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.