Two outta three ain't bad

I am IronMan. OK not quite, but still...

So it's been a busy couple of days. Took Friday off, mostly because of the "big" run coming on Saturday, but mostly because I was a bit sore from the spill off the bike on Thursday. Crowd at first group meeting Saturday was great; many familiar faces and many new ones that I think it's fair to say were there because they saw what I went through with it last year. One face obvious by its absence, but that cuts much deeper than just the running group.

Anyway, after a too-long orientation talk, we finally did our big 3 miles. Because it was relatively short compared to what I'd been doing recently (like just the previous Saturday), I decided to push it a bit, acting like it was a 5K. I noticed almost immediately at the beginning that I felt tired and just didn't have the usual energy from the start, but tried to not let that get me down. The final numbers were not great, but still better than the first ever 5K race I ever ran (43:16.1). Really pushed the last few yards, to the point that I actually dry heaved once when it was over.

This year: 39m32s/3mi

Then went out for a bike ride first thing Sunday morning. Would've been a bit longer, but ran into the 15K+ strong Breast Cancer Walk out on the trail and had to turn around. Felt like a heel hating on the charity walkers, but did they really need the WHOLE trail? How 'bout I just post the news report as penance for my temporary ill feelings.


Sunday ride: 16.58mi/1h18m9s/1213C/74%avgHR

So, Monday comes. Given that, save two bike rides, I really took last week off to recover from the half, the scale wasn't too much of a surprise, though still disappointing. We hit the gym for lunch, however, and that helps ease the pain. Per the program, I'm only supposed to do 20 minutes, so I do the whole thing straight through, and honestly it wasn't hard enough. Need to up the speed when I go in for the second run, hopefully tomorrow.

20min/1.6mi/???C

And then, when I get home tonight, I hit the bike again since it's just such a nice night. About a mile into the second half of the ride, I spot a guy in a neon yellow shirt waaaaaay ahead of me and decide I'm going to catch him. I crank on the way back and finally catch him after a 6+mile chase. I was gassed, but damn it felt good. Except for the second dry heave in three days. I'm guessing that's my body's way of telling me that I ain't in the aerobic zone anymore and have barreled right in to the anaerobic area. No discipline, I tell ya.

18.54mi/1h16m28s/1452c/79%avgHR (seriously, almost 2 miles further in 1:40 less time; I was hauling)

Now, if I could just get my fat self in a pool, I could complete my own little triathlon...

Pitch and pound

OK, so I'm not Chinese and it wasn't raining, but this is a fairly accurate representation of how my ride Thursday afternoon came to an end. I have no idea what I hit, but it was arse over teakettle. Got a good pedal bite in one calf and one elbow is sore, but other than that only my pride was hurt. Think I need to go back to running; I at least seem to have mastered staying on my own two feet.

So far.

Numericals: 18.55mi/1h23min (slightly longer than usual due to laying on ground, staring at sky, wondering if I broke myself)/1383C

I'm screwed

Ate great last week, however I'm off to a bad start this week. The 5 lbs is probably a result of a bloated 261 last week (258 was probably more accurate). regardless, i'm still happy with the result.

Here are the results of Mondays 4 mile, 5:00 AM tempo run:

Mile Total Time Average Pace Average HR
11:13 44:21 11:05 161
10:02 (47:45 last week) (156)
11:24 (49:20 2 wks ago)
11:36

Not too bad, though i have again screwed myself for next week.

Mudruckers

Well, this si the second time I'm posting this entry - the first time my slow arse 'puter took too darn long to upload the video and I finally abandoned my project. As a result this entry will be much shorter.

Saturday's run was wet, cold, wet, snowy, wet, windy, wet, muddy, wet, lonely and wet. I did my 2 hours (actual time 2:04). My feet were all but soaked for 2:00 of it. I splished, splashed, but did NOT take a bath, aka. I didn't fall. The crappy part was that Sunday people were running in tank tops and shorts. So no animals other than unleasehed dogs that may all too soon seek the wrath of my foot if they come charging and barking at me while their unlaw-abinding owners yells "Bobo, come back boy, stop Bobo, he doesn't usually do that." If I'm doing this trail with one of my kids and that happens, I'm kicking the dog (sorry NM).

