What can 22 miles do for you??

So, as a former FedEx employee, should I really be taking a slogan from UPS and changing it to use for my headline today? Probably not, but I did it anyways.

Today was the annual community picnic in Kenai that we call Industry Appreciation Days. It is basically a big party so that the main industries in our area can feed us all lunch, give away some toys and bikes to our kids, and we can appreciate them feeding us while we appreciate all the jobs they create and money that flows into our community through their industries. The main industries recognized are oil and gas, fishing, and tourism.

What does this possibly have to do with my quest to run a marathon, you ask?? Let me explain.

As I stated, this annual event is held in Kenai. The drive to get there is a little over 11 miles from my house. I decided this year I was going to ride my bike. Both ways. One way hauling a trailer with 2 kids in it. My plan was to ride there solo, and then ride home hauling a couple of kids. My wife was gone overnight, and hadn't yet returned when I left, so on a whim, I decided to take kids in the trailer going with me. I knew it would slow me down a bit. But it would also help me sweat more. So I hitched up the trailer and headed out. It took me a little over 83 minutes to make the ride. The two in the trailer didn't even start asking "Are we there yet?" until we were almost half way there. We still got there before the rest of the family by about 10-15 minutes.

The ride home was a bit quicker with no kids to pull. 53 minutes and change. About 30 minutes less. Not bad.

So now, to answer the question above -- What can 22 miles do for you? Well, let me tell you what it did for me. Through this grueling ride, I was able to eat a hamburger, a side of grilled salmon, a bag of chips, a bag of Kettle Korn, drink a couple of sodas, have a little bit of smoked pork with BBQ sauce from the 4-H pig that they smoke there every year, and drink a bottle of water each way, and still come home 2 lbs lighter then I left. NOT BAD!!

Gave me a new reason to appreciate industry appreciation days altogether. Not to mention, my oldest son won a new bike in the Frozen T-Shirt contest. But that's another story.

I sure am glad tomorrow is my day of rest. I surely need it after today. And Monday, I'm starting a new portion of training. I'll tell you about it on Monday.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY!!

Well, kind of a bummer last night. Was really looking forward to my run, but the weather would not cooperate. One of the rainiest days we've had all year I think. When I got up in the morning, it was raining, but by the time I had to head to wrok on my bike, it had stopped, although the road was still wet. It started up again by late morning and continued on pretty steady the rest of the day.

So tonight, I decided to do some time on the treadmill instead. I really don't like the treadmill that much, but I know I'll have to get used to it for winter time anyhow. So I may as well do some now. I did a total of just over 60 minutes on there last night. I combination of running and walking, but mostly walking -- fast walking.

I've got to keep doing something every day, no matter what. And this is how I will do it.

Today, Saturday, I'm looking forward to what I have planned. We're planning to go to a large community picnic in Kenai, which is about 11 miles away. I'm thinking about biking there and back -- and even pulling the trailer on the way back with 2 kids in it. Weather permitting of course. As of right now, 7:42 AM, it looks about 50/50 as to whether or not the weather is going to cooperate. It isn't raining right now, but the roads are pretty wet still. We'll see what happens.

Treadmill -- 1:00:27; 3.28 miles; Avg Speed 3.3 MPH; Max speed 5.4 MPH; Avg Heart Rate 132 BPM.

Wednesday NIght

Well, I made it out again last night. But I've got to get better about logging these on time so that they show up here in my blog on the right day. I wish I could put the right date on them, but the site has it's limitations.

Tonight felt pretty good. I made it 2.95 minutes in my 30 minutes. For some reason that 3 mile mark still manages to elude me. I actually thought I was going to hit it today. At around the 17 minute mark or so, my heart rate monitor started beeping telling me I was higher than I should be, and it beeped off and on the rest of the way, except for during my 1 minute walking period. My wife didn't even offer to go with me this time. Said her feet were still a bit sore from the previous night. I don't normall run 2 nights in a row, but needed to to get back on track since I sat out Monday due to the rain. It rained on me just a tad bit tonight near the end. Luckily I left when I did, because within a few minutes of finishing, it started raining pretty good.

30 minutes, 2.95 miles, Avg pace -- 5.9 MPH. Max speed, 8.2 MPH.

A Tuesday Night Run?

OK, so I'm a couple posts behind. But I've still been out running.

I didn't make it out Monday night this week, due to the rain. I had good intentions. Figured I'd go get on the treadmill and do my time on there, but I never got to it. So I decided to get out there last night instead. (I'm writing this on Wednesday night.)

As I got ready to go last night, my wife Marlene said something about going with me. But then she said that I probably needed to stay at a certain pace. Which was true to an extent, but I played it down, and she decided to go with me. We really ran for MAYBE the first quarter mile. At that point she was more "fast walking," and I was running along side her, baby step style I guess you could say. Again, not as intense as I'm used to, but it was fun to have her along.

It was supposed to be Run 18, Walk 1, and run 11, but since the intensity was so low, I pretty much "ran" the whole trip, if you could call that running.

To recap: 30 minutes, covering 1.81 miles. I'll get the other details added on here later.

Don't be so shocked!!

It's amazing the reactions I get when people see me running. And tonight, I saw more then normal. Less than a quarter of a mile in, I almost got run over by someone that wasn't paying attention to me. Almost turned right right into me. Luckily, I saw him and was ready to stop if needed. This is the second time in 2 weeks this has happened, although last time I was on my bike.

