L11 Day 6 & 7 - Experimentation

When summer started getting bad, my performance seemed to go a bit down hill.  I started jogging very early in the morning.  My heart rate is higher for a given amount of work, I seem sluggish, and I've turned into a 'quitter' (don't tell nobody - but my eight mile runs seem to be history!).  So, over the past couple of days I've done some experimentation and I've looked to regain my mojo.

Monday Night's Jog

One thought was "Hey, I'm a night person".  I have no business getting up at 5 am every morning.  My body isn't awake yet, no wonder jogging got hard.  So, I went jogging on Monday night.  Rain had just cleared away, and it was relatively cool.  (72° and 90% humidity).  Well, let me tell you ... this run sucked.  Thus, I conclude that it is the humidity plus temperature that's thrown me into a tailspin.

Tuesday Night's Jog

When I got home from work, it started to rain HARD.  So, I sat at the table and ate dinner with the family like the typical non-super-hero runner dude.  Well, as soon as the chicken hit the bottom of my stomach, I'm starting to get that hankering for a jog.  But, now it's dark outside - what to do??

Yep, I resort to that zillion dollar treadmill in the basement.  And there were so many firsts associated with this workout:

1:  I used a fan.  I had it blowing hard up on my right side.  I could drift back a couple of feet on the belt for maximum cooling effect.  It was pretty sweet, and made me wonder why in the fudge I'd never taken advantage of it before.

2:  I drank some water during the jog.  I basically have to hold my breath for 10 seconds to get an airlock on the bottle and get a good swallow down.  And it probably takes me twenty-five seconds to recover from the trauma of trying to drink water on the jog.  But, I figure it's good practice if I ever decide to go for distance running.

3:  I never slowed the treadmill down.  I started at 5.1 mph and towards the end I went to 5.3, 5.5, and then 6.0.  (I did 6.0 mph for less than a minute.)  The entire exercise was done at an incline of 1%.

4: I used my Garmin in a non-GPS mode.  I told it I was indoors and wore the heart rate strap.  Like a dolt, I waited over a minute to turn the Garmin on.  I jogged 5K, but it took 36 minutes, not the 34:30 that the graph below shows.

It makes sense that my heart rate went up towards the end, because I punched in faster speeds.  But, I'm not sure why it drifted up between 10 and 27 minutes.  I was watching my Mamas and Papas DVD ... so it may have been Michelle Phillips.  I'm looking at footage of her from when I was a baby ... and I'm thinking about building a time machine.  In the words of the group's tenor, Denny Doherty, she was "the slurp of the century".  Now, I'm not going to interpret that statement.  But, nevertheless, I am going to agree with it wholeheartedly.

Conclusion

So, I've concluded that I'm not necessarily a night person.  I don't do too well in humidity.  And, the treadmill isn't really all too terribly bad.

And ...

I have now jogged five days in a row!!!  Yes, it's another first ... and best of all, I feel good.

Ah, So in Love!

No offense Safeway ...

Nor to you, dear Giant ...

But, I am so in love with you Wegmans!

They have zillions of wines, cheeses, chocolates, meats, veggies, fruits, ethnic foods, pastries, breads, drink mixes.  'It's like Six Flags for stomachs' - said me.

~ Here is a sampling of the treats I got there yesterday ~

Scrumptious dark chocolates with Black Currant; Manjari Orange; Cayenne Pepper; Cinnamon; and Red, Pasilla, Guajilo, Ancho, and Chipotle Peppers!!

This is a sampling of what I bought as far as Indian Cuisine goes.  Tami went to dream dinners yesterday, but I told her my dream dinner was sitting on the counter in an Indian version of a MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat).  I had half a Palak Paneer and half of a Navratan Kurma.  Add in a slice of bread with spicy hummus, and a half cup of teeny-tiny tomatoes, and it was ... in the immortal words of Dora's backpack ...

Mucho Delicioso!!!

And my lunch today?  It was exactly the same!  Alrighty, time to take the kids to see Despicable Me.  I've jogged three days in a row, and aside from my left ankle, everything feels pretty good.  I'm taking a few days to get through each chocolate bar, so I should really start making progress on the weight loss now.  At least my fingers are crossed.

(If you haven't, you might want to take a look at the last post ... it was a pretty cool route, going from Virginia to Maryland and back via the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge.)

L11 Day 5 - The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge

I've jogged the last two days, but the weather is relatively good with temperatures in the lower 70s and humidity also in the 70s (early in the morning).  So, I decided to treat myself to a new course since I've been shuffling along in the neighborhood for awhile.  My boss recommended this particular stretch, and I've got to admit - it was very excellent.

