Rest day...

Well, I got in 4 yesterday instead of 3. I ran a comfortable pace of 8:22 and felt pretty good. I took today off and will pick back up with 7 miles on Wednesday.

I really need to get some more cold weather gear. I had planned on global warming preventing me from having to wear tights, but I must have mis-understood the concept. The nice wind chill just adds to the fun.

I did find some positives about running in cold weather:

• Gatorade stays cold in my fuel belt.
• More motivation to pick my pace up.
• Adding variables like wind speed and direction make picking running routes similar to three dimensional chess.
• The feeling of getting blasted by a leaf blower is unique.
• Stepping into an ice cold puddle helps numb the pain in your feet and ankles.
• Dry leaves on the ground make it easier to hear the dogs running up behind you.
• The garbage cans and dumpsters don’t stink as much in the winter.

Now that I have wasted a minute of your life with my ramblings, let me know your ‘favorite’ things about cold weather running....

Weekend Update...

What a weekend! Young son and I headed to Clemson with Lee and Julian Friday afternoon to set up for camping and attend Tigerama. We had a great time and the girls left for home while we were watching the fireworks. The rain held off most of the evening and Bobby played football with friends while I sat in the RV and watched football. We hit lights out about midnight and all was well.

About 2:15 or so, I hear Bobby getting up and heading out of the tent. He said he didn’t feel good and that must have been an understatement. He ended up tossing his cookies for the next 45 minutes while I tried to figure out what to do. I finally woke up my friend Billy and borrowed his car keys and hauled Bobby to my parents house in Easley where he stayed at Grandma General for the rest of the weekend. He was fine by Saturday afternoon, but I think he liked the treatment so much he stayed for another 24 hours of observation....

Meanwhile, I made it back to the tent about 4:00 am and promptly fell asleep for about 30 minutes until the storms rolled in. I slept off and on during the storms while I kept waiting on the tent to collapse. Fortunately it managed to survive. As I was falling soundly asleep after the rain, the guy in the RV next to us started working on his batteries because his generator wouldn’t fire up and his RV wouldn’t crank. That pretty much ended my sleeping....

So I got up and packed up the tent and equipment and had a great breakfast courtesy of Chef Elinor at the RV. The game was fun and we had a great time afterwards.

Now for the running news.... I got in 11.2 yesterday of my planned 14. I just ran out of time, I had the energy to keep going. I ran a nice, easy pace and it was a great feeling. I’m going for 3 or so today, though I may go longer to make up for what I missed yesterday.

Congrats to Marion, she BQ’d in San Antonio!

I can’t wait to read all about her training for that race!

Back on track....

Well, 48 hours after my run-in with dehydration things appear to be back to normal. I went out for a short run today and kept up an 8:06 pace for 3 miles with no ill effects. Hopefully, I’ll get out for a longer run tomorrow. In retrospect, I realized that I was not drinking as much water at work as I normally do and I think that along with my stomach bug helped me along the way towards this episode.

I have pretty much written this week off as far as getting my miles in that I needed. I am camping out with my son tomorrow night, so I likely won’t run on Saturday. I hope to get a long run in Sunday but I see that it is supposed to be pretty cold. I am going to shoot for a ‘normal’ week next week.

On one of my routes, I have to cross in front of a McDonald’s and it gets pretty dicey sometimes with people flying out of the drive though at one spot and people flying to make a left turn into the parking lot at the entrance. I usually think about how many times I would pull in a fast food place before I decided to change my lifestyle. I know what the people in the cars are thinking, because I used to be one of them. I never thought I would be one of those ‘insane running people’ out in the rain.... Of course, I never thought I would like a Mac more than a PC either.... I’m just slow that way....

I have a new game I play while running. When I see a rock, roadkill or some other debris in a pretty busy spot I try to guess how long it will stay there. I am amazed at how long some things sit in the same place despite the traffic and weather. There is one particularly disgusting piece of debris on the sidewalk on the corner of E. North and Haywood that has set the record so far. It has been there for at least 2 months. I guess it will be a good test of how long it takes latex to break down...

Good luck to fellow GTC member Marion this weekend at the San Antonio Marathon! You go girl!

Lesson Learned...