My run tonight fely great. OF course, it's always good to be presented with a challenge here and there. And tonight, just as I was leaving, I got one. I had a friend who is helping me through this endeavor, and today he emailed and asked me what the top speed is I reach. I told him what I thought was fresh in my memory from my last run, and he challenged me to do a little better than that. And so tongiht, for a little bit, I did just that. Top speed tonight I hit was 8.2 MPH, but my overall average was 5.8 MPH. It was my best average speed to date, and I have to credit my new shoes. They feel so much better than my old Nikes. My GPS gave me more problems tonight too. Actually, I gave it to myself. My routine tonight was supposed to be Run 17 Minutes, Walk 1 minute, and Run 12 minutes. Well, I screwed up again and had it set to run 17 HOURS. Luckily, I was paying attention and still got my walking interval in at the right time. You would think that the longer I've had this thing,the better I would be at using it. Hopefully I"ll get it right on Saturday.

And now for the sightings tonight. I had one person see me who pretended they were going to run me right out of the bike lane I was running in, followed shortly by one of my refereeing buddies who backed up to talk to me. I was in my walking interval and when he offered to "pace" me, I let him know I had my pace on my wrist, and that I had to start running again in 20 seconds. I headed on down the road, and he went on his way. Then came the third person to see me, who politley offered me a ride. As if I was out of my normal zone to be out running. Little does he know. Or most people. But the word is slowly getting out about my goal to run a marathon -- a goal that is very much in sight.

To recap tonight -- 2.93 miles in 30 minutes, 2 seconds. Average speed, 5.8 MPH. Avg heart rate of 159 BPM, and 554 calories burned. And I capped it all off with a nice, home made burrito.

Getting back in the loop

Well, after a couple weeks off, I'm back to my running ways again. The first week I missed was primarily due to the fact that I was travelling out of town in Las Vegas. While I was there, I managed to wear a blister on my right foot, so I had to set out a week and let that heal too.

Monday this week, I rode 21 miles round trip to Kenai for Jury Duty, so I started running again last night. I slowed my pace just a tad since I haven't run in a couple of weeks, but still managed to get in 2.68 miles in my 30 minutes of running. I accidentally loaded the program wrong into my GPS, so I had to pay a littlecloser attention to the time at the end as it wasn't properly programmed. But I still got it done.

THis was also my first run in my new running shoes, and they felt great!!

The hardest 2 miles yet!

Wow. I can't believe how difficult tonight's run felt. I have a couple of theories on why. And I'll get to those in a minute.

Tonight, I started by going to the local track to try calibrating my Garmin Forerunner with my footpod again. The result changed slightly from when I did it last week, but I'm still not convinced it's right. I may try one more thing in a week or so. When I get back from Las Vegas. For now, it is what it is.

Speaking of Vegas, I havebeen tracking the temps down there lately, and it is HOT!! Temps well over 100 degrees every day. It's supposed to drop to a high of only 97 by Friday while I'm there. We'll see. That being said, I don't suppose I'll be doing any outside running while I'm there. Luckily the hotel has a fitness center. So, since I'll be running inside while I'm there, I decided to do so here at home tonight. Boy was it different!! Seemed very exhausting, and I felt like I was sweating more than normal. And I probably was. Not to mention the fact that I couldn't even stay anywhere near my normal pace. Tonight I was running 16/1/13. THose first 16 weren't too bad, other than the fact that I didn't feel like I could run the same speed as when I'm outside. I did start out between 5.5 and 6 MPH, which is about normal, but couldn't maintain that at all. And eneded doing most of my run at the 4.5 MPH setting on the treadmill, which I'm told not to believe since those aren't really calibrated. But, the newly calibrated Forerunner was reporting a pretty similar speed, so I think it was probably pretty close.

At about the 23 minute mark, I could feel a small rock in my shoe, so I did stop to get it out of there. But it was a quick stoppage.

I hope the fitness center is well air-conditioned when I get there!! No matter what, I've got to keep going.

I almost tried to justify not running tonight by telling myself I had already ridden my bike to and from work twice, and then done 4 walking laps at the track when I was calibrating the Forerunner. But I kept telling my self, "The only minutes that really count are the 'Required 30' ". And I will keep telling myself that. Gotta do it!!

Frontloading the Hills

So, I'm still in Anchorage and had another run to do in my brother's neighborhood tonight. Last night I realized what a flat area I'm used to running on. As I mentioned, the hills really got to me.

So tonight, I decided to do something a little different. I modified my route a little bit, so that I'd have some hills right off the bat, and pretty much have them over with. I think it worked. The last tough climb I had, and for many experienced runners, it proably wouldn't have been much trouble at all, was about 3/4 of a mile into my run.

This was the first night where I only had one, one-minute break. Which meant 29 minutes of running. It all felt really good tonight. And I ran farther than I ever have before -- 2.95 miles. At least that's what I THINK I ran. Best estimate I could get from Google Earth measurements. I didn't have the luxury of checking the mileage on my Garmin Forerunner when I got home. When I first checked when I got home, it was rather puzzled by it all. It had been recording my time, letting me know when to walk and then when to start running again. And it had recorded my heart rate info correctly. But no mileage. No average speed. None of that. After getting mad at Garmin for a few minutes, I think I figured out what happened. While I was changing some of the settings inside tonight before I left, at one point the GPS asked me if I was indoors, and I told it yes. That usually turns off the GPS portion of the device, and unless you manually turn it back on or reboot the whole system, it doesn't come back on. Now it makes sense why, as I was running and would glance at my watch from time to time, some of the fields were blank. I didn't give it much thought at the time. But you can rest assured I will next time.

It was another late evening run, not leaving until about 10:30 PM. The great thing about running that late though is that it's STILL LIGHT. As I turned a corner to head down the final half mile stretch or so, the sunset was gorgeous. Great reminder of what a beautiful state I live in.

Tomorrow is a day with no training on the schedule. I'm looking forward to it. I'm just glad I got back to a week where I got all 4 of my training days completed!! And 2 of them on the road. Next week I'll be out of town starting Tuesday, but I should be able to get my training in regardless.