A turn for the worse…

When last I spoke of work, we had just received word that there were going to be some management changes becoming effective after the new year. Since then here has been a development that affects me directly.

Within the first few days after the announcement, where we were told that no staffing would be affected and everything would remain the same in terms of daily operations, I was pulled into a conference room by my boss’ boss. He provided some mostly unexpected (though not totally shocking) news that changed my perspective on the pending change.

He told me that he wasn’t sure how the staffing would play out after the change in management in terms of engineers, and that since I have the least amount of experience at the facility I was likely to be the first cut. Now nowhere in this conversation were there any definitive answers, but things aren’t looking good for my future there.

At the same time he was telling me this, he was telling me about a position available through the staffing portion of our company as an engineer at another local Ford facility. It’s a bit outside my realm of expertise, but a) Is something that I could mostly likely pick up without too much trouble, and b) Is pretty much the only relevant opportunity within the company, at least locally. He suggested I meet with the staffing folks immediately to start the process of getting me in front of the right Ford manager to discuss the position, and said that if anything came of it, he strongly recommended taking it.

So I met with our representative to discuss the position, and came to the conclusion that it was something I’d be interested in giving a shot, and that they’d try to set me up with a meeting with the Ford manager.

Since then, it’s been about a week, and no such meeting has taken place. I’ve talked to a friend of mine, who is in the relevant industry and happens to know the Ford manager, about how to ‘study’ for the meeting.

The last word I got was that the hiring manager was off most of last week for the holiday break, and that I should be seeing him sometime early this upcoming week.

If this doesn’t work out, I’ll be joining the ranks of jobseeker in a hurry!

A surprising announcement

Every other week at work, we have ‘All hands meetings,’ where the entire staff gets together in the conference room to discuss any relevant happenings in the building or in the company as a whole, to discuss any incidents that happened or special events coming up. This is by no means out of the ordinary, and provides a good basis in ‘reality’ in terms of the company. These meetings are always first thing in the morning at 7:00, though nobody’s ever really rounding up stragglers to get into the conference room on time.

This week’s meeting, though, was a little different from the rest. I could tell that something was up because between the time I walked through the door until the time I got to my desk, two people asked if I was going to the meeting. I indicated I was, set down my things and walked into the conference room.

When I walked in, our Safety officer was in front talking about radon, and how the company had bought us all tester kits for home… again, nothing unusual. But as he finished, it wasn’t the facility manager that stepped up to speak next, it was his boss; in itself this isn’t unusual I suppose, he’s a frequent visitor to our building.  But this time the mood seemed different. And as it turned out, it was for good reason.

Currently the building where I work is a Ford owned building, managed and operated by my company. We provide the staffing for the test cells, the engineering support, and the maintenance staff to keep the facility operational. But what my boss’ boss was there to tell us on this morning was that the arrangement we had all become accustomed to is about to change come January 4th.

On January 4th, Ford will be taking back over the management of our building. They will provide a new facility manager, and a new engineering manager. The official word is that at an operational level, the change will be transparent and things will continue to operate just like they have. The company has been through this before; one of the other facilities that was in a similar management arrangement went through this same transition a few years back, only to be reversed after about a year because it just wasn’t working out.

So at this point, all we can do is just wait and see what happens. They say that everybody’s jobs are safe, with the unfortunate exception of my boss, the facility manager. However, I have a particularly uneasy feeling about this transition. With a particular reason behind that uneasy feeling; a reason that I’m not going to share here. And I’m going to take some hopefully proactive steps to try and alleviate that uneasy feeling.

And just when I thought things were going well…

Starting over… again

It seems like it’s been forever since I wrote a post in general, much less one with any content related to why I started writing in the first place. In fact, I’ve only made 3 posts this calendar year. Yikes, how time flies!

So here goes… let’s see if I remember how this thing works.

I’ve been down this road before. The road where I’ve made great progress toward maintaining a healthy lifestyle, then some event happened, which led me to throw it all away out of laziness. The first time through, as I’ve mentioned before, I was down under 200 lbs and then lost all motivation when my trainer left the gym he was working at. I gained close to 70 lbs, become sedentary and very unhealthy.

