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