My Achilles is Mad at Me

This past weekend the Hobbit and I thought it would be a good idea to run part of the marathon course. We were to start at the Liberty Lake trail head and run to Mission Park. We thought it we be ~17 miles, turned out to be 16.2. At any rate it was not a very nice morning. The temp wasn't that bad, but when you add rain and wind and shorts.....no gloves and a ball cap. Not the best planning. The run itself went OK though we were chugging along at a pretty good pace ~8:00/mi. until about mile 14. It was at this point I started feeling my Achilles of my left leg. Not a sharp pain like a tear but more of dull constant pain of a strain/generally inflamed tissue. It did help, at first, if I really focused on foot position at the time of foot strike. But towards the end of the run it just plain hurt no matter what I did. Since then I have only been able to run once, 5 miler, and it was uncomfortable from about 2.5 miles. So I've been on the vitamin I and rest and elevation. I have been able to ride my bike some, outside once, which was great. I plan on a short 3 miler in the am when I get off work. If it feels OK I will go a little longer on Sunday. If it is still sore in the am, I'm screwed. It's to close to the race to have a long rest period, I'll begin to lose fitness. The bike and pool will help but I need to run. Keep your fingers crossed.

St. Paddy's 5 Miler

Sunday was not only the St.Paddy's 5 mile race,my 2nd race of the year. But also the last day of my biggest training week so far this year. The race was hard...cold and raining the whole race. To compound the conditions, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Hobbit met me at the hospital when I got off at 0800. We ran from the hospital to the race ~ 5 miles, ok 4.6 miles, in the cold rain. Then we stood around and waited for the race to start, in the rain. Then we ran the race, in the rain. If that wasn't enough I ran back to the hospital, and yes it was still raining. Total for the day just under 15 miles. As for the race I was a little dissappointed. I was 2 minutes slower than last year. My time was 36:21 on my garmin. This year I had a few more mile on my legs leading up to the race. This past week I ran 49 miles and 12 miles on the bike. This same week last year 27 miles, but about 100 miles on the bike as well. All in all I think my progress is ok eventhough my 2 races so far have not had the results I would like. The next big race is Bloomsday I really want to break 50 mins this year. Last year I ran 51:36.
This week is rather ominus in that I have my 1st 20 miler scheduled for Sun. I don't care who you are or how fast you run. 20 miles is a long way and it is always hard!!!
I'll let you know how it goes.

MORE Pictures from Snake River

If only I was in front of everyone. Cool backdrop though.





Here comes the Hobbit, he is #129.





I want you to take a good look at the Hobbit's hands......hmmmm Gloves????, Mittens???? Socks aha! clean socks??? let me just say.... it was his ONLY choice :)

Training is in Full Swing

Now that I have the 1st race of the year out of the way, and have a pretty good feel for were my fitness really is right now. It's now time to pick up the volume. So this week has gone like this. m-8 miles,tu-8 miles(3x1mile@7:05),w-9 miles,th-brick 45 min bike,5 mile run. If all goes well,and so far it is, I will get another 1 hr on the bike and 5 mile run on friday, sat rest. Sunday is the 2nd race of the year, The St Paddy's 5. The beauty here is that I work this weekend so I will work all night then run from the hospital to the race, about 5 miles, then run the race, then run back to the hospital. This will give me a 15 mile run with a fast tempo session in the middle. It will also give me about 50 miles for the week. For me this is a good week. I hope to be able to continue to maintain this volume and increase the bike time and oh yea I may even swim a little too. 9 weeks until the marathon!Shit

