8.0 miles
8:30 pm
1 hour 8 min.
Low 70's, consistently drizzling
I got back into training pace tonight with a decent-speed 8 miles. It was another great evening for running: cool and dry. I expect they'll continue like this for a while. Summer is drawing up for Fall and you feel it most in the evenings.
It drizzled throughout the entire time, which conveniently kept me hydrated; or rather it kept me from sweating too much and becomming dehydrated. And it wasn't one of those rains that kicks you into gear like you're amping up for the big game, it was a constant drizzle. As opposed to a driving rain, it was a jogging drizzle, if you will (and you will). It kept people largely off the streets and lakeshore, so the lakeshore path was almost entirely empty, which is exactly how I like it.
I felt really good after the run and continued feeling good all night at work. I feel like I'm over my little break. Next run is for distance.
18 miles, here I come.
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Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
A few weeks off was a bad idea...
4.0 mi.
35 minutes
Upper 70s
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After my hiatus from training for a marathon only a little over a month from race date, and subsequent training restart a few days ago, the muscle stiffness had set in pretty deep. Once you've been running for about 3-5 hours a week for a few months, the muscles get used to the abuse. I was amazed at how quickly that went away. Two days after what seemed like an easy-ish 6 miles, it felt suddenly like I had run a tough 15 with no stretching.
It pained me to think of running, but that's life as an idiot who signed up for a marathon.
I recently rewatched a thriller from 1978 with Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, and the guy from Jaws, called "Marathon Man." I originally saw the last part of it when I had mono in high school and watched anything and everthing on TV. I wanted to see if it would be as interesting to someone who didn't have mono, but was running a marathon. Turns out it has surprisingly little to do with running except that Dustin Hoffman runs away from the bad guys, and it's not really interesting unless you're too tired to change the channel. But there's an early scene where Dustin's trying to get a girl and chases after her (running) and tells her he twisted his ankle but isn't limping because "when you race for 26 miles you don't give into pain." I took inspiration from this asinine movie, and I ran. So I thank Dustin Hoffman today.
Here's the trailer, and in case you were wondering: yes, I do run shirtless and in pajama pants. It helps me draw more inspiration from the character. And I think on race day, I'll imagine I'm running from a safety-crazed torturing Nazi dentist Laurence Olivier.
35 minutes
Upper 70s
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After my hiatus from training for a marathon only a little over a month from race date, and subsequent training restart a few days ago, the muscle stiffness had set in pretty deep. Once you've been running for about 3-5 hours a week for a few months, the muscles get used to the abuse. I was amazed at how quickly that went away. Two days after what seemed like an easy-ish 6 miles, it felt suddenly like I had run a tough 15 with no stretching.
It pained me to think of running, but that's life as an idiot who signed up for a marathon.
I recently rewatched a thriller from 1978 with Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, and the guy from Jaws, called "Marathon Man." I originally saw the last part of it when I had mono in high school and watched anything and everthing on TV. I wanted to see if it would be as interesting to someone who didn't have mono, but was running a marathon. Turns out it has surprisingly little to do with running except that Dustin Hoffman runs away from the bad guys, and it's not really interesting unless you're too tired to change the channel. But there's an early scene where Dustin's trying to get a girl and chases after her (running) and tells her he twisted his ankle but isn't limping because "when you race for 26 miles you don't give into pain." I took inspiration from this asinine movie, and I ran. So I thank Dustin Hoffman today.
Here's the trailer, and in case you were wondering: yes, I do run shirtless and in pajama pants. It helps me draw more inspiration from the character. And I think on race day, I'll imagine I'm running from a safety-crazed torturing Nazi dentist Laurence Olivier.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Back from hiatus...
5.8 mi.
8:30pm
45 min., low 70s
So I took a couple days off, whaduvit?
After my last big run a few weeks ago, I was finally finished with school for the summer. I was tired and didn't want to push it after having emphatically crossed the halfway mark in my distances. So I said to myself a few days after that I'd give it another day's rest before running again. Then I registered for school and started a week's worth of blowing cash on Truman College and their cronies. That made me feel mostly like throwing up and punching things, not running. Then I finished up an 8 day work week and crashed for the weekend, after which school started. This brings us up to today's run. I just finished up my first few days of classes and now that my schedule is tight again, I feel I'm able to cram in some running.