I suppose the run was a succcess: I was on my feet with an elevated HR for 2 hours in conditions that are remarkably similar to the scree on the top of the Barr trail.

Off(-ish) week: Day One

Figured that after Saturday's festivities, I'd take this week easy and get back into it with the start of ABQFit on Saturday. As such, may not get a lot of running in this week, but given the somewhat encouraging signs from the scale, I've got to do something this week to keep that going. Plus, I really, really need the distraction right now.

Got home from work and dragged the bike out for the usual trek. Still a bit breezy, but not as bad as weeks past and the temps were fantastic. Made decent time both directions given what was mostly a crosswind. And it's far easier to work yourself into a rhythmic trance when you're focusing on the cadence and just cruising along on the bike.

Can you tell I've been in my head a bit lately?

The Results (bike): 18.6mi/1h21m/1406C

Where the heck I been?

OK, so just where have I been? Well, because of the big event I'll get to in a minute, I didn't plan on doing too much training this past week. Then came Monday's weigh in which you'll note I did NOT post on time. And then when I got out and actually did a run on Monday, it was so freakin' gawdawful (2.96m/568C/42min) that I felt like I'd fallen back to where I was at the beginning of last year before I ever started any of this running. And in many ways all of that was the high point of last week. Yeah, that's right.

That night I was thinking about all of it and the fact that my little first-of-the-year running program was supposed to culminate with a race on Saturday. I had been running with (well, really just at the same time and place as) the half marathon group, but had been thinking about just running the 10K or even just the 5K and trying to post a respectable time. But as I thought about it some more, I said "Eff it" and went in the next day and signed up for the Unser Half Marathon.

Night before the race it rained. And rained. And rained. Now normally here in NM it never rains for more than 5-10 minutes at a time, and more recently it hadn't really rained since about '05, so this storm was something else. The next morning I got up and could feel the near freezing air coming in through the slightly open bathroom window. I'm not going. I get dressed and pull my stuff together. I'm not going. I head out the door and feel the first real bite of the air. I'm not going. I stop and take care of some important business on the way to the race, drive to the gathering spot and realize that I left my race bib at home. I'm not going. I race home, find the bib and race back to the starting line, the mud caking on my shoes as I speed-walk over to get my timing chip. I'm not going. I get my chip and then have to stand in a ridiculous line for the Port-o-Let that still has me standing there when the official start time comes. I'm not going. Take care of business and walk up the dirt road to the start line, getting more and more mud on the soles of my shoes; maybe I can twist my knee running on this shite and not have to run. I'm not going. They blow the horn and everyone takes off; I quickly fall back to the back of the pack. I guess I'm going.

The storm had in fact made a mucky mess of the beginning of the race, but we soon hit the pavement and then I go to enjoy the freshly cleaned and mostly empty streets and the mountains were positively gorgeous.

The first mile, frankly, was a bear. The second was a little better, and by the third I'd settled into kind of a groove. I've also got to admit that the fact that the course was a completely new place for me to run helped, as it gave me plenty to look at and distract myself a little. My only gripe was that part of the course was not really well marked and for about a mile I thought I may have made a wrong turn. Not fun. And really, look at this map and you can see how convoluted some of it was:


Anyway, I got through it, and got through it about 20 minutes faster than the first (and only other) time I ran a half last spring. But damn if it's still not soooo verrry sloooooow. Something to work on during the marathon prep, I guess.

Which, by the way, starts Saturday. [Gulp]

The Digerati: 13.1m/LOOONG TIME/1864C/AvgHR 60% (Can you tell I got a little tired? Or do I need to work harder? Honestly, it's both.)

Up, up, and away

So far so good after me and the Big Man had a heart to heart. Tuesday was a rest day (I think I need to scrap the AM fun run, especially if I don't get my Mond. Tempo run in until 9 PM). I put down only 1720 calories and although dinner was meatloaf, I portion controlled well.

