Apr 15 2013

Not sure how to start

Today started like any other day for me. My son woke me up at 3 am, then again at 6 am, then again at 6:30 am. I knew it was going to be a long day, just not how long.

The first thing that hit my mind was the date; tax day. I then remembered the people who were in Boston, thinking about my own running goals with no inkling that I would ever qualify to run in that race, my fat ass just never could allow me to get down to those speeds, let along for 26.2 miles. I thought of the couple of people i know who were running, who might be running and I tried to think positive thoughts to those, hoping the weather wouldn’t be like last year, which seems to be happening at more long races.

I went to work, thinking about my trip to New Orleans tomorrow, hoping I could get all of my work done before the day ended…

Never in my wildest dreams would I expect a call from my wife who told me bombs went off at Boston.

My wife and i were merely co workers during 9/11 where we talked that day about what we were seeing. Now we both are runners with her finishing a 5k last Saturday and me trying to recover from shoulder surgery and possibly complete a half marathon in two weeks.

The images I saw were out of my worst nightmares of military experiences. I have seen bombs explode, I have seen the outcome and I would only wish this on my worst enemy, and not even then now. These things are non-discriminatory, hurting anything and everything.

Worse for me, the time of 4:09:44 I saw on the race clock was probably around the time I would have been finishing if I ever do run a marathon.

Quickly I got on twitter to see all of the people I know there and to see what was going on. I saw famous people who were in shock. I got a tweatback from Dick Beardsley about one of his club runners who was half a mile from the finish. I stated “Glad he was safe, sad he was that close”. He agreed.

Someone who works for me said a friend was literally 1 minute complete and still in the chute when the bomb went off. 1 minute.

I read a blog post of a girl who was 30 feet away from the explosion, walking towards.

I have a special place in my heart for Boston, my dad a lifelong Red Sox fan. I was in Logan Airport 1 week to the day before 9/11. I love the history and the people from there.

So what can a guy in Wyoming do to show support of the over 130 people now impacted and the 3 people who have lost their life to this senseless act? Well, I went for a run tonight and probably ran harder than I should have with my shoulder feeling the way it did. I swapped out my shoelaces to yellow and blue, the colors of the run.

Tomorrow I will be flying to New Orleans and I plan on wearing a race shirt as I saw many runners plan on doing so. Hopefully the people seeing me walking around two airports in my shirt, my USA running hat and the sad face, people will know how I support the runners who ran to the hospitals to give blood, those who ran but did not finish and to the poor older man who literally was blown off his feet, yet was walked across the finish line.

I also am going to run this stupid half marathon in two weeks. I don’t care if my time is 4 hours, 9 minutes and 44 seconds, I am going to run in honor of the people lost and injured. I am also now firm on running a full marathon this year. I signed up for one, thinking I might want too, and didn’t want that to fill up. So on Sept 21st, 2013 I will wear my blue and yellow shoelaces and a shirt I plan on buying from the BAA website to honor the race, the people of Boston and that no idiot can make me be afraid. The point of terrorist acts is to put fear in the minds and hearts of citizens. I WILL NOT BE AFRAID, I WILL STAND TALL AND SUPPORT THOSE WHO DO THE SAME!!!!!! I WILL NOT HATE, I WILL NOT HAVE ANYTHING BUT FAITH, LOVE, AND COMPASSION.

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Dec 7 2012

Best laid schemes o’ mice and men

Don’t you love it when you have a plan. You scheme, you research, you come to conclusions…then life happens.

For me, I was seriously looking forward to running in 2013. I have felt a real stride in my stride, power in my runs and an ease of getting out on the road. My last half marathon, only my second ever, was with probably half of the training I should have done and sill managed a solid 2 hour 11 minute finish, even with 700 feet of elevation.

So as I started my journey way back when, I talked about my injury laden body. Mainly my problems are in my knees, both of which have undergone too many surgeries and lack simple things like cartilage. But I also mentioned my shoulders, which are equally in pain 99% of the time. It got so bad this past week I actually went to a doctor to see about the extent of the injuries. What do I hear? torn labrum.

