I ran 10 miles today and was reminded of a very serious condition that I've become afflicted with. Please take time to watch the video and take the steps necessary to avoid this terrible affliction.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Good Running Weekend
One of the things I enjoy about running is seeing real progress. When I first started running again late last year and early this year, I was running anywhere from 11:30 - 12:30 per mile.
My half marathon training program has 3 running days per week. Saturdays are my "long run days". This past Saturday my long run was 8 miles. I'm usually pretty sore after a long run, but this past Saturday I actually finished the run fairly invigorated. I made my typical walk down to the store and bought my post run chocolate milk and a bag of ice for my ice bath. I went home and soaked in the ice water for about 25 minutes. On Sunday morning, a day which is usually a non-running day, I ran the Scioto Miles 5K run at Easton Shopping Center. I had my best run of the season, finishing in just over 30 minutes or 9:44/mile. My 8 mile run the day before was run at faster than 11:00/mile.
So, I think it's safe to say now that one of my goals for the Columbus Half Marathon in October is to run the entire half marathon without any walking breaks. This would be the furthest I have ever run without a walk break ever in my life.
My second goal would be to beat my time from my last half-marathon.
My "ultimate goal" for the Columbus Marathon would be to run a personal best. That would mean running about 10:36/mile to finish in 2:19 or better. That should be a tougher goal for me to meet this time.
Once that day is over I will jump in to training for the Myrtle Beach Marathon, which is in February. I am scheduled to run the Las Vegas Half Marathon in December, and will be using that as my long run in my marathon training for that week.
It would be nice to be able to run the entire marathon with no walking breaks, but considering I still have not done that for a half marathon yet, that may be a little bit too tough. But for now I'll focus on my half marathon. I'll start setting goals for the marathon when it gets closer to that day.
My half marathon training program has 3 running days per week. Saturdays are my "long run days". This past Saturday my long run was 8 miles. I'm usually pretty sore after a long run, but this past Saturday I actually finished the run fairly invigorated. I made my typical walk down to the store and bought my post run chocolate milk and a bag of ice for my ice bath. I went home and soaked in the ice water for about 25 minutes. On Sunday morning, a day which is usually a non-running day, I ran the Scioto Miles 5K run at Easton Shopping Center. I had my best run of the season, finishing in just over 30 minutes or 9:44/mile. My 8 mile run the day before was run at faster than 11:00/mile.
So, I think it's safe to say now that one of my goals for the Columbus Half Marathon in October is to run the entire half marathon without any walking breaks. This would be the furthest I have ever run without a walk break ever in my life.
My second goal would be to beat my time from my last half-marathon.
My "ultimate goal" for the Columbus Marathon would be to run a personal best. That would mean running about 10:36/mile to finish in 2:19 or better. That should be a tougher goal for me to meet this time.
Once that day is over I will jump in to training for the Myrtle Beach Marathon, which is in February. I am scheduled to run the Las Vegas Half Marathon in December, and will be using that as my long run in my marathon training for that week.
It would be nice to be able to run the entire marathon with no walking breaks, but considering I still have not done that for a half marathon yet, that may be a little bit too tough. But for now I'll focus on my half marathon. I'll start setting goals for the marathon when it gets closer to that day.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
What Were You Doing?
Yesterday, as we remembered the events of 9/11, I heard a lot of talk about where people were and how they heard the news of the attacks on that day. It made me think, not only of where I was at and what I was doing that day, but where I was and what I was doing when I learned of other significant events.
On 9/11 I was at my apartment. I was preparing to buy my house at the time and was scheduled to do a final walk through inspection that morning. I got a call from my dad saying, "Did you see?" I asked "See what?" and he told me to turn on the news. When I asked which station, my dad told me that it didn't matter. By that point both the north and south towers of the World Trade Center had been hit. I talked to my dad while we both watched events unfolding on TV. I then called my older brother and asked him if he had seen the news. He had not yet heard of the events. As we watched and talked about the events the news began reporting a plane had crashed in to the Pentagon. Before leaving to meet my realtor I watched as the first tower collapsed. I drove out to the house I was preparing to buy and started thinking about how all of these events were affecting the emergency dispatchers and how many calls they must be receiving. I also started wondering if I would need to go in to work. Dublin, OH was pretty far away from New York or Washington DC, but these were unprecedented events that would surely have an impact everywhere. Sure enough, when I got home from my walk through, there was a message for me to call work. When I called, my supervisor told me to get to work. The emergency operations center had been opened. During that day we got some calls of fights at gas stations, where people were waiting in long lines to fill up their tanks, reports of vandalism to some businesses that people perceived as being owned by people of Arabic decent, and lots of calls of "suspicious people".