I've always been more or less useless when not busy. Whether its the product of TV, the government, terrorists, an overactive lazy gland, or just a true appreciation of pondering and experiencing nothing whatsoever, I do not know. But the more open my schedule gets, the less I am capable of. This helps to explain the deficits in my early college career (i.e. coming off a lifelong daily soccer routine, activities-ensconsed high school, and summer jobs to an environment with no work and just a few classes periodically througout the week with teachers who barely care if you're there or not--but I digress).
But the opposite seems to also be true: the busier I become, often, the more efficient I become, provided I have the appropriate support tactics from Nicki, which include a lot of understanding, love, and--crucially--making sure I eat more that just Cheetos and Redbull.
So I've started school again and made a copious schedule of events in my life, which includes running. It's on the schedule, so I'll feel obligated to do it. Plus, the more hectic things get, the better it feels to zone out and take a long walk. The only difference is that the walk is really long, and you're not walking, and you sweat a lot. I'm actually looking forward to these big distances coming up.
So I took the run that was in my schedule that I had made a few days before. "8:30p9:30p 6 miles," I wrote. And so it was. All hail the mighty schedule!
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8:30pm
45 min., low 70s
So I took a couple days off, whaduvit?
After my last big run a few weeks ago, I was finally finished with school for the summer. I was tired and didn't want to push it after having emphatically crossed the halfway mark in my distances. So I said to myself a few days after that I'd give it another day's rest before running again. Then I registered for school and started a week's worth of blowing cash on Truman College and their cronies. That made me feel mostly like throwing up and punching things, not running. Then I finished up an 8 day work week and crashed for the weekend, after which school started. This brings us up to today's run. I just finished up my first few days of classes and now that my schedule is tight again, I feel I'm able to cram in some running.
I've always been more or less useless when not busy. Whether its the product of TV, the government, terrorists, an overactive lazy gland, or just a true appreciation of pondering and experiencing nothing whatsoever, I do not know. But the more open my schedule gets, the less I am capable of. This helps to explain the deficits in my early college career (i.e. coming off a lifelong daily soccer routine, activities-ensconsed high school, and summer jobs to an environment with no work and just a few classes periodically througout the week with teachers who barely care if you're there or not--but I digress).
But the opposite seems to also be true: the busier I become, often, the more efficient I become, provided I have the appropriate support tactics from Nicki, which include a lot of understanding, love, and--crucially--making sure I eat more that just Cheetos and Redbull.
So I've started school again and made a copious schedule of events in my life, which includes running. It's on the schedule, so I'll feel obligated to do it. Plus, the more hectic things get, the better it feels to zone out and take a long walk. The only difference is that the walk is really long, and you're not walking, and you sweat a lot. I'm actually looking forward to these big distances coming up.
So I took the run that was in my schedule that I had made a few days before. "8:30p9:30p 6 miles," I wrote. And so it was. All hail the mighty schedule!
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Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Fourteen and foot math...
14.7 mi.
Not sure how long
Nice day, low 70's.
I did almost 15 miles today. It was a relatively uneventful, nice run. I did a normalish route that took me down, then up the lake, then west to the river and back east across the Wilson bridge in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood.
At one point--and I'm sorry to lay this on you, kids, but it's just a fact of running such ridiculous distances--I had the rumbly tummy and had to stop at a graciously-located city park building to use the bathroom. I had never considered knocking on someone's door to use the bathroom before today. I guess there's a first time for everything.
But the run went well. And I felt pretty good afterwards, because I just recently started running on new shoes. The Team to End AIDS crew suggested we get new shoes, if we were going to, a month-and-a-half before the race to properly break them in. The idea is that it's bad to run a long distance on a shoe that your foot hasn't gotten to know a bit better. So I sprang for some new shoes the other week, and boy are my feet not tired. I got these Asics that are specifically build for "pronators" or people who tend to run on the outside part of the foot.