Well, I learned a big lesson yesterday. After a fairly easy lunchtime run, I started getting chills and nothing got rid of them. I ate some warm soup, took a hot shower and got dressed but I still couldn’t warm up. In fact, I was getting colder and colder. I started getting lightheaded and a little disoriented too. I finally made back to the bedroom and got under all the covers I could find. After about an hour I finally fell asleep. Well, you guessed it, I was severely dehydrated.

I had a little stomach bug the day before but didn’t think anything of it. I obviously had not taken enough fluids in to replenish my body from that and then a run really put me over the edge. I am going to be much more diligent about keeping track of my liquid intake now, that was a miserable feeling.

So, remember that even in cool weather, it is important to be properly hydrated!

Weekend update...

The Caine Halter Lungs4Life 5K was a great event. They raised over $200,000 for lung cancer research.

The course was pretty good and I think that other ‘downtown races’ should consider using it some. It took advantage of Cleveland Park and the new section of the Swamp Rabbit trail and ended up on the big field at the YMCA. There was very little impact on traffic which is nice for everybody. Anybody else notice how much more ‘runable’ the soft surface on the new section of the trail is compared to the first section they did? That first section is way too soft in my opinion, but the new section seems just right.

I hit a 5K PR at 23:16 (Garmin Time). Even though my first mile was pretty fast, I think I could have gotten under 23 minutes if it wasn’t for the walkers at the front of the pack. It takes time and energy to wade through a crowd. Since it was a charity event, I wasn’t upset about this. There were lots of people that were there for the cause and not the race.

I was disappointed that I didn’t get out for a long run this weekend. I have to figure out how to get those in consistently now that I am in full scale marathon training mode. I still think my best bet is early Sunday before church, but I would like to run some routes that would be safer during the daylight hours. I’m just going to have to deal with it week by week I guess.

I am also beginning to believe that after I dabble in a couple of marathons, I may become a 1/2 marathon guy. The training is significantly less of a burden and I think it would still help increase my 5K and 10K speeds.

I want to run....

I have a really hard time with my off days. Especially when I am not getting in a yoga class or other activity.

I also am cranking my Weight Watchers back up. I have been able to maintain without a lot of tracking, but the last 2 weeks have seen a couple of pounds creep back on. I am going back to tracking everything for a couple of weeks. I want to welcome the New Year at the same weight I was before Thanksgiving and I know it will take some diligence. My metabolism is much higher than it was before I lost weight and started running, but I still can’t eat like I did in high school. During my weight loss period, Thanksgiving week was the only non-loss week I had. I had a .2 pound gain. Other than that, I kept losing at least a little bit each week. That gives me hope that if I pay attention to what I am doing, I can start 2009 off in good shape. One of my favorite sayings that I got from weight watchers was to make sure you Holiday doesn’t turn into a Holiweek.

I’m going to do a little extra hydrating today with some gatorade just to make sure I am in good shape for the 5K tomorrow. My goal is to be under 25 minutes.

Odds and Ends....

I got in an easy 5K this morning. I ran negative splits, but really was taking it easy the whole time. Young son has his last baseball game of the season tonight and I had to go out of town for sales call, so it was all I could squeeze in.

I picked up our numbers for the Caine Halter Lungs4Life 5K. I am looking forward to the race. A lot of it will be on the new section of the Swamp Rabbit Trail behind Cleveland Street. I have no idea how big the field is, but I would expect several hundred runners. I love the fact that the race doesn’t start early, I can finally sleep in a little on a Saturday!

I want to get one of those velcro chip holding ankle bands that they use in triathlons. I am tired of having to tie my chip onto my laces and then have to stop at the ‘Chip Police’ at the end of the race and try to get my laces undone. Someone at Fleet Feet said that the Triathlon shops had those, so maybe I will go there this weekend.

After talking to the folks at Fleet Feet, I am definitely going to skip the Paris Mountain Road Race this year. It sounds like it would really take a lot out of me during a key part of my marathon training. There’s always next year!

I am in bad need of a Yoga class, but I don’t think I will make it there before next Tuesday... I’ll have to do some stretching on my own before Saturday. My calves are starting to tighten up just thinking about sprinting (well, that is what I call my fast pace anyway.... It makes me feel better to call it sprinting.) right now.

I am WAY behind on my mileage this week. I am supposed to do a 13 mile run Sunday, but I don’t know how realistic that is at this point. I think I’ll at least try to get 10 in on Sunday and go from there.

Thinking of long runs, I saw a sign a the corner of Cleveland and Faris that lists the mileage on the swamp rabbit trail... I think it was 9.4 from that point to Furman, so I may use it on an ‘out and back’ for some of my long runs.