I started on the Mount Vernon Trail about a mile south of the bridge.  Here is a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what it looked like.

Next up, you turn right on the north side of the bridge and start heading over to Maryland.  It's neat seeing the planes floating overhead on their way to Ronald Regan Washington National Airport, a name that is almost bigger than the airport itself!  There is a lot of touristy stuff on the bridge with sings and free telescopes.  It is a tremendous view.  And, if you ever need any adrenaline, just imagine being tossed off ... it's a long ways down to that river - yikes! 

From where you get on the bridge to where you jog up in circles to cross over and exit the bridge is 1.3 miles.  National Harbor is about a mile from the bridge's exit.  All-in-all, it was about 3.5 miles from where I started to finishing on the pier.  Here's the view from National Harbor and some interesting art.

I jogged another mile back to the bridge, and took a breather at 4.5 miles.  That's farther than I've gotten in the last few jogs, so that's good.  I jogged the bridge part that's over water (one mile) and then had an interesting conversation with a man who had run out of gas on the bridge.  The path is behind the sound-proof glass on the right side of the picture.

Then, once I turned south off the bridge, I jogged the last 3/4ths of a mile back to the car. All told I did 6.25 miles jogging and 3/4ths of a mile walking.  And when I got home, my daughter was still asleep!

L11 Days 3 & 4 - Five Oranges Each Day

This picture will be explained at the bottom of this post ...

Yesterday's jog was brutal.  It was only 72°, but 93% humidity.  I jogged 2.5 miles, then walked 0.5 miles, and jogged the remaining mile home.  I really have to work a lot harder in these conditions.  Sweating doesn't cool me off, so my body says "No problem, I'll just sweat more!"  It just makes me feel sick-like.

Today's jog went a little better.  I had to start later, because it was extra dark this morning due to the rainy overcast.  I suppose this was the first real rain I've jogged in.  It made things different enough and "epic" enough, that I was able to go a bit over four miles without stopping.  But, when I stopped jogging, I had to sit on the porch a few minutes to make sure I wasn't going to be sick.  My before weight was 191.5 and afterwards it was 188.5 - and the after weight was fully clothed sans shoes.

One thing I find interesting is that my average pace is identical at 12:07 per mile - even though the courses were different, and even though I had an "off-the-record" walking break yesterday.  I'm okay with that pace in these conditions.  Hopefully I can acclimate, and continue to see cardio improvements, if not distance or pace improvements.

Okay, about those oranges.

After all these high humidity runs in the neighborhood, I drip down into the basement's bathroom to become human again.  I separate the compression liner from the shorts, and sling it over the shower curtain rod.  After they've hung there a minute or two, I can grab the compression-liner-side and the outer-shorts side and milk them like cow thingies for about five oranges worth.  Isn't that picturesque?  Can't you just hear it splattering on the tub below? Isn't that just incredibly gross?  Okay, sorry folks.  But, if I say I had a 'five oranges' run in the future, I won't have to explain it!

L11 Day 2 - Reston Firecracker 5K

Well, sports fans, gather 'round and see what went down today!

Tami and I loaded up the Swagger Wagon, and headed out a little before 6 AM.  You should really check this video out - I am totally the dad in this thing!  And, yes, we have a decked-out Toyota Sienna Swagger Wagon!

We got there at around 6:35.  As you can see Max is still pretty tired.

Eventually, we got the kids energized and happy.

Here they are wishing me luck.

Naturally, I have my game face on.

About 675 runners participated in the race.

Here's the course map.

See where the race should stop?  It doesn't ... it keeps going until you're practically due south of the start point.  This means I ran 3.16 instead of 3.1; which works out to a little over 30 seconds.

Anyhow, here I am at Mile One.  You know I'm going to be showing this picture to several people asking them just how messed up my mechanics are ... I really thought I was landing mid-foot.  Doesn't look like it here though, does it?  I was trying to catch back up with that lady, get a ride in that stroller.

I did the first mile in 10:20.4; and the second mile in 10:01.2.  Unfortunately, I couldn't quite hang on in that third mile and I did a 10:45.1.  The last part was uphill ... it was a slight uphill, but I could feel it.  Look at all the happy faces here!  Yes, I am worn out at this point.

My watch is already saying 5K complete ... so now I'm thinking "Oh God, where is the finish line??"  It's not like I can just stop with family and strangers all watching and clapping.  My heart rate is 6 beats per minutes higher than my bib number at this point.