Wednesday only saw me put in 1360 cals. I may have been off on a few things, but regardless, there's no way I'm off by 700 cals, and my goal is 2000 a day. Did a 4 mile semi-long run on da 'mill at the gym (this will start increasing next week). Felt good, pushed it hard, sweat like you NM, no heel issues. Followed up the 44 min run with one mile of walking at 3.3 pace with a steadily building incline up to 7.0%.

Here are the run stats:
4 miles/ 44:28/ HR av = 156/11:07 pmm

Mile 1 = 11:48/139HR, #2= 11:12/153HR, #3=10:52/163HR, #4=10:33/171HR

A consolitory note: lady I work with is doing a 26.2 on May 10, she got in her longest run of training this past weekend...10 miles. She also missed the previous 3 weekends. So see, it's not just us.

Just call me Dash

In reference of course to the character from The Incredibles. Got my Monday PM 4 mile tempo run in at about 8:45 last night. I felt good, but was a little worried about the pace and kept pushing it. As a result...I screwed myself for next week! I suppose this is a good thing. Here are the stats:

Date Time Aver. HR Pace
4/6 49:20 154 12:20
4/13 47:45 156 11:56

Yeh, good luck to me next week.

Ate awesome; only 1400 calories. My wife thinks this is too low for me and that I need to eat more. My argument is that i have plenty of energy "stored" and don't need to worry about being too low for quite a while. There was no crap or red items in my diet yesterday. Now I need to have about 120 more days like this in the next four months.

*@#%!*#

Fill in title with every inappropriate and vulgar word you can think of and that would be my week. Here's my review, but let me preface this by pointing out that A) it was my wife's birthday on Monday and as a result her dad took us all out Monday, me and the lady went out solo on Tues and we had her cake on Wed. Throw in Easter goodies and you get a good idea of my caloric intake for the week.

Monday:
Did do a 4 mile road run at about 9:30 at night. Felt good. About the same pace as my three miles along the same course last week.

Tuesday:
No AM workout since I had just run 6 hours earlier

Wednesday:
Pissed about this one. I was running late so I was not ready to go to the gym when I took V home. So I came back home. I then helped get the kids to bed and decided to read for 15 minutes (as I had only finished dinner about an hour earlier and didn't want to do my 4 m with food IN MY BELLY!. Result - I woke up at 10:24..and woke up pissed.

Thursday:
Not sure why I missed my AM run. Did get in my pm running club up the mountain trail tempo run. Twenty minutes as hard as I could, easy back down, and then 4 hill repeats. Felt good, pushed the down hill too much and I was SORE for a good 48 hours.

Friday:
Ate no meat.

Saturday:
Opted out of my 6 am wake up and therefore had to force myself to run later in the afternoon. My goal was to run for 1:45 (did 1:38) and watch the HR. My HR stayed low and as a result I was slow, but it was a great run. Cool, occasional rain, new trail, gnawed off deer leg in the middle of the trail - still bloody and hairy - that always makes you run a bit more alert. Loved the run, then again i always have good runs at this park.

My total was probably about 12 miles - but I ate really bad, as my weigh in indicates.

Time for me to have a Come to Jesus meeting with myself. If I ate better, I should be able to drop weight even if I didn't workout. I simply need to do a better job, every day. I'm a bit disgusted that I'm about 20 pounds heavier than i was for San Ant, about 3 months behind schedule for PP, and very lowly motivated. This is going to be a hard week to get in every run as the kids have things going on nonstop this week. We'll see. Oh yeh, once again missed all the cross training.

Crazy Spring...

So last week was vicious windy and nasty for the long run. Today wasn't quite as windy, but a nice rainstorm moved into the area Friday night and just kinda sat on the place throughout today. Meaning the wind wasn't quite as bad today, but it rained on me for almost all of today's 8 miles. Was a little worried about getting too wet that I couldn't stay warm, but I kept moving fast enough that is never a problem. And running in the ran was really nice; not too many other people out on the trail, everything had that washed-clean feel about it. Just a nice experience all the way around. Perhaps I should wash the car every Friday afternoon?

