Ran An Errand

I headed out today around 5:15 PM. A bit late but I wanted to get the run in, and I had a craving for crusty bread with our pasta so I ran to Trader Joe's about 2 miles away with a little bag over my shoulder to buy a loaf of bread. I dashed into the store, grabbed a baguette, tossed it in the bag and headed home. I literally ran an errand.

Since today is Ash Wednesday and we're now in Lent I was observing the stricture, and will continue to do so for the next 39 days, of fasting between meals. I actually bonked on my run a bit. I was shaky and hungry over the last half. I'm not a huge snacker but I do graze throughout the day to keep some calories coming in and it's amazing what a difference they make and how different I felt without them. I was ravenous at dinner.

Final thing, I got this link over Twitter to this article "Why runners usually make great employees." Great article, and very true, I think.

Stretch?

Some interesting food for thought on stretching, or not stretching. I got this from a guy I follow on twitter.

Mark The Date

May 24, 2009.

Vermont City Marathon.

I just signed up.

Pushing Up

So, I haven't run since Sunday. I'm being a bit lazy, battling the morning darkness and generally just lounging around right now. I did take the opportunity today, however, to do my push-up test for the 100 Push-ups Challenge. I did 14 of them -- not great but not bad, so that will be my baseline. Friday I'll start the regimen. I'll run tomorrow -- I'm feeling the itch.

Here's info on the Jolly Jaunt that I mentioned in a comment yesterday, if anybody is interested. It takes place Saturday 6 December, 2008 at Boston Common. The distance is 5K and it benefits Special Olympics. It might be a good thing to shoot for, keep us training through the fall. I'm going to sign up. From the look of the picture on their site it's not going to be a PR 5K -- it's pretty crowded.

Finally, I have set a new goal for myself for 2009, but I'm going to try implement/finish it this year. While writing yesterday's post I realized that I've competed in at least one event each month since May of this year: Vermont City Marathon (26.2 miles May), Squirrel Run & Boston Chase Corporate Challenge (5 miles & 3 miles respectively, June), Hometown 4th of July RR ( 5K July), Falmouth RR ( 7 miles, Aug.), Hale Triathlon (Sept.), Cape Cod Marathon Relay (6 miles, Oct.). So, I'll do the Jolly Jaunt in December, and hopefully a Turkey Trot in November. Not bad, and many of these races could easily become events on my calendar so that makes it easier to run and plan.

Another Coffee Cup

"Greetings from Falmouth!
This is the first in a series of e-mails we will be sending to runners registered to run in this year's CIGNA Falmouth Road Race."

I just found out that I got into this year's Falmouth Road Race. I can count on a new coffee cup for my collection -- part of the shwag bag is a coffee mug and my goal is to have a service of 12 (at least). Last year's broke so . . . It's shaping up to be a good summer/fall. It's time to return to consistency.

Good Read

Despite missing my window this morning I'm still going to post. This is a good blog post from Dean Karnaze's blog about a run he's done across the Gobi Desert . . .

It's about the experiential nature of running and just being in the moment, embracing the run and the setting. It's a good read.

Notes From The Edge

Lots of Thinking

So . . . I've been sitting around a lot and thinking. Not running much, not motivated to do so even though I've got 26.2 miles all at once, in my future. I get bursts of motivation but they fade. See, I'm in a weird spot: I'm between gigs; Mrs. A is busy as anything so I'm being Mr. Mom and there is no rhythm, for me anyway to the domestic day. I am definitely a creature of habit, and rhythm. I need badly to get back to work, to eat up some time and get me on a schedule again so that I use my time more wisely.

As far as motivation, I'm not sure what my issue is. I think it's tied into the out- of-work-thing. It's draining to be unemployed and even if I'm not spending all day job searching it's always in my head and it's exhausting. I've got a couple of really good leads and I'm hopeful that I can nail something down, soon. Also on the motivation front something hit me last evening after returning from a meeting: I'm tired of my current state of running mediocrity. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, I've been licking the lollipop of mediocrity a bit too much and I'm on the verge of sucking. I can't have that. I'm going out today when Mrs. A gets back from her meeting -- three or four, just to get out. It's cold and the wind is honking (to use an old sailing term), but I'll get something in.

I also just read a post on a blog that I discovered today (through another blog I follow) called the Art of Manliness. The article is the Warrior's Guide to True Manliness, and it's terrific -- read the article, but here are the paragraph heading from the four meat-of-the-article paragraphs:

• Master Your Body


• Use Death as your Guide


• Choose the Path with Heart


• Fight Every Battle as if it was Your Last

I'm looking for anything that I can right now, and this seems like a pretty good start. Thanks for hearing me out, I'm just trying to get my head on straight and get into this again.

