Runners blog #13

Today was one of the first times in a long time that I just didn't want to run, it was a combination of being tired, sore and just not mentally in to it. I forced my self out of bed at 5:45 after hitting the snooze button more times than I should of, got ready and was out the door at 6. My run started off slow and sluggish, my legs felt heavy and tired and my feet were sore. I haven't been feeling good lately, mostly just run down and tired, but last night after work I had a bad headache that just wouldn't go away, not sure if that was the culprit and caused me not to sleep well or not, I intentionally went to bed at 10 so I could get some rest. Either way after a couple of miles I was hitting my target pace even though my legs felt like I was running through mud. By the end of my run I was feeling much better and my legs were loosened up and feeling much better, after cooling down I lifted weights and did some core work, which I have neglected a lot lately and I could tell going through my workout.

On the upside, I weighed in today at 205 lbs which is only 5 pounds away from the century mark for total weight lose, really hoping I can make that goal before our vacation in couple weeks. I would love to be at or around 190 lbs when I run the QC Marathon at the end of September, which seems like a much more realistic goal these days. I think weighing nearly 35 lbs lighter than last year will greatly help me reach my goal of going under 4 hrs in the marathon.

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike.

So I was finally able to convince Deanna to let me buy an actual road bike (to replace my El Cheapo Depo mountain bike from Wal-Mart) to start doing some serious biking as cross training. I love running but man I forgot how awesome it used to be to head out on a bike and cover some serious miles, like I did as a kid. For me riding my bike as a child was my first real sense of independance and freedom, just riding around the neighborhood or taking of from home and riding up to the bike path and just heading out for hours.

As of now I'm just riding for cross training purposes, but eventually my goal is to do a Triathlon. I got the running and biking down, its the swim portion that is gonna be the real challenge for me, I can swim that's not the problem just the training and having access to a pool that I can do laps in. Probably just end up getting a membership to the Y during the winter and start training for swimming when its far to cold and icy to be riding a bike.

My next big training challenge is to notch a 100 mile week (bike and running) I was able to do 80+ and 90+ the last 2 weeks, with 3 rides and 4-5 runs so hitting the century mark shouldn't be a problem with increasing long runs and long rides on the weekend. Should be interesting to see how my running fitness holds up with running slightly less and biking more, from what I've read for endurance it should help, but probably not gonna do much for my lack of speed, Usain Bolt I'll never be, lol!

Warrior Dash and Father's Day

So for Father's Day most guys might enjoy a round of golf, a barbecue or just a relaxing day with the family...

well not me I had the

Warrior Dash isn't your typical father's day 5k, don't take my word for it here's how they desribe it on the website...

First off it's a trail run through some fairly hilly countryside, and then they add obstacles like 20 ft. walls you have to scale,

cargo nets you have to run across, cars you have to jump over, fire pits to leap over

and there's the barbed wire mud pit right before the finish line. You get this wonderful medal ...

... and all the free mud you could want.

I love running, and really love races, but this race hands down is the most fun and exciting, I can't wait to do it again...there's another one in September and a similar event in October that I want to do as well. I had so much fun that even Deanna said she might try it next year which is awesome!

Casey and Caden had so much fun too, Casey shared a smoked turkey leg with me afterwards, which he really enjoyed, he pretended he was a viking warrior.

And both boys had a blast watching people jump into the mud pit right before the finish line. They both want to run this race with me some day (unfortunately and thankfully the minimum age is 14). I do have to say that I love the effect that my running and participating in these kind of events has had on my boys. I'm not pressuring either of them to be involved in running, physical fitness or sports, I'm just setting the example for them and they are taking my lead and asking to be involved. They have both told me that they want to run a marathon with me someday which makes me so proud as a father, now will see how they feel about it when they are old enough to understand exactly how far 26.2 miles really is.

Runners blog #12 - Streaking

No, no, no I'm not running sans shorts, well not yet at least, I've got a running streak going that I'm pretty proud of. My current streak is 38 days long for a total of 211 miles and prior to that I had one of 12 days for 58 miles (I have run 50 out of the last 51 days for 269 miles). Conventional wisdom says that you need to take a rest day once a week to let your body recover and rebuild and although I generally believe that theory I'm starting to question it, especially after my long run yesterday (10 miles) which is supposed to be at 60-90 seconds slower than my expected race pace (9:00 min/mi) so I should be running 10:00-10:30 min/mi. I started out right on pace at just ove 10 min/mile but I was feeling pretty good and didn't seem like to much effort, after a couple more miles each getting a little bit faster, I expected to start easying in to a nice comfortable pace, but I did the exact opposite, my mile splits kept dropping, down to 9:30 min/mile. I ended up doing the last 4 miles at or below 9 min/mile pace, which is just mind boggling, considering I was 6 miles in to the run already and not to mention the fact that I had also run the previous 36 days with out a rest day.

Running has become such an intergal part of my life that I just can't seem to bring myself not to do it every day, even if its just a short 2-3 miler like today. It gives me an opportunity to clear my head, set my plan for the day or just disconnect from the world for 30 minutes to an hour. So for now I'm going to keep heading out the door every morning until my body tells me to stop, I figure I'll know when I need a rest day.

P90X Update

Week #5 Day #2 which means Plyo X, which is as Tony Horton puts it "Is the mother of all P90X workouts". And he ain't joking, I seam to forget every week exactly how tough that work out is but I'm usually reminded about 10 minutes in.

So the question is how's it working, well the good news is I've lost about 5 lbs since starting, which when you factor in that I haven't been keeping a very strict diet and missed about 4 straight days of workouts while I was in Bristol (not to mention gorgeing myself on none to healthy but oh so delicious food) I guess you could say its going great. I have tightned up my diet the last few days, which is leaving my energy levels low, but I know its what I gotta do to shed the pounds.

Still running every morning as well, nearly 40 miles a week right now, got the QC Half Marathon in just about 5 weeks and I'm hoping to shatter my PR should be good no matter what. Still looking forward to some better weather in the near future...got spoiled for a couple days than back to 20's and 30's.

So long for now, more updates to follow.