I could have done an MRI and he said that would help him know if I needed a 2 hour versus a 3 hour surgery. Ha! Worst part was that he basically dislocated my shoulder while examining it, and said “wow!”. How often do you think you hear that from a doctor about how bad your joint is.

I didn’t expect his recovery on running though. Who would think a shoulder impacts your running. But he tells me I might be on the sidelines for at least 2-3 months. It might be longer if I am not good about things and that worries me. Knowing myself, I have always pushed my recovery and probably done more harm than good. My wife this time probably will have something to say about that.

So right now it looks like after my business trip in January I will be headed under the knife and expect 5-6 weeks of a sling, 3-4 months of reduced usage and 6-9 months of therapy. We will see how this impacts my schedule, but for now, my January half will be the last race for quite a while. Till the surgery, I plan on training for my half with all I have as it could be the last for a while. Then the blog will turn into a recover from a shoulder surgery blog and maybe how to relearn your golf swing as well.

Dec 5 2012

Wrapping up, kicking off

So I have been pretty quiet…and lazy as of late. Wish I had more excuses…no I don’t actually. Life gets in the way of life sometimes and when this happens to me, I turn to what I know best…being lazy. Ha!. Actually I have had some foot pain along with massive shoulder pain, so it just hurts to run. Tomorrow I see a shoulder specialist, so hopefully he will give me good news…not!.

So I was looking back at 2012 since I have no more races left to run this year and looking for my challenge for 2013. I turn 44…yikes…in April, so what do you do when you beat your challenge of a half marathon? Run a full? maybe…but what about a relay…could be…how about we stay realistic? So I looked around Salt Lake running websites and came across this.

Runtheslam.com

So here is the premise. Run four of six main half marathons over the summer, or two alternates and you get a plaque with special medals. I like that idea. Plus you get $5 off each race and guaranteed entry. Awesome!. I actually had signed up for 1, so I was 25% committed already.

Here are the other race choices.

I looked at the dates and found a perfect fit, which was the Thanksgiving Point half, which is 2 days prior to my birthday. Score! Birthday half. I was already registered for the Utah Valley Half, which was the scene of my first 5k in 2011 that started out my addiction running road races. Now two more.

What caught my eye first was Mt Nebo. Are you kidding me? 3,500 foot elevation drop. Yeehaw!. Strap on the jock strap and hang on baby!. Plus at $50, much more reasonable that other races I have signed up for recently…more on that later.

Now for the 4th…hmmmm. My family is actually heading to the Outerbanks in July, so would it make sense to run two halfs in two weeks, which would be the case on the AF Canyon run? Plus the Timpanogos run in July is the exact same course, just $40 more…sigh on that part. They both have about the same number of runners, so reality is that the latter would suit my family needs and keep me from trying too many runs in too few weeks.

I actually could do more runs and they take your fastest time in the overall, however I am not kidding myself on placing, since they don’t have a fat guy Clydesdale division. Plus I do plan on holding out a possibility of running a full, depending on how the first half of 2013 goes. Here are my thoughts.

Quad City Marathon.This is my hometown race, that I honestly didn’t even know existed. I know all about the more famous race in my hometown, which is the Bix7, but I never knew we had a full marathon. I did move away 25 years ago and the run has only been ongoing for 15, but hey my mom shares all.

Chicago Marathon. This is 3-4 hours from my hometown and my sister lives in the ‘burbs. Flat course and simply one of the top 5 in the US. I don’t know if they cap the run, so I might have to decide early.

DisneyWorld Marathon. The only downside of this is that it isn’t really in 2013, it will be in 2014, but that gives me more time and I am 100% positive I can convince my wife to go along with the idea. Hell, I might even convince her to run the half for her first ever, since it will be Disney Smile

Next race

In looking at all of this on the calendar, I realized that having my first run in April was really going to feed into my procrastination. I simply needed something sooner for me to get out NOW and stop this cycle of running 1 or 2 times a week at most. Enter my business trip to St Petersburg, Florida in Jan.

I looked at my favorite website for finding races, runningintheusa.com and saw one the Sunday before my work week and thought, why not? I never get to race on Sundays (thank you LDS church for imposing your will on the masses) and more important, never, ever at sea level. My last run at sea level I did nearly 5 miles in 40 minutes. Let there be oxygen on this day of worship (for someone)!!!!!

