Shh, I didn't skip any runs you're making that up.

Alright well I finally got back to a normal schedule today.  Well actually yesterday but it's carried over which is nice.  So this morning I got up at 6am, started stretching and drinking water to go out for a morning run, something I've only done once since starting to run again. Morning runs were always something I had a hard time adjusting to, anytime I had gotten away from them getting back was a struggle.

As I stepped outside this morning I realized it was a lot colder than I was expecting which surprised me since I sleep with a window open in my room and I was not particularly cold getting up.  I soon discovered it was more the wind than anything else that made it cold.  The assault the wind had on my face at first was very unpleasant but thats what comes with running in the winter in New England.  I don't really mind it that much after all it is only noticeable at least to me for the first few minutes of a run unless it's below 0.

I got about 4 miles in today in just over 31 minutes, slow but considering how I felt and it being my first run in a while I suppose it will do.  I am kinda tempted to do another 3 and change later today but I can't decide if that is a bad idea or not so only time will tell.  I've gotta get back on track though starting Friday I need to make sure I get on pace to hit the 2,010 miles for the year and make Sweetland eat some donuts.

What I would give for a full nights sleep.

I'm not sure how long this has been going on but I think it's been the past 5 nights I have not been able to get more than 2 hours of sleep.  Now as bad as 2 hours of sleep is in one night, you'd think it'd be easy to fall asleep the following night, well it's not when you end up falling asleep at 8pm then waking up an hour later feeling completely refreshed.  I should have written this first but there is a good chance of this post not making any sense.  Anyway moving on.  So I slept an hour this morning between 9 and 10 after being up all night.  I was going to avoid it but I figured it was only an hour before jesus(aka my dad) came in to make sure I was awake for church.  There is no chance he'd let me miss church if it was my first time getting sleep in 5 weeks he'd still make sure i woke up for church.  He's already proven church comes before any health concerns of mine when I woke up one morning to find a tick burrowed into my skin and he wanted me to wait till after church to take care of it and tried to rush me out of the house.   And he wonders why I don't respect his beliefs!  So now that that is over with the only concern I really have is making sure I stay awake till at least 10pm tonight because despite the lack of sleep I've had over the past few days I will most likely not sleep through the night if I do sleep before 10.   Christmas eve I was tired and went to bed at 11pm, woke up 2 hours later only to be up the rest of the night/day.

Anyway I think I've only managed to run twice over this span and neither time was more than 4 miles so it's been a waste of a week.  I just need to find a friend to keep me occupied till 9 or 10 tonight so I don't fall asleep during the day today then maybe I can finally get back onto a normal schedule tomorrow.  My go to person to hang out Pete isn't around.

A messy weekend.

Well this weekend didn't go at all as planned.  Me writing this at 4am should be the first sign of that considering I haven't slept yet.  This is how the entire weekend went really.  Last night it was some time after 5am when I went to sleep, to get up a little after 9.

Moving on.  So my plan for the weekend was 8 miles Friday, 4 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday.  Of course that isn't how it went at all, but the good news is it was still a solid weekend of training.  Well it was good in my opinion for where I am at.  I got in just over 8 miles Friday night which I had mention in a previous post, Saturday I felt pretty good which was encouraging, instead of the 4 mile run I planned on I got talked into doing 7 with Jim Johnson.  My thought process on it was with 8 to 12 inches of snow expected for Sunday it was not only going to make running tougher because I would unlikely be able to run on any clear pavement.  I figured if I'm going to do the longest run since I've started training again I should probably try to get it done in favorable conditions.  I decided that back to back "long" runs of 8 and 7 were a pretty good substitute for missing a 10 miler with rest.  The 7 miles was pretty good and I actually ran much faster than I thought.  It turned out to be just over 7:30 pace.  It obviously helped quite a bit to run it with Jim I'm sure I would have been close to 8 minute miles had I run it alone.