When I finally made the realization that something needed to be changed, which is what has to happen for any such change to take place, I went at it full force. Through running and working out, with a little help from diet, I managed to get back to just under the 200 lb plateau once more. That was around April of this year.

Then something happened. This time, though, it was something within myself, rather than an external influence, that derailed my hard work. This time it was an injury of sorts. Not the ‘I fell on the trail and busted my ankle’ kind of injury, but more along the lines of ‘boy your feet sure are designed funny’ kind of injury.

As I was training for my second run at the Martian Half Marathon, when I was running my 12 mile preparation run about two weeks before the race, I noticed a twinge in my left knee. It was really only soreness, but it persisted for a few days after the run. I went through the rest of my training, and ran the race without much of a second thought. My trainer Ryan ran it with me this time, and I was quite impressed with both of our finish times. For me, it was my first sub 2-hour half in 3 attempts, coming in at 1:56:49, and Ryan coming in around 2:03:00.

For a few days afterwards, as my body recovered from the race, my knee became a non-issue. But during my first couple of runs following the race, as I attempted a 6 mile run, about halfway through I was forced to stop, and had to walk most of the way home because of the pain in my knee. I ended up making a call to a podiatrist that L had used previously.

In addition to the pain that had stopped me in my tracks, radiating from my left knee, a pain had also developed in my right foot. The preliminary examination from the podiatrist revealed that my body wasn’t exactly designed for running. The bones in my foot weren’t aligned properly to absorb the shock from running, and the doctor was surprised that it had taken a year and a half of running for the problems to develop. There was hope for me, however, and the podiatrist was committed to work with me until I was able to run again.

It took two or three visits, trying different things with very little in terms of results, before I was finally fitted with some orthotic inserts. These inserts, according to the doctor, were the next best thing to a magic pill to make the pain go away. When I got them, and had some time to let them correct nature’s design flaw, they did help. Eventually, after a couple of follow up visits, the doctor gave me the ok to start running again.

The problem was, by that time pretty much the whole summer had passed. I had let my injury sideline me probably more than I should have, and my weight had crept up a bit. I had gained back about 20 lbs of the 70 I had lost.

I made one half-assed attempt at getting back into it late into the summer, starting to work out with Ryan again, taking a mountain bike trip into one of the local parks, and playing softball, but I wasn’t really committed. As L finished her degree program and started working 12 hour shifts in the real world, eating healthy became a non-priority, so the weak attempts at working out had no effect on my weight.

So here we are today, starting to get into the winter months in Michigan. I haven’t checked my weight in weeks now; I’m a little bit afraid to see how far I’ve fallen from my peak. I also haven’t run consistently in weeks now. I think I had a 10 mile week once in September or October, but that’s been about it.

So here I am, starting over again. There’s good news though; soccer season is underway, and I’m back playing two nights a week.

I went for a run today. A 5k route in the neighborhood. I went with my friend Michelle; I’ve mentioned her before in various capacities throughout the course of my ramblings. No watch, no heart rate monitor, no Garmin. And no pressure. I felt good out there, considering. I think I may learn to like this running thing yet.

Anybody can tell you, it’s not easy to get in shape. If it were, I wouldn’t be living in the fattest state in the country, in a fast food nation where more people eat dinner in their cars than at their dining room tables. So here I go again, making one step at a time in the right direction. Hopefully it sticks this time.

What I thought I knew…

There’s something that’s been bothering me lately, and I just don’t know how to let it out. I don’t want to get into specifics, but things that I thought I knew lately have become a bit unfamiliar, almost foreign to me. I feel so removed from certain things, almost left out of a very important event.

I know that there are some things that have changed, slowly over the course of the last few months, but I had thought that the relationships I’m referring to were strong, and that the core would be there for the long term. But a couple of things have happened (or not happened as the case may be) that have made me question what I thought to be the truth.

I don’t know why these things have changed like they have, or how my perspective has been skewed; I just know that it has, and that I’ve been hurt by it.

Of course there’s a chance that I’m jumping to conclusions, and that I’m way off base with what I’m perceiving to be the truth. I guess only time will tell. Nobody knows what the future will bring, but in the long run I know it’s all for the best.

