The Reboot Era

7/23/14 - Jogging reboot commenced, with 60-sec jogs on the treadmill.  I built up to 30 minutes without stopping by mid-August.  All on the treadmill.  All my family is doing fine and we moved to North Texas back in 2012.

9/14/14 - Did Corporate Challenge 5K, my second time running outside after the jogging reboot.  I achieved a pace of 11:54, beating my sub-40 goal handily whilst talking with my friend Bill who had persuaded me to go ahead and knock out a 5K.  (Hadn't gone that far either.)

9/27/14 - Did this 5K solo with my Walkman MP3 Player, knocking the pace down to 11:05.  Spread across exactly 5K, it implies a time of 34:26.  (From now on, I will take my pace according to Garmin and spread it across exactly 5K to derive a time.)

 

 

I still love bling ... a lot!  Here's a picture of the 1.1 ounce Sony Walkman.  It's waterproof and people swim in them.  It holds 4 GB, which I haven't begun to fill.  I thought I'd put a bunch of RPM-specific playlists on there.  Instead, I've put mostly progressive rock (Yes, Rush, Genesis) on there and I jog to songs of epic proportions - songs that are twenty minutes long, even.  These things are so light, and so in your ear - they don't bounce around and the bass is decent.

10/04/14 - Ran a 5K in the neighborhood where I grew up, at the very middle school I attended in Fort Worth.  And with a giant parrot on my head, cause like why not?  Got my pace down to 10:34 (32:50) and there were some hills.  Still need to beat a 10:23 pace to score a PR, but a very encouraging experience.  It was also very interesting to walk around in my old school.

 

 

10/11/14 - The Showdown refers to the Texas/OU Weekend in college football.  I ran in a TCU shirt to remind OU that they'd fallen to the TCU Horned Frogs the week before.  Was that tacky?  In any event, it was cold, damp, and windy but it wasn't hilly and I got a PR out of it at a 10:14 pace (31:48). Bill ran this one on his own and got it done in under twenty-eight minutes.  He's not a small dude, but he is young and strong!

 

10/26/14 - This race was close by in McKinney (which is four suburbs north of Dallas).  Definitely the hilliest 5K I've done so far with about 380 feet up and 380 feet down.  I was very, very surprised that I scored another PR pace at 10:05 (31:20).

 

 

Four years ago, I had done a Goblin Gallop in Virginia and my kids did the fun run (left).  I talked my kids into doing it again and they both did fine.  Max has decided to train for a 5K.

 

 

As it's getting colder, and I'm getting faster (and skinnier), I'm continuing to acquire bling.  Nike Pro Combat tights are awesome as are Under Armour Evo long sleeve running shirts.  For shoes, I'm alternating between Brooks Ghost 7s (pictured) and Saucony something or others.

 

 

11/08/14 - Signed up for this 5K at the last minute, on the advice of neighbor Curtis (who had encouraged my to do the Halloween Hustle).  This was advertised as a fast, flat course.  So I forked over the money.  The night before, I'd agonized over spreadsheets and pace calculators that take elevation changes into account, etc.  I was going to try and break a ten minute pace.  I was prepared to wear the heavy long sleeve tech shirt, but the weather ended up being pretty nice at 52 degrees.  So, I wore my skimpy long sleeved tech shirt.  Anyhow, a miracle happened and I ran at a pace of 9:22 (29:06).  I'm still not sure where this came from ... it's forty some odd seconds per mile faster than the PR two weeks prior.  I hadn't even done one mile that fast since basic training thirty years ago.  But I'll take it!  Below you can see Neighbor Curtis, Co-Worker Bill, and me celebrating (in left-to-right order).  We all got PRs that day! 

 

 

Naturally, given the title of the blog, there has to be some dark cloud on the horizon.  This time it is the occasional stab of pain on the outside of the left knee.  Usually, with a day or two of rest it's fine again.  But I'm going to a doctor before it gets all chronic and discouraging.  I did a few miles today at a 10:19 pace with a heart rate in the 140s.  My weight is in the 170s and I'm heading for the 160s if I can get there.  My jeans are down to 34s.  And I'm definitely in better shape now with jogging and weight-lifting and dieting than I've been in many years.  If any readers are out there from the old days, I hope you are all doing well!  Here's a summary of the 5Ks done so far in what I'm calling the Reboot Era:

 

 

I don't know if I'm going to blog much.  I started the blog way back when as a mechanism to enforce accountability, to make my little fitness effort larger than life and just as important.  These days, for whatever reason, motivation just doesn't seem to be an issue.  All in all, I'd say I've become a Level 15 Character!



 

First Week of November

I got in two decent jogs while I was in Santa Barbara, California.  My heart rate is still much higher than it used to be, and my ankle bothers me, but I am determined to make a go of it.  The first jog was done on Tuesday afternoon.

The second jog out there was done Friday morning.  It was actually too hot Thursday afternoon ... like upper 80s!  So, I got out there and it was around 50°, much preferable.  I accomplished another first - crashing.  My left foot got stuck behind an invisible "speed bump", so I hopped on my right foot, and went down like a ton o' bricks.  I took most of the impact on my right palm, and had little grill marks on my lower right leg.  Good thing I'm not a cyclist!  Oh, and of course this happens four minutes into the 35 minute jog.  (Oh wait, I was a cyclist and that's when I drove off a cliff and broke my elbow.)