Snake River Half Marathon

Well as expected I did not set the world on fire at this years race. I did however do a little better than I expected. First let me set the scene a little. The Hobbit an I left Spokane at 0730, because he was late,again. Then we had to stop because his bowels make most of his decisions. So we get there with 15-20 min. to kill. This time is needed to go through the gym bag and find just the right combination of warmth/wind protection. I had a few options and if you ever run this race you'll want to make sure you have a few options too. It was a about 24 degrees with a biting wind. As it turned out this year we started the race running into the wind. The wind speed was between 10-15 mph with some gusts a little higher. This is just a guess by I've read that for there to be white caps on a body of water you have to have at least 15 mph winds, and I saw white caps. I did run this race caveman style. Which was kind of a pain not really knowing what your splits were. I did asked this guy what time we were at a few times during the race. And they had someone calling out the time at the 1st mile, kind of dumb really, half way would have made sense but 1 mile into a 13 mile race???? at any rate my 1st mile was 7:23. The guy said at 4 miles we were right at 32 at 9 miles ~1:08. From that point on I just ran. The wind was helping now but it had died down quite a bit. But I could feel it pushing me. I was really focusing on my cadence and my breathing. I only got passed by 1 guy on the way back, more about him later. I was trying to constantly reel people in that were out in front of me. With 1 mile left I really started to pick up the pace. If I had to guess I would say the last mile was run at about 6:50 pace. So with about 100 yds to go I passed that guy back that had passed me. However with about 50 ft to go he sprinted back in front of me. I tried to answer but I was to little to late. The clock at the finish shows me crossing at 1:40:22, but they have me listed at 1:40:20, whatever.











oh yea and the Hobbit did beat me, bastard. And we had to stop on the way home too.

13.1 miles fast hmmm

Well with just a few days left until the race. Yesterday I threw in a little speed work on the treadmill. After a mile to warm up @ 8:30 pace I sped up to 7:30 pace and held that for 2 miles. Then I sped up again to 7 min pace for 0.5 miles then 0.5 miles at 6:30 pace. At this point I can say with some certainty that breaking 1:30 for this 1/2 marathon aint happening. Last year I ran 1:37 at this race. This year I'll be happy with 1:45. Well maybe not happy but Since my real goal is the marathon in May I don't want to risk an injury and I think I will be better served by running again maybe 7-8 miles the day after the race. This I won't be able to do if I go balls out. The Hobbit is running pretty good right now so it will suck to get beat AGAIN by the little furry bastard but oh well, eye on the prize.

caveman run

Saturdays long run was nearly a complete caveman run. My garmin was dead, battery does not hold charge as good as it used to. My watch has had a dead battery for about 1 month now, so I never know what day or time it is. The only piece of gagetry I had for 10 miles of running was my Blackberry Storm, ie music. I had worked all night so I was a little tired. Definitely affected my ability to think clearly, otherwise I would have used the GPS in the phone to track the run. Or maybe at least I would have look at the clock to know what time I started. It didn't matter though it was a beutiful morning about 30 degrees and clear skies. I tried to keep my effort comfortably difficult. It felt pretty good but I did miss the pace and time info.

BEEN BUSY,BEEN TRAINING

So I've gotten back into the grove, for the most part. This past week I logged 34 miles with a 15 mile run on Sunday. The HR is a little higher than I would like but it is coming down. The last mile of the 15 miler I was able to hold 7:40 pace. So to put that in prespective though the week prior I ran 21 miles with a long run of 10 miles. So all in all I feel ok for where I'm at right now. The 1st race of the year is next weekend The Snake River Half Marathon. I hope to have a good race but I'm not going to kill myself. This will basically be a fast long training run. Last years race had a brutal head wind for the last half of the race, and no we did not have much of a tailwind for the 1st half. The wind really started blowing as we made the turn for home. Hopefully this year it will be dead calm. That's about the only way I'll be able to improve on last years time.
This past week was also a sad week. Jayne's grandma Gladys died. She was 92. She and Jayne were very close and alot alike. Both nearly completly selfless. Jayne spent ~33 hrs baking hundreds of treats that her and her grandma always made. I did dishes and ran to the store. Gladys was a great lady and she will be missed.