So that was Saturday, now on Sunday I spent the morning shoveling then was starving so I sat and had breakfast while I watched NFL pregame shows.  While I watched football I decided I'd do my run "later" with no specific time in mind or where I'd run.  Finally 9pm rolled around and I started to get ready.  I decided it was late enough to just go out on the back roads around my house.  Conditions weren't too bad but it helped quite a bit that there weren't many cars on the road.  I didn't measure out the run and i don't think I will.  I ran for 32:29 and I'm going to call it 4 miles. The first 2 miles of the run my legs felt like trash, it was a real struggle just to get going.  At one point I thought they were finally loosening up as I went down a hill but as it flattened out I realized they were still junk.  Maybe 5 minutes or so after that I finally started to feel better, better but not good.  Fitness wise I could have kept going but with how my legs felt I didn't want to  push things, they are a little beat up as it is and I certainly don't want to add an injury into the mix. I will continue to push myself as much as my body feels comfortable.  I am taking tomorrow...well today off which will be much needed rest.  I would still like to be able to get in a 12 mile run within the next two weeks but we will see, I can't get too greedy.

Half(twice) the man I used to be

Well I got my 8 miles in tonight, it was dark and cold.  So cold in fact I had to stop to use one of my gloves for something other than my hand.  I felt like complete garbage for the first two miles or so which had me a bit nervous but luckily that went away.  I was feeling pretty good for most of the run, the only time i really was nervous about anything was there is one spot before the 5th mile mark that there was no sidewalk on the main road so i had to dodge some cars there and kept going.  I started getting tired around mile 6 or so which is about what I was expecting that is about my limit for runs being comfortable.  Hopefully this weekend can help that some if I can get the 10 in on sunday or at least 8,  it will all depend on how my legs feel then.

I mixed it up a bit with the Ipod tonight though, it was only about half STP.

Interstate Love Song

I took yesterday off as I said I was going to, it's definitely something I need to make sure I continue to do regularly until I get back in shape(lose a few lbs etc...)  I hate it though, not that I am a hardcore runner by any means all of a sudden but I feel lazier on days off during the week,  I was home with not much to do running would have fit in perfectly but no.

Anyway I meant to write during my last entry that for that entire run I listened to Stone Temple Pilots.  I've been listening to them a lot lately which was all triggered by downloading a video of their MTV unplugged session that is incredible.  Most of their stuff is great for running though not to mention Interstate Love Song is probably in my top 10 best songs ever.  So if for some reason you haven't been listening to them you should start.

ANKLE UPDATE:
Yea the capital letters are completely unnecessary but what are you going to do about it?   Nothing.  I still have some significant pain in my ankle even though it was a week ago today that I rolled it 200 times.  Running I don't notice, mostly it's going up and down stairs and just generally the entire morning it's stiffer than normal. It's not really an issue running or walking around but it doesn't seem to have gotten any better the last few days.  I am only concerned that it will stay weak and will roll again a lot easier than normal which during the winter months is never a good thing especially because I think it's going to snow again tomorrow.

I will write another entry later on after my run.   We will see if I can make it 8 miles.

Captain Zapp Brannigan: In the game of chess you can never let your adversary see your pieces.

The title of this entry is a quote from a real genius of our time. Captain Zapp Brannigan.  If you're not familiar he's a character on the cartoon show Futurama.  I haven't really seen the show THAT much, I have no idea when it normally airs just catch repeats now and then.  Still though he might be one of the most quotable characters in all of television.

Today I decided to take it easy for a few reasons.  I am going to take tomorrow off, then for Friday, Saturday and Sunday I am hoping to aim at doing 7-8, 4, 10.  We will see, it's all going to go on how I feel as I go. I'm doing my best not to over do it but at the same time I want to get back to doing at least 60 miles a week as soon as I can.  Once I am there I can start to get faster and get my average pace back down to a reasonable 7 minutes per mile or less instead of the jogging I am currently doing.

Once I am in a better groove of getting my runs in regularly I will have to start adding in workouts and doing drills.  I need to get back to adding in plyos to my runs that I was doing earlier in the fall.  I am encouraged at my run tonight though and I think maybe by the second week of January I might aim to hop in one of the Wakefield Lake 5k races on a Wednesday night just to see where I am at and mix things up a bit.