I picked the St Pete Beach Classic for two reasons. 1. No Bridges. Those are nothing but hills in disguise. 2. It’s on the beach in a beautiful neighborhood. If I won’t have mountains, at least I can have ocean and amazing houses, yachts, etc…

So now I am about 7 weeks away, having a hard time with running 4-5 miles, but with a plan. Probably not a great plan for January, but I am hoping extra red blood cells will carry the day.

Training

I am going to use the Run Less, Run Faster plan again. I am jumping into the middle (OUCH) so we will see how this goes. Sunday I ran 5 miles in I have no clue as my iPhone 5 decided to have a bug on the Nike+ App and stopped the GPS with the 15 minute pace update and I didn’t start my GPS for about 0.4 miles into the run. Oh well, the run sucked and I hated it.

Tonight was back on the Sprint/Interval/Long Run cycle with this being Sprints.

2 Sets (6×400) 90 second RI between 1/4, 150 seconds RI between sets.

I ran them in a pyramid pace, building speed each quarter from 7.5 mph to 8.0 mph in 0.1 increments. Why? I have no clue. I then went back down from 8.0 to 7.5 in the second set. Wow, I was sucking wind hard by the last two. Total distance 4.1 miles in 41 minutes. Oww.

Accountability

So now I have told the 10’s of readers my plan, therefore I am accountable to my plans and goals. Thanks for reading, I promise I will chat more about this and hopefully you will see me sufffer grow as a runner. Cheers!

What do you do in order to motivate yourself to keep at it?

Nov 23 2012

Review: Little something, something in my coffee

If there is one staple in my day, it is my morning cup(s) of coffee. I love coffee, always have since I was a kid stealing drinks from my mom’s bridge club. I was always told it would stunt my growth, but alas I ended up at 6’2”, so guess that theory is out the door.

This past month, I signed up for a bzz campaign from bzzagent.com for a product review campaign on Green Mountain Coffee Wellness Collection. What could be wrong with getting samples of coffee that are not only tasty, but are good for you, right? Sign me up for that one!

The Wellness Collection are two flavors of Keurig K Cups of coffee launched in Sept of this year, that are a Focus Blend and an Antioxidant Blend. The Focus includes 50 mg L-Theanine while the Antioxidant has Vitamin C and E. These are even 100% Fair Trade Certified Coffees, yay for the small coffee growers!

Introducing Wellness Brewed

The big fear I had going into this taste test was that somehow the flavor would get upset. You see, I drink my coffee straight up, i.e. black, so there are no ways to mask a bad cup of coffee. The initial shipment came with 3 boxes of 4 Cups, which had two of each flavor. So this entire week I have been getting my morning to go cup of both blends.

The flavor is just like other cups of GMC products, very smooth and with no bitter aftertaste. The favor was more of what I would expect with a decaf product, in that it was a bit flatter than most robust brews, but I could also attribute that to using 12 ounces of water per cup versus 10 ounces.

The only down side of putting supplements into anything is how do you measure success or determine if this is working. In the week I have been drinking the Focus blend, I can’t say I have better focus at work, but then again, how can you say I don’t. I am sure there are levels of L-Theanine that would have to get built up before I would see any benefit. I do like the idea of getting vitamin C in my coffee, as I typically would drink a glass of OJ to get that instead and who needs those extra calories?

In the end, I love the idea of supplements in my coffee, since it is something I just don’t skip on any morning. The price of this is around $4.00 more per 24 count box of K Cups, or $0.25 each. The good news for you is that if you would like to try these, simply go to the web store and enter GMCBEWELL code at checkout and get $3.00 off your purchase until the end of 2012. You can even sign up for their auto-ship club and save 15% as well, which for me makes sense.

Question for everyone then: What supplement would you like to see in your coffee, tea or other staple drink, if any at all?

Nov 22 2012

Running in the mountains

I remember sitting on the bus for my first ever half marathon this summer and overheard a couple from Houston who were stressing a bit about the effect of running at elevation for the first time. I caught them off guard as I laughed and said I was worried the other way, as I was coming down 3,000 feet while they were going up 3,000 feet.

