This Week on the Journey (9/28 – 10/4)

This week started out with my third race of the year, Big House Big Heart in Ann Arbor. A 14 minute PR!

Monday was a ‘dark and rainy night…’ so instead of doing my run outside, I moved it to the treadmill, planning on a nice easy 4 miles. The ‘problem’ that has come up on the treadmill is that I’ve had to slow myself down compared to my outdoor runs to prevent myself from crashing before I finish. Now that I know that, though, it’s become less of an issue as I’ve slowed down and made my treadmill runs truly slow and easy. This one was 4 miles in 40:45.

Tuesday was the first of two training sessions for the week. I keep waiting for my body to get used to the evening training, but it doesn’t seem to be working out so well yet. Ryan doesn’t seem to be too concerned about it, as each time I feel the lightheadedness, it tends to be a workout with a lot of engagement of a lot of muscles. This workout was done while wearing approximately 25 extra lbs in the weighted vest. Exercises included Squats, pushups, kettle ball squats, hockey lunges, alternating leg lateral jumps onto aerobic step, TRX 2 arm angle rows, TRX band biceps, oversize medicine ball throw with pushups, leg extension from weight bench, as well as some hip engagement exercises, lateral and forward walking with a resistance band attached to my feet and strung over my shoulders.

Wednesday was an after class run day. M didn’t feel up to running with me this night, so it was off to the gym treadmill on my own for 800m interval work. Four intervals, with 1/4 mile walking recoveries. The first interval I started at a 7.0 mph pace, but when that felt too easy, increased it to a 7.2 mph for the second and third intervals, and finally a 7.4 mph final interval.

Thursday was initially scheduled to be the second strength session for the week, but Ryan moved that to Friday due to some scheduling conflicts on his end (read: he wanted the day off on Thursday). So instead I returned to the gym for a treadmill run. This time I wanted to try for 6, which would be my longest treadmill run to date. I started off slow again (10:20 pace), and settled into a zone, watching a football game on the gym tv. As my usual stopping point of 4 miles ticked by, I felt strong enough to keep going, and ended up finishing my 6 mile goal in just a bit over an hour.

Friday brought the second training session of the week. Apparently my body isn’t used to the morning workout sessions anymore either, as I felt weak and a little shaky from the beginning, despite having eaten an hour beforehand. I had stopped at REI on my way to the gym to pick up some gel fuels for my runs, and because I was feeling weak from the beginning, headed out to the truck for one about 10 minutes into the workout. It helped, but only moderately. Overall it wasn’t a particularly good session, but those happen sometimes. Friday’s exercises included Highstep through ‘ladder’ followed by front/back in and out (holding 15 lb medicine ball), TRX band rows, alternating steps onto aerobic step w/ dumbbells, biceps using weight machine, reverse lunges, walking lunges (Ryan noted good form on these). Finished with 1,000 m row.

Saturday was the day of rest, in preparation for an attempt at 12 miles for next week’s Sunday Long Run.

Big House Big Heart Race Report

There is no Sunday Long Run for this week, as Sunday was the day for Big House Big Heart, a 5K race in Ann Arbor. This race is special in that its finish line is the 50 yard line at Michigan Stadium, home of the University of Michigan football team. The race benefits The University of Michigan Program for Neurology Research & Discovery and C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital.

This race was my third race ever; my first two races, the Martian Half Marathon in April, and the Flirt with Dirt 5K in June, were both fairly disappointing to me in that they each had a big problem associated with them. This time, I really wanted to run a race that went smooth from start to finish, without blisters the size of the Grand Canyon, or running an extra 1/2 mile on top of the scheduled distance. As it turns out, I was able to do just that.

Because of the extra distance I had gone on my previous 5K race, my PR for that distance was officially 41:45. If I hadn’t done the extra distance, my time would have probably been around 36:XX I would guess, but of course I can’t be sure. My second goal, besides having a problem free race, was to set a new PR. I didn’t figure I would have much trouble with that goal, since lately I’ve routinely been averaging under 10:00 miles on my 4 mile distance training runs. As it turns out, I was able to do that as well.

Ann Arbor is, I would imagine, a fairly typical college town; the campus is of course the focus of the town, with its buildings interspersed among the fraternity and sorority houses, local businesses and other private residences. Big House Big Heart takes you on a 5 kilometer tour around a portion of the campus, past a few of the fraternity houses, over a few rolling hills and past some of the other University sporting complexes while starting and ending at the football stadium. The streets are narrow two lane residential streets; trying to squeeze about 4,000 runners, walkers, stroller pushers, wheelchair and scooter riders onto these streets is kind of like trying to squeeze a 300 lb offensive lineman into a kayak; you’re gonna have some overflow and not much room to move.