Finally, on Sunday the 7th, I talked Elaine (age 8) into a little fun run with me.  We did 1.3 km, which is a distance record for her.  She sure can talk a lot while she's running.  "I'm tired!", "Oh, look at the birds!", "How much longer?", "Cute doggie!" ... you get the idea.

Goblin Gallop



Between blog posts, I went jogging a whopping three times:

10/9 - 1 km with the kids (training them for Goblin Gallop)
10/10 - 2 miles in the neighborhood
10/14 - 2.18 miles in the neighborhood

After a good, seventeen-day taper, I knew monumental achievement was within reach!!  It was a brisk 48° at 8:10 as the kids got their bibs for the 1 km fun run.

Before the race #1

Before the race #2

The picture above was immediately before the race, and as you can see, I could not talk them out of their hoodies.  Tami and I got out of the way and they were off.  I practiced taking photos of moving targets as they started finishing.

During the 1 km fun run

Hmmm ... there was really something primal about Thing 1 and Thing 2.  And when the kids came flying through I got the blurriest pieces of crap pictures of all time.  But, here they are post-race happy with finisher's medals:



Then it was my turn, the pressure was on, and the bathroom lines were too long, so I just got in the back with the stroller people.  Tami got a blurry picture towards the beginning, but a decent picture of me near the finish:

I didn't turn my Garmin off after finishing, but I was able to get my time from printed sheets they taped to the registration tables.  It said I took 38:13, and I managed to run 3.16 miles on the 3.11 course.  My max heart rate was 180.  I've really lost a lot of ground in the 14 or so weeks that I've been mostly inactive.  To put it in perspective: on the last day of July I ran 6.2 miles at an 11:14 pace with an average heart rate of 148.  Today, with about the same temperature, I went 3.16 at a 12:06 pace with an average heart rate of 166.  The course did have a couple of hills, but they weren't steep.  I'd run this race again in a heartbeat.  In fact, as soon as Max finished he jumped up and down and asked "Can I do this next year??"  I had a plearsurable time out there today (and had popped some aspirin ahead of time), but what makes me feel the best is that my kids did well in their first race.

Gobblin Gallop 5K Route

Once more, with feeling

I got out today, in a breezy 62° afternoon, and managed 5K in the neighborhood.  My ankle hurt for awhile, and at 1.5 miles, the ball of the left foot (behind the big and index toes) felt somewhere between numb and mushy.  But, I was able to squeak out a 5K without a whole lot of mental gymnastics. (My time was only 38:09, so I wasn't asking for much.)  I stretched the ankles afterwards, and iced the inside of the left ankle pretty good.  Hopefully, I can get another run in over the weekend.

Also, the kids have agreed to participate in their first training run for the Goblin Gallop (Oct. 31st) this weekend.  This should be entertaining - I can hear the excuses and complaints already. :)

Keep your fingers crossed for my feet and ankles!

Hopefully I'm Back

Well, this afternoon I said to heck with it and went for a jog.  I took a few Advil thirty minutes prior, and I got through it.  I had a little pain, like an outline around the bone on the inboard left ankle.  But it wasn't acute, and after a few minutes it receeded.  At about a mile and a half, the inside ball of that foot felt a little numb.  But, I made it the 2.17 miles I was aiming for.  Sadly, I had left my HR monitor belt back in California in July, so another is on order.  Hopefully, I can get going again.  I was very happy that taking such a long break didn't completely kill my (limited) ability to breathe.  If all goes well, I'll run the Goblin Gallop on the 31st.



And, naturally, I'll be at the Restore Sanity / Keep Fear Alive Rally in Washington DC on 10-30-10!!!

Okay, here is the run stuff

Yep ... still have that awesome, fast pace :)

L11 Day 15 - More Melodrama

Okay, it's been awhile since I have posted.  It has also been awhile since I have been jogging.  But, that last jog I had was pretty sweet - out in California near Santa Barbara with temperatures in the mid to upper 50s.  I set a best 10km time, and I wasn't really working very hard.  It was so chilly, my heart rate monitor couldn't complete a circuit through me on that first quarter mile.

In all, I jogged 6.75 miles.  I did the first 2 miles with a friend at work, Brad.  He's ridiculously young and in shape, but was very nice to plod along with me for a bit.  Then he got bored and ran back to the hotel at a considerably faster pace. He ended up doing 4.25 I think, which is a distance record for him.  I think that's the first time I actually went jogging with another person.  Such a lovely flat route out there!

Sweet Jogging Trail

Goleta Beach

I got my 10km time down under 1:10 for the first time at 1:09:41.

The neatest thing is that I wasn't working awfully hard.  My heart rate was in the 140s, my breathing was easy.  I had the whole week in California to get in fast 5K run, and basically clock another 18 miles.  (I was in a July mileage contest and would have placed second, darn it!)  But when I tried to jog the next day, I couldn't.  After about three steps, my left ankle made me limp and hurt so bad, that I just walked back to the hotel.  It's been two and a half weeks now, and it isn't one iota better.  So, I'll be going for help.  My aim is to go to a foot and ankle medical doctor who is also a runner.  I hope they can fix me up, because I've been turning into a hobby-less slug.

L11 Day 13 & 14

This jog was good because I finally conquered Cotton Mills Road.  Its hills aren't that bad, but there are several of them, and combined with the heat and humidity, I hadn't been able to put it all together.

Then I went back to Burke Lake.  This time, I had my #$*&# handed to me.  But, it was one of the hottest days on record, so I decided to cut myself some slack.  (Nevertheless, my *(&$#% was most certainly handed to me!)