GIVE THIS A TRY

"Twenty-One"
20 push-ups/1 sit-up
19 push-ups/2 sit-ups
18 push-ups/3 sit-ups
17 push-ups/4 sit-ups
16 push-ups/5 sit-ups
15 push-ups/6 sit-ups
14 push-ups/7 sit-ups
13 push-ups/8 sit-ups
12 push-ups/9 sit-ups
11 push-ups/10 sit-ups
10 push-ups/11 sit-ups
9 push-ups/12 sit-ups
8 push-ups/13 sit-ups
7 push-ups/14 sit-ups
6 push-ups/15 sit-ups
5 push-ups/16 sit-ups
4 push-ups/17 sit-ups
3 push-ups/18 sit-ups
2 push-ups/19 sit-ups
1 push-up/20 sit-ups

OK, Get off my ASS

Man, Between the Hobbit and Hop Along Fraser I can't get any slack. So I'm up and moving. 7 mi. on M,4 on Tues(intervals), 5 on We, with the Hobbit. And I will run 7-8 today and hopefully a little bike time. I start back to work tonight so,as is always the case, training over the next 7 days will be the challenge. With the Snake river half marathon coming up in a few weeks I need to ramp up pretty fast. It would take a perfect day for me to run better than last year, with my late start this year, but I'll give it my best shot.

Getting fat,new tv,cold weather,no skiing

Well the title pretty much sums up my life lately, oh yea and working my 2 jobs. I did get a badass 52" tv. The picture is incredible. Can't wait to watch the super bowl on it. I just hope the game is a good one. I have ridden my bike on the trainer a couple of times, still hate that. This week was shitty for running. I still have not got into the groove. I have to figure it out pretty soon ~18 wks until the marathon.
I also got some new skis this week. Skied Thursday and it was awful. Icey! we have not had any precip since the 1st of the month. My buddy Pat and I are going to Salt Lake next Thursday for a couple of days of good skiing, I hope they get dumped on.
I will post some pictures from Alta next week.

And it is Snowing AGAIN

We are supposed to get another 5-8 inches tonight. We have more snow here than the ski areas do. It made for an interesting but slow run today, The Hobbit and I ran 6 miles, nice and easy.

A NEW LINK

I just added a new link to Heather and Trevor Wurtele's page. There is a lot of good info so check it out. Ironman triathlon tips

2009, Here We Go

Well it's been a while since I've felt like writing anything on here, Mainly because I have not had anything new to say. Our hunting trip a few weeks ago fell victim to the weather,as has almost everything in the northwest. We had to abandon our hunt to ensure that we would be able to get out of the mountains that we were camping in due to drifting snow 4ft deep in places. We really only got to hunt about 6 hours total. We spent almost as much time putting our camp together and taking it apart as we spent hunting. But we are hopeful that we will get back down there again. We have the whole month of Jan. But it's also time to ski.
I have only ran a few times over the last few weeks. But I have gone snowshoeing several times. The longest trek was on new years day. Otis and I covered a little over 3 miles in 1 hr 24 min(2.2 mph).I know it doesn't sound like much but my average HR was 134 with a max of 158. So this was basically a real good MAF workout. It also works your legs in some very different ways. You really have to get your feet up, or you will fall on your face. I was sinking 8-10 inches so it's like climbing stairs, except it's flat. Unless of coarse it's not flat then it's uphill and like climbing stairs too..... so it's a double workout. Plus with every step you have the added weight of the snowshoe and any snow that happens to be sticking to or piled up on the snowshoe. This last snow was pretty wet so the extra weight was significant. At least my hip flexors thought it significant. So anyway now that the new year is here and I have blossumed to my normal fighting weight of 185. It's time to get busy and so it begins. I plan on laying out the race schedule over the next couple of weeks. I also started using a workout video series I actually bought for Jayne, called P90x. So far I've done 2 of the workouts and they did kick my ass. I'll keep you posted.

No Motivation

As you have no doubt noticed I have not written anything for a while. Not only have I not written anything but I've also not done much of anything either, but work. My motivation to exercise has been totally in the shitter. I've been running about 1-2 days a week and maybe swimming once every week or 2. Not sure what has me in this funk by I know I will come out of it soon, or I'll have to buy some bigger pants, and I hate buying pants.
The Hobbitt and I are going elk hunting this weekend which is always alot of fun not to mention a good workout. Elk are amazing animals and travel up and down some of the most rugged terrain. And we are hunting with muzzle loaders which means you have to get pretty close to them, < 100 yds, 50 is better. I'm going to wear my garmin to see just how much I climb and how far we walk, I'll let you know next week.
I'll leave you with a quote that should help those of you stressed about the economy.

