Week Two!

I ended up going a full ten miles yesterday. This is really the best time of year for running. Nice and cool, but not cold. Cold stinks! My shirt froze last year, and that's no fun.

Week One

I'm supposed to run 3 miles on Wednesday, 5 on Friday, and 9 on Sunday. Nothing too challenging.

It's exciting! I'm glad I'm finally getting started. (But I got the timing wrong, so I'm actually starting the training plan on week two.) It's nice to have the whole thing listed in front of me. It really removes any excuses.

Cows run good.

The Great Cow Harbor 10K was yesterday. I finished it in 57.28 minutes, and was feeling pretty good about it. It's a really challenging course on the north shore of long island, which if you don't know, is pretty darned hilly! So there is really no even ground. You're either running up really steep hills, down really steep hills, or Up/Down really long gradual hills.

Up is tough, it can really put some strain on your muscles, but down is no picnic either. You have to work really hard to keep from just tearing off and running way too fast. I didn't have to stop running at any point, and even managed to move up in the pack on the hills.

Running a big race like this takes some getting used to. How to pass people and leave enough room so you aren't blocking people, how to keep your own pace without being influenced by those around you (Which I do by finding someone running at a good pace, and then following them. Thanks girl in green sports bra! We finished!)

It's a fun experience. The excitement you feel in the minutes before the race starts, crossing that finish line, all of it. It's a nice environment to be in. And this race course was really nice. Running along the Long Island Sound, and through some really nice neighborhoods, with families handing out water from their own little card tables, local boy scout troops giving out fruit, and cheerleaders from the local schools cheering you on.

Even you have even considered running a race, I say go for it! It's a great experience.

http://cowharborrace.com/

Busy, Busy, Busy

It's me! I'm the busy bee.

Grad school is lots of fun, but it take up so much time! I'm never to get to 100% completion on any of my PS3 games this semester, which is a horror of unimaginable severity! The assignments are fun, so I really don't mind that much. My natural laziness instincts must be ignored.

I've been trying to maintain, but not go too crazy. I did something weird to my knee, and since I have a 10K next week, I figured better safe than sorry. It's feeling better now. I managed to work in two leisurely 4 mile runs, and a 10K yesterday, which adds another 14 miles on to my total. This really is the perfect time of year for running. Cool, but sunny with lots of shade from the still-green leaves. (It gets really slippery when the leaves start falling, and for someone with the coordination of a tranq-ed rhino, it can be a problem.)

This is also the last week before I start my real training program. It's exciting! I like having a list of miles to do, it gives me a goal.

Gone... All gone.

I ran 10 miles yesterday. Longest run I've done in quite a while. I did pretty well too. It only took me an hour and a half, which is a pretty aggressive pace for me. (One of my problems is a difficulty finding the sweet spot between running way too fast and way too slow, a mistake that hurt me during the marathon last winter)

Anywho, I get to the end of my run and managed to reset my Ipod before it registered the run. I lost it! Not a super big deal or anything, it's not like the run doesn't exist, but I've gotten so used to adding my miles to my Nike+ account! It was frustrating. I was trying to finish a challenge I'm doing on there, so now I have to do it all over again.

Oh well, what can you do?

Turns out I won't start really training for a couple of weeks. I was under the impression that you could just go on the Nike+ site and enter the date you're running, and get a training program. Turns out their programs are much longer, 24 weeks at least. So I'm going to do the one from Runners's World again. It's a 16 week plan that worked pretty well last year.

The Human Race

I'm signed up for the Nike+ Human Race http://inside.nike.com/blogs/nikerunning_humanrace-en_US/?tags=race_day&sitesrc=old_site
On October 24th. It's kind of cool because you can do an organized race, or just run with your Nike+ anywhere you want, and it counts as part of the event. It's a really fun idea.

Here's the thing that makes it more interesting, I'm going to be in Israel on the 24th. I'm going on a trip with my dad (he has a business meeting, I'm going for fun) to Tel Aviv. So my mission will be

A) To find a place to run
B) Remember to run
C) Not wander off into some disputed territory

It's fun to run in another country. I ran in Paris France with it's ankle-breaking cobblestones, and I ran in Sao Paolo Brazil through some pretty interesting neighborhoods. The only problem is working up the energy to run after walking around and being a tourist all day.

Ran another 5 miles on Labor Day. (Also rode many, many miles on my bike, which don't count.) Bringing my total up to 75. That's almost impressive sounding.