I am in a great mood tonight though and eagerly looking forward to what is ahead of me.  I'll end this entry the same way I started another Zapp Brannigan quote.

Captain Zapp Brannigan: Kif, I'm sensing a very sensual disturbance in the force. Prepare for ship-to-ship intimacy. 

David Caruso: Worlds Greatest Actor

So I have never seen the TV show CSI Miami but I've seen lots of clips from it.  The only thing I can gather from the clips is that David Caruso is the worst actor on the planet.  Now this isn't news to anyone at all because if you have ever seen him you know he's terrible.  I bring this up because this weekend I recently saw this again and Jim Carrey making fun of him is pretty funny.


On to more important things though.  My ankle feels a lot better today, there is still some pain but no limping so I went back out for a run.  I didn't feel any pain in my knee or ankle today on my run but as I ran today though I felt fatigue in my lower leg, almost as if the muscles or tendons were tired from healing but it did not affect my run much.  I started off pretty slow which is something I definitely need to do more often, as I loosened up and got into a rhythm I felt a lot better as I went and picked up the pace.  I ran about 6.5 miles and that took me 49:46 so not too bad I think that comes out to 7:40 pace, the first mile or two was probably around 8 minutes so not bad.

I felt pretty good after today though, even though it was a slow run it felt kinda fast.  Just getting the taste of feeling like I am running fast is good for motivation.  It will be a whole lot nicer when I can hit 6 minute pace on a run and actually be going fast instead of just part of my illusion.  Anyway today was a good run and I'm looking to do a longer run tomorrow at a more relaxed pace so we'll see.

Crippled

Well, instead of my ankle feeling better this morning it feels a whole lot worse.  I hobbled downstairs to pee when I woke up going one step at a time.  It is possible it just  needs to loosen up or something but I am guessing I am going to miss a run today which is no good considering the rest of this week already is a mess. What can you do though?  These are the problems I will have when I run in Burlington, none of the sidewalks are ever really clear once it starts snowing so if I want to run somewhere and not worry about rolling my ankle I have to go to another town.

Twenty Six

So in honor of Michelle's birthday and my own knee pain and laziness I ran tonight for 26 minutes...exactly.  I'm not going to measure it out, I'm sure it's over 3 miles but I'm only counting it as 3.  It would have been a little over except at the end of my run, going up a hill from a park(that closes at dusk) I had to dodge a car coming down the hill apparently not paying attention to anything that might be in the road to go park in an empty parking lot. I jumped to the right to get out of the way and proceeded to roll my ankle, for the second time of the run.  This time was worse than the first and I was just too annoyed to continue the run more than a few steps after.  I hit stop on my watch and looked down to see 26:00.99  not bad.  Anyway  thats it I'm not going to write anything else here.

Well other than another Happy Birthday to Michelle.


Update: I rolled my ankle AGAIN walking into Pete's this time being worse than the previous two

I forgot my password thats why I didn't blog the last 2 days.

Is there any chance you actually believe the title of this?  If you do then we're better friends already, the truth however is not that I forgot to blog or lost my password the truth is I got lazy.

Anyway despite the time off and new shoes I still have some knee pain, and since I already ruined this week I've decided to take it easy for the week(I don't expect that to last) to try to help it heal some more.  I did a real easy 3.4 mile run, it was pretty windy but I felt relaxed most of the run once I got loosened up a bit.  I finished in 26:13 which is alright.

 I've still got a long way to go before I can actually start enjoying my runs but I'm still pretty hopeful even after the last two days.  Thinking about being able to run 8 or 10 mile runs at 6 minute per mile pace is a good thing.  Is it strange that I don't enjoy runs unless it's at least 8 miles?  Maybe I just associate those runs with the trails of the Dracut State forest I enjoy so much.  Either way it's only something that real runners understand and the casual jogger cannot.  The jogger can get enjoyment from running sure, it always feels good to have a good run of any distance but there is something different about hammering through a run of 8 or more miles being able to talk the whole time to finish and recover almost immediately.  That is what I am aiming for.