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, in the mid 70’s by the 1:00 pm start, and not a cloud in the sky. As L and I, along with our friends D and M, whom I’ve mentioned before as being the part of the reason I started this whole running thing in the first place, approached the starting line about 15 minutes before the start, I could tell it was going to be crowded. L, who had only decided to do the race 3 days before and was going to do her best run/walk, as she isn’t a runner, headed toward the back of the pack, as the 3 of us headed closer to the front. We could see that there were plenty of families doing the race, as well as other wheeled vehicles. Both M and I were trying for PR’s on this race; D, who had just run 20 miles as a part of his marathon training the day before, was questioning whether or not he was even going to do the race until well after he arrived at the race site. Because of the crowd, and the number of what appeared to be slower racers toward the front, M and I headed a bit farther ahead in the group than we probably would have otherwise. It turned out to be a good decision, as the crowd never really thinned out along the whole route of the race.

With a rousing trumpet rendition of the Victors, followed by the National Anthem (only in A2 can the Victors trump the National Anthem), the crowd was off. About 4 steps later, we all came to a dead stop. Then we were off again… this time for real!

I wanted to be very sure to run my own race, and not get caught up pacing or following anybody, so I wore my iPod to help me into my own little world; or at least as much as I could be while I was bobbing and weaving through the crowd. Because of that, I really don’t recall too many specifics about the race. I do know that at one point during the first half mile, I did cut off one lady pretty good; in my defense though, she was a slow moving walker who had placed herself at the front of the pack at the start. She deserved to be cut off. About 1/2 a mile into the race was the first of the uphills, a 50 or so foot rise over the course of one block, then it was around the corner and straight back down. The rest of the course was fairly flat, with some slight rolling up and downs. I hit the mile 1 marker at about 10:15 gun time; I didn’t check my watch to get my chip time at that point. Shortly after mile 1 there was the first of two aid stations, but I stuck to the middle of the road and ran right on through. A portion of the route near mile 1 ran along the same road, but opposite direction of the course near mile 2. As I ran this stretch, I watched for L approaching me. I saw her, and although she didn’t look too happy to see me, she was holding her own at a fast walking pace. A few short blocks later I had hit the mile 2 marker, at a gun time of 18:38. I knew that I was a couple minutes at least ahead of gun time, so I figured I was near 16:30 or so for my chip time. The course took a left and headed back toward the stadium at that point; just down the way was the second aid station, so I headed for the last cups of water, and took enough to wet my mouth and poured the rest over my head. I had originally thought I’d have been happy with anything under 30:00, but at this point I was feeling pretty strong, and thought maybe I’d have an off chance at 25:00 if I didn’t fall off too much during the last mile.

After another left, we could see the entrance to the tunnel just ahead of us. It turned out to be just a tease though, as the course took us right by the entrance, then another 1/2 mile loop or so beyond it. At this point I saw M, who I knew was trying to break 24:00. Seeing her just ahead of me this late in the race, knowing the time she was trying to beat gave me an extra boost. The problem was that the course had become even more congested and maneuvering around people became even more difficult. Around the last loop and up to the tunnel we came. That was the only point during the race when I felt winded, but I pushed on. As we came up the slight uphill into the tunnel I could hear a recording of the University of Michigan marching band playing a rendition of the Victors, and the uphill entrance to the tunnel quickly became the downhill that was the tunnel. I had no room to move at this point, so I had no choice but to stick with the crowd. As I came out of the tunnel and made the left along the visitor sideline I saw D standing at the sideline against the course markers, his race already complete. Around the corner of the endzone, making a right up the middle of the field I found my only piece of daylight and I took it. I had an all out sprint to the finish, realizing that I had more in the tank than I probably should have at that point. After I crossed the line I stopped my watch, which read 27:31. As the official times were posted, I saw my chip time was officially a 27:30.0. Nothing like a nice round number.

I finished 100 out of 207 in my Age Group, and 751 out of 1705 males. My overall placement was 1057 out of 3612, putting me just into the top third overall. My other two races I had been last in my age group, so I was quite happy to be in the top half. In all I’m very happy with my effort, and with my nearly 14 minute improvement in my PR. I know this is going to be the only time I’ll ever see that much improvement in my 5K PR, and I’m ok with that.