So as I was thinking about a nice topic for a blog entry yesterday while running in 30 degree weather, I thought of people who would be coming up to visit various ski towns across over the next few months, so would they know what to expect from an altitude plus dealing with the conditions we also have in the winter months.

Altitude, or running with 22% less oxygen

Running at altitude has been compared to the imagination of only using one lung. You see professional football players sucking on tanks when playing at Mile High Stadium on Sundays, so what is it like to run longer distances than 100 yards at the most? I remember the first run I ever did when I went from Biloxi, Mississippi to Cheyenne, Wyoming twenty plus years ago; it was as if my lungs were no longer part of my cardio system. The body does not like the idea of trying to expend energy without the proper mix of fuel and oxygen.

Most places you investigate about how to deal with coming to elevation talk about coming early to acclimate yourself. Unless you have extra time, or could afford your own sleeping chamber, not really practical. Other things I have seen talk about taking iron and antioxidant supplement. This article shows that green tea extract which was shown to improve the body’s ability to deal with the lack of oxygen.

Fluids, get more

Another thing people forget is that the humidity is extremely low at elevation. Since most of the body’s loss of fluids happens via breathing, and you tend to breath a whole lot more while working out, you simply dehydrate faster and more extreme. Many people get headaches and attribute that to altitude sickness, however it most likely is simply dehydration and can be solved by drinking twice the normal amount of fluids. I know when I run at home elevation of nearly 7,000 feet I consume at least 2x the amount of fluids from when I run my races in Salt Lake City, which is 2,500-3,000 feet lower.

Run Slower Stupid

The facts are simply you will not perform as you do at lower elevation and trying puts yourself at risk of injury. Most people put 20-30 seconds per mile slower at least when you get over 5,000 feet and that is almost exactly what I see in the opposite direction. Even Ryan Hall in a blog entry talks about how pacing yourself, especially that first or second run, is extremely import to ensure you don’t have a harder time with recovery.

Dealing with Temps, it’s cold up here.

One thing that people forget is that the sun is a huge heating source, given the lack of atmosphere to attenuate it. This is why people get sun burned that first time on the ski slopes or hiking, as they don’t put on enough sunscreen given the elevation. The opposite is true when they go outside and feel warm in the sun, they don’t layer up enough for when they get into a shaded situation or clouds roll in. You layer up for the worst case, not for basking on the sundeck outside of the hotel room.

The key is layers to keep you warm and then to insulate you from the elements. My rule of thumb is 1 layer for ever 20 degree drop in ambient temperature below 52 degrees. So at 32 degrees I run with one layer more than a base layer, which is a wicking material to keep sweat off my skin. At 12 degrees I add another insulation layer on top of that, etc…and I don’t suggest running below -20 degrees. You get too cold and the air actually starts to injure your lungs and exposed tissue, especially the eyes and soft tissue in the nose/throat.

Also, make sure you cover up your extremities and wear a hat. The hands, toes and ears are all very susceptible to frost bite and when you are exercising, including skiing, you are sweating and making this more extreme. While running or biking, wear gloves and extra wicking layer of socks along with some decent warm ones. As for your ears, that depends on the hat. A good stocking cap that covers your ears will be good, or ear bands and a running hat for those who care about looks. Just keep all skin covered as best you can and realize that these parts of your body are what really are needing the layer.

Summary, be prepared

They key in all of this is to really come to the mountains and any higher elevation prepared, especially in the winter months. At the same time, be realistic on your exercise and if you are doing something competitive, know you won’t set a PR, but you will most likely set a personal favorite in the experience category. So if you layer up, hydrate properly and be reasonable, you can enjoy the beauty as well as the experience of running miles at over a mile high.

Nov 9 2012

Long Cold Fall Funk

So I haven’t blogged in a while, for a few decent reasons such as travel, work, family, puppies, but mostly because I haven’t been running since I finished my last half marathon. The same excuses fall in line as to why, travel, work, family, puppies, but reality is that both are caused by flat out laziness. I think the fall season got to me, especially after concluding my goal of the year to do a half marathon. Hell, I even finished two instead of one.