Hello Old Friend

So winter has finally arrived in MA with some snow Saturday later afternoon/night and cold temps to go along with it.  I think my last run in shorts has passed for the rest of 2009.

Weekend recap. I did not run on Sunday and it's something I was kinda going back and forth on the whole week.  I didn't know if I wanted to be taking 1 day off per week or 2.  I've decided for the month of December at least I will take 2 days a week off to try to be sure to avoid injury.  I figured this is the safe route to take since my last attempt at getting in shape this past spring/summer I ended up having a calf issue that would only require maybe a week off from running but it actually led to a few months.  So that is that, I will run 5 days a week till January starts.  I'll reevaluate from there but hopefully I'll bump it up to 6 days a week until I'm back in shape.

So tonight I headed over to the Wakefield lake for my run.  I planned on doing 2 laps and as I got going making sure to keep it a very relaxed pace.  I forgot to bring my watch so I was using the stopwatch feature of my iPod to keep time.  I didn't check it as I ran to see what pace I was running which was nice since I always tend to aim for a quicker pace.  Though I did not check splits I am certain the second lap was a little quicker than the first.  I felt looser and even though I was tired and could feel it in my legs I felt like I was moving more fluid than the first.  According to mapmyrun the route I took totaled 6.4  miles and my time was 52 minutes flat.  Comes out to just over 8 minute pace.  Not too bad I'm gonna need some of those easy runs to make sure I stay healthy.

Accidental Long Runs

I am using the term long run very loosely here as I am still not actually capable of doing a long run without injuring myself I'm sure.  I did however end up doing an 8 mile run today.  I woke up with zero motivation to go running this morning, stayed in bed watching bad movies until 10ish maybe.  I finally decided to get out of bed, start stretching and hydrating to go for a run.  That attitude lasted 2 full hours however, I decided to go run in some trails to give my legs a break from the pavement.  As I headed up rt 93 to the trails I decided since I need new shoes desperately I'd stop putting it off and go pick some up.  I bought the Nike Pegasus since they've finally brought them back to being good shoes. The trails were in the best shape out of the 3 times I've run on then in the past month or so but still some real muddy sections.  I had only planned on running 4 miles so I kept telling myself I was going to turn around soon and I kept pushing that time out 5 more minutes until I hit 32 minutes and I had at first didn't know where the trail went from there so I decided to turn back. I got lost on the way back but only had to back track maybe 20 seconds or so and I ended up finishing up in 1:04:10 so pretty even

This works out pretty well though that I went long today.  It's supposed to snow overnight 2-4 inches I've heard and the Pats are playing at 1pm tomorrow so I'd have to get my run in early and conditions would probably be worse then.   Now I can get in a shorter run and not worry about it as much.

I’m in love with a man ... a man named God. Does that make me gay? Am I gay for God? You betcha.

The title is a quote from an It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia episode.  If you haven't seen the show already I suggest you start.  Anyway I don't have a ton to talk about today.  I got up at 6, stretched, hydrated, relaxed eventually got out on my run at 7. I did all roads it was reasonably hilly one big hill really then a bunch of smaller ones.  The last of which was pretty short but steep and I was feeling it.  Total distance was 5.29 and the time was 41:13 which comes up to be 7:46 per mile.  Considering where I am at now it's good enough.  I always had a tough time getting used to running first thing in the morning again.  I did have the morning 5 route record at Lowell though as far as I know.  For some stupid reason we pushed the pace one morning and I finished a couple seconds ahead of Nate and Jon in 29:45 so I've got a long way to go.

How long will it take me to run 2,010 miles in 2010?

Place your bets everyone.  Since this is about my 300th time getting back into shape since I graduated college in 2004 I've decided to actually keep up with this blog(this is the 2nd or 3rd attempt at it) this time and try to keep things as interesting as I can to keep my motivation up.  Plus this will give plenty of people good reason to give me shit for being lazy which is always fun.  So feel free to take a guess/bet whatever in the comment section and whoever is the closest without going over(price as right rules are universal) will get a pair of running shoes if you're lucky or maybe even a high five from me if you're really lucky.