I was also very proud of L, who finished with a time of 42:12. She even said she might do one of these again some day

This Week on the Journey (9/21 – 9/27)

This week, after going 4 straight weeks under double digits for my weekly long run, I was able to change my routine and pump out a good 10.5 mile run. Part of that change in the weekly routine was to shift the long run from Sunday to Saturday, so technically the start of this week was a rest day. With Big House Big Heart coming up on September 28, I knew from the beginning that this week would probably end up being a cutback week of sorts, as I tried to get miles in while leaving myself energized for the race next Sunday.

As has been the routine for the last few weeks, my sessions have been on Tuesday and Thursday, meaning that Monday was a run day. I took my usual 4 mile route, but didn’t wait long enough after I ate so I developed some side cramps on the 2 mile out portion. If anything the side cramps helped me slow down a little bit, and the cramps seemed to go away past the halfway point, and I ended up managing a respectable 9:45 pace overall.

Tuesday’s training session was my second evening session in this current round with Ryan. For some reason even though I eat approximately the same amount of calories the same amount of time before my sessions when I train in the evening as I do when I train in the morning, my evening sessions have all ended up with at least a little bit of lightheadedness at some point during the workout. I like the idea of the evening training sessions though, as I’m not trying to go home and go to bed afterwards. This session was the typical slower paced strength training session that has become routine for the first session of the week; this version incorporated squats, reverse lunges, squat rows with resistance bands, lateral low hurdles, crunches using the TRX bands, and some combination aerobic steps & bicep curls.

Wednesday I had to go to campus for class, which always gives a big question mark to my workouts. With the race coming up on the weekend, I wanted to try and squeeze a few more miles than usual out of this midweek run. I headed to the gym to run on the treadmill, so that I could run for as long as I had time for without having to worry about ending up at a place other than home. Because of my last experience at attempting a longer run on the treadmill going so badly, I started off a little bit slower than I would have if I had been running outside. I ended up only getting 4 miles in before my time was up and I had to go get ready for work, but they were still decent miles. The only downside I found was that the effort level, even at the somewhat slower pace, seemed to be equivalent to my faster paced outdoor miles.

Thursday made for a 5:30 pm training session with Ryan. This session was heavy on plyometric exercises, which tend to involve and engage muscles of the core by doing “explosive,” powerful type movements and forcing focus on balance. According to Ryan on Thursday, I’m in the top 10% of his clients strengthwise, which is how he’s able to have me doing these exercises. The session included various jumping exercises, jumping for height while fighting resistance bands, jumping onto and over an aerobic step, jumping laterally with resistance bands attached to my feet and running across my shoulders. Also included were some core engaging pushups, where my hands were placed on an upside down Bosu ball, and my feet were planted on an aerobic step, and some situps with the oversized medicine ball.

I initially struggled with what to do with my Friday workout. I knew Saturday was going to be a rest day before the race, but was torn between adding some extra miles because I knew I wasn’t going to get a long run in this week, or getting a feel for race pace with a shorter route; ultimately a very knowledgeable source advised me to do 3 or 4 easy miles so that I didn’t overtax my body in preparation for the race. I took her advice, and went out on my 4 mile route. Either 9:30 or so per mile has become my new slow easy pace (which I highly doubt) or I had some issues pacing myself, because that was the pace I kept up for this run. I kept trying to force myself to slow down, but it didn’t seem to work too well. I didn’t feel extraordinarly worn out afterwards, which may mean that I’ve gotten faster than I realize, but I guess the effects remain to be seen.

Friday was also weigh in day. Since I didn’t have a training session, I didn’t go home and go right to bed; instead I stayed up until my usual weigh in time, and stepped on the scale. A 1/2 lb loss, meaning I had put myself back to where I was before last week’s gain. I wasn’t happy with that, because even though my mileage hadn’t been stellar, I still thought I had done well enough on my eating to do better than 1/2 a lb. So after I did my weigh in and took my nap, I weighed in again. Apparently I worked out harder than I thought while I was asleep, as I showed a 2 1/2 lb loss from morning to afternoon. I know I can chalk this one up to water weight, as I had started to ensure I was hydrated enough for the weekend’s events already. So I’m using the afternoon weight as my official weigh in, which means I’ve lost 50 lbs since this Journey started.

Saturday was a rest day in preparation for Big House Big Heart.