Well, it’s time to get through today and look forward to baseball tonight!

Finally some speed...

Well, I kinda, sorta found some speed today. I ran for 4.2 miles, 3 of them at a race pace.

My legs felt pretty good but I still don’t feel as good as I did before the half marathon.

On a side note, I am ready for all the acorns, hickory nuts and pecans to be cleaned off the road. I am pretty sure it isn’t going to be long before I bust my tail on one of these things....

Legs are feeling better...

I ran 9.2 last night at a comfortable 9:14 pace. My legs definitely appreciated the time off, but my weight did not. Halloween weekend and no running is not a good combination! The only issue I had last night was that I stepped on a hickory nut that was under some leaves and my left foot was killing me for the last 3 miles or so. I was going to stretch it to 10 or 11 miles, but the pain wasn’t worth it. It feels good today, so I hope it was just some cramping more than a deep bruise. I’ll find out at lunch time when I try to get a tempo run in.

We have the Caine Halter Lungs4Life 5K this Saturday. It is a refreshing change to have a race that doesn’t require me to be out of the house at the crack of dawn. The course looks pretty good on a map. I hope I feel the same after I have run it. I was originally hoping for a PR here, but now I don’t think that will happen. I haven’t gotten all my speed back since the half and I don’t know that it will suddenly appear on Saturday.

As for future races, I am going out to Eastside High on Thanksgiving to run the Turkey Trot there. Other than that, I don’t have much on the schedule. I was considering the Paris Mountain 20K, but given how much time it has taken me to recover from the Spinx half, I don’t really want to do that 8 weeks before the Myrtle Beach Marathon. I will probably look for some 5K or 10K races I can use for tempo runs. I think the Green Valley race is the week before Myrtle Beach, so I may run the 8K there.

I missed yoga yesterday. I hope to get there Friday but I am not sure if I will or not. I’ll definitely make it next week and get back in the rhythm.

The only other thing I am working on is deciding what my next pair of shoes will be. I want to get them for Christmas so I can break them in for Myrtle Beach....

Catching up...

Well, I ended up running on Saturday for an easy 5 miles. Without Yoga and with my week long eating binge since the half marathon I felt that I had to do something to burn some calories. I could really feel some tired legs. Also, Friday while setting up for the hotdog dinner at the pool I tweaked my lower back. It isn’t a major issue and did not hurt while I was running Saturday, but I think it and my tired legs were a sign that I needed to lighten up a little.

I just read today in my new Runner’s World that people typically cut back too far or go too hard after a marathon or half marathon. I think I went too hard. I tend to underestimate the toll my body pays for running at race pace versus slower long training runs.

I am going to dedicate this week to my eating plan and resting my legs. I took yesterday off and will take today off. Depending on how my back feels tomorrow, I will either do yoga or go to the gym for some cardio work. Wednesday I want to get a tempo run in since we have a 5K on Saturday. Thursday I’ll probably run at a moderate pace for 7-8 miles. I’ll then take Friday off and race on Saturday. I had originally hoped to set at 5K PR this Saturday, but I think that is out the window now. I’m just going to enjoy the run and see how it goes. Hopefully I will be able to move back in to my normal training mode after that.

Right now, I have the 5K on Saturday and a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving on the calendar. I won’t be able to run the Greenville News Downtown run in January because of a skiing trip. I am seriously thinking about running the Paris Mountain Road Race 20K in December. It should be far enough away from my marathon that I can recover and it looks like a REAL challenging course.

6.27 on Halloween, No yoga today..

I got in 6.27 yesterday at a comfortable pace. I am going to rest today and try to squeeze in a 10 miler tomorrow. Yoga got cancelled because our instructor has been ill. Karen get well soon!

I have adjusted my route lately. This is definitely one of the benefits of the Garmin. I just run and it know how far, how fast and how long I have been going. I like changing the route to get different hills in. This new route has a nice mix of long moderate hills and steep hills. I am considering running the Paris Mtn. 20K Road Race, so hill work is essential. It is billed as the ‘toughest road race in South Carolina’ so it may be more than I can handle.

Bobby has his last Saturday baseball practice today. Then we have about a month of no Saturday sports (except for races of course!) We are also going to do a minor re-do of the dining room this week. Just some paint, but it will make a big difference until we are ready to completely re-do it....