Monday, July 31, 2006
Its hot out there!
News flash for those who live either on Mars or the artic, it is hot out there and getting hotter. Whether it is due to global warming or natural cycles or a result of having to many M states here, it is ugly and just staying that way.
Now that I am done blaming the weather, I manage to just get over 45 miles last week. The 12.25 mile run on Saturday was lingering on me and my dead legs just manage 6 on Sunday.
The weather forecast this week is even worse. Temps around 100 again with real high humidity. Even running in the am it is usually in low 80's by time I hit the road at 6 am. Going to be a real challenge to get good quality miles in this week.
Saturday I still plan on doing a long 15-17 mile. I figured if I leave my house and run down to the swimming pool where my daughter is swimming in her 4th championship competition it will be perfect.
I see hardware in the future for my daughter! And whether she wins or not (she usually is a mid packer) I am more proud of her trophy's (all swimmers get them) and her ribbons than anything I have won. Afterall I am just the luckiest father in the world to have my critters and the youngest one is a very special critter (until she turns into a teenager then she will be inhuman like the others were for a few years lol).
Enjoy the day everyone.
News flash for those who live either on Mars or the artic, it is hot out there and getting hotter. Whether it is due to global warming or natural cycles or a result of having to many M states here, it is ugly and just staying that way.
Now that I am done blaming the weather, I manage to just get over 45 miles last week. The 12.25 mile run on Saturday was lingering on me and my dead legs just manage 6 on Sunday.
The weather forecast this week is even worse. Temps around 100 again with real high humidity. Even running in the am it is usually in low 80's by time I hit the road at 6 am. Going to be a real challenge to get good quality miles in this week.
Saturday I still plan on doing a long 15-17 mile. I figured if I leave my house and run down to the swimming pool where my daughter is swimming in her 4th championship competition it will be perfect.
I see hardware in the future for my daughter! And whether she wins or not (she usually is a mid packer) I am more proud of her trophy's (all swimmers get them) and her ribbons than anything I have won. Afterall I am just the luckiest father in the world to have my critters and the youngest one is a very special critter (until she turns into a teenager then she will be inhuman like the others were for a few years lol).
Enjoy the day everyone.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Running Milestone
This week I finally crossed over the 1,000 mile for the year. Took almost 7 months and I figure I am about 2 weeks behind where I should have been. The race in February, Gasparilla Jeep Challenge, took longer to recover from than I anticipated and then doing all those silly races didn't help (well not silly lots of hardware were mine to be had!).
Legs are a bit tired a bit. Last week ran 50.1 miles and should do around 52-55 miles this week. I might keep it on the low side as to just not push my mileage up to hard. Knee feels good, just the heat and humidity make it tough to put in some serious mileage these days.
Good thing I don't plan on any 60 mile weeks til the fall!
Enjoy the day everyone.
This week I finally crossed over the 1,000 mile for the year. Took almost 7 months and I figure I am about 2 weeks behind where I should have been. The race in February, Gasparilla Jeep Challenge, took longer to recover from than I anticipated and then doing all those silly races didn't help (well not silly lots of hardware were mine to be had!).
Legs are a bit tired a bit. Last week ran 50.1 miles and should do around 52-55 miles this week. I might keep it on the low side as to just not push my mileage up to hard. Knee feels good, just the heat and humidity make it tough to put in some serious mileage these days.
Good thing I don't plan on any 60 mile weeks til the fall!
Enjoy the day everyone.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Good news
Friday I received the results from the vampires who kept taking more blood out of me than is normally humanly possible. After testing me for possible diabities I turned out to be negative. However the hemoglobin test was higher than they would like to see so I will have to start making changes to my diet. I normally consume around 4,000 calories a day the bulk that come from pasta, rice and other yummy type of carbs. So less white rice, more brown rice, less pasta more protiens, etc are changes I will incorporate in my diet.
For the week, I had a good running week and logged in 50.1 miles despite the heat. This coming week I will probably cut back and do around 45 miles with a plan for 55-60 miles the week after that.
No planned races til September so I am using this time to build up the mileage again.
Enjoy the day everyone.