I started blogging because I wanted to hold myself accountable and maybe, possibly help motivate someone else out there to jump on the bandwagon and get healthy. I guess when I got across that last finish line I sort of peaked and fizzled.

Another possibility is that being so far north in the mountains, the sun sets quite early and now it is dark when I wake up, dark when I get home, so the thought of running on the treadmill is just not calling me.

I need to find a way to get out of this funk though, so time to set up ~~myself to fail~~ another crazy ass goal. I thought about doing some triathlons, but picked the worst time to think about it, given the one planned as a family relay this weekend already is getting shuttered due to a snow storm that is now dropping a few inches, so the bicycle portions was killed off (mine). Sigh…

Odd thought…ever pay $11,900 for a pair of running shoes? epic fail.

Last few runs have actually been pretty solid. Since I am not really focusing on any major distances, I have been really focusing on regaining some speed I used to have in my youth.

Last month during a trip to sea-level in Los Angeles, I managed two runs, with the first really being about pushing myself on speed since I was running 7,000 below normal.

Forgive the map and weirdness, I was trying a new application MapMyRun, which has a pace functionality I thought might help keep me on a new goal of 8:30 miles. We were staying at the Ritz at Marina Del Rey (company function, we usually stay at a more reasonable place, promise)

When I took off, I really felt amazing, after a couple of short runs following my half, but I was flying for me. When I hit the first mile at 7:40 I about peed myself. I then hit the path along Venice Beach and was having a blast running along where I had seen so many movies, but it is much different at 6:30 am. I did see a lot of locals, but they were getting ready for the day, only two smoking their medicinal mary jane.

Mile 2 and mile 3 both when by at a similarly fast pace and I know I ran my first ever sub 25:00 5k, just hard to tell with this app. Mile 4 I started feeling the pace I was running and was also doing a Starbucks calculation from the one I saw at around mile 1. I knew that I could stop off and get me and the wife a coffee, trying out the new iPhone Passbook app. Awesome tool for runners, no need for a credit card or cash to pick up some java.

Since then I have run 4 other times in the past month, all averaging 2-3 miles and at paces around 8:30 – 9:00 minute miles. My goal is to keep this new pace as my baseline, rather than the 10:00 minute miles I accepted this past two years. I figure what I might lack in distance over the winter I can make up for in pushing my speed work.

Other goals are yet to come, but right now I am signed up for one half marathon in early June, but that just is too far out. My wife keeps joking that I will eventually add that marathon to the list, but I know how my body feels after 13.1 and doubling that is just not really something I am mentally ready for. If I do, the idea is to make it a destination marathon of either my home town in Iowa, Chicago (family there too) or Disney World (she loves there).

I am super proud of my family, who I think I motivated a bit, in that my wife finished her first ever 10k two weeks back at just under 60 minutes, which was her real goal. My younger daughter also finished her first ever 5k last month, so the house is full of runners. She has a tough mudder planned next year, we will leave her to that one, as I will happily do a full before I take on electrocution and ice water.

I hope to get back into running soon, focusing on weekend runs at first and then (ugh) back onto the treadmill or 1/11th mile track at the local rec center. Either way, I do hope to also blog more about what is happening here in Wyoming.

Oct 15 2012

Running out of a rut

So the last few weeks have had me running around for work, running around the country for work and basically leaving me running around everything…except training for my half marathon this past Saturday. This was going to be my first ever, except I got bored along the way and added one back about 6 weeks ago. All of this running around had me not wanting to take time to blog about running around either, to which I am sorry to my tens of readers…

Last few weeks of training.

Usually travel means lower elevations, thereby having me excited to train. For some reason though the meetings were always 7 am to 9 pm and my getting up before 7 am has never been my strongest suit. Even in the military, I was that guy who figured out how to stay on nights or weekends, to prevent myself from having to awaken prior to the end of the Today Show.

So reality is I ran something like 5 times in the three weeks leading up to my half marathon. I did some longer runs, attempting a hill run to simulate my half marathon massive climb two weeks prior (epic fail) then two runs of at least 7 miles at slow, steady paces, but nothing like I had hoped right after the first half. Call it goal deflation, call it running boredom…I will actually just call it being lazy.