So for those of you that either haven't read much, or haven't run a lot I'll give you some info.  I've been running sporadically the last 2 months maybe but not more than 1 or 2 days a week until the last week of November.  I am averaging like 4 to 5 miles per run right now and I'm hoping to just be taking off 1 day a week but if I suspect any sort of injury or snag coming along that will obviously change.  As recently as June or July I had done runs as long as 12 miles(slow pace of course) but as of right now I am 180lbs and in 2004 when I was running a lot I was 135lbs.  Alright so now that that is out of the way, some quick math before you make any guesses.  2,010 miles over a year would come out to be 38.65 miles per week which is averaging 6.44 miles a day with 1 day off every week.  I am below that weekly amount at the moment but I plan on running much more than that as soon as I am able.

There is a tracker on the right side of the blog that will keep track of each run every day and I will try to map out as many runs as I can with mapmyrun.com if that isn't possible I'll do my best to be conservative with the estimate of my pace for the run and mileage will be listed as shorter rather than longer on any run like that.

None of that really matters because my guess is the most popular response will be "you will stop running again and never hit 2,010 miles in 2010"  

The song remains the same

So after planning on taking a day off today, I decided to go for another run.  I did the same loop as last night 4.23 miles it felt a lot more relaxed and the time was just slightly slower at 32:06.  Since I planned to go easier than last night I figured that I would wear pants since it was a little cold last night.  Tonight I was wrong again, I was much warmer than i would have preferred not July run during the day warm but still warm.

Now on my run I was thinking that I should at least start to set some kind of fitness goals and not have everything just arbitrary.  The more I thought about it the one thing that has stuck out in my mind the most would be to run the last cross country workout I ran in college.  Actually the one which resulted in my lower back muscle strain which kept me out of nationals.  When I ran it in college it felt easy, a workout that on paper I looked at and didn't think I could hit all of the times but as we ran I was holding myself back on each interval and still running below the target.  If I can get back into that kind of shape and complete that workout again this time without coming out of it damaged and unable to run for two weeks being condemned to the bike and pool prison at that point is where I will consider myself back.  The workout was a pyramid workout and the only thing I am not 100% sure on is the rest, either way here it is:

What it was supposed to be           What it was
400m  70 seconds                             69 seconds
400m  70 seconds                             68 seconds
800m  2:20                                       2:18
mile     4:40                                       4:35
800m  2:20                                       2:16
400m  70 seconds                            64 seconds
400m  70 seconds                            63 seconds

Now as far as I remember the rest wasn't based on time it was based on heart rate, once we got back down to a certain level we started again.  I am pretty sure the rate was 120 but it's been a while since i have done real workouts so that could be way off.  At that point I'll at least know what heart rate we were resting to.

Alright so I was going to leave a quote from this youtube video I saw today, except there were too many quotable things to pick from.  It's got the gays, gay marriage, catholics, PETA, Tiger Woods, video games.  I mean take your pick.  Anyway I suggest you watch it here

i'll have the milk steak boiled over-hard and a side of your finest jelly beans raw.

So I decided not to check the actual temperature before I went out for my run tonight.  A check of wunderground.com after the run let me know that it was 32 degrees out.   I thought it was cold but I figured it was right around 40...so much for that.  In my brilliance I decided since last night I was pretty warm with pants and a long sleeve. I wore a lighter long sleeve and shorts for my run tonight.  Whoops.

Anyway I just did the standard out and back 4 miler that I have been doing for a while now.  Turns out according to mapmyrun.com the distance is actually 4.23 miles.  Who knew?  I just figured I was running slow I am after all in horrible shape.  I completed the run in 31:44 which comes out to 7:30 pace, not too bad.  If only I ran 10 miles at that pace with a lot less effort and I could be moderately satisfied with it.