Thursday Ramblings and Feeling Useless

Since my awake time happens when 99% of the people I know are sleeping, there are lots of times when I’m left to my own musings… since nobody wants their phone ringing from me at this hour, I decided to jot some of them down…

• I’m feeling like the hours I’m awake during the day all move so quickly, yet sometimes I feel like I never really accomplish anything.
• Between my sleep schedule, my running and training, and L’s school commitments I feel like we’re losing touch with each other, and I don’t like it. This Labor Day weekend openeed my eyes to some things that I hadn’t realized before, but in the weeks that have passed since I don’t really feel like anything has changed
• One of the things that I realized, in part because of the weekend mentioned above, is that my communication skills with my wife suck. She told me a few nights ago that she feels like she doesn’t know me anymore, and that really hurts.
• Because I know my communication sucks, I decided that I need to take advantage of one of the benefits my company offers and seek out counseling. I mentioned that before in a post last week I think. The problem is that I can’t seem to get myself to actually make that call and schedule anything. I dno’t know if I’m viewing it as a sign of weakness, or if maybe I know there are things going on in my head that I don’t want to let out, but either way I know L thinks that I’m not following through on the things I promised.
• I feel like my job is very much a dead end and isn’t doing anything to help my career. In fact, I think the position I’m in right now may be detracting from it. I’ve been at this job about six months now, and honestly feel like I haven’t taken anything away from it. My nights consist of a 5 minute safety meeting at the beginning of the shift, then 10 minutes of work near the end of the shift recapping what happened overnight in a document. The rest of the time I’m either reading or trying to read my textbooks, doing or trying to do homework for my classes, or surfing the internet. As I write this it’s 4:30 am. I haven’t seen anybody in an hour and a half, and that was only because I was heating my lunch up in the microwave. Before that, I hadn’t talked to anybody in a good 3 1/2 hours. Sounds pretty satisfying huh? Worse yet, I have 3 bosses, none of whom particularly care that I’m not doing anything, because my company has a contract with Ford to provide X number of people for these positions to be filled. Don’t get me wrong; in this economy I’m thankful to have a job that pays the bills, but I’m afraid when I ever get back to a ‘real’ job I won’t know what to do with myself.
• There’s a 5K race this Sunday that I’m running. It should be a fun race, and I’m hoping for it to be the first of the three races I will have done where I’ll have a 100% positive experience, and set a PR. This evening before I went to class, I asked L whether or not she was planning on going to the race. She replied that she was considering DOING the race. I was fairly dumbfounded, because the only words I had ever heard come out of her mouth in regards to running were that she hated it. Granted, I was in that boat not too long ago myself, but at that point I had never tried it. I’m trying to encourage her to do the race, even if she needs to walk it, because I’m hoping she might like it and that maybe running can go from something she despises (“Why do you always run with girls?”) to something we can do together.
• After years of fielding a substandard football team, the Detroit Lions fired General Manager Matt Millen today. It’s about time.
• The Major League Baseball regular season comes to a close this weekend, and with it, the end of the line for the 2008 Detroit Tigers. After an offseason with such big moves and high potential, it turns out to be all for nothing as the Tigers have slipped into last place in their division. Bring on 2009! Just a little more than 6 months til opening day!
• Since early June, I’ve lost just under 50 lbs. I’ve spent 6 days a week for the last 2 months at least either running or training, and it’s definitely paid off. To the point where my clothes don’t fit anymore, and I’ve had to get some new ones. Last week I ended up gaining 1/2 a pound over the week before. My motivation to eat well almost all the time has seemed to be waning a bit, as I’ve found myself more apt to snack on something in the middle of the night. I guess we’ll see what tomorrow’s weigh in brings…

Sunday’s Long Run 9/21

For the one of you that’s been following my training lately, you may notice that I’ve been having a bit of trouble regarding my weekly long runs. In August, I had Sunday Long Runs of 11, 12, 13, and 11 miles before heading up north for Labor Day weekend. Since then, I’ve had ‘Long’ runs of 4.75, 8, and 4.5 miles on my long run days. I know I can do double digits; I was doing them consistently for a while. I know I can do 13.1; even though that run was my worst in a long time, I finished the distance, and I didn’t die from it. For the last 3 weeks I’d lost my long run ‘mojo,’ and this week I aimed to get it back.