Most of us miss out on life's big prizes. The Pulitzer. The Nobel.Oscars. Tonys. Emmys. But we're all eligible for life's small pleasures. A pat on the back. A kiss behind the ear. A four-pound bass. A full moon. An empty parking space. A crackling fire. A great meal. A glorious sunset. Hot soup. Cold beer. -- Anonymous

Yes We Can?? Maybe

Wow! what a week!! I would love to go off on some political rant about the power of democracy right now. To offer my support and appreciation for our system of government as a citizen of our great country. The hope of a colorblind society and the dreams of every boy and girl to truly BE anything you want to BE. Even as a republican it's hard to ignore the significance of this past week. However, the problems we face are so great that I'm not sure any amount of optimism can overcome them. I am hopeful though, what other choice is there? Time will tell all.

A brief recap of the vacation would be difficult at best. As this trip was full of blunders. That started when we dropped off our car at the park and ride lot only to realize 5 mins later that I had forgot to lock the car. The guy gave us the option to turn around to lock it or assured us that he would do it for us. We took him at his word. Blunder numero 2 was Alaska Airlines'. They actually had a few on this trip. Starting way back when I booked this trip. It's very frustrating for me to try to plan these trips anymore. You do your best to get as many direct flights as possible you pick the seats you think you want. Always fear full that you will put yourself next to the 300# lady that wears to much perfume, won't shut up and has about 150# of her fat ass is your seat. Or you'll have either the guy with the nagging cough behind you. Or if your really lucky the screaming baby. I went 2 for 3. But you do your best and keep your fingers crossed. Not that it does you much good. In this case I got an email from Alaska air telling me that they had to change my flight selection because they were eliminating the direct flight to LA. Great!! So instead of getting to Cabo at 1:20 pm would will now get their at 5:42 pm, with 3 hour layover in LA. We made the most of the layover by having Jayne's sister meet us at the airport and take us to lunch and meet her new baby, cute kid. Onward to Cabo we go only to discover upon arrival that my luggage did not make the trip with us. Jayne's did but not mine. So by the time we talk to the Mexican rep for Alaska it's 6:30. We finally get to the condo at 7:00, thanks Alaska air. Remember this is day 1 and I have nothing to wear for day 2. So the 1st order of business of day 2 is go buy some board shorts so we could go surfing.
The next major blunder came 2 days later when went scuba diving at Cabo Pulmo. This is a trip we have made several times in the past and has almost always been worth the trip. But not this time, except for the fun we had laughing at the comedy of errors that the day had brought. Including but not limited to a misplaced reservation, a French divemaster that had no idea where he was going, getting stuck in the sand and going on detour through the desert with absolutely no idea where we were going. The following day was to be a deep sea fishing trip. 4 of us opted for the trip including my 2 friends form Indiana that had met us down there, and the Hobbit and me. Everything started out fine, as they usually do. And within about 30 min. Tony had caught a huge dorado. It went right down the shitter from there. The seas were quite rough and it was decided that we go up the coast about 20 miles further to go after some marlin that the crew had heard were biting over the the radio. When we got up there it was unlike anything I had ever seen. There must have been 50 boats within this 1 square mile and it looked like everyone of them were catching marlin. They were jumping all around us. there were even fish jumping that weren't caught. They were flying all over the place. Well except at our boat. It turns out that we had the 2 dumbest fishermen in Mexico. First let me explain something about deep sea fishing in Mexico anyway. You really don't fish, they fish, then if they hook something they give you the pole and you reel it in. So dumb and dumber catch everything but fish. They catch the bottom, a couple of times. They caught each others lines at least twice. Once they even caught the line of someone fishing from another boat and man were they pissed. The little fiasco actually resulted in loosing the pole into the ocean, which I retrieved. As a result the pole retrieval they ended up with about 200 ft of fishing line piled up on the deck of the boat. Now most people would have cut the line and started over but not Curly and Mo they were going to untangle it. While we stood there and watched every fat assed gringo in Mexico catch marlin we did not even have a pole in the water. Needless to say the ride back to the dock was a long ride. I bet they both went home and got out their English to Spanish dictionary and looked up "clusterfuck" because we were saying it alot. Thus ended the first 5 days in Mexico. The next 5 five were great. Filled with lots of sun and surfing, drinks and great food. I think this trip is a perfect illustration of the idea that attitude is everything. This could have been a real disaster of a trip if we would have let it be. But the bottom line is shit happens everywhere to everyone. What are you going to do stay home and whine about it ??? Not me
The Hobbit