So the last mile of my run I kind of zoned out thinking about racing again which was a great feeling and it definitely made the time pass by quicker.  What confused me about it though was that I wasn't thinking about getting back in shape and running any kind of PR's all I thought about was running either to help pace someone else to a good time or as part of a distance relay race.  I have always felt this way about running and I am not sure why.  I have always preferred races where I was part of a team vs running just for myself.  Sure I always had my own goals for my races but I when I made the decision to run in college my ultimate goal was to run as a part of a 4x800 at Penn Relays not to qualify for nationals in anything individual.

Even when I was in my last year of college, I missed cross country nationals because of an injury and for whatever reason the coach chose not to run a 4x800 team at Penn Relays.  Still my two best races of the year were 1 the 4x800 at the New England Championships which we won and I had my best split of 1:55 and our conference championship where I chose to rabbit the mile for two of my teammates that were looking to get better new england championship and national qualifying times(Kevin didn't even have a new england's qualifying time yet)  I set a perfectly even first 1000 meters till they went flying by, at which point my coach told me if was ok to drop out, but I thought I could still hold on to score some points for the team so I did.

The point of this rant is I have no idea why it is easier for me to motivate myself into racing again to race with other people vs just motivating myself to race just for me.  I enjoy the experience of racing and I am always happy to run personal bests, I loved the ability to go out some days or nights and do a run as long as I liked 10 miles or 15 it didn't matter to me they were both just as easy, but none of that compares to being a part of a team and having the entire groups hard work pay off.  Who knows.

I thought this was a pretty funny quote as I had listened to some new Pat Condell videos on youtube I ended up going back and checking out some old ones.
So, I hope the Hindus have it right, because if there's any justice in this world, you (Islamists) will be reincarnated as a female, homosexual Jew, and then you'll find out what a pain it is having to deal with violent, primitive dickheads like you. (to domestically violent Muslim men) " - Pat Condell


So are there any relay trail or mountain races?  I know there are some relay Marathons

Climbing My Way Back

This will be be a shorter entry as I get ready to go raise the intensity level before watching the Pats Saints game at Pete's.

I decided to do as hilly of a run as I could today given my location and how poor shape I am in.  It was a bit shorter than 5 miles according to mapmyrun.com it was 4.8 miles but it seemed as if it were shorter.  I had 3 significant hills in the run and a few other bumps that I don't really count but it was good to keep things interesting.  I had to zig zag my route a bit to account for all of the hills and keep the distance at least somewhat close to 5 miles.  I started of going what I thought was slow but my first mile said otherwise at about 7:30(I'm not sure exactly where the mile marker was).  I felt good on the first two hills, starting to feel it a bit towards the end of the second one.

Then coming down after the second hill I probably encountered the longest flat part of the run with an exception of the first mile and Going to California by Led Zeppelin came on my iPod and that slowed me down quite a bit, it wasn't till the song ended right before the last big hill that I noticed my slower pace. I tried to work the hill but I was definitely starting to feel it and thoughts of maybe cutting the run short started entering my head.

Luckily for me I came to my senses as I came down the other side of the hill and kept to the original plan.  I ended up finishing the run just over 38 minutes which  made my pace 7:54 per mile.  I am pretty happy with that it is certainly nice to seem some progress coming.  Still to slow to do real training with any of my running friends but I am 4.8 miles closer than I was when today started.

I will update this in a bit with picture of the elevation part of the run(not that impressive) once I get a chance but for now I am heading over to my friends to get ready for some football.

Edit:

It only looks like 2 hills here really.  but that little bump after mile 1 is a decent hill.

Lunch with Pink Floyd

So while I sit at my desk eating lunch I though I'd write a new post with some of the random things I forgot last night and an update on the uneventful monday morning I had.

I'm going to take it as a good sign that when I was driving to work this morning I almost started going the wrong way because I was busy thinking about how to make my runs have more hills instead of  actually getting to work.