Sometimes to break through a sticking point, changes need to be made. Changing the routine can have a huge impact if, for example, you’re struggling at a weight loss plateau or struggling to run farther or faster than you have before. One good thing that’s seemed to come out of this period when I’ve been struggling with my longer runs is that I’ve developed some speed on my shorter runs that I didn’t know I had. Although if you read last week’s version of Sunday’s Long Run, you know how that speed had also become a curse of sorts, as mentally I had convinced myself that all of my runs should be getting faster.

This week’s Sunday Long Run was actually a Saturday Long Run. While many of my fellow RWOL forumites were setting Personal Records at the 13.1 mile distance (Many Congrats Sam on her sub 2 half; I’ll mention you specifically since you’re probably the only one who will read this ) Sunday at the Philadelphia Distance Run, I had already completed my long run for the week.

Saturday afternoon I met with my friends D & M near their house, which is just short of an hour away from my own, for out long run. Both D & M are travelling to Indianapolis in a few weeks to run; D is doing the full marathon, and was scheduled for a cutback long run of 14 miles; M and I are running the 1/2 together; she hadn’t been into double digits in a while either, so we planned a 10.5 mile route (or is it? More on that later), taking us along a flat paved trail near their house.

In discussing with M the day before what time we should head out for our run, she told me it wasn’t supposed to be too warm on Saturday, and we should be fine to go in the afternoon. L was going to be abandoning me for most of the weekend to study with some of her nursing school friends anyway, and Saturday morning was going to be just about the only time we had to spend together for the weekend, so M and I decided that a 2pm start to the run would work well.

Apparently somebody got their signals crossed regarding the weather, as it was into the lower 80s when we met up at 2:00. The humidity was fairly low, but it was still pretty warm in the sun. Unfortunately, a good portion of the path was in the sun. I had filled my Camelback and grabbed a couple of fuel packets from home; I was ready.

The first 3/4 mile between the house and the trail head was run on their street; there are no shoulders where D & M live, and the drivers apparently don’t move out of the way too kindly, so we stuck to the outer edges of the road as we made our way. Our plan was to get to the trail head, make a right for 3 miles til the path ended, head back to where we came from, cross the road and head the other way for a mile and a half before turning back for ‘home.’

When we got a few hundred feet into the first portion of the trail, we paused briefly to do some light stretching. Since the long run M and I did together a couple weeks ago I’ve been having slight issues with one of my hip flexors (I guess that’s what it is), and I wanted to make sure everything was loose before we got too far into the jaunt.

Here’s the route. Beign that it was a ‘trail’ run rather than being along roads, and the fact that their house isn’t in a big city and therefore Google apparently doens’t have very good satellite imaging of the area, my map of the route only takes 9.85 miles. But the trail has markers every 1/2 mile. We DID 10.5 miles, gosh darn it

The first out and back portion of the path was relatively uneventful; we did see a couple small gardner snakes (well I saw a couple, M claims she only saw one), the smaller of which I had to make some fancy footwork to avoid stepping on it. Being a nice day, there were a number of walkers and bicyclists on the path; being out in the ‘country’ everybody’s a little friendlier, so I’d say a good 90% of the people we passed returned our ‘hellos,’ a welcome change from city running.

One thing that was nice about this run was that it was divided into segments. The segments also got shorter; the first segment being 6 miles out and back, the second being 3 miles out and back, then the 3/4 mile return home. It was nice to have mini milestones along the way. Another added bonus was having the company of someone to talk to along the way; it’s really made the last two long runs much more tolerable to not have to run alone. Another one of those routine changes to help break me out of my rut.

The run itself wasn’t really all that eventful. I did take a new flavor of fuel packet when we stopped around mile 6.5. I had bought a random sampling of things, and this one was a Hammergel Apple Cinnamon, which was definitely very good. I’ve been pretty impressed with the Hammergels thus far, they may be my winner for fuel of choice.

I was definitely in need of a good long run to break me out of my bad spell, and this run was definitely it. 10.5 miles in 1:47:00, for a 10:12 pace. It’s funny how sometimes your better pace comes at a time when you’re not thinking about it, isn’t it?

Maybe my 2:15:00 goal for Indy isn’t such a long shot after all…

This Week on the Journey (9/14 – 9/20)

This week started off with a pretty miserable ‘long run’ on Sunday. Less than 5 miles when I was hoping to get back to double digits. It could only get better from here right? I hoped so, but somewhere inside I was starting to doubt myself. Was I going to be able to get back onto the horse and resume some somewhat respectable training for Indy? All I could do was take each day as it came, and hope to make the best of it.