Friday I received the results from the vampires who kept taking more blood out of me than is normally humanly possible. After testing me for possible diabities I turned out to be negative. However the hemoglobin test was higher than they would like to see so I will have to start making changes to my diet. I normally consume around 4,000 calories a day the bulk that come from pasta, rice and other yummy type of carbs. So less white rice, more brown rice, less pasta more protiens, etc are changes I will incorporate in my diet.
For the week, I had a good running week and logged in 50.1 miles despite the heat. This coming week I will probably cut back and do around 45 miles with a plan for 55-60 miles the week after that.
No planned races til September so I am using this time to build up the mileage again.
Enjoy the day everyone.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
New twist to running.
Yesterday I went to the Dr for some minor stuff (rash on my leg that doesn't want to clear up) and the kind Dr must have read Running Susan's blog and decided he wanted to poke and probe on me as a tribute to Susan's ongoing medical experiments. So a gallon of blood later and 90 minutes after they decided to use me for a human pin cushion they came back and decided to send the blood work out. The tests all came back normal except for one little thing, my blood sugar was elevated on the high end. Being naive and not knowing much about blood sugar. So after I said the obvious, what the hell does that mean, Dr. Frankenstien, calmly says it means you might be diabetic and need to go on insulin. He asked if I been tired and having soreness in the back or stomach ( well duh, I run in the 100 degree weather who wouldnt be tired plus work and life, and yes I have soreness in the back above the kidney's).
So the hemoglobin (or however you spell that ugly word) results come in Friday. It will be interesting to see what they are!
The only question to ask is there a point to life without chocolate and cheesecake and if I need insulin will it make me faster? Bad enough I need stupid asthma medication to run (breathing unfortunately is still a necessary) but the thought of needing additional medication doesn't thrill me much. However if it makes me faster might be worth it.
Enjoy the day everyone!
Yesterday I went to the Dr for some minor stuff (rash on my leg that doesn't want to clear up) and the kind Dr must have read Running Susan's blog and decided he wanted to poke and probe on me as a tribute to Susan's ongoing medical experiments. So a gallon of blood later and 90 minutes after they decided to use me for a human pin cushion they came back and decided to send the blood work out. The tests all came back normal except for one little thing, my blood sugar was elevated on the high end. Being naive and not knowing much about blood sugar. So after I said the obvious, what the hell does that mean, Dr. Frankenstien, calmly says it means you might be diabetic and need to go on insulin. He asked if I been tired and having soreness in the back or stomach ( well duh, I run in the 100 degree weather who wouldnt be tired plus work and life, and yes I have soreness in the back above the kidney's).
So the hemoglobin (or however you spell that ugly word) results come in Friday. It will be interesting to see what they are!
The only question to ask is there a point to life without chocolate and cheesecake and if I need insulin will it make me faster? Bad enough I need stupid asthma medication to run (breathing unfortunately is still a necessary) but the thought of needing additional medication doesn't thrill me much. However if it makes me faster might be worth it.
Enjoy the day everyone!
Monday, July 17, 2006
Summer of Love 5 miler Race Report
Saturday evening we did the 5 miler. In a nutshell it was just hot. Goal was to keep an easy pace and basically survive the heat. Race time temps were 94 and humidity was 97% (thunderstorms off and on during late afternoon).
Most of the speed demons showed uncommonly good sense and avoided the race allowing me a chance to place. I did not taper for the race and chose to use it as a speed work out.
Splits are as follows:
Mile 1 6:16 (tad fast)
Mile 2 6:52 (settled down)
Mile 3 7:00
Mile 4 6:55
Mile 5 6:57
Overall time 34:01
Finished 1st in Male 40-49 age group and just barely beat out the 2nd place age group by 2 seconds. 3rd in age group was another 5 seconds behind him. They both had passed me at mile 2 but I kept my pace and even though they were more than a quarter mile ahead of me by mile 3 I could see they were tiring faster than I was. I caught them just after the 4 mile mark and noticed they were struggling just as bad as I was. It came down to the last quarter mile and I fortunately had enough kick to out run them to the finish. Both of these guys had beat me on the same course in December so it was nice to give them payback. The t shirts were tye dye shirts and the age group awards were lava lamps with engravings on them.
The only negative was given the heat the end of the race resembled a mash unit and the medics were busy with fluids.