I don't think I've mentioned blondie at all before here but I'll start now.  Not the band from the 70's and 80's but the real good looking girl that I see running around my town.  Granted I know her name because she graduated high school with my younger sister and used to come over my house when they were friends but that takes away the fun.  Anyway I told my sister if she saw her at her 5th year reunion this weekend to let her know that if she ever needs anyone to go running with I am available.  Sadly she did not attend.  Mission failed.

If you heard a strange sound recently and couldn't figure out what it was it was Mike Huckabee's political career going down the toilet.

I'm a little behind but apparently creationists have proof that disproves evolution...who knew?

By the way the Pink Floyd part of my lunch was because The Gunner's Dream came on my ipod this morning on the way to work so I decided to listen to some more while I ate.

Alright time to get back to work, I'm pretty sure I did say I'd like to make 500k a year so I don't think I'll do that by blogging.

The Dreamer in print.

So since I decided to write a little about myself in my About Me section and I mentioned that I am a dreamer I decided to start writing down some of the things I either want to do or thought would be cool to do if the opportunity comes up.  I am not saying this is a list of goals just the sort of things I waste time thinking about instead of doing anything related to them.

So in no particular order here is at least part of the list:

• Getting back into racing shape and actually racing to my potential for once.
  
  
• Making a minimum of $500,000 per year which as much as that sounds in my job it is very possible with the right system.
  
  
• Starting my own, or volunteering and donating enough to make a significant difference for a dog/animal shelter.
  
  
• I would love to have a husky or two of my own trained well enough to run with me off the leash(probably impossible for a husky) so that I always had a running partner(unless it's above 90 not sure how much they'd like that) no matter how lame my running friends are.
  
  
• Significantly impact government at least at the state level about the waste and inefficiencies of government particularly with the level of benefits awarded to elected officials.
  
  
• Run a race on every continent, including the Antarctic ice marathon.

There are a lot more but you get the point, some are ridiculous, some are long term things some aren't but these are the kind of things I waste time thinking about.

Oh and you can feel free to comment but negative comments will be met with emails from my assistant Jeremy Piven

The LONG weekend

So the title of this blog isn't referring to the 4 days off because of the holiday so much as it is referring to I slept less than 8 hours between Friday night and Saturday night. Friday night I had my 10th year high school reunion which was interesting to say the least. Between being sexually assaulted numerous times by my friend Jaime(between her assaulting a few others), trying to get my friend Nihkil to stop buying everyone drinks and when he finally did and just trying to get him to sign his credit card receipt(it was a lot tougher than you'd think), and catching up with people I hadn't seen in years, I had a pretty good time.

I got home around 1am and was up for about a half an hour before going to sleep. Then I decided it'd be pretty awesome to just wake up at 3:30 and be completely wide awake. So I figured I'd take the time to catch up on some tv shows on hulu. I was exhausted all day and even though I planned to take the day off running I felt really good besides being tired and probably would have gone out for a run but I didn't want to be tempted to nap on the sidewalk somewhere.

Saturday night I ended heading up to Jim's because I had a tape with a bunch of old races from college that I wanted to get ripped to start uploading. I had a great time there is always good music playing(often stuff I have never even heard of), good food and drinks and great company. I don't think I've ever not had a great time up there. We watched the last two years of the Mount Washington race and I gotta say I am hooked. I am not sure why the hell this would happen, maybe I just miss the pain of a race and feel like since I haven't raced in years I need to make up for it with what I'd imagine is the most painful race around. I mean I imagine marathons and ultra marathons to be extremely painful, when you look at the Mount Washington race and you see people that are in the top 10 or 20 at mile 1 looking like they had run a marathon already then fell down several flights of stairs and thats only at mile 1. Not to mention the wall that the runners have to climb right before the finish I would wear that the incline is well over 40 degrees.

Random thought: Does anyone else see those Roni Deutch commercials all the time about people with tax or debt issues? I assume it's a scam of some sort scam right, basically a cash 4 gold kinda deal just with tax and debt problems?