Rest of the day was pretty laid back. Spent some time at the office, worked in the backyard a bit, ran to the Depot/Lowe's for yard/house related stuff...nice Saturday in suburbia.

Still not optimistic about Monday's weigh-in, however. I keep breaking down and eating a handful of shite here and there. Probably not as much as it used to be, and I think part of it is just me being a little harder on myself, but I need to start seeing major changes so I don't look like this anymore:



Okay, so it's not a picture of me, as I had shoes and a shirt on. Thank God.

By the Numbers:
8.06miles/1h57min/1,158C

Been quiet...too quiet...

...and you know if it's been quiet, that can't be a good thing

Week started poorly right out of the gate. A quick glance at the weigh-in column will show you that there was no improvement over the last week, even after making all three weekly runs, the long run on Saturday, and another 18-miler on the bike Sunday.
Then I got tied up in a trial on Monday and Tuesday that really just saps it out of you; by the time the day is done, I just want to go home and decompress. Really lame, and I need to get past that if I'm going to make my goals this year.











Wednesday...
well, Wednesday I just was not feeling it. Left the office early for an appointment and planned on hitting the gym afterward, but ended up just going home and kicking back with the pooch.

Finally, Thursday came and I was committed to getting at least one of the training runs in this week. So, skipped lunch with the lads/lasses from work and got in my run. Strangely, it felt really good and relatively easy. Normally I'm ready for the walk-break when it comes, but today I felt like I could've kept going right through them. (Probably helped that I had 3-4 fans blowing on me while I was trundling along.) Then played a double-header of kickball tonight. I know, it's only kickball, but every little activity helps, right? Right?!?!

As you might imagine, with the falloff in workouts, the eating suffered a bit as well. Now that I'm back on the accountability train, however, I'll get that straightened out soon.

For the (pathetic) week:

3.05miles/581C/42minutes

If It's Sunday, I Must Be Riding...and fighting pinche goatheads

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

So it's Sunday afternoon. I did the 9 miles yesterday, so I'm a little tight and want to go and get another ride in. Besides, I've got the time and I could use the activity to help clear the mind. So I get about 5-7 miles into the ride when I can feel the bike starting to drag and the back end starting to get a bit squishy. Sure enough, tire's nearly flat. I hop off, flip the bike and start airing the tire up when I see a giant freakin' goathead sticking out of the thing. Forgetting the lesson the Little Dutch boy, I pick the thing out and can hear this "psssssssssssss" over the U2 pounding in my ears and can see the Slime bubbling out. I decide/hope the Slime will do it's job, finish airing up the tire, and hop back on. Mile later, pinche thing is flat again, so I get to play pit crew. Open up the tire and there's just green goo everywhere; I'm nearly convinced Slime is for shite.

Finally got the ride finished, and it actually took longer, even without the stops than it did last week during the tornado/hurricane. WTF?! I'm not optimistic about tomorrow's numbers.

18.51miles/1h23min/3428C/avg 78%maxHR

5 for 5

If only I could get the 5 five powerball numbers right. All things said and done, I got in 5 workouts this week. The only one I missed was my Thursday AM short little wake up run. My total mileage for the week was around 15 miles, which obviously I'll eventually have to more than double, but for my first week back from break I'm happy with it. On a down note, I really, really, need to do some cross training. I didn't get in any bike or lifting time this week. My heel feels OK today, after feeling like Kaka following Thursday workout.

Recap:
Thursday - Incline club's first speed session of the year. 20 minutes of 1 min hard, 1 min. easy up the Barr trail followed be 4 (long and steep) hill repeats up a road. My 1:1 sucked as I didn't get far at all - then again this was my first time stepping foot on the trail following my 20 mile DNF of a 13 mile race. My hill times were (in seconds) 41.9, 41.8, 42.3, 40.9. These repeats grow in number as the season goes on, but it was good to get out and do a workout with other people, despite the fact that I was the back of the pack guy.