Me

Back from Vacation

I just wanted to put some pics on here real quick. I will write about the trip later and post more pics.

Not Done Whinning

Well the good folks at the Portland Marathon were kind enough to give me a time and a place in their race. However the time they gave me does not make much sense to me. As I stated in my earlier post at various point along the course my time,according to my Garmin, did not correspond to times that were being called out by race officials. This, I thought, was due to the fact that the time they were calling out was from the start of the wheelchairs that started 1-1.5 min. before the runners. But when I got to the finish line and my Garmin showed a time of 3:35:01 the clock at the finish showed 3:37:41 which is the time they gave me. If this was the difference between going to Boston or not I would be real pissed and demanding an explanation. But since I choked and this discrepancy did not affect the outcome. I will move on with my life and try to figure out how to fix the problem that cost me.
As Lucho pointed out this is really all I can do at this point.
As I mentioned several times before this race my training had seemed to have stalled. I was getting pretty burnt out and just wanted this race to be over. After basically taking 2 weeks off, the one before the race and the one after. I have a new found fire. I also have a new plan. The reason I expected to better in this race than I did is because my IM marathon was ~4:30. So I figured that if you take away the swim and bike, I should be able run quite a bit faster. But the problem is I also cut out my swim training and cut my bike riding way down and quit riding it altogether in the middle of Aug. This wouldn't have been a problem if I would have added all that training time to running, but I didn't. My IM training had me running about 25-30 miles a week. Prior to Portland I was running ~30-40 miles a week. So I lost about 6 hours a week in aerobic training. I know, what a dumb ass. I won't make that mistake again. As a matter of fact I going to use this little bit of knowledge and I'm going to train like I'm going to do an IM but I'm not. Unlike Lucho I can't take the pounding of 100 miles a week but if I use the time to ride and swim my fitness will be better. So I'm going to sign up for a new race that is starting next spring here in Spokane it too is a Boston qualifier so we shall see. This course is also very familiar to me as I run portions of it all the time. And If you want a flat course this one is actually down hill very slightly the whole way. It's not until May so this gives me plenty of time. I'll also run a few halves over the winter and spring as well. I also hope to go to one of Chuckie V's camps in the spring too. So all in all I'm looking forward to a winter of good training and also some skiing as well. Hope for snow in the mountains. Next week though it's off to Cabo. Jayne and I are headed back to Mexico with our friends and this year we will be joined by my best friend from high school and his girlfriend. Should be a great trip with a lot of diving and surfing and some fishing. Might even manage a hangover or 2 as well.