That was my 9/11 experience. But like I mentioned earlier, yesterday brought to mind some other events that have occurred in my lifetime and what I was doing when they happened. I can remember the Watergate Hearings on television, though I had no interest in them at 7 & 8 years old. I remember the "Handshake in Space" when rockets from the United States and the Soviet Union docked in space for the first time. I remember the "Miracle on Ice", the only hockey game I have ever watched, as the young US team beat an "unbeatable" Soviet team to advance to the Gold Medal round of the 1980 Winter Olympics.
But my first "what was I doing" moment, was when I heard about Ronald Reagan being shot by John Hinkley. I had stayed home sick from school that day and got a call from my mom telling me to turn on the news. I didn't know it, but earlier they had said that the President had not been hit in the assassination attempt. By the time I had turned on the television the President had been rushed to the hospital. I remember thinking that no President who was elected in a year ending in "0" since 1840 had left office alive, and I thought this was going to be a continuation of that "Indian curse". Of course it was not.
The next event that I thought about was the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. I was in the Army at the time, stationed at the Defense Language Institute - Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA. I was learning German there when one of the instructors walked in to the room and told my instructor, in German, "Das Space Shuttle ist explodiert". I think I would have understood what he was saying even without the seven months of German language training I had up to that point, but three of us in the class all confirmed with each other that we were correctly translating what we had heard. During our next break we went to a classroom with a television set and watched replays of what had happened. The first time I saw it, I jumped when the explosion occurred. We didn't stop classes that day, but I did go out and buy the San Francisco and Monterey Newspapers that evening.
The next event was when the President Reagan ordered the bombing of targets in Libya in retaliation for the bombing of the Berlin Disco that targeted US Soldiers stationed in Germany. I was stationed in Germany then, and first heard of the bombing on a German radio station. Again, first hearing the news in German, I was sure that I had misinterpreted what had been said. I tuned in to the Armed Forces Network, and sure enough, they confirmed it. The United States had bombed Libya. During morning formation we found out that our commander was at a meeting in Frankfurt and we'd be briefed when he returned. Later that afternoon we found that some restrictions were put in to place in order to protect US Soldiers from retaliatory strikes. A curfew was put in to effect and no US Soldier or US dependent of a soldier was to be out after midnight unless they were on duty or on their way to or from a duty assignment. For those who lived on a base they had to be on base by midnight. For those who lived in off post housing, they had to be in their homes. We were also not allowed to have any "organized activity" outside of a secured area. Now, I was stationed at a remote missile site in Germany, so we didn't have an Army Post. We had the missile site, and we had a barracks, that was it. Typically, when moving as a unit from the barracks to the site, we would march up the road. When this happened, we would have formation by the barracks, which was fenced in and secured, then we'd be dismissed to walk on our own to the missile site. Once we got on site, we'd then re-form and go on with work or PT or whatever was on the agenda for that day. Our morning runs were typically in formation running through the small town of Hardheim, but during the restrictions this would have constituted an organized formation outside of a secured area, so our runs got much shorter, as the missile site wasn't that big.
I'm sure that the more I think about it, other events will pop in to mind, but these are the events I remember. The funny part is that there are some people I work with now who won't remember any of these events. What's even funnier (or sadder depending on your perspective) is that the reason many of my co-workers weren't even born when these events took place.
On 9/11 I was at my apartment. I was preparing to buy my house at the time and was scheduled to do a final walk through inspection that morning. I got a call from my dad saying, "Did you see?" I asked "See what?" and he told me to turn on the news. When I asked which station, my dad told me that it didn't matter. By that point both the north and south towers of the World Trade Center had been hit. I talked to my dad while we both watched events unfolding on TV. I then called my older brother and asked him if he had seen the news. He had not yet heard of the events. As we watched and talked about the events the news began reporting a plane had crashed in to the Pentagon. Before leaving to meet my realtor I watched as the first tower collapsed. I drove out to the house I was preparing to buy and started thinking about how all of these events were affecting the emergency dispatchers and how many calls they must be receiving. I also started wondering if I would need to go in to work. Dublin, OH was pretty far away from New York or Washington DC, but these were unprecedented events that would surely have an impact everywhere. Sure enough, when I got home from my walk through, there was a message for me to call work. When I called, my supervisor told me to get to work. The emergency operations center had been opened. During that day we got some calls of fights at gas stations, where people were waiting in long lines to fill up their tanks, reports of vandalism to some businesses that people perceived as being owned by people of Arabic decent, and lots of calls of "suspicious people".
That was my 9/11 experience. But like I mentioned earlier, yesterday brought to mind some other events that have occurred in my lifetime and what I was doing when they happened. I can remember the Watergate Hearings on television, though I had no interest in them at 7 & 8 years old. I remember the "Handshake in Space" when rockets from the United States and the Soviet Union docked in space for the first time. I remember the "Miracle on Ice", the only hockey game I have ever watched, as the young US team beat an "unbeatable" Soviet team to advance to the Gold Medal round of the 1980 Winter Olympics.