Ya Say Ya Want A Resolution…

Now I’ve never been the type to do resolutions, because like most people I never seem to stick to them. But this year is different. For the last few months, I’ve been detailing through the typed word my journey… as I’ve moved along this journey, I’ve come to make some fairly major realizations.  With the turning of the calendar to 2009, there’s no better time to start making those realizations known, to give myself a sense of accountability. So without further babble, here they are:

1. I resolve to put ‘our’ priorities above ‘my’ priorities. One of the things that L has mentioned numerous times in our conversations prior to starting counseling, I have a tendency to pay more attention to the things that benefit ‘me’ rather than the things that benefit ‘us’. Now that I’ve realized my tendency to do that, I need to make a change.

2. I resolve to do my share to be the best husband I can. I’ve silently made this resolution to myself over the last year or so. As L has gone through the first 2 semesters in her nursing program, it’s become more and more apparent to me just how much she’s able to do to be productive while maintaining her grades. While at the same time she’s driving herself crazy trying to maintain her school and the house, I’m cruising along, doing what I want to do when I want to do it. This isn’t fair. I’m putting it down ‘on paper’ that I’m committing to making our marriage the best it can be. Whether it’s cleaning the house or doing the dishes BEFORE I do my workout, or doing my share of the cooking, which will require a graduation from mac n cheese to something a bit more substantial, rather than waiting for L to have an idea of what’s for dinner.

3. I resolve to let L in to all aspects of my life. This is related to #2 of course, but a big part of my focus for the upcoming year is going to be on the two of us. There have been aspects of my life (for example as I’m writing this, I’m fairly certain she doesn’t even know this site exists) that I’ve kept from her; not because I don’t want her to be involved, but more because I’m afraid that she may not react positively to them. I believe this may be part of what has caused some damage to our marriage. Part of the increase in communication for which we’re going to the counselor shall be to let her in.

4. I resolve to end 2009 under 200 lbs. Part of my renewed commitment to myself in 2008, and one of the big reasons I started this blog, was my journey to lose weight. I’m proud to have lost the 50+ lbs that I have since June, and don’t want all that work to go to waste for a second time. When I was working out with Ryan the first time, I ended that stint just under 200 lbs. At the time of this writing I’m about 18 or so lbs away from that magic number, and now that the holidays are over I am committing myself to getting back on track and get my weight moving back in the right direction. Hopefully as things begin to settle down for L at least a little bit, I’ll be able to get her to join me, as the stress of her program has had a negative impact on her physically as well. I think the better I do at taking responsibility for my half of the home responsibilities, the easier it will be for L to join me on my journey.

Of course, there are other things of less significance to which I resolve, like cutting down my ‘dependence’ on caffeine, reducing my junk food intake in favor of healthier options, and trading tv time for more productive things, but I don’t think those deserve specific mention here. 2009 is destined to be a turnaround year for me, a year when I can finally show L how truly special is to me, and a year in which I can clear out some of the things and people that have a negative influence on me in favor of those which affect me positively.

Out of the Darkness

So, it feels like forever since I last posted. 38 days to be exact. And it’s not because I don’t want to; it’s not because there’s nothing going on that wouldn’t be worth writing about. It’s a matter of life getting in the way, and priorities apparently just not being as they should be to allow more frequent updates.

Since I have a tendency to ramble on (thank my dad for that one), I’m going to split this update into a couple of posts. I’m off work until January 5th now, so I should have no problem finding the time over the next few days.

I’ve thought about the phrase “Journey to a Better Me” and its relationship to my blog. When I started, as is the case when I started running, I was in a place where I didn’t want to be, mentally as well as physically. As is the case with my physical shape, there must come a time and place where one is able to look in the mirror and decide “I’ve had enough” and make the change. Although I didn’t plan to have this sort of ‘attitude change’ when I started writing I was informed that the blogging process would be cathartic, and that has been true more than I realized initially.