Half Marathon – Utah Fittest State Half

Quite honestly, the only reason I didn’t bail on running my half this past weekend was due to the fact my 19 year old daughter was running in her first ever 5k. What kind of dad would I be if I dumped on the run while she was gunning for this race for quite a while? So I sucked up my internal drama, read a bunch of recent blog posts of others running 50 mile races, or finishing Chicago (way to go Dixon) marathon, and got to it.

The part of this run that I was dreading since I even mapped the course was the hill. Not one single hill that makes you cry for a mile or so, this is a massive hill.

Who in their right mind has a class 3 hill be the first 5 miles of a half marathon?

The plan.

I normally suck at planning, just usually run and hope for the best. However, given the epic fail of my 11 mile run two weeks prior, I decided the best thing to do was go SLOW at first, save as much energy for the first 5 miles and then run the last 8 miles like I robbed the Stop and Go store at the top of the hill.

So this was by far the slowest I had ever started any race. I was also running with a pair of loaner headphones (thanks honey) as I forgot mine the day before. This was having me adjust those, listening to people chatting and laughing for the first 1.5 miles while I just kept looking up at this hill. The race organizers had local cheerleaders at the base of the hill, cheering people on, but ironically all of the talking and laughing stopped at the bottom of the worst block. This is the bad view from Google Street View, which still doesn’t do the hill justice.

As I started to run up the hill, passing people was pretty easy, but ironically I started to walk up around half way, and was still passing those “running” up the hill. I guess I had done a bit more, or training at 7,000 feet was finally paying off.

Miles 2, 3, 4 and 5 were some of the slowest miles of my running any sort of race, however when we finally hit the top of the hill and turned around, I saw the downtown of Salt Lake City in the distance and started to actually ‘run’ instead of trod as I was doing up the hill.

Go time.

I was actually a bit amazed at the energy I had left at that point, even though I ran a very slow 10k equivalent of 1:06ish, my legs felt pretty good and my breathing was right on. The next two miles was up and down some various hills, skirting around the ridgeline, but not too bad. I focused on getting fluids and Clif Shots in me, and once again was packing my water so I wouldn’t have to dodge people at the tables for water. I think I save at least 2 minutes by taking my own water, which always gets lighter as the run goes on, so yes I start about 3-4 pounds heavy, but that goes away and I get water whenever I want/need.

Passing people was fun at this point as well. People who pushed hard up the hills were slowing down or keeping an even pace, but I must have passed at least 250 people over the remaining 7 miles of the course, with maybe 5 or so people who passed me.

So I estimate that I ran the first 6.55 miles in around 1:10 minutes and the last 6.55 miles in 1:02 minutes. My average pace was around 11’10” for that first hill, then 9’25” for the last half, giving me an overall pace of 10’04” with a final time of 2:11:57.

I had in my mind a goal at the half way point to try and get back to sub 10’00” pace, and nearly got there. I think the only thing holding me back was that all of the uphill/downhill running gave me a blister on my right foot, which started to really suck at around mile 10. I know it didn’t slow me down too much, however I really had to bite down a couple of times and when I was done, my wife was a bit concerned about all of the limping I was doing coming out of the finish area. It really isn’t as bad as previous times, however, coming downhill for 30 plus minutes with a blister can shock the foot a bit.

Summary

So reality is either I am a bit stronger that I realize, given I ran basically two half marathons in 6 weeks time, almost exactly same times, both with decent amounts of climbing (600 and 750 feet respectively) and without major injury, or just a gluten for punishment. I know I have a very high tolerance for pain, which is helpful for running/sports in general, however I just have a speed wall I need to get over. So this winter that is my main focus, to get over my fear of running fast, far. Since I am going to be stuck inside probably 25-50% of the time, my treadmill is going to be my friend and we will see how well this comes out on the other side of winter. I mean, who has the fastest mile of a half marathon at mile 12-13, other than the guy who was holding back something a bit too much?

On a side note, big thanks to the family for putting up with the grumpy guy who finishes these races and congrats to my daughter for her first 5k. She ran her final mile at around 9’09” pace, so she too just needs to get stronger and realize she is fast.

