for so long at my "comfortable" pace of 9:15 - 10:00 per mile that i had a hard time judging what my pace was for the first mile. i hit it in 7:56. i knew there was no way that i could maintain that, so i consciously slowed down. mile 2 was about 8:45. that's more like it. i needed to maintain a 9:10 pace to finish under the mystical goal of a 2 hours, so averaging 8:30 - 9:00 miles was good for now. since the second half of the course is more harder than the first, putting some time in the bank now was necessary. i hit the 4-mile water stop feeling good. i only walked a few steps as i didn't want to choke on the salt pill. i was trying not to waste time at the stops. during last week's 12-miler, we probably wasted 4-5 minutes dillying around. mile 6 presents the steepest climb of the day, and i felt good going up it. i hit the halfway point at 57 minutes. good. i'm right where i want to be. but just as i was congratulating myself for a great first half, i started to feel a blister develop on the arch of my right foot. that's just what i need... i haven't had a problem with blisters up until now. so why now?? with over 6 miles to go? sheesh. oh well, i'll have plenty of time to heal.

the water stop at mile 7 came just in time. i was starting to feel thirsty, which again, i normally don't do. obviously, i was pushing my body harder than it was used to and it was telling me so. i was running hard enough - just up to the point where it started to feel like i was really working. and my body was responding wonderfully. my form felt good. my legs felt like they were bouncing, with my joints, tendons, ligaments and whatever other thingamadoobers all happily playing along.

i entered unknown territory as i started the long climb up US40 to thorpe road. it started out pretty steep, and it was long, but it wasn't as tedious as last week's long climb up the other side of this hill on US40. at the corner of thorpe road and US40 i had my 10-mile water point. i looked at my watch, and it read 1:25, so i knew i was close, and i couldn't afford to walk at all here. i reached down and grabbed the water bottle i had left earlier without really breaking stride at all. i carried it with me for almost a half mile as i drank down all eight ounces. i hit the 11-mile mark at about 1:35 and felt pretty good about the time, but knew it was 2 miles of neverending constant rolling hills home. this stretch seems to take forever and i started to worry that i wouldn't make it. i really pushed it hard over those hills and my blistered foot began to hurt in earnest. finally the hills gave up and i turned the corner into my neighborhood with 1:55 on the watch. with only a few hundred yards to go, i finally felt sure that i had done it. i slowed down a little to enjoy the last segment of this journey. i threw my arms up as i crossed in front of my driveway at 1:57:55. i don't know if any of my neighbors saw me or not, but hey, they think i'm nuts anyway so who cares.

it's 12 hours since i finished, and aside from that huge blister on my right arch, i'm no worse for wear. my knees hurt for a short while afterwards, but that went away quickly. obviously i have some leg soreness, but nothing that i wasn't expecting.

it's really amazing how quickly the body can respond if it is properly treated and trained. a scant six weeks ago i was almost 25 pounds heavier and could barely run three miles in 35 minutes. i trained hard, but more importantly i trained consistently. i ran 5 days a week EVERY week. i increased mileage every week. (i know you're supposed to take a "recovery" week every 4 weeks or so, but since i knew from the beginning that this would be only a short term project, i skipped that.) i kept a journal of my eating habits. anyone who wants to lose weight needs to do this. holyhamsandwiches, does this tell a story. i logged everything i stuffed into my mouth for six weeks, and doing that really makes you think about all those forgotten calories that are consumed every day. what an eye opener.

all in all, i'm totally thrilled with today's performance. my body responded beautifully to the challenge i gave it. i can't wait until i'm recovered and can start running again.

good job, me! heh.

running log - 1/26/06

3.2 miles with darrin

after not feeling quite right during yesterday's run, i knew that i needed to take this one very easy. and we did. we averaged just a hair under 10 minutes per mile during our 9 lap, 3.2 mile stroll. it was cold again, but clear. i had on my hat, gloves, and sweats, and after we were done, i had frost built up on my hat from where i was sweating. i was surprised that happened, because i didn't realize that i was actually sweating.

saturday is the big 13.1. the culmination of 6 weeks' training before my surgery, which will leave me unable to do much of anything for a while. how long i don't know.

darrin won't be able to join me tomorrow. he just has too many other commitments. i'm planning on starting around 9:00, and hopefully i'll be done by 11. i've set 2 hours as my goal for this. i've tried not to focus on time during my training runs so far. i'm treating this as a race, though, and i'll push it to hit my target if i have to. there's nothing to lose, since it'll be my last run for a while anyway.

running log - 1/25/06

4 miles with darrin

i'm considering this week to be somewhat of a taper, so last nite, which is normally a medium distance run, was cut to only four miles. it was a little cool and i ran in long pants for the first time since before christmas. darrin and i did our standard out and back into illinois to the railroad tracks. the pace was decent and we finished in 35:42/8:56.

for some reason, i still didn't feel great. i don't know that i'd call it struggling, but i definitely didn't feel as strong as i had been feeling the last week or so. i'll have to take it easy on tomorrow's run. speaking of tomorrow, it will be the last run before my little half marathon on saturday. in one sense, it's kind of exciting, but in another, i also know that it spells the end of my training for a while. it's going to be so depressing to be unable to run. i still worry about how bad my fitness will be when i'm finally able to run again. i guess there's just some things that are out of my control. dwelling on it won't help. ..sigh..

running log - 1/24/06

3.2 miles

the original plan was to run yesterday then take today off, but i still felt some soreness so i took yesterday off instead. darrin is running the indy mini again this year and his training group met today, so i ran alone. and that was fine - i normally don't mind running alone. there was no moon visible even though it was clear out, which meant that it was very dark outside so i stayed in the neighborhood for nine laps. but holyhurricanes, batman, was it windy. mr. weatherguy said we had gusts in excess of 45 mph. this felt great on the easterly portion of my circle, but going west wasn't quite as fun. anyway, i did 3.2 miles in 28:28/8:54. my legs still felt a little heavy, but other than that it was pretty uneventful. there were 3.2 miles to do, so i did them.

when i was getting dressed to go run, i pulled a pair of compression shorts off of the shower door. by the way, is it just me or does everyone seem to use anything they can find in the house as some sort of makeshift drying rack for running clothes that you've sweated and stinked up beyond all recognition? anyway, i put the shorts on, and even i couldn't take it. they just smelled too bad. normally this only bothers me if i'm running with someone. i mean, if you're going to run in a group, please de-stink, but alone - hey, you do what you gotta do. but these were just too much for me. i had to change. i mentioned this to my wife, who was predictably grossed out, but it got me thinking. how come there is no quantifiable identifier for stink? how loud is something? decibels. how bright is something? lumens. how heavy is something? pounds/kg. how stinky is something? no. i got nothin'. hmmm. well hey, at least this gave me something to think about during my run...

speaking of running alone, i might have to do the half on saturday that way. darrin's wife has some stuff planned for them, and his daughter has a basketball game, so he might not be joinin' me. while it would be nice to have some company on such a long run, it won't be so bad if he can't make it. i'll do it either way. i've got the course lined out. it's not as hilly as the 12-miler last week, but it's certainly not flat either. there are nasty climbs at the 6 mile and 9 mile points, along with 2 miles of constant rollers at the end. i'd love to come in under 2 hours, but we'll just have to see. the weatherguy says it might rain, which would really suck. cross those fingers and sacrifice those chickens!