I somehow managed to stay awake ever later than the night before. I didn't end up leaving Jim's till 2am and not going to bed till almost 4am only to wake up less than 6 hours later. I rolled out of bed made sure my friends were still down for playing football at 11 then went out for a 3 mile SLOW run. It was really more of just a jog(not that my "runs" can qualify for anything more than a jog)

Now more importantly I've been trying to get my friends together for a game of football for months, finally today we got 8 people together for some 4 on 4 which was pretty good. When we were playing catch warming up for people to show up I kept dropping the ball which earned me the nickname Braylon Edwards, but all was redeemed when we started playing I didn't drop a single ball that was thrown to me(I did catch 2 that I had 1 foot in but couldn't get the second one down) including 5 interceptions 3 of which were returned for TD's.

Anyway all that being said my legs are pretty sore from football this morning which prevented me from going out for another run that wasn't so crappy but I'll deal. I am looking forward to this week, getting back to work and getting some more running in. I will have to start trying to work in more hills into my runs though so I can start to prepare for Mt. Washington. This might also lead to some trips to Lowell for some Christian Hill workouts too since I have never been a great hill runner.

Also I had titled this the LONG weekend since I didn't really sleep much, not that I normally do but it was less than normal.

Snow leopard not to be confused with slow cheetah the RHCP song

So this is a completely pointless post but then again so aren't the rest of my posts. I am not sure if I'm the only one that does this but I end up seeing a lot of pictures in my time online that I think would make great desktop backgrounds and I find myself struggling on whether or not to change it. Anyway I found a new picture this week and I just kinda change my background without really even thinking about it. Anyway so this is the awesome picture and you are obviously jealous and I will give you permission(even though I didn't take the picture...jk I did you're jealous) to use it as your background.

Alright I can't get it to post a reasonable size so here is the link

I got beat up by a girl

So after last nights run I got my first two consecutive runs done in I don't know how long. Pretty surprising also because I ran harder last night than I normally have been, so getting todays run in I was all motivated.

I had sent my friend Michelle a text message last night hoping she'd want to run today to help ensure me actually going for a run instead of deciding I should be lazy instead. She gets back to me this morning open to go running. We headed over to some trails that I had run in before but she had not so she was excited to see some fresh trails and I was happy to show her in hopes that I'd have someone else to make me run more often.

The weather today is not ideal but not bad, my car has the temp at 44 degrees before we started(shorts and long sleeves weather) the run and it was accompanied by some light rain. Almost immediately Michelle goes in front of me to lead the way and then I knew I was in for a tough run. We ended up going for about 50 minutes at somewhere between 8:30-9:00 pace. Really probably 9:00 pace but I wanted to pretend it was faster. By around the time we were likely finishing the first mile of the run my legs started to ache, I knew I was in trouble. I got through the run by just watching the shoes in front of me to see if I had to try to react to any roots, rocks or other impassable(to me) obstacles. I had to stop I think twice(if it was more I might have blacked out) because I was dying at 9 minute pace.

Finally on the way back I knew I was close to being done but I couldn't stop just staring at the shoes in front of me I missed the trail back to the car. It wasn't that big of a deal it's not like I couldn't use the extra time but we went back to the trail, then Michelle asked if I'd mind her going an extra 10 to add on because we thought it had only been 38 minutes. Turns out that wasn't the case and she just wanted to really rub it in that I am out of shape.

All in all though it was a good run despite the embarrassment of how out of shape I am but that can't be avoided. If anything it's good for me and will only make me come back quicker.

"if we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living" - Gail Sheehy

Fast with a silent s.

So I've decided to finally get back in the saddle for real this time. Since I've stopped blogging I've started and stopped running probably 4 times. I decided to run tonight after all the thanksgiving festivities, I cramped a little bit but I got in 40 minutes. I was going to go more but my left calf felt like it was about to lock up and since I've had some issues before I figured I'd rather be safe and not take any chances.

I am going to try to get as much running as I can in but anytime I feel like any potential snag could be coming I'm going to just stop and walk it in. Since I have had similar issues before and it's basically stopped my training for example it happened in the spring/summer when I was running with Michelle on the weekends, took me a few months before I started again.