Trippin

I've been running for a pretty long time now, at least a couple of years. In that time I've never once just flat out fallen on my face.

The other night it almost happened twice. I don't know what made me such a spaz. I had the IPod set to 6 miles, which is a pretty standard distance for me, so it wasn't like I was crazy fatigued or anything. The first time I did the full on total body spasm "try as had as I can to not fall on my face flailing around motions" and managed to keep from going all the way down. I did the cliche "look around to make sure nobody saw my little dance of death" thing, and then noticed all the weird muscle aches from all the weird muscles I haven't used since the last time I spazzed out and almost fell on my face. Weird little achy back muscles and things. Very strange sensation.

The second time I went right down like a puppet who's strings were cut. Tumble, roll, everything. Something about getting a little road rash on the palm of my hands (complete with little pebbles stuck to your mitts!) really reminds me of being a little kid.

Strange, but not such a super big deal.

I did an actual conversion and found out that a 10K is a little over 6 miles, so I added those runs to my total, and I'm at 70 miles. Not too shabby. Every mile flys in the face of my instinctive laziness.

I'm going to get my real training started next week!

Ahhhhhhhh!

That's a good "Ahhhhhhhh!", not a "Holy crap! Zombies! AHHHHHHHH!"

Really nice morning, so I got out of the house bright and early and went for a run. I like to avoid running too far if I have to go to work, just in case, but the day was just perfect. Sunny, warm but not too warm, it's a great day.

I was going to run 10K with my friend the helpful IPod Nike+ Robot, but I was feeling pretty good so I just kept going. I have a few different regular routes I take, depending on how far I want to go. I also have a few different options, since you can get bored running the same route over and over again. One of them is around 8 miles or 12K, and a good part of it runs along a nice little stream on a path through the woods. It's a nice place to run.

Piece of cake!

So I'm feeling really good!

Hence, the Ahhhhhhhhhh!

Fancy Running Socks.

I ran a 10K on Saturday and another on Monday. It took about an hour each time. I'm signed up to run a couple of these in the next few months, and to be honest, I had no idea how far that was. I've never had a real great grasp of "measures". Distance, volume, weight, whatever- I just have no idea. If you get directions from me and I say "go about a mile", I'm really just guessing.

It was a piece of cake though. The weather has gotten much cooler, which always makes it easier. One of the things I like about using the Nike+ is that you can tell it how far you want to run, and it gives you the total as you're going.

I also got some of these nifty runnin' socks from the Nike store. They're all padded and made from some space-age fabric that was found stuck to the bottom of a meteorite that crashed outside Tulsa in the mid-1800s and jump started the Industrial Revolution. (OK, I'm just guessing on this, but I ran on Saturday during some pretty heavy rain, and my feet never felt wet. Space Age! (Plus they are labeled, so it takes the right foot/left foot decision out of my hands, which has saved me hours!)

Miles... Kilometers... I'm confused about my total.

Advice for the day.

No time is a good time to run after eating a big bowl of home-made gumbo. Even if you think you gave yourself plenty of time to digest, and even if you were feeling fine before you started. It *may make you tummy feel a little peculiar.



That's just some free advice. I really wanted to go out tonight as it's the first night in a while that wasn't crazy hot and humid. Nice cool late summer night! I had a little pain in my leg. I think I overdid it in the gym yesterday. I half-read something in one of the magazines I've been getting since I registered for the marathon.(It's some deal with Active.com. I get Men's Health and Runners World) The basic idea was that since your leg muscles are so large in comparison to all your other muscles, and since they burn calories, you should spend lots of time on them. (Again, I half read it. The last line could have been "ha! just kidding!" and I would never know. I just pick up little tidbits. They really should have the Flash passing this info along and call them Flash Facts! I'd read and remember every word. I'm trying though, or at least my version of trying.

Add 6 to the total, and we're at 45 with lots of Flash Facts to go. I'm going to start stepping things up soon.

* by "may", I mean "will".

Running in a Captain Chaos mask...

Good idea, or great idea?

It's from the Cannonball RUN! It fits the theme of this little endeavor.

Put in another couple of 6 mile runs. Feeling pretty good! It seems like I hit these little patches where it gets hard to run at all. I don't feel like going, none of the stuff on my IPod seems remotely interesting to listen to, maybe I just feel like I have no energy...