Predictably, upon crossing the finish line, I neglect to hit the watch button for about nine seconds.  But, let's look at the stats anyway, shall we?

The important thing in the stats is the pace, which says 10:23.  I uploaded this stuff to Running Ahead, and it says 10:24.  Fine, whatever.  I'm not one to split hairs.  So, I took this bloated 10:24 pace and put that across 5K instead of 3.16 miles, and that indicates a 5K time of 32:16.  I consider that to be my time.  The race website will likely consider my time to be 32:40.  At Possum Ridge, my watch said 3.1 miles when I crossed the finish line, so I really trust it.  And, on Google Earth, the shortest route I could draw was also 3.16.  Okay, enough of that nonsense.  Let's look at my heart rate. I was really working it.

I got a cookie, half a bagel, three bottles of water, and a very nice technical running shirt.  I had started near the back, passed a bunch of people in mile two (when it wasn't too crowded), and only some of those folks caught up to me before the finish.  We stuck around for the awards.  The overall winner clocked this thing in something like 14:24.  Hadn't felt sick today at all, until they announced that time!  Whew.

The official results can be found here.

In a few hours, we're going shopping for an all new kids bathroom.  We're re-doing everything except the wiring.  And, tonight, we've got a butt-load of fireworks to shoot in the cul-de-sac.  My son (age 6) advertises that this year he will not be scared of them.  We shall see.

Update: He was right - wasn't scared at all!!

Level Eleven (Day 1)

~ Athletic Character Statistics ~

Age: 44

Weight: 189.0

BMI: 27.1

Capability: 70-minute jogs

Speed: 5.3 mph

Gear: Freakin' Solid!

Yep - only eighty-five days to lose five pounds!  (April 6 through June 30.) I'll have to check with the doc, to make sure the weight isn't flying off my body too fast.  Way back on March 28th, I defined my post-C25K leveling scheme, here it is again as a refresher:

It's been forever since I've looked at that chart.  And, it really helps me appreciate how far I've come.  Okay, not weight-wise, but I can sure put up some miles.  My longest jog is 8.45 miles, and my 5K race pace (based on one race) is 5.7 mph.  For those who want to see some cool stats (miles per week, month, etc.) you can check me out at RunningAhead.  My profile name is "MrGecko".

Clearly, I will have to think about altering the running portion of the plan.  I still like the weight-loss dimension of the plan.  But, I will have to figure out how to execute better.  Otherwise, my weight loss would just be due to a general wizening i.e., to become dry, shrunken, and wrinkled as a result of aging or of failing vitality.  I knew when I weighed 190.5 last night, that I'd wake up at or below 190.  I weighed 189 before this morning's jog and 187.5 afterwards. Maybe I can get back on the wagon insofar as dieting goes.

Now for the Jog

I got started a little late, but it was still a crisp 61° outside.  I think the humidity was a bit higher than yesterday morning, but it didn't really bother me during the jog.  I went 3.6 miles at a 11:14 pace.

L10 Day 34 - Double or Nothing

There is a cold snap in Virginia!  I started my morning jog just before 6 AM, and it was a brisk 65° and the humidity was only 35%.  I chose a hilly course with four new streets.  I was a bit disappointed in the way I slowed down.  It's like each hill subtracts X seconds off of every subsequent quarter-mile - independent of terrain.  But, I won't complain too much because at 4.6 miles I felt like stopping but I kept going until I had hit 6.5 miles.

Okay, I take it back - I will complain too much: ARRRRGGGHHH!!!!!

Okay, I know there were a few hills, but for Pete's sake, why is my average heart rate 154 for a lousy 12:31 pace??  And with a cool temperature and low humidity?  I took a week off after the Possum Ridge 5K, and now my resting heart rate has jumped from 48 to 58??  This is bogus.  And to make it worse, after finishing the jog I didn't even have 10 miles for the week.

So, I went jogging tonight.  I decided it would be a short one, but it would be aggressive.  The temperature was 69° with a 36% humidity.  Very ideal.  My left ankle was mighty mad at me for about a minute, but then it got pounded into submission.

I averaged 160 bpm, and got a 10:17 pace out of it.  I think my breathing was actually keeping up.  Hopefully the legs won't be mad at me tomorrow, because it will be nice out.  Then I'll take it easy because my next 5K is on the 4th of July.

The Possum Ridge 5K results were finally posted.  I finished 3 of 6 in my age group, and 33 of 76 overall.  Even if you weed out the 13 walkers (15+ pace), I'm pretty much in the middle.  Um, thanks Kentucky!

I might have some good news to post tomorrow ...