Saturday - missed my long run - cold, windy, slept in (to 7:15), and had to get ready for an Easter party.

Sunday - got the long run in at about 3:00, just as NM frequently advises, I should have done this earlier as it was cold (bearable), snowy (cool), and windy (sucked a--). I also followed NM advice of following CO advice and did 1:10 min with my eye on the HRM. As a result I walked a steep part , but got to run harder on the downhills. Had a negative split on the way back (35:00 - 33:08). Feel pretty good so far tonight. Next week I'll try to get that time (I do time on my long runs while training for PP) to 1:30.

Weekly miles: 15 ish, weekly time: 3:16:00.
Recap:
Mond PM, Tues AM, Wed PM, Thurs PM, Sun PM...all runs. Seriously - I need to diversify

An Improvement?

So, I don't know, probably more than a year ago CS suggested that I start training with a heart rate monitor. Figuring that every time I went out running, my fat arse was about this close to causing my ticker to just pop on the spot, I could never really bring myself to put the monitor on and see how bad things actually were.
Finally gave it a shot today, and while you'll be happy to hear I didn't die, keeping my rate in the desirable range for yesterday's run meant another pretty slow pace. We're supposed to get better/faster at this after awhile, right?

Anyway, went out about a half hour earlier than everyone else this morning, did my 9 miles, and there were still a number of people at the finish when I got there; that rarely happens for me on these longer runs. The eating the rest of the day wasn't so much, but felt like I'd kinda earned it this morning. I will say, though,I'm not expecting the same kind of improvement on the scale this Monday that I saw last week.

The Happy:
9.07mi/2h15m/1301C/86%avg HR

The Sad:
small bowl oatmeal (pre run)
bottle of G2
breakfast burrito
home fries
frijoles
3 slices pizza
greek salad
2 beers
glass of milk

The Best Laid Plans...

Apologies. Had a great start to the week, both getting in the runs and keeping this thing up to date, and then the end of the week got away from. Remember how I was happy that I'd gotten in two runs by Tuesday, leaving me just one to squeeze in for the rest of the week? Well, intended on going for a good bike ride Wednesday night but the weather just got too crappy (wind, spotty rain, and wind), so I bagged it at the last minute. Wanted to go run Thursday for lunch, but a coworker's BDay sneaked up on me and we had to go out to celebrate. Then we had our first kickball game of the season that night right after work. But I was determined to get in all three training runs this week, and still take it easy Friday to prepare for the long run Saturday, so I went to the gym and hit the mill after the game. Felt kinda good going in there at 8pm, determined to get the workout in regardless of the hour. Felt kinda bad doing the workout after having killed a beer+ after the game. I don't advise it.

32min/2.19mi/410C

You Spin Me Right Round...

52 laps, need I say more? Got in my midweek "semi-long" run indoors this evening (the -3 windchill sort of turned me off from running outside). Instead of doing the run on the mill, I opted for the speedy 13 laps to the mile track. I still think the track is off - though they raised it from 11 laps/mile about 6 months ago to the 13, so one would ass u me that they measured this time...then again it is the Univ. of Colorado system we're talking about. Felt great the whole time, some eye candy came out and ran around for a bit as well, overall pretty good. The BAD: my heel hurts like sheet!!! Every effing time I run it hurts. I iced it when I got home, so maybe it won't be as bad in the morning...doubtful.

BTW, I did get in my 30 minute Tuesday (very early) morning run in yesterday - even pulled off a negative split for the return trip.

Speaking of heels:

Tuesday
2 slices toast
small bowl cereal
ham/cheese sandwich
2 cans diet soda
apple
clementine
2 small baked potatoes with chili on top
2 handfuls of chips and salsa
small bowl of cereal

Wednesday
2 slices toast
small bowl cereal
same damn sandwich as Tuesday
apple
clementine
2 cans diet soda
small bowl cereal
2.5 plates of spaghetti
2 slices of toast
1/2 of a small Reeses blizzard (why can't the kids finish their desserts so I don't have to???

Tomorrow is supposed to be my first run up the Barr trail since my Pikes Peak DNF last August.