Enjoy the day everyone.
Saturday evening we did the 5 miler. In a nutshell it was just hot. Goal was to keep an easy pace and basically survive the heat. Race time temps were 94 and humidity was 97% (thunderstorms off and on during late afternoon).
Most of the speed demons showed uncommonly good sense and avoided the race allowing me a chance to place. I did not taper for the race and chose to use it as a speed work out.
Splits are as follows:
Mile 1 6:16 (tad fast)
Mile 2 6:52 (settled down)
Mile 3 7:00
Mile 4 6:55
Mile 5 6:57
Overall time 34:01
Finished 1st in Male 40-49 age group and just barely beat out the 2nd place age group by 2 seconds. 3rd in age group was another 5 seconds behind him. They both had passed me at mile 2 but I kept my pace and even though they were more than a quarter mile ahead of me by mile 3 I could see they were tiring faster than I was. I caught them just after the 4 mile mark and noticed they were struggling just as bad as I was. It came down to the last quarter mile and I fortunately had enough kick to out run them to the finish. Both of these guys had beat me on the same course in December so it was nice to give them payback. The t shirts were tye dye shirts and the age group awards were lava lamps with engravings on them.
The only negative was given the heat the end of the race resembled a mash unit and the medics were busy with fluids.
Enjoy the day everyone.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Running update
I have begun to build up my miles again despite the heat of the summer. Last month I did a pathetic 130 miles rather than a good 175 miles (remember it is all relative and these are miles for me). Still it was probably a good break with the travel, the ongoing stress at work and other issues in my life.
This month is going well as I approach close to 70 miles month to date for July. Goal is to build back up to 175 miles and then push a few 200 mile months in preparation for the Las Vegas marathon. I will be using some races as speed work (i.e this saturday I have a 5 miler will go for anything under 32:45 at this point no taper). I am still running 2x a few days a week. Longer run in the am when it is cooler and an easy 4-6 miles after work when it is mid to upper 90's.
The good news is last two nights I pretty much fell asleep early and have slept really well. Two nights ago I fell asleep around 9 and last night I was dozing by 8:30. Always nice to get in some decent sleep.
Enjoy the day everyone.
I have begun to build up my miles again despite the heat of the summer. Last month I did a pathetic 130 miles rather than a good 175 miles (remember it is all relative and these are miles for me). Still it was probably a good break with the travel, the ongoing stress at work and other issues in my life.
This month is going well as I approach close to 70 miles month to date for July. Goal is to build back up to 175 miles and then push a few 200 mile months in preparation for the Las Vegas marathon. I will be using some races as speed work (i.e this saturday I have a 5 miler will go for anything under 32:45 at this point no taper). I am still running 2x a few days a week. Longer run in the am when it is cooler and an easy 4-6 miles after work when it is mid to upper 90's.
The good news is last two nights I pretty much fell asleep early and have slept really well. Two nights ago I fell asleep around 9 and last night I was dozing by 8:30. Always nice to get in some decent sleep.
Enjoy the day everyone.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Tri Span 10K results
Today I ran the one race I generally do not enjoy running. The reason I run it because of the grand prix points and have had generally not desirable results on this race.
Normally weather this time of year is horrible (extreme hot and humidity as in last weekend when I ran the freedom 5K). Today was an exception, the weather was beautiful. Temps were mid 70's and peaked at 80 right at the end of the race with much lower humidity. Still had to deal with the 3 large bridges to go up and down on but still looked forward to better results.
Split times were as follows:
Mile 1 6:27
Mile 2 6:34
Mile 3 7:19 (bridge)
Mile 4 7:16 (bridge)
Mile 5 6:48 (bridge)
Mile 6 6:32
.2 1:28
Final clock time 42:26 finished 3rd in age group M45-49 (hardware again thankfully after 2 races without winning any) but haven't seen overall results. My guess somewhere around 35th out of 600 registered participants.
I was pleased how I didn't rabbit out this time and kept myself more in check. I still feel the lack of good mileage last two months and no hills took its toll on the bridges on me. Nevertheless this is a 1:20 improvement over last year so I am thankful (I attribute most of that to the weather and not running out so fast this time).
Today I ran the one race I generally do not enjoy running. The reason I run it because of the grand prix points and have had generally not desirable results on this race.
