Home Route Advantage

For the past 2 weeks now I have had company for my long Saturday runs. Last week my buddy, who got me running in the first place, came down and ran my route with me. Yesterday I went and ran his normal route with him. I discovered something interesting about running your own route than someone elses. Running on your own turf is easier than running on someone elses. I suppose this sounds like a no brainer, but for me I realized I was able to run my 10 mile route with much less effort than it took me to run his 10 mile route. Maybe its because I knew how long we still had to go and I could prepare my mind for what was coming next, I'm not 100% sure why I had a more difficult time with his route than he did and vica versa last week. This also brought to mind the 10K we did months ago. Because I had run a practice run the Monday before I knew what to expect for the day of the race and it helped me prepare my mind for what was coming. Life is that way as well. When we are prepared for certain events, whatever they are, we handle those situations better than if we are unprepared. However, there are many things that come up that we are not prepared for, but, like in running, as long as we are doing our best in training, we can overcome those obstacles when they arise. Like not knowing what mile we are at and continuing to run 6 hills in 10 miles (which was my buddy's route).

In any event, this week was a good one. I ran 4 times: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning. Monday was a 6 miler. Tuesday I decided I might need to up my weekly mileage so I got out for a quick 3 miler before work. Since this was the first time I'd really run back-to-back I don't think my legs were quite used to it. Even today I have a little pain/soreness in my knee and ankle, but after stretching and warming up that first mile, it goes away. I took Wednesday off and was back at it Thursday for another 6 miles. This one, was accompanied by rain. After 2 miles it started to sprinkle and then, a decent rain developed by mile 3. I decided to keep going as it was just a little rain. I was afraid we might get rained out Saturday as storms passed through Friday night, but by the morning all the storms were gone. So my total mileage this week is 25. That's probably my highest mileage to date. Next week we'll see if I can manage go up my 10 miler to 11. Only one way to find out. Gotta run!

Back on Track

I'm getting caught back up here in more ways than one. I missed posting last week so now you get 2 posts from me today. Also, while I'm not yet caught up to where I should be in my training I made a good step today in getting back on track. Over the past 2 months now I have been trying to run 10+ miles on my Saturday runs, but have been unable to do so. Today was different. It started earlier this week. Though I wanted to run 6 miles Monday I only had time for a little over 3. Then on Wednesday I was able to run 6 miles and I felt really good about today. It helped that a buddy of mine (who is training with me, though we have never trained together) offered to come down and run a 9-10 miler with me today. While I am used to getting up early during the week to run, my body didn't want to get out of bed today (I have to apologize to my wife and she was the one who woke up to my alarm and in turn woke me up. Sorry about that). Even with my sluggish start to the day we still managed to get out there and run. The first 6 miles were pretty good and as always there is the wall. Luckily the wall wasn't as solid as it could have been so I was able to push through it. I was able to run over 10 miles today. It felt really good (not during the run and especially not at mile 9, but when it was over) and I'm glad I had a buddy to run with as we (well he did and I hope I did for him) encouraged each other to keep going. Thanks ... buddy.

Now that the 10 miler is out of the way, next week is 11 or maybe 12. It's nice that the run is out of the way today so I'm not thinking about it for the rest of the day. Though I already took a cat nap of 10 minutes today, I do feel pretty good. My calves are a little sore, but nothing too bad. Until next week, gotta run.

Just Say No ... to Watermelon

One of the greatest things about summer is watermelon. I have loved this fruit for many years and so far this year I have enjoyed it more so than normal. Maybe because it has been on sale so frequently, or maybe because we've had more occasions this year to purchase them. For whatever the reason in the past month we've had 2 or 3 watermelons in the house. I'm the kind of person that once we cut it open, I have to cut out the entire melon and then save what we don't use in the first helping in the fridge instead of only using the little we need at the time and wrapping the unused part of the melon in foil. Well, the problem with that is the melon inevitably get older and soggy the long it stays in the fridge. So you must consume said melon before it goes beyond the point of no consumption. This then leads to me and the family eating lots of watermelon in a week span. While it is delicious, it does tend to have adverse affects.

Why did I just spend 5 minutes talking about watermelon on my running blog? Well, here's the reason. Over the past several weeks I have been planning to run 12 miles on Saturdays that I end up not reaching for whatever reason (too hot, too tired, not enough running during the week so my body was not ready for a long distance run of 12 miles and other reasons). Just as my previous entries you have seen that I have recommitted to reaching that goal of 12 miles. So last Saturday was going to be the day I achieved that goal. Since there was a party at the house during lunch and early afternoon I did not make it out to run until 7pm. As it turns out, it was a good time to run. The heat of the day was done, there was a nice breeze and all of the kids were in bed. I start out my run and I'm feeling good. The pace was good, my breathing was steady and my muscles were cooperating. This is where the first part of this entry comes into play. The day before this run and the day of I had consumed many cubes of watermelon. Though I realize my bowels might have issues with it eventually, at the moment everything seemed fine. At a mile and a half I began to feel the affects. My first thought was to push through it and it seemed to work for about a half of mile, but at mile 2 it was clear that unless I found a restroom and FAST I was going to be in trouble. It didn't help Looking back I should have stopped at a store and used their facilities, but in my mind I thought I was too sweaty for such a public display of bodily functions. So I decided to walk home (another mile and a half). At certain points I started feeling good again so I began to jog, but after a minute of that I had to stop and walk as it seemed the bouncing motion of jogging only aggrivated my condition. So I walked on. Eventually, I walked through a park as a short cut to my house when I realized the park had open restrooms. Even though, I was only 2 minutes away from home, my body said, "You are NOT going to make it home!" Thankfully the door was unlocked.

Though this experience could have ended very badly, it did teach me a VERY important lesson. When training for a half marathon, just say NO to watermelon. Gotta run.

Stay Focused

It has been an interesting few weeks. I intended this blog to keep track of my progress from the start of my training to the half marathon, but over the past few weeks it has been more and more difficult not only to keep on track with my schedule (which I haven't done), but also to keep up with this blog. I have been running during the week, but have not got back to running 12 miles on Saturday. I missed this last week because of the 4th and having friends in town, then the week before it was way too hot to go further than 5 miles. The week before that ... seems like something similar happened, but I don't remember now because I didn't make an entry in this blog. Something happened today as I went out to run that caused me to realize that I need to stay focused on my goal of training to run a half marathon. I was running on a sidewalk next to a main road in my town and I kept checking behind me when I would cross and intersection to make sure the cards behind me weren't turning. Well, during one intersection I turned my head to check the traffic and I lingered a little too long. As I started to turn my head back to the front, my foot caught the edge of some uneven pavement and I began to fall face first onto the asphalt. I did some spectacular acrobatics to stay on my feet and I'm pretty sure I looked ridiculous, but I was able to keep from skinning my legs, arms and face by staying upright. Since there was loads of traffic I wiped my head as if to say, that was a close one. Apparently a car agreed and honked their horn. Out of pride I didn't turn around to acknowledge the horn honking, but just kept running.

So as fun as that event was I thought about this as I continued in my run. You have to stay focused out while you are running or you could fall flat on your face or be run over by a car. Also, this applies to my goals of running as well. I have been letting other things distract me from my goal of running a half marathon so I haven't been as dedicated to my running. With renewed vigor I'll be sticking to my schedule and preparing my body for running in a half marathon in August.

If I may also say this translates into life. Whatever your goal is, you need to keep your focus and not let anything keep you from achieving your goals.