As has been my new ‘routine’ since the semester started, I planned for two training sessions with Ryan, and I’d run four of the other five days of the week. Monday was the first of the two training sessions. L and I had gone to donate blood on Sunday, and the nurse had apparently been a little bit less than gentle when working with my needle. I had some residual soreness, about the level of pain I would get after a hard workout. It wasn’t enough pain to affect any exercises, but just enough to let me know it was there. It was a typical Monday strength training session: pushups, using a device called the Perfect Pushup, followed by squats with dumbbells, walking lunges with the oversized medicine ball, the aerobic step using kettle balls, Mountain Climbers, gripping pushup handles and with sliders under my feet, and pullups while pivoting on the exercise ball. Finally, a ‘Six minute Abs’ session, consisting of situps, crunches, and my personal favorite, bicycle crunches.

Tuesday was the first of 3 run days in a row. This one was supposed to be an easy 4 mile run, but ended up at tempo pace, going out the first two miles in 18:21, and back in 19:00.

Wednesday after class I met a friend for some speedwork on the treadmill. This is the first time I had used the treadmill for interval training, so I didn’t know what to expect. I planned to do four 1/2 mile (800 m) intervals, with 1/4 mile recoveries at a fast walk. I picked 7.0 mph (8:34 pace) for my first interval. I finished it and still had some left in the tank when I was done, so I considered increasing the speed. I ended up deciding against it, and did the second interval at the same pace. I ended up doing the third interval at an 8:27 pace, and the fourth at an 8:20 pace. Those wiped me out pretty good, as the last half of the fourth interval was quite difficult to finish.

Thursday I was more determined to do an easier paced run than I had on Tuesday. The first two miles were along the same route, and I made a conscious effort to slow myself down. I had done this same route Friday of last week, had gone out too fast, and ended up having a difficult time finishing the 5.14 miles. This time I was at least somewhat successful in slowing myself down, as I made my two mile split in 19:04. It was apparently enough though, as I was able to finish the route without the struggle I had the week before.

Friday was training session #2 for the week; this time I had some extra baggage along for the ride, as I put on the weighted vest and approximatly 25 lbs for the session. It’s funny; even though I used to carry all that weight and then some with me for every task, the addition of the vest made a significant difference doing the exercises. Exercises for this session were pushups, squats, ‘catch’ with the oversized medicine ball, hockey lunges (I looked for a link for this one, but apparently what I was doing isn’t the traditional ‘hockey lunge.’), then on to the TRX bandsf for rows (3 arm angles) and a kneeling ab extension (think ab wheel). Finally, some bicep curls combined with the aerobic step, and some cardio kickboxing.

Friday was also weigh in day. After dropping 8 lbs over the course of the previous two weeks, apparently my body needed a bit of a recovery, as I ended up gaining one pound over last Friday’s weigh in.

Saturday, typically my rest day, was my long run day this week… this time, in a new place, on a new day of the week, trying to break out of my training rut…

Time flies when you’re having fun…

Last Saturday night L and I attended my 10 year high school reunion. It started out as a fancy, wedding reception style event at a local golf course, but people apparently got upset when they saw the cost, so it was ultimately changed to a lower-scale, more informal gathering in the basement of a local bar. Personally, I prefer the way it ended up over the way it was originally planned. I didn’t go to a fancy high school; having a big major event wasn’t necessary. And I know we had a much better turnout this way than we would have if it had been more formal.

Many thanks go to Carla and Jamie, the class President and VP, for putting the event together, lining up the DJ and photographer, and making all the last minute modifications when the plan had to change. Even though a good majority of graduates from my high school stay within a 5 mile radius of the school district we grew up in, there were still quite a few folks I hadn’t seen in a number of years. It was nice to be able to see them again and catch up. Although with Facebook and MySpace, people don’t seem to be as far away as they used to, it was still nice to have some actual face to face conversation.

I’ve heard from a lot of people who have gone to reunions that it’s like nothing has changed when you go back; people are still ‘clicky’ and still stick to the same groups they did in high school. L, who is a year older than me, wasn’t able to go to her reunion last year because of other commitments, but heard stories similar to those from the people who did attend. I don’t know if my class was the exception to that ‘rule’ or if I just didn’t notice it, but it seemed as though we really have grown up. I spent a good amount of time talking to people I never would have said two words to in high school.