Normally weather this time of year is horrible (extreme hot and humidity as in last weekend when I ran the freedom 5K). Today was an exception, the weather was beautiful. Temps were mid 70's and peaked at 80 right at the end of the race with much lower humidity. Still had to deal with the 3 large bridges to go up and down on but still looked forward to better results.
Split times were as follows:
Mile 1 6:27
Mile 2 6:34
Mile 3 7:19 (bridge)
Mile 4 7:16 (bridge)
Mile 5 6:48 (bridge)
Mile 6 6:32
.2 1:28
Final clock time 42:26 finished 3rd in age group M45-49 (hardware again thankfully after 2 races without winning any) but haven't seen overall results. My guess somewhere around 35th out of 600 registered participants.
I was pleased how I didn't rabbit out this time and kept myself more in check. I still feel the lack of good mileage last two months and no hills took its toll on the bridges on me. Nevertheless this is a 1:20 improvement over last year so I am thankful (I attribute most of that to the weather and not running out so fast this time).
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Post 4th of July recap.
The 4th was a blast for me. I started off with running with my two buddies, Traci and Melanie who are awesome runners, for a 10K jog. We did it easy and kept it in 49 min just to enjoy the run, the humidity and of course the awful Tri Span race race on Saturday. Right after lunch, the family did 2 hrs at the beach where we manage to find all the big waves for the boogie boards, find a few good holes to potentially bury blog mate Dani's room mate and relax in the sun. Later that night was an enjoyable time watching the firework display that was outstanding!
Tri Span goal for this year is to break 43 minutes. Not particularly fast for me but with the 3 bridges, the mile on the asphalt and the rotten weather it is a stretch goal for me to achieve.
Here are a few pics from the fireworks taken with my camera phone:
The 4th was a blast for me. I started off with running with my two buddies, Traci and Melanie who are awesome runners, for a 10K jog. We did it easy and kept it in 49 min just to enjoy the run, the humidity and of course the awful Tri Span race race on Saturday. Right after lunch, the family did 2 hrs at the beach where we manage to find all the big waves for the boogie boards, find a few good holes to potentially bury blog mate Dani's room mate and relax in the sun. Later that night was an enjoyable time watching the firework display that was outstanding!
Tri Span goal for this year is to break 43 minutes. Not particularly fast for me but with the 3 bridges, the mile on the asphalt and the rotten weather it is a stretch goal for me to achieve.
Here are a few pics from the fireworks taken with my camera phone:
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Freedom Run 5K results
Yesterday I ran the 26th annual freedom run 5K here in North Carolina. As I indicated an earlier post it was miserably hot and humid (temps were in upper 80's with 97% humidity) for the race. This is the one course that I have never broken 20 min on and had every intention of doing it when I ran it.
Unfortunately while I ran my best time on this course it was still 20:11 for finish time so it will have to wait to next year for my goal of breaking it. I finished 23rd out of 332 runners and 5th in the age group (M 45-49) so no hardware for me this year. The ironic thing was I thought the competition would be a little less in the new age group but I still finished ahead of the first male in the 40-44 age group. Oh well at least it was fun, hot and a good work up for the Tri Span 10K next week.
I ran an easy 8 miles this morning to relax and recover from the race and will be at the beach this afternoon. Turning out to be a pretty relaxing day for me.
Enjoy the day everyone.
Yesterday I ran the 26th annual freedom run 5K here in North Carolina. As I indicated an earlier post it was miserably hot and humid (temps were in upper 80's with 97% humidity) for the race. This is the one course that I have never broken 20 min on and had every intention of doing it when I ran it.
Unfortunately while I ran my best time on this course it was still 20:11 for finish time so it will have to wait to next year for my goal of breaking it. I finished 23rd out of 332 runners and 5th in the age group (M 45-49) so no hardware for me this year. The ironic thing was I thought the competition would be a little less in the new age group but I still finished ahead of the first male in the 40-44 age group. Oh well at least it was fun, hot and a good work up for the Tri Span 10K next week.
I ran an easy 8 miles this morning to relax and recover from the race and will be at the beach this afternoon. Turning out to be a pretty relaxing day for me.
Enjoy the day everyone.