But my first "what was I doing" moment, was when I heard about Ronald Reagan being shot by John Hinkley. I had stayed home sick from school that day and got a call from my mom telling me to turn on the news. I didn't know it, but earlier they had said that the President had not been hit in the assassination attempt. By the time I had turned on the television the President had been rushed to the hospital. I remember thinking that no President who was elected in a year ending in "0" since 1840 had left office alive, and I thought this was going to be a continuation of that "Indian curse". Of course it was not.
The next event that I thought about was the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. I was in the Army at the time, stationed at the Defense Language Institute - Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA. I was learning German there when one of the instructors walked in to the room and told my instructor, in German, "Das Space Shuttle ist explodiert". I think I would have understood what he was saying even without the seven months of German language training I had up to that point, but three of us in the class all confirmed with each other that we were correctly translating what we had heard. During our next break we went to a classroom with a television set and watched replays of what had happened. The first time I saw it, I jumped when the explosion occurred. We didn't stop classes that day, but I did go out and buy the San Francisco and Monterey Newspapers that evening.
The next event was when the President Reagan ordered the bombing of targets in Libya in retaliation for the bombing of the Berlin Disco that targeted US Soldiers stationed in Germany. I was stationed in Germany then, and first heard of the bombing on a German radio station. Again, first hearing the news in German, I was sure that I had misinterpreted what had been said. I tuned in to the Armed Forces Network, and sure enough, they confirmed it. The United States had bombed Libya. During morning formation we found out that our commander was at a meeting in Frankfurt and we'd be briefed when he returned. Later that afternoon we found that some restrictions were put in to place in order to protect US Soldiers from retaliatory strikes. A curfew was put in to effect and no US Soldier or US dependent of a soldier was to be out after midnight unless they were on duty or on their way to or from a duty assignment. For those who lived on a base they had to be on base by midnight. For those who lived in off post housing, they had to be in their homes. We were also not allowed to have any "organized activity" outside of a secured area. Now, I was stationed at a remote missile site in Germany, so we didn't have an Army Post. We had the missile site, and we had a barracks, that was it. Typically, when moving as a unit from the barracks to the site, we would march up the road. When this happened, we would have formation by the barracks, which was fenced in and secured, then we'd be dismissed to walk on our own to the missile site. Once we got on site, we'd then re-form and go on with work or PT or whatever was on the agenda for that day. Our morning runs were typically in formation running through the small town of Hardheim, but during the restrictions this would have constituted an organized formation outside of a secured area, so our runs got much shorter, as the missile site wasn't that big.
I'm sure that the more I think about it, other events will pop in to mind, but these are the events I remember. The funny part is that there are some people I work with now who won't remember any of these events. What's even funnier (or sadder depending on your perspective) is that the reason many of my co-workers weren't even born when these events took place.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Old Friends
Over the past few years I've had the opportunity to connect with a few old friends. In a couple of cases the friends were people who I hadn't heard from in at least a few years. It was interesting to me finding out that, over the years, there had been several situations in which we probably just missed crossing paths. Either we lived fairly close to each other, worked near each other, or in other ways could have easily crossed paths without knowing.
In the most recent situation, I walked out to check my mail and found a letter from an old friend. Letter had not been mailed. The friend had "snuck" up on my porch while I was home, dropped the letter in my mailbox and left. When I found the letter there was no phone number or address or any other information in the letter telling me how to get in contact with her. She even told me that she did not pull in to my driveway and then drove away without shutting her car door because she was afraid someone might hear the door. Now, this was not an attempt to avoid seeing me. She had other reasons for not wanting to be "confronted" leaving something at my door.
We did get in touch that day and got together for a long conversation. I found out that, for nearly a year, she has lived right around the corner from me. As a matter of fact, I run or walk by her apartment nearly every day. Her daughter, who was only 5 years old the last time I saw her, is now 17 years old and had actually "thought" that she had seen me at one point. She probably had.
It made me think about a day several years ago when I worked for my last employer. I worked at Meijer and, as I was walking around the store, I saw someone I recognized. The only thing was that I could not remember how it was that I knew this guy. I walked around several times looking at him, trying to figure out how it was that I knew him. He finally said something to me to let me know that he also recognized me. As we talked I realized that we had been in the Army together. Stationed in Germany together. He had never lived in Ohio and was actually not a US citizen when he first joined the Army, yet I ran in to him in my own home town, where he had moved to go to school.
Things like this happen occasionally. Whether it's coincidence, devine intervention, fate, or whatever, it keeps life interesting and keeps me in mind of