Seaside Eleven

Sunday, we visited PR and his family and I stepped out for a run of 11.25 miles. I covered the distance in 1:40. I stopped at the turn-around for about 5 minutes to stretch and eat a Cliff Bar. My legs were sore from the previous day's, hilly trek. Yesterday's run was fairly tame, mostly flat, but the scenery was beautiful -- through sea side woods with some spectacular views of the ocean as well as some amazing real estate. It was a new run for me in a new place

I'm approaching this training a little differently. My body and my mind are different than they were nearly four years ago when I last trained for a 'thon. I'll walk a bit if I feel like it -- though not much, 30-40 second intervals to swig some Gatorade -- I'll stop for a bit at the turn around to charge up, stretch, whatever. I'm eating more when I run too -- I went out light yesterday, but I carried a pair of Cliff's, 24 ozs of Gatorade, and my cell phone.

I read Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes last fall, and while he's running ultras, that book really hammered home that you need to put in calories as you take them out. My ankle was killing me afterwards, and I jammed it up a bit while stepping off the road to let a car pass -- it sank in some soft pine needles. The injury is another thing I'm watching, and something that makes this training different. My ankle hurts, and my calf above the ankle hurts -- almost like there's a compensation injury brewing . . . I really focus on my stride and try to keep it the same on both legs, but a bio-mechanics expert I'm not. I'm going to do some stretching today of my legs and my ankle and hope to work it out.

A thing that was hammered home on yesterday's run was how important the in-between runs are. I noticed that in previous weeks I'm not as sore post-long-run when I do the weekday runs as I am today having missed the two short ones this past week. I missed them largely because of weather, so it's not like I was lazing, but it's important to run them. It's all about the process, embrace the process.

Finally, towards that end, I'm also going to try and write more about the process, and the details. We get a lot of visitors to this site, not just us, and I think that it will be interesting to see if they stick longer and comment more if we include more nitty-gritty and info-share. It might be cool to see the conversation expanded in the comments and help to make this thing even more useful than just a motivator -- it is web 2.0 after all.

Endurance Event

Below is a sampling of the 2008 Krispy Kreme Challenge in Raleigh, NC. Run two miles. Get a dozen donuts. Eat them all. Run back to the start/finish line. Do it in one hour or less. How exactly does one train for this?



I found this on a site that I've been following off an on for a while -- Big Arm Woman.

I need to get out today, but the weather is nasty . . .

Cool Site

I found a cool site today: Map My Run.com.

I know that we have Google pedometer linked here, and it's very cool, but this one is nice too. Map my Run is quite a bit more slickly built atop the Google Maps API. You can leave notes on the route that appear when you print, mark things like water, toilets etc. you can also share the route, search other folk's routes and one of the coolest things of all is the elevation feature. Enjoy.

I was supposed to have run today but was lazy. I have a lunch meeting today so I can't go at lunch -- too bad. I've go to go tomorrow, regardless, so it will be up before the light and on the roads, hopefully. I'm really struggling with the winter morning runs. I was hoping they'd be easier, but the ankle injury set me back and it's tough to get out there right now . . . I need to build some momentum.

CC Long Run

OK, so it's Wednesday, 9/19. Phat raises a good question:

What time on Saturday, 9/22?

I checked the weather and it's supposed to be in the mid-70s on Saturday. I say let's go at 7:30 or 8:00 AM. Thoughts?

A Couple of Good Articles

Great article.

Coffee, anybody?

Cape Cod Marathon Relay Team

I've signed up for a Cape Cod Marathon relay team. We're in and I've included a bunch of you on the team. VTR is running the whole thing. The folks from this site who are listed on the team are:

Runner's Hye
Bennu
Phat
Agricola

I included someone else just to fill in the fifth spot but he won't run because he doesn't run but I had his work address and so signed him up. I used everybody's work addresses. There's an open spot for anybody else who wants to join. The date of the run is Sunday, 10/28. We will run 5 legs varying in length between 3 and 6 miles (approximately). Details are here.

LDT Validation?

The Wall Street Journal (hard-copy)had an interesting article in yesterday's Personal Journal Section about the effects of social networks on peoples' weight gain. The study found that weight gain in one individual within a socially linked network can lead to weight gain for other members of the same network. They found this to be true even among people who live one thousand miles apart and see each other but once a year. The researchers described this networked weight gain as a "social contagion."

The research team is considering exploring whether or not networks function in the same way for weight loss and healthy habits. They believe that there is a positive correlation as well, and cite Weight Watchers and an experiment in a county in North Carolina where 63% of the population is obese and 150 folks in one town lost weight, together -- 1,450 pounds in ten weeks (10lbs/person/week).