My bow-legged, hip-displaced legs lead my feet to this very condition, which doesn't bother me, but shows over time in my running shoes.
------------------>
That funny wear pattern is on the outside of my left heel. The treads of these shoes were fully intact at the beginning of my training.
At the orientation to the Team to End AIDS training program, they gave us some facts about running and the foot which made me think twice about buying a second pair of running shoes in the span of under a year--something I've never ever done before. They noted that when running, the each footfall places nearly 2 1/2 times your body weight in force on your soles and the bones and ligaments thereof. So for me, that's about 375 lbs. of force on my foot each time it hits the pavement. Stretch that over a mile (for my stride, roughly 4 ft., making 1,320 footfalls per mile), and you're looking at 495,000 lbs. of force on your two feet or 247,500 lbs. of force on each foot. And that's just one mile!
Since Americans aren't good at math, I'll bring this equation to completion for you. So today, I ran 14.7 mi., putting 3,638,250 lbs. of force on each foot today, making a total of over 7.2 million lbs. of force on the old ground-pounders today. It'll be about 13 million lbs. on race day. And that's a lot of coconuts. Now, bearing in mind that the feet are just composed of 26 of some of the smaller bones in your body, a bunch of ligaments, a few muscles and nerves, a heap of skin at the bottom and couple toenails, the amount of pressure they can take is incredible.
So you'll understand why I went out and dropped some dough on new kicks when I'm broke as a joke. And after the run today, my feet felt supported and loved, as if the new shoes had made them chicken noodle soup when they were home sick from school. And come race day, I'm hoping they'll feel roughly as though the shoes had at least cheered for them when a dozen school bully's beat them up at recess. I think that's the best I can hope for.
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Not sure how long
Nice day, low 70's.
I did almost 15 miles today. It was a relatively uneventful, nice run. I did a normalish route that took me down, then up the lake, then west to the river and back east across the Wilson bridge in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood.
At one point--and I'm sorry to lay this on you, kids, but it's just a fact of running such ridiculous distances--I had the rumbly tummy and had to stop at a graciously-located city park building to use the bathroom. I had never considered knocking on someone's door to use the bathroom before today. I guess there's a first time for everything.
But the run went well. And I felt pretty good afterwards, because I just recently started running on new shoes. The Team to End AIDS crew suggested we get new shoes, if we were going to, a month-and-a-half before the race to properly break them in. The idea is that it's bad to run a long distance on a shoe that your foot hasn't gotten to know a bit better. So I sprang for some new shoes the other week, and boy are my feet not tired. I got these Asics that are specifically build for "pronators" or people who tend to run on the outside part of the foot.
My bow-legged, hip-displaced legs lead my feet to this very condition, which doesn't bother me, but shows over time in my running shoes.
------------------>
That funny wear pattern is on the outside of my left heel. The treads of these shoes were fully intact at the beginning of my training.
At the orientation to the Team to End AIDS training program, they gave us some facts about running and the foot which made me think twice about buying a second pair of running shoes in the span of under a year--something I've never ever done before. They noted that when running, the each footfall places nearly 2 1/2 times your body weight in force on your soles and the bones and ligaments thereof. So for me, that's about 375 lbs. of force on my foot each time it hits the pavement. Stretch that over a mile (for my stride, roughly 4 ft., making 1,320 footfalls per mile), and you're looking at 495,000 lbs. of force on your two feet or 247,500 lbs. of force on each foot. And that's just one mile!
Since Americans aren't good at math, I'll bring this equation to completion for you. So today, I ran 14.7 mi., putting 3,638,250 lbs. of force on each foot today, making a total of over 7.2 million lbs. of force on the old ground-pounders today. It'll be about 13 million lbs. on race day. And that's a lot of coconuts. Now, bearing in mind that the feet are just composed of 26 of some of the smaller bones in your body, a bunch of ligaments, a few muscles and nerves, a heap of skin at the bottom and couple toenails, the amount of pressure they can take is incredible.