Before the event, I would have never expected to be able to look back and say that I had a good time, but now that it’s over, I’m glad I went. I hope I don’t have to wait 15 more years to be able to see everyone again.

One Way Friendships

Google has an interesting ‘feature’ in their mail program. Depending on the content in a mail message you’re reading, the advertisements adjust to give links to websites that it feels relate to what you see.

As I was reading an email the other night at work, I stumbled across a link to this article from a website called Revolution Health. It made me think about some of the relationships I’ve had with people over the years; some of them recent, some of them going back 5 or 10 years or more.

As I’m sure is the case with most people, I can definitely relate to this article. On more than one occasion I’ve the one to try and perpetuate a one way friendship, sending an email or a text that doesn’t get returned, or making the phone call and the ‘we should get together sometime’ statement that never gets followed through.

It’s a tough decision to make to end a friendship. I tend to be one who invests a lot of himself into a relationship, and I do so probably too quickly. I get frustrated if I don’t see the same level of investment from the other party, and tend to cling to any glimmer of responsiveness I get in return.

Life has a way of getting in the way of friendships sometimes; a new job, a new baby, a new house, there are plenty of reasons relationships between friends get put on the back burner. Those same events, though, can also be the ones that bring friends closer together and weed out those who are your true friends from the rest of the acquaintances.

Sunday’s Long Run 9/14

10:00.

For some reason, in my head there seems to be some sort of stigma that goes along with that ‘magical’ 10 minute timeframe. Distance runners designate ’speed’ in its relative sense by time per mile. Since I began running I’ve never been fast by any definition. In the beginning, when I estimated how long it would take me to finish a run, I’d use a nice round estimate of about 15 minutes per mile, and it usually seemed to work out pretty well. I completed my first half marathon at a pace of 12:55 per mile, and I was fairly happy with that.

As I became more of a runner, and had more regular communication with other runners, it became more obvious how much slower I was than a lot of them. As much as running is an individual effort, and any seasoned runner will tell you that pace isn’t important, it’s getting out there and putting one foot in front of the other that counts, it’s always stuck in my head that I’m not a ‘good’ runner because I’m slow.

10:00 for me, when I first started, seemed like an unattainable goal for a run of any distance over a mile or so. As I got more miles under my feet, and a few less pounds under my belt, naturally I’ve become a bit faster. Since I threw a few speedwork sessions into my routine especially, that 10:00 became less of an impossibility and more of a reality for ’shorter’ runs of 3-4 miles. Now for the last couple weeks, I’ve had runs consistently under that magical 10:00 mark. All of them have been in the 3-5 mile range, but I’ve been fairly proud of myself nonetheless.

Because that 10:00 mark has such significance in my head (and yes, I do realize that there’s really no difference between a runner who runs at 9:59 pace and one who runs at 10:01 pace, or a 13:00 pace for that matter), I wanted to test myself on my latest rendition of my Sunday Long Run.

As anybody who’s been awake in the United States over the last week knows, Hurricane Ike tore a path of destruction, starting in Eastern Texas, and ultimately moving toward the northeast after its landfall. Fellow RWOL Forumite and Blogger Vince lived through Ike in all its fury, and has been kind enough to provide a blow by blow account. The remnants of Ike blew through the Metropolitan Detroit area on Sunday, I was forced indoors onto the treadmill for my long run.

My plan was fairly simple. It’s been a while since I was in the double digits for a run, and with my half at Indy coming up in about six weeks, I figured I was due. So I’d shoot for a nice 10 mile run. Should have been easy enough. In fact, I even brought my new shoes to give them a big test, as I’m still unsure whether or not the newest acquisition is gonna work out.

Now here’s where I got stupid.

I thought, since I had been having such success around the 10:00 mark, I’d start off about there on the treamill, do 3 or 4 miles and then slow it down to finish the rest. I know the treadmill isn’t the most scenic venue for a run, and that the gym where I do my treadmill running is ridiculously hot, even on the most mild spring or fall days. So I wouldn’t have been surprised if I needed to take a break a few miles in and wander around the gym for a minute or two before resuming my work. Seemed to be fairly simple, in theory.