To that end, the first update I’m going to provide is on the counseling sessions that had yet to begin as of the time of my last post. At that time, I had called a counselor and had left a message, awaiting a callback. Fast forward 38 days; L and I have each had an initial meeting with the counselor individually, and we have gone to three sessions as a couple. In these sessions we’ve discussed a few topics which I believe will ultimately lead to improvements in our communication on a daily basis. As I expected, the sessions have developed into a depiction of ‘What can I do differently to improve our relationship and communication’ rather than ‘what can we do to improve our communication as a couple.’ I suppose I expected that, as I’ve been the one to acknowledge all along that I had a problem communicating with my wife. I just didn’t exactly expect ownership of the issue to be placed solely on me. I’m learning, however, that some of my knee-jerk reactions and sarcastic comments (of which I am a professional) need to be curbed and I need to stop and think before I react with my mouth.

Overall I think the counseling process has been a good one, and one that will ultimately improve our relationship and our marriage. Granted, since we’ve started the sessions L has been away from the biggest stressor in her life, as she’s been on break from school since early December. As we carry into the New Year we’ll have a new set of sessions, and we’ll be able to see how things go in a more ‘real life’ situation.

Making The Call

Has been made… progress has been started. Granted, I had to leave a message, but I suppose that’s a symptom of waiting until Friday afternoon at 3:00 to make the call. But at least it’s a start.

And it seems as though it’s come at a good time too. This weekend I was witness to just how bad it’s become. I was told that I’m only concerned with things that affect me and me alone, the things that affect us as a couple are put to the back burner. And I suppose that’s an indication of just how much I rely on L to keep this house running. I’ve promised that I would do my part and step up to the plate when she started this nursing program. But I haven’t held up my end of the bargain.

This process is going to be the first step toward salvaging that. I have a good feeling about it, and I’ve gotten so much support from so many people. Thank you to all who have offered it. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone in this, and that the counseling process doesn’t have to be seen as a sign of weakness, but as a stepping stone toward becoming better as a couple.

As I think back to why I started documenting things on a blog, it was to document my progress along a ‘Journey to a Better Me.’ It’s a theme I’ve used as I documented my workouts, weight loss, etc. But what I didn’t expect when I started was for this to become a means to document my progress toward a better me on the inside as well. I’m excited at the prospect, and I know I’m taking the right steps to become a better person, a better husband, and ultimately a better father when the time comes.

Anybody still out there?

So waaaay back when, in Mid October when I made my last post that wasn’t a Race Report, I had mentioned that I had gotten a new work assignment, at the Wind Tunnel facility operated by my company, owned by Ford. I also mentioned in that post that I foresaw myself having less time to take part in the things that I had become accustomed to, like blogging. Well, here we are about 5 weeks later, and my soothsaying abilities have proven true.

There’s definitely good news though… I’ve been keeping up on my workouts and my running, though not quite to the level I was at during training for Indianapolis. I’ve still gotten 5 workouts in per week, every week, between running and workouts with Ryan, and the newest addition to the schedule has been Friday night co-ed indoor soccer. I had to miss the first week’s game because it was the weekend of Indy, but L and I have been playing since. I’ve played on this team for about 4 or 5 years now, and this is L’s third I believe.

The league is co-ed, as I mentioned, and is officially a ‘non-competitive’ league made up of a lot of Ford employees. I started with the league during my first stint at Ford, and have stuck with them since. I’ve been playing soccer in some form since I was about 6, taking a break during my high school years because it wasn’t a sport offered at my school. Laura had never played before, but given that she’s come back for 3 years now, she must be enjoying it.

So far we’ve only had 3 games actually, including the one that I missed. We’re 1-1-1, but I think we’ve got probably the best team we’ve had since I started. We’ve got 21 games left between now and the spring, and I think we’ve got a pretty good chance at winning probably 15 of them or so, when we get all our players showing up on the same night.

So while I’ve been keeping up on activity of some sort, my ‘official’ (as in recordable) miles have reduced a bit since my race. For two weeks, I just flat out skipped my long run, and last week my long run was just over 7 miles. I’m fairly ok with this overall, since I don’t really have a race that I’m training for. D&M, who you may remember as the friends I went to Indianapolis with, are considering going to Nashville next April for the Country Music Marathon, where I think they’d both run the half. If they do end up going, I’ll be going with them. Unfortunately it will be during the last few weeks of L’s school, so she may or may not be able to come with us. But other than that, I don’t really have a race planned.