I Didn't Want to Go to Boston Anyway

Yep, I blew it. I tried real hard and came pretty close but not close enough.
The race started out fine except for the guy bragging over the PA system that it has never rained on race day before, total idiot. By about mile 11 it was poring. But that did not bother me I run in the rain all the time. At that point I was still very confident and was a couple of minutes ahead of goal pace. This continued for most of the remainder of the race. At the half way point I was at 1:40:50 and feeling pretty good. Things started to get tough,as they usually do, at ~ 16 miles. At the 16 mile mark I was at 2:05:08 still on goal. But then came the hill. Now I was told this is a flat course. Bullshit! The hill going up to the steel bridge is a real hill. Not a gradual climb or a gentle slope it's a steep fucking hill. And it's less than convenient at 16.5 miles. Now this is when I start to get confused. As I crossed the bridge and passed the 17 mile mark my GPS had me at 2:13:38. Now according to my gadget I was a over a 1/4 mile a head of were I needed to be. Also I was wearing a pace chart bracelet that was provided by the race pacers that showed that at mile 17 I needed to be at 2:16:18. So at this point based on 2 different systems I was ~2 min 40 seconds in front of where I needed to be.....So why then did I get passed at the 17 mile mark by the pace group carrying the 3:30 balloon??? Well this was clearly not the time to stop the guy and argue with him about his pacing. So I jump onto the back of the group and kept plugging along. All the while thinking I have to be OK I mean even if my GPS is not 100% accurate about the distance it can certainly tell time...So as I watched the 3:30 group slowly pull away from me I try to comfort myself with my irrefutable logic. At mile 20 my gadget had me at 2:38:01. This is still 2 min. ahead of 8 min/mile pace. Do the math 8 min/mile for 20 miles is 2 hr 40 min. I look down at the pace chart to double check and sure enough it says I should be at 2:40:28. I'm golden, except for the fact that the 3:30 group is now nowhere in sight. But onward I plod. 21,22 here is where we come to another hill. Only this hill is going down. It's a gentle hill but it's also about a mile long. Now normally I like running down hill, I'm usually good at it. But not today, this thing is kicking my ass. My hips,knees and feet are killing me. I don't feel like I have the strength to let them run and the only pace that feels comfortable at this point is slow, 8:36 to be exact. At the bottom of the hill I try picking up the pace but it's not happening so much. At about mile 23 I reenter the twilight zone as the 3:35 group pace me. WTF my time at 23 3:03:41 the pace chart for 3:30 says at 23 I should be at 3:04:14. Then how in the hell is the 3:35 group passing me. I hang with them as best I can. But by mile 24 they are pulling away. At 24 I'm at 3:13:24, oh shit, the pace chart says I should be at 3:12:28, I'm a minute behind. But I can still make this a little over 2 miles in a little less than 17 min. I've done this a thousand times. I think people are cheering but I'm totally focused. It is taking everything I have to keep all my parts going in the right direction. It's floored, all the coal is on the fire. But not much is happening in the speed department. mile 25 3:22:50 on my gadget, damn it 7:10 to run 1.2 miles. No way.....I've blown it. I round the last corner running as fast as I possibly can. As I approach the finish line I hear a lady call my name and congratulate me. As I cross the line I stop my gadget and look at the time 3:35:01. Close, but no cigar....

I'll write more later as I still have alot to say about the Portland Marathon. As it stands right now according to them I didn't even finish. According to their results page the last time they have for me is 21.1 miles. But I look forward to seeing what they actually have me at when they fix their problem.

Feeling Better

I must say that I feel better about my chances next week. Sunday's run, a 10 miler, felt good. My legs had some spring in them and the effort felt comfortable, considering that had worked all night on about 7 hrs of sleep. This run was basically caveman. I did have my watch and there are mile markers on part of the curse I ran so I did check up on my pace a few times. But for the most part it was just by feel. I was about 4 seconds/mi faster than my goal pace and I felt like could hold it for a long time. So I will continue the same rest,hydration,diet as I head into the race weekend. The pisser is that I'm working an extra day this week for a total of 8 nights= 80hrs in a row. Which does take it's toll on my old ass. But nobody said it would be easy, or at least not to me.
In my quest for for complete and total understanding of everything :) I have ordered a couple books that I'm looking forward to reading. The first came to me from Gordo and will hopefully help me make some sense of the economy going forward. The other book has more to do with this blog and may be more interesting to my faithful readers ALL of you. :) Lucho has been reading this book by Mat Fitzgerald about the mental aspect of running. So being the thinker that I think I am I think it may give me some things to think about. I will let you know waht I think when I think it.