Whoops where did that week go?

Well it was brought to my attention last night that I had gone a week without a post by my only reader so Jim here is another one for you.  I haven't updated it because I guess I really haven't had much to say.  I have been running though actually had a great run on Wednesday night.  6.7 miles at 7:36 pace definitely the best run I've had so far since getting back into it.  It's a lot nicer now that my runs over at the lake I'm not dying at the end of one lap and debating on if I should try for the second.  I am still going to do a few one lap runs and take it easy on days to hopefully avoid injury.  I think that is one positive about my laziness is I've gotten plenty of rest over the past month or so but I am still improving which is nice.  No calf issues yet and I have wondered if I am just lucky so far or if maybe it happens in the hot weather solely because I don't hydrate enough anymore at least when it's hot.  I drink plenty of water but I don't think as much as when I was in real good shape.

Anyway I will try to keep the posts more up to date but I still update my running log so it can always be checked to see if I am actually running.

Staying on Track

Last night I did another short run, 3.43  my legs were still feeling fatigued from the previous two runs.  I think the snow/ice has taken it's toll just making it a little bit more difficult to run and it's now catching up with me.  I am undecided if I am going to take today off yet. I will probably try to go another 3 or 4 miles which is behind the schedule I want to be at but still it's a run that I'd be getting in.  

Wakefield Winters

So New England winters can be annoying when it comes to running.  I don't overall mind it, I have a bigger problem with the town I live in and their lack of clearing any sidewalks.  Considering how narrow the roads are to begin with it makes it pretty difficult to run safely at night.  So most of my winter running as long as their is snow covering the sidewalks will be done in Wakefield.  Not that it's really a problem it's not too far away and since in the nicer months in the cases I do end up running I don't normally run there because there are better options so I don't get too sick of it during the winter.

Well since it is now 3:30 in the morning, I should say that Monday(no longer yesterday) I ran the lake with Jim Johnson and got in 2 laps which totaled 7 miles.  We ran it in just over 54 minutes which isn't too bad of a pace for me.  I felt awful starting out, Jim had shown up early to do a quick lap before I got there so he was warmed up well and going quicker than I would have liked for the first half of the first lap.  I paid for that the rest of the run.

Tonight(well last night since it was 10 hours ago)  I headed back to the lake to take an easy lap around, and from my start and finish point it's 3.4 miles.  I felt pretty weak at the start of the run, but I also felt loose.  I didn't need to warm up to run a quicker than normal pace but I didn't feel like I could sustain it very long.  Instead of trying to hold myself back I just went with it and figured I'd see what happens.  I covered the 3.4 in 25:21 which is 7:21 pace I think, either way without checking back at previous runs I'm pretty sure that is the fastest I've done any run since I've been keeping track again.

Definitely more encouraging information, also despite my lack of running in the recent past I still have managed to start losing weight.  Not that it's really a surprise I was doing regular runs before the holidays hit, but it's nice to see the weight start to come off as I've dropped 3 lbs.  Now All I have to do is keep it up so I can make it back down to the 140 range.  Maybe at that point my shin will stop hurting though I'm not sure if my rolled ankle will be completely healed by then, it doesn't affect anything but I still notice the pain now and again.

As to my yearly goal of getting a minimum of 2,010 miles in I'm certainly behind after the missed days.  A total of 17.66 right now when I should be at 27.5.  I figured I'd start off behind considering I'll be doing 3 mile short runs instead of 5 but still i've missed more days than I should have.  It shouldn't be an issue to make up seeing how I'd like to get up to 70 miles per week by the spring which should be easily doable.  If that is actually accomplished I'd be caught up rather quickly.

New Year Shmoo(Is that spelled right?) Year

So today is January 1st 2010, the first day of my challenge for myself to see how long it takes me to run 2,010 miles.  I made a post about it before here.  I am not going to go into the details of my day but it started off pretty crappy and ended pretty good.  I didn't go running until 9pm which is probably why I am writing this at midnight and I feel like it's maybe 9 or 10 instead.

I did a longish run today at least for me at the moment, 7.23 miles is what it was mapped out to be.  I went slow partially due to wanting to and I was also kind of forced to, there was still an inch or so of snow on just about all the sidewalks which made it slippery especially going up hills.  I ran for a total of 59:37 which comes out to like 8:15 per mile much slower than runs were at least before the holidays and my laziness of not running.

So not that I will average that per day, hopefully it's more for the entire year but if I average that out for 6 days a week it would take 46 weeks to hit the 2,010 mark.  Anyway stay tuned and keep track on the widget on the side that keeps track of the running.  I may not always write a blog entry every day but I will update the widget to keep track of each run.  I also map each route with mapmyrun.com.

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.