So you'll understand why I went out and dropped some dough on new kicks when I'm broke as a joke. And after the run today, my feet felt supported and loved, as if the new shoes had made them chicken noodle soup when they were home sick from school. And come race day, I'm hoping they'll feel roughly as though the shoes had at least cheered for them when a dozen school bully's beat them up at recess. I think that's the best I can hope for.
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Saturday, August 6, 2011
Running in the country...
6.0 miles
Upper 70s
7am
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Running in the country is very boring. This was no Chicago lake path. It was more a country road that happened to be ajacent to one of the Great Lakes. Very different. Though traffic was much lighter on this road than in Chicago's lake path, it was very straight and there's a lot less to look at. On runs like that, I get into my head and my inner older brother comes out. This time, it felt good to push myself. I made good time, though I don't remember how long I went (55 minutes?)
We were camping at a neat little resort on Lake Eerie just outside Sandusky while on a vacation to Cleveland where my good friend from Marquette, Mike (though everyone knew him as Noser) got married this weekend. The wedding was great. Got to hang out with some college people I haven't seen in 5 or 6 years. I was trying to force myself the whole weekend not to sing the Cleveland Promotional Video song, out of respect for my friend to no avail. The part of town we were, on Euclid at Playhouse Square where the reception was, was actually really nice-looking, different than the videos make it out to be. Midwest love! See below (Caution: dirty words...):
and...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM
Upper 70s
7am
View Larger Map
Running in the country is very boring. This was no Chicago lake path. It was more a country road that happened to be ajacent to one of the Great Lakes. Very different. Though traffic was much lighter on this road than in Chicago's lake path, it was very straight and there's a lot less to look at. On runs like that, I get into my head and my inner older brother comes out. This time, it felt good to push myself. I made good time, though I don't remember how long I went (55 minutes?)
We were camping at a neat little resort on Lake Eerie just outside Sandusky while on a vacation to Cleveland where my good friend from Marquette, Mike (though everyone knew him as Noser) got married this weekend. The wedding was great. Got to hang out with some college people I haven't seen in 5 or 6 years. I was trying to force myself the whole weekend not to sing the Cleveland Promotional Video song, out of respect for my friend to no avail. The part of town we were, on Euclid at Playhouse Square where the reception was, was actually really nice-looking, different than the videos make it out to be. Midwest love! See below (Caution: dirty words...):
and...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
So long to the Maestros...
4.1 miles
34 min.
100° heat index (until I got there and the temperature dropped a good 15 degrees suddenly, a harbinger of the game's outcome)
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Ran myself to the playoffs tonight. That's right playoffs...for kickball. (I'm only capable of playing kicking-based games.) And no, our team did not win. And yes, we were knocked out of the playoff race by a fancypants bald old man who thought he was (insert good MLB pitcher's name) and pitched a spinning fast pitch that was practically unkickable. And no, I'm not bitter, but for a game as inane and childish as KICKball, you'd think a team would want to let the game focus on kicking and not pitching. Otherwise, the kids would have called it throwball or pitchball or fat-idiot-fancy-spinball. The other team clearly had lost their inner kids.
So to celebrate the Maestros' still vibrant inner kids, we went and got drunk, just like little kids do.
Oh yea, the run was fine.
34 min.
100° heat index (until I got there and the temperature dropped a good 15 degrees suddenly, a harbinger of the game's outcome)
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Ran myself to the playoffs tonight. That's right playoffs...for kickball. (I'm only capable of playing kicking-based games.) And no, our team did not win. And yes, we were knocked out of the playoff race by a fancypants bald old man who thought he was (insert good MLB pitcher's name) and pitched a spinning fast pitch that was practically unkickable. And no, I'm not bitter, but for a game as inane and childish as KICKball, you'd think a team would want to let the game focus on kicking and not pitching. Otherwise, the kids would have called it throwball or pitchball or fat-idiot-fancy-spinball. The other team clearly had lost their inner kids.
So to celebrate the Maestros' still vibrant inner kids, we went and got drunk, just like little kids do.
Oh yea, the run was fine.
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