There is an 8K Fun Run/Walk at a local park next week that I’m considering, that runs through the park through which I ran my first half in April. It’s a nighttime run, and they do a big Chrismas light setup that will be turned on for the run, the night before it opens to the public. If I do that, I’ll be sure to take my camera (since it’s a Fun Run instead of a race), and post pictures here at some point.

Even though I’ve stayed active, my weight hasn’t changed too much. I’ve lost 56.5 lbs now, and for the last two weeks been holding steady. I’ve been curious about my weight trends lately, and how much a particular meal or day’s eating and activity level affects my weight. Google has a gadget they call ‘Google 15′ which basically keeps your average weight over the previous 15 days… Even though at the end of the week, my weights have come out consistent, I’ve realized that my weekend indiscriminate eating is starting to have more of an impact than it used to. If I want to make progress on the scale like I’ve been, I’m going to need to reign that in.

On the communication and counseling front… really nothing has changed since my last post. I haven’t made the call, things really haven’t changed for better or worse. I know I need to make the call; I’ve set myself a deadline of the end of the week to do so.

So, for both of you (and I’m being generous) who have wondered where I have been and how I’ve been doing, there it is… in a nutshell? Not exactly. But you get the idea

Indianapolis Half Marathon Race Report

On Saturday October 18, I ran in the 13th Annual Indianapolis Half Marathon at Lawrence. This was my second Half Marathon; the first was the Martian Half in Dearborn, MI on April 6, where I finished with an official (chip) time of 2:49:09. At the time when I ran the Martian, it had only been about 4 months since my first run ever. Since then, I have developed a wonderful network of supportive runner friends, put in a bit over 400 training miles, and have lost about 50 lbs. I went into this race expecting a PR, and I would be happy with nothing less than a 30 minute PR.

Short Version: A chilly start, but an overall gorgeous day. A fairly flat course, with one killer hill around mile 11. Overall finish (chip): 2:06:11.9, a PR by 42:58.

Holy Crap This is Long Version: I went into my first Half in April severely undertrained and underequipped, and ended up paying the price, with a poor finish time and severe blisters on both feet. After spending the summer building a training base, and getting some proper running shoes, I felt much better trained for this race. I didn’t follow a structured training plan (Higdon, for example), but slowly built my base to a long run of 13.1 miles, and weekly totals between 15 and 27 miles. I ended up with an unintentional 2 week taper because of a change in jobs and shifts, but in the end I feel as though I was properly trained by the time race day rolled around.

I headed to Indianapolis on Friday afternoon with two of my good friends. More so than the other races I’ve participated in, the race director for this race stressed the importance of picking up packets the day before the race, rather than waiting until the morning of. According to an email I just received, there were approximately 5,800 participants in the half and full marathons; not the biggest race I’ve heard of, but no minor event for the small city of Lawrence, IN either. We left work early and made the approximately 5 hour trip, arriving at the Expo around 6:00 pm after checking in to our hotel. The expo was modest, and the racewear was nice, but I didn’t end up buying anything. We picked up our packets, and decided to drive the course since it was still daylight out. Note to self: driving the course was a good idea, I’d definitely recommend it if you have the opportunity. The race website advertised the course as being flat, but in making the drive between our hotel and the Expo, there wasn’t a flat area in sight! As it turns out, the area of the course was fairly flat from what we could see, with a few rolling hills along the way. There were a couple of parts of the course that we couldn’t access by car, as they traversed into Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park.

After driving the course and grabbing some dinner it was back to the hotel room for bed. After laying out my race clothes, we were in bed by about 9:15, and I was out well before 10. We were kept awake for a while by some kids who were running up and down the halls of the hotel. One of the friends I had traveled with said she was going to go out and ask the kids to quiet down, before her husband reminded her that it was only 9:30.

The hotel was about 15 minutes from the starting line, but the volunteers at the Expo had warned people to be sure to get there early, as congestion was sure to slow things down in the morning. I got up about 5:45, and we were all ready and out the door about an hour later. We stopped at the hotel’s breakfast offerings, and I had my usual oatmeal, and along with it some yogurt and a banana. By 7:15 we were out the hotel door and on to the race! Then there was a slight bump in the road.