Then reality hit. I set the treadmill for a 10:00 pace and set off. The first two miles went easy enough. I was working hard, but not ridiculously so. After the two miles, I took a short break before resuming. Mile 3 was tougher on me, and I stopped again afterwards. I was feelin lethargic in a sense, if one can be lethargic and running at the same time. My energy was sapped, I didn’t want to go on. I had brought two gel packs with me; I took one of them, a PowerGel Chocolate, which ended up being halfway decent if I do say so myself. Usually the gels do a pretty good job for me in getting me energized and on my way again. But even that wasn’t enough for me on this day, and after about 4.5 miles I just didn’t have any more in me. Rather than forcing myself through and making myself more miserable I decided to call it a day and pack it in. I went home severely disappointed in myself, but knew that there would be other days and other opportunities to get back into double digits.

I’ve said it before; running is a humbling activity. Just when you think you’re making steps toward progress, running gives you a virtual slap in the face, bringing you back to reality. In this case, I know in hindsight that I was being ridiculous, trying to keep a 10:00 pace on the treadmill for a long run. But I let that confidence, even cockiness, win out over rational thinking, and paid the price for it.

This Week on the Journey (9/7 – 9/13)

After starting out last week in beautiful northern Michigan, this week was back to the more ‘routine’ setting of the Detroit metro area. This was week 2 of the fall semester at school, which meant more adjustments to that routine as I had to make some tweaks.

The week got off to a rainy start, as my Sunday Long Run was delayed until the afternoon, but it ended up being a quality run of about 8 miles with a couple of friends.

Monday brought on the usual training session with Ryan. This week, because of school, I had only scheduled two sessions with Ryan, on Monday and Friday, in an attempt to a) stretch my training dollar, as fewer sessions per week means more weeks of training, and b) get a feel for how I can do on the Journey without relying on Ryan so much. Not having a ‘taper’ period before the last time my sessions ended was part of what made it difficult on me once that accountability was lost. With a better support system in place this time, I dont’ think that will be the case.

Monday’s workout started out with about 25 minutes on the spinning bike. It had been a little while since I had spent any quality time with my friend the spin bike; it was hard and I worked up a good sweat like I usually do. I’m sure my legs thanked Ryan later for that one. After the spinning session it was on to some abdominal work; situps while playing ‘catch’ with Ryan with the medine ball, more situps while sitting on an exercise ball, and an extended time crunch while I wrapped a medicine ball around my calves. The session ended with a 2000m total interval workout on the rower; 30 seconds fast, 30 seconds slow. Now THAT’s a workout.

Tuesday was scheduled to be the first of 3 consecutive run days. On Friday, I had taken back the Asics that I had bought as my second pair of shoes, and exchanged them for the current model Brooks Beast, this time in a narrower width. Tuesday’s run was my first on the new Beasts, an easy 3 miles on the treadmill at about a 10:20 pace. I stopped after each of the first two miles to do some adjusting to the laces, trying to find the comfort zone between ‘too tight’ and ‘not tight enough.’ Overall it was a pretty good run (for being on the treadmill at least), and the shoes felt pretty good.

Wednesdays are my on campus class day. My friend M and I have talked about heading to the gym at school after class to run together, but she had given me fair warning that she may not be ‘in the mood’ to go for a run after a full day of work and being in class. I ended up hitting the gym on my own this week, so I used it as another test of the new shoes, this time a 4 miler at a slightly faster pace (9:59). This time when I was done, I noticed some rubbing at the bottom base of my left big toe. It was almost like a blister, but the skin on that part of my foot is so calloused in that spot anyway, the blister never really formed. This isn’t a particularly good sign. I’ll have to keep an eye on this to see whether or not these shoes are gonna be a problem.

Thursday I had planned on making my third consecutive run day, but I had failed to account for a hospital visit to my mom, who had received her surgery that day. I hadn’t had a rest day since Labor Day anyway, so I was probably due.

Friday was supposed to be my second training session of the week with Ryan, but after getting a phone call around 8:00 that morning to cancel the session, I decided it would be a nice day for a run. I hit the roads for a 5ish miler, adding an extra loop in to my most traveled 4 mile route. I went out quickly, and hit my 2 mile turnaround point in 18:51 (9:30 pace). I must say I was a little surprised when I checked my watch at that point, because it didn’t feel like it was that fast. I knew, though, if I wanted any chance of making it the whole way, that I needed to slow down, and I did, at least somewhat. I ended up finishing the 5.14 total miles at an overall 9:53 pace, and I could definitely feel the effects of going out too quickly during the last 3 miles.

Friday was also weigh in day; I weighed myself before my run and was happy to find a 3.5 lb drop for the week.

In an attempt to get back to my usual weekly routine, I decided to make Saturday my typical rest day.