To my wife, thanks for all of the walking and look forward to cheering you on for your first 10k at the end of the month. I know you will kill it, just run like there is a zombie chasing you. Smile

Sep 28 2012

Running in Sin City, once is not enough

So this last week, after trying to recover from a nasty cold, I had to travel to Las Vegas for work. Nothing like a 35 minute flight for business with 4 suitcases, a set of golf clubs and a car seat for our 4 year old.

So my plan was to wake up and get some miles in on at least three days. This happened a grand total of 1 time, mainly due to the fact I had to be at meetings every morning at 7 am (thanks Elda for Breakfast BTW if you are reading this).

Sunday was “officially” the show’s golf tournament and pro-am (team finished 3rd out of 45 groups). Not sure how the Pro part of that worked, as I know the golfers included, but they did give us new golf shoes along with the shirt (score). That morning I decided to get a good decent run in since it had been nearly a full week since my last longer run.

West Las Vegas has hills!

So we were staying out west of Las Vegas, closer to where the golf tourney would be, mainly to save the company some money from Strip hotels on the weekend. This also afforded me the opportunity to get a decent uphill run, given that my next run will be about 700 feet of elevation gain over the first 5 miles.

I was equally amazed on my 7 AM taxi rides seeing tons of people running up and down the strip, which has to be the running equivalent of playing human Frogger. Plus the smells along some of those places, only more off place to me would be running Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Wednesday after Fat Tuesday.

My Route

The location was also nice since it was in and around TPC Las Vegas and the homes were pretty crazy nice. Some were obviously empty due to repossession, but nice nonetheless. I skipped over the running trail to run the sidewalks around the area as there was little in the way of major cross streets and it was 6:30 AM on a Sunday…pretty safe low traffic around Vegas at that time, right?

The route gave me what I wanted in elevation change, in that it was nearly 2.5 miles of uphill running and 90% uphill right up to the turn around.

My wife called to let me know they were hungry and leaving without me, but other than that, my pace was decent given the week of no running and still having to work on clearing the lungs. I did find the best way to achieve a negative split and that was to do uphill first, followed by three miles of downhill running.

I have never seen mile 5 be the fastest for me and seeing the slowest mile at 10’17” coming at mile 2, I was pretty shocked by that. Those were the similar mile splits from my half marathon, so again running at lower elevation seemed to be right in that neighborhood.

Plan for next two weeks

Sigh. Another half marathon in two weeks and losing nearly two weeks of training, I am up for a disaster. So my plan is to work hard this weekend on confidence miles, i.e. slow as hell and just getting in the distances and let pace worry about itself. Even if I do run slower than my first one last month, who cares? Well, we all care if we run, but honestly this one is more about a life celebration and bucket list and the last one was really about seeing what my body would let me do. I know I can finish, now it is about having fun and not killing myself.

Oh, and I did win a nice plaque at my convention. As a runner, winning your AG or overall is always killer, but to get recognized by my industry trade group is actually pretty cool. It never is a single person in a company like this, so my team really is who deserves this, but since my name is on there, will have to keep on my desk.

Sep 20 2012

Blog a day…damn cold

So last night I had a full intention of running, but as I got home the cold in my chest seemed to be poking me saying, yeah right. Instead, I watched my wife and daughter experiment with cupcake recipes. Seems they want to start a local business in our small town, and given the samples, I am all for it. I like to take some credit, as I think I did suggest the first flavor…my suggestion was an Almond Joy cupcake. They perfected it.

I took these to work and everyone loved them, to which I figure we will be billionaires in a few weeks.

Blog a day

So I haven’t been dilligent as I wanted in the blog a day challenge, however given the cup cakes, I found this topic perfect.

List your 5 new to you healthy food options.

As you may have seen, my wife and I started (trying to) follow Bob Harper’s Skinny Rules. In that he has brought some ancient foods to our diet that I never once considered and some I never new about. None of these are unbearable and all are amazingly healthy.