The vehicle we were traveling in is equipped with a GPS navigation system. Unfortunately we didn’t have a valid address for the start of the race, so we had to use the ‘old fashioned’ method of mapping directions from the Internet to get to the Expo the night before. However those handwritten directions were nowhere to be found on race morning, so we had to wing it to get to the race. Between the three of us we were able to do so, and we found the starting line and a parking place without too much trouble. Crisis averted!

It was a chilly morning, starting out in the lower 50’s. Knowing it was going to warm up into a beautiful day, I decided that short sleeves and shorts were the way to go. Ultimately I was happy with my decision. With about an hour to kill before race time, we decided to leave some of our stuff at the car and venture over to the course to hit the restrooms and check out the setup. We then met up with two other friends, who were running the full marathon with the husband of the couple I traveled with. I knew that another forum member, fryingpan68, was going to be at the race, and I looked for him as we made our multiple trips to the porta potties; I did see him on our last trip by, but by then it was only 10 minutes til gun time, so I couldn’t stop to say hello.

After my final pre-race pit stop, I lined myself up just ahead of the 10:00 pace sign. The wife of the couple I traveled with, who I’ll call M, met back up with me just before the start. Unfortunately her plan of meeting up with the girlfriend of one of the marathoners in our group backfired, and M ended up having to carry her car key and camera throughout the whole race. She did get a few pictures though, and I’ll update this post when she sends them to me.

Before the race I had no idea what to expect in terms of pace; I used one of the pace calculators on RunnersWorld to get per mile paces for finish times of 2:00, 2:15, and 2:30. I knew that I’d be happy with a finish time of 2:15:00, but my ’secret’ goal was for a 2:00 finish. I had the pace of 9:55 per mile in my head, thinking that would get us a finish of 2:00. So when the race started, I had that target in mind.

The first two miles of the course took us through what appeared to be barracks of what used to be Fort Benjamin Harrison. Just after mile 1, we came across a couple of guys with what sounded like a karaoke machine, belting out Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love”… it would be the first of 3 times we’d come across this pair… After mile 2, it was out of the Fort and onto the streets of Lawrence, taking one of the ‘main’ streets for a mile before heading back into the neighborhoods. The main street was rolling and ended up a bit of a downhill on the way out. We made a right turn just after mile 3 into a neighborhood.

With the 9:55 pace in my head, which miraculously conveyed the pace well to my legs, I was feeling good. But somewhere in the neighborhood I started doing some math, and conveyed to M that I thought my pace was wrong for a 2:00 finish. That’s when I realized that I had the per mile pace for a 2:15 finish stuck in my head, and for a 2:00 finish the right pace was 9:22 per mile. M’s goal was to finish in 2:00, and I had decided before the race that I was going to stick with her the best I could for as long as possible, for a finish as close to 2:00 as I could. But at Mile 3, we realized that we were already behind because of my mental error.

Miles 4-6 took us out of the neighborhood, back along some main streets and into another neighborhood. M and I were still together, and had picked up our pace to the 9:15 – 9:20 range. I was still feeling good, like I could sustain this for the rest of the way. Once we got to the halfway point, I was hoping to be able to make up some of the time and make negative splits. At mile 7 I took one of the two Hammergels that I brought, and I was on my way.

Miles 7-9 took us out of the second neighborhood, and to Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park. The transition from the road to the bike path in the state park was woodchips; as we ran over it our feet sunk into the mud a little bit, and both M and I hoped that the bike path wouldn’t be the same surface. As it turns out, the path was paved, and the first mile of the 2 mile loop in the park was downhill. The downhill was a nice break, but knowing that we were to leave the park at the same place we entered it, I knew that there was an uphill to follow. And boy was there ever!

There were actually two separate uphills on the way out of the park. The first was fairly steep, but pretty short. I kept running all the way up, and held my own as nobody really passed me. The second uphill was a bit of a different story. While I kept running the whole way up, my speed had obviously left my legs as people started passing me left and right. Up until this point, I still had visions of making my 2:00 secret goal; but after this hill, it wasn’t meant to be. I crossed the Mile 10 marker in about 1:34:00, which still meant that I had an outside chance. But after the beating my legs got on those hills, I turned my focus to a goal of 2:08:00, the time that one of my fellow forumites had at PDR in September.