I think that's why getting one of these training plans works so well for me. I have a piece of paper saying I gotta run 6 miles, well darn it, I'm gonna.

Hot... so hot

Been taking it a little easy the past few. The heat is really getting to me. I did about 4 miles the other day, and today I did 4 and then another 2 later. I read something in Runners World about splitting your workout. I'm not sure what the benefit is supposed to be, I didn't read it very closely or take notes or anything, but I figured I'd give it a shot.

I didn't really like it. I ran as far as I've been running, but the break made it feel like I didn't go very far. It wasn't as satisfying.

I'm also running funny because I went away for a few days. (Up to Lake George with my brother and his family. While playing in the water with my super adorable niece and nephew, I remembered to sunblock my front, neglected to sunblock my back. I look like a nicely seared bit of tuna. Ouch! I have really fair and sensitive skin anyway. I go outside this time of year, I pretty much just burst into flames like a vampire.

Anyway, I'm really just trying to get a little bit done was preperation for serious training. I also have a 10K in september and another in october. Lots to do!

27 miles to go, ooodles of miles left to go. Hey, 27! That's more than a marathon!

Nike- ?

Just got back from the gym. The treadmill said I ran 6.6 miles, the Nike+ said I ran 6.05 miles. So I'm gonna go ahead and go by what the treadmill said and let Nike+ make a liar outta me.

I don't know if I didn't calibrate it correctly, if the treadmill was wrong, if my "unconventional" running style is mucking up the mechanism, or what! In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter, but I do wish I could get some accurate info.

Last year I used a little garmin GPS that I got from saving up all those little codes on the bottom of coke bottle caps, (Everyone said I was crazy to save all those caps and enter all those tiny little codes! Well who's laughing now? Bwaaaa Haaa Haaaaa!) and it worked pretty well, but I'm not sure if that was all that accurate either, and that couldn't play music.

Don't fret IPod, I still love you and think that your Nike+ add on is just about the coolest gadget going around!

Add tonight's 6.5 , another 6.5 I did on Sunday, and my existing total, we have a grand total of

17 miles down, lots and lots of miles still to run.

Quick Summer Night Run

Went for a nice easy 4 mile run. It was really hot and humid, and I started sweating... well basically wile I was putting my sneakers on, so I figured I should take it slow. I'm trying to add some variety to my training, bid leg strength and stamina and what not, so I went for a really long bike ride yesterday. My legs were all sore.

I don't know how people do serious training during the summer, I just get so tired! Hopefully one of these days I'll get into the NYC Marathon, so I'll have to get used to it.

I'm also not crazy about running at night. One of the first times I ever went running was at night. This was a while ago, I was a total beginner. I was just trying to get some exercise. So I'm just running along down the street at a leisurely pace, when a car filled with teeneaged boys pulls up next to me on the street, they throw a lit cigarette at me, call me a "fag", and tear off down the street. I was just stunned by the whole thing. What was their thought process? "Hey, that guy's trying to better himself! Get him!" I was wearing a hat, which was lucky, as it got a scorch mark on it. (It could have been my lovely hair!)

I like going in the morning!

4 miles down, countless miles to go.

So who's doing what now?

I'm running the Walt Disney World Marathon on January 10th 2010. This will be the second time I've done it, and the second time in a row.

I finished last year, but was a little disappointed in my final time. I blame it on the following factors:

My shoes were not broken in, so my feet were killing me by the time I got to mile 13.

I had spent three days prior to the race walking around Disney World with my family, so I wasn't well rested.

I ate 5 burritos at mile 3. (OK, this one isn't true)

I started off way too fast, and couldn't keep the pace I had been setting.

And lets face it, anyone that has ever seen me can tell that I'm not a natural athlete. (Unless you were thinking of competitive eating, I think you could believe I did that)

But never mind this noise! I'm doing the race again! I'm going to do better! I'm going to win! (Note: I'm not going to win) But this is going to be the Rocky II of marathons! No draw this time around, I'm knocking Apollo Creed out!


I'm not sure this blog will be interesting to anyone but me, I'm not even sure this blog will be interesting to me, but I thought it would be nice to have some kind of record of the process. The training, the prep, the deciding on what outfit to wear for the race, the whole enchilada!!

(2nd mention of Mexican food. Must go to Green Cactus...)

I'm not going to start really training hard until at least September, but when I do, I'm going to follow the Nike+ training plan, and post all my goals and runs!

Check back.