1. Quinoa – a seed that acts like a grain, an alternate to rice or couscous
2. Barley – I thought this was merely a beer ingredient, however there is an amazing chicken soup recipe my wife has perfected
3. Farro – This stuff rocks. It cooks to an Al Dente consistency has a nice nutty flavor. History shows this fed Roman troops and is the original grain that all other grains are derived from

These are the top three from that list. The other parts of our diet are more familiar to a lot of people

4. Ezekiel Bread – If you eat this fresh, it is good. If it hangs out a while, watch out, it turns to a brick
5. Greek Yogurt – alone, this stuff revolts me. Some with fruit added I can manage, especially if I add cashews or pistachios.

So these are the new core to our ongoing diet. If you haven’t read the book I suggest borrowing one and checking it out, or buying it. It has a lot of solid rules that seem to help us lose a bit and keep on track.

Minus these damn cupcakes.

Sep 19 2012

That time of year already? Color Run Recap

So one of the joys of having a 4 year old is daycare…not that he is learning, which is of course awesome, but rather the petri dish that our children are. Usually as he returns back to school, my wife or I, sometimes both, end up sick. This time, my turn.

Not the best time with a half marathon only 4 weeks away, but honestly the rest can be beneficial in some regards.

Last week I only managed about 16 miles, which looking back is not a lot, but looking back even farther is amazing to me.

COLOR RUN

The Salt Lake City (Sandy really) Color Run was this past Saturday and even though I was not 100%, I joined my wife and 19 year old daughter in the run. It was the first ever 5k for my daughter and was the first time in a long time I would be running with the wife. I typically just run my own race, but decided that this was more about the social side of running that it was about being fast or challenging myself. I wanted to be a part of the run with them and enjoy the madness. Mission accomplished.

This was the clean version of the family prior to the run. Logan, our little germ carrier, didn’t run this year, however he said next year he will.

So for those who have never heard of the Color Run, basically it is an untimed 5k where volunteers throw colored powder on you every kilometer. It is a very popular event, with tons of runners. They start people off in 1,500 person waves every 5 minutes to keep the congestion at the color zones down, which judging from this crowd, I would say that was a great idea. When we were finishing, the last wave was leaving, with us in the first, so that was 6 waves of at least 1,500 people.

I tried to take a few pictures along the route, using a plastic bag to protect the iPhone, but they are a bit hazy due to the filter over the camera lens.

This was right before the first zone of Orange, with the loop back color of Blue waiting for us. It seems they shorted one color because this zone was a bit early and Blue was actually around 3 km.

inside a color run zone

Even though this is pretty vague, the time in the zone was madness, you couldn’t see, you couldn’t breath and I didn’t have a mask/bandana. I simply held my breath for the 20 yards of chaos, which isn’t easy while running.

This is after the yellow zone a bit later, I was trying out my running backward skills.

This was after the final zone. I had run ahead to get the girls as they exited the final Orange Zone.

Girls leaving the Orange Color Run Zone

Really for the girls benefit, a bit for myself on tracking, I started the Nike + Running app to track our time. It wasn’t that bad really, as we ended up with a 31:21 time, which given the four color zones and it being my daughter’s first ever 5k, where she ran 99% of the time, pretty darn good.

The after photo really explains most of what happens.

Suzanne looks a lot better than I do, I looked more like a bum on the street with flare, she worked the colors in quite nicely, in my humble opinion.

Family after shot. I think the guys in the color zones tended to target the female runners, which was fine by me. I did have quite a bit of color under the shirt, still trying to figure that one out.

After they have a DJ and get everyone to throw their personal color packets, which myself and Suzanne, stayed away from, but my daughter did venture in, to which she said while it was happening, all you could see was powder. I wish I had a video of it, as it was quite the spectacle, this is what the aftermath looked like.

SUMMARY

For me, this was a great family event, where you could run, walk, jog or just enjoy 3.1 miles with friends and family and blow off some steam. I really don’t like the commercial runs like this as much, as they tend to be a bit overdone and about the sales, but this was a unique experience and we all had a good time. It does support a good local cause, however I am not sure how much of the money actually gets down to the charity. If you have one come by, I suggest you grab some friends and head on down.

Now, off to take come more cold meds and get some Vitamin C drops.

Big Guy Runs!!

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