By the time we made it out of the park shortly after Mile 11 my legs had somewhat recovered from the hill, and I felt like I was back on my pace. M, however, hadn’t been seen since we started the decent in the park. She told me after the race that she had just hit a wall, and as she saw me pull away around the Mile 10 marker, she heard the Foo Fighters’ “There Goes My Hero” on her iPod.

I hit the 2:00 mark as we passed Mile 12.5, which was the split between the Half Marathon route and the full Marathon route, and was maintaining my pace pretty well. A few blocks down from the split,I passed the karaoke guys again, this time singing some Garth Brooks song, and not doing a very good job of it. As I made the last turns, I mustered what little strength I had in my legs to make a final 1/4 mile kick, crossing the finish line with a gun time of 2:09:01. I stopped my watch a few seconds after I crossed the finish line; my unofficial chip time being 2:06:14. The official chip times were posted on Sunday, where I received my official time of 2:06:11.9, a PR by nearly 43 minutes.

After the race I met up with fryingpan68 and we chatted for a few minutes as I waited for M to finish. If it hadn’t been for that hill in the park, I really believe I could’ve made my secret goal of 2:00. Maybe next time!

This Week on the Journey (10/5 – 10/11)

As I mentioned in my previous post, it was a wild and crazy week this past week. Unfortunately, when things get crazy, diet and exercises are typically the first things to fall off… I’m proud to say that I still got in 6 workouts during the week; however, L and I also ate more fast food in these 7 days than we have in months…

The week started with the last Sunday Long Run before the Indianapolis Half Marathon; D & M, whom I’ve mentioned previously, came to my neck of the woods to do a 12 mile route. It’s a route I’ve done before, but not very often.

This week’s route

Overall it was a pretty good run that left me feeling pretty good about the upcoming race; it’s a 6 mile out and back route, and we ran at an overall 10:54 pace. To make my goal of 2:15:00 for the half, I’m gonna have to cut about 30 seconds per mile off the pace, but according to at least one pace calculator, my long runs are supposed to be at about an 11:00 pace, and my predicted finish time for a half is about 1:58:30! I’m not saying I believe that, just that the pace for this run seems reasonable.

For the remainder of this week, I had two scheduled training sessions with Ryan, and he had me schedule two additional sessions at the gym to spend some quality time with the rowing machine. Monday was the first such session; this one was scheduled at 45:00, with a goal of keeping my heart rate within the 140 – 150 range the entire time. I was able to do it, but…. 1) around 20:00 in, my butt went numb… 2) around 30:00 in, my right leg went numb… and 3) When I got up after my 45:00 were done, I walked like a drunk… man I can’t wait to do this again!

Tuesday brought the first of my scheduled training sessions for the week. It was a full body, high tension type of workout, with dead lifts, weighted aerobic steps, bicep curls, pushups, walking lunges with weights, and some ab work with the oversized medicine ball.

Wednesday was my first day on the day shift, followed by a rousing rendition of Financial Management (2) class… About halfway through class I had a Diet Mt. Dew to keep me awake for the second half of class; it worked long enough so that I felt good and awake after class, so I decided to hit the treadmill for 3 miles. As has been the case with my treadmill miles lately, I slowed down and took it nice and easy.

Thursday was supposed to be my second training session of the week, but Ryan called to cancel early in the afternoon. I wasn’t too upset, as my schedule shift had begun to catch up with me. I ended up using this day as a rest day.

Friday, originally scheduled as a second rowing session, became a training session day after Thursday’s workout was canceled. It was also weigh in day, which this time I dreaded. I knew the scale wouldn’t be kind to me this week, as my diet was far less than desirable. And I was right; a 2 lb gain. Oh well, can’t win em all, right? I’m in this for the long haul. As for the training session, it was probably one of the last ones for a while that contained significant outdoor time, including some squats and walking lunges with the medicine ball, some resistance band runs, inclined pushups, and some ab work with a medicine ball on a rope. Then it was back inside for some more deadlifts, bicep curls and tricep extensions.

Saturday is typically my rest day; however, since I had already taken Thursday off, I wanted to get some more mileage in. I did 5 miles, and meant for it to be an easy run. However, the first two miles went by at a 9:02 pace (oops). I slowed down the rest of the way and finished with an overall 9:26 pace. When did 9:26 become an easy run?