First Things First...and the Dangers of Slacking

Grab some popcorn and strap yourselves in. It's been nearly a week since my last post, so this is probably going to be a lengthy excursion.

First things first. You may notice that I've renamed the blog slightly. It's still the same URL, but I felt that since the majority of the posts deal with my running/ training, Jedi Dad Runner seemed to fit a bit better. We now rejoin our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

After my long run of last weekend, I was set to run a 3 miler, a 7 miler, a 4 miler, and then a 10 miler. While it was technically a step back week, the milage of two of the midweek runs increased. The 3 miler ended up being a no brain, no strain treadmill run which I knocked out on Tuesday evening.

As the midweek "sorta long" run gets longer, I hate to run them on the treadmill. With schedules between work and home, however, this seems to be the most convenient for everyone involved. So I set the treadmill for 5.5 mph (about a 10:54 pace) and popped the movie "Wanted" in the DVD player. As I plodded along, I realized that the usual lower leg stuff was still happening. I'm not sure if it's just me pushing too much, or my legs are just protesting the pounding that my 215 lb frame causes. See, in the running world I'm what's known as a Clydsdale. Apparently my weight alone qualifies me to pull a Budweiser beer wagon along with a number of my hefty buddies. Now, I know I'm overweight, that much is obvious. I face it every time I look in the mirror. But I somehow find the comparison to a horse to be kind of insulting. If I could run as fast as a horse, it may be a different story. As it is, when I registered for the upcoming marathon, the application gave me the opportunity to register as a "Clydsdale". I opted not too, not out of any kind of vanity, but simply because I'm a runner. Fat, thin, fast, slow. It shouldn't matter. I'm a runner. Period.

Enough of the rant. I finished the 7 miler pretty easily and felt really good afterwords. I haven't seen the end of the movie yet, but I didn't think it was too bad so far. Sure it's not going to win any Oscars, but taken for what it is (an action flick based on a comic) it's not too bad.

Friday evening rolled around, and I was scheduled to do a 4 miler. I ended up skipping it because I was just wiped by the time evening rolled around. Between a couple late nights, and a couple early mornings with the kids, I was exhausted. I hated to skip the run, and felt guilty about it for quite awhile, but in the end 4 miles is not going to make a difference one way or the other as far as my training goes. And the night of rest probably helped me out as well.

So this morning rolled around and I was all set for my 10 miler. Except that I didn't feel like running. I didn't feel like getting up and going out for a run shortly after the sun came up. So I didn't. I'll run on the treadmill tonight, I told myself. So I hung out with the girls, we went to get groceries, ate some lunch and sat down to watch Wall-E while the youngest took a nap. Truth be told, dad kinda napped during Wall-E, too. And as the movie was ending, my wife asked me if I was going running. Part of me thought, I'll run on the treadmill tonight. Part of me thought, I don't feel like running today. Part of me thought, If you don't go now you might not run again. Luckily the last part won out, and I got off the couch, put on shorts (Yeah, it was in the lower 40's; AWESOME) and headed out for a midafternoon run. I don't know what it is, but the couch can grab ahold of you, suck you in, and make you think all kinds of nonsensical thoughts. It's almost like the scene in The Wizard of Oz where they have to cross the field of poppies. Except, of course, the couch would be the poppies and, well, you get the idea.

The sun was out for the first bit of the run, but quickly ducked behind some clouds. I felt pretty good after the first mile (man, I HATE that first mile. It REALLY sucks. For most of it I feel like it's my first time running, and I'm out of breath, and I can't seem to get in rhythm. Hit that second mile or so, though, things start to shake out and all is well with the world.) and decided I'd gel at 2 and 7 (roughly). I took Gatorade in my bottle today to see if it would work for me. I have to say, it didn't upset my stomach, and was a refreshing change from just water. It wasn't so good for washing down the gel, but oh well. I'm thinking that during the race, I'll take water in my bottle, and hit the aid stations for Gatorade. At least that way I'm not having to carry everything with me. The first gel I took was a PowerBar Tangerine. I'd had it once before and as soon as I tasted it, remembered WHY I'd had it only once before. Not good. I took some comfort in the fact that the second gel I had on hand was Green Apple, which I particularly enjoy. As I said, I felt pretty good, so I decided to push a little and see how it worked out. I also decided that I would check my splits half way and see how the first half of my run compared with the second. Somewhere between miles 3 and 4, I picked up the pace for a half mile or so, just to see how I could handle it. For that half mile I ran at about a 9:30 or so pace, and it felt pretty good. I recovered pretty quickly afterwords, and when I checked my split for "Lap 1", I finished the first 5 miles in 53:15 (10:39 pace). Not too bad, I thought. Just under a minute faster than "race pace" for my goal of finishing the marathon in 5 hours. I wanted to hold off a bit before I got too excited, though, and see how the second half of the run went.

The second half of my "loop" had a few more hills than the first, so I wasn't thinking about running negative splits or anything, just staying consistent throughout the run. It was a bit tougher than the first half, but I still felt pretty good. No real pain in my lower legs, though my thighs were burning a bit. A good burn, though. I decided that for the last mile, I was going to really push, try to finish really strong and see how things shook out. Turns out, pretty good. My second "lap" came in at 51:30 (10:18) pace. Almost 2 minutes faster. That made me happy. See, it does pay to get up off the couch and get moving.

Total for the run (based on Garmin): 10.0 miles in 1:44:45.

That's it for the runs (ha, ha) this week. But I wanted to pose a question and mention a couple other things. The question is this: What music do you listen to when you run? What really gets you moving? Is it a particular song, or type of music? For me there are a lot of songs, so it's hard to narrow it to just one. I'd have to say Stronger by Kanye West, anything from the Rocky soundtracks (these are good when things feel really hard), or anything from Linkin Park. Rob/White Zombie also gets the feet moving. So if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

I've mentioned this podcast before, but Running With the Pack is really good. Just a couple guys talking about their training and their racing. Jeff and Allan are way faster than I'll ever be, but the podcast is really accessible.

I've also discovered a site called Runner's Lounge that has all kinds of great info, stories, links, etc for runners. Check it out if you get the chance.

That's it for now. I'll try to post during the week this week so I don't bore you all to death next weekend with tales of my 15 miler.