The article ended by stating that some of the people whom they interviewed who had become overweight together also lost weight together when one of the network members decided to do so. There is a powerful sociological impulse to look at connections and both model and then validate your behavior through them.

See, Long Distance Training is onto something and we didn't need to spend millions of dollars to prove a point. Keep running/riding, and keep blogging.

Hustle

Great quote from a great article on ESPN:

"It doesn't take talent to compete. It doesn't take talent to hustle. Play hard and have fun."

-- Newbury College, Head Baseball Coach, Greg Sullivan (23 yrs. old)

May Day

Time: 27:03
Avg HR: 154
Peak HR: 177
Distance: 3.3 miles
Start Time: 6:59 AM
Training Effect: 4.4
Temp: mid-40s

What a nice morning for a run. I wore shorts, and a couple of poly-pro shirts, my hat and some gloves -- I'm a wimp about cold hands on runs. I didn't really need the hat I don't think, but I'd rather have it and not need it . . . I didn't pull it down over my ears and I'm sure I looked a dork, but it served its purpose. I came in near my PR and if I'd hit the button more quickly at the end then I might have equaled it.

Now that I'm solidly beneath 30 minutes for +3 miles I need to stretch out the run more. That's my new goal, just start moving the regular runs out to about 4 miles. It will probably also help me with my pacing which around the 3 mile mark is challenging -- I go out and try and burn it and there's really no need to, it's all about duration. When I trained for New York I could run at 9 minutes/mile and it was just a rhythm that I could hit -- but I usually hit it around 4 - 5 miles. Things got comfortable at that point and I could go for a long time at that pace.

Falmouth Road Race Sign Up
On another note, today starts the registration/lottery for the Falmouth Road Race on August 12. I'm printing out my entry form right now and mailing it in today -- you have until 5/15 to get your form in for consideration.

"Addicted"

This appears to be one of the last spots for Nike Running Shoes to come out of the Wieden & Kennedy (that shop is based in Portland, OR but this ad comes out of their Amsterdam office). Crispin was just awarded the contract and I'm curious to see what they do with it. I wonder if their willfully weird and ironic style will resonate with the runner. The Nike/Wieden partnership was one of the longest running and I think most influential marketing relationships ever. They really caught the essence of sports -- esp. running.

Outrun The Taxman

I know this is a little bit short notice, but this weekend VT Runner and I, and our families, are going to be on Cape Cod. It might be fun to get a Long Distance Training Blog run going mid-Cape on Saturday or Sunday. The one thing I need to caveat is that Sunday may be rough if Saturday night goes the way I hope it does, and it often does, when the fams get together -- so Saturday may be a better day for fitness. We're thinking about doing an hour run, sometime in the afternoon. Let me know if you're interested via email or a comment and I'll work to arrange things.

Kinda Quiet In Here

It appears that folks either aren't running, or aren't blogging but there's not much action up here this week.

Tomorrow I go again, but I figured I'd post something up for discussion sake. In my posts I put a little list of time, HR, distance, temp and Training Effect. The last item is probably unfamiliar to you. For Christmas I received a Suunto T3 Heart Rate Monitor. Like most HR monitors it comes in two pieces -- a wrist watch and a chest belt. The belt broadcasts the heart rate to the watch where it is recorded.

The watch is quite robust and it stores the data -- up to 15 workouts -- and let's you scroll through the data. It counts monthly and weekly totals and it can even be paired with a GPS to record mileage -- that's my next acquisition I think. Anyway, in addition to HR, time, calories (I burn an average of about 450 Kcals/run) it also records the aforementioned Training Effect. Basically, the watch scores each run based on avg/max HR, distance and Kcals on a scale of 1-5. The longer and harder you go, the higher your score -- though if you scroll down the list you'll notice that higher isn't necessarily better based on goals.

You can set your fitness level and the watch will move you up as you perform more. I moved very quickly from level 4-5 but have been on 5 for a while. I need to boost my training and get my workouts up to 5 in order to move to the next level. The levels are based on frequency and length of workout/week. It's a cool tool and I love to run with it. Allegedly, Carmichael Training Systems (the dudes who trained Armstrong) use this watch. I'd totally recommend running with a HR monitor if you don't -- it's nice to see the data from a run and it helps with pacing and helps you to see where you're netting out.

So, get out there and start running (and blogging) the weather's getting nice and you're running out of excuses.

Good Article

Pretty good article here and related to last night's comment to VT Runner. Active.com's emails are pretty good, especially their monthly training note -- I've learned some interesting things. What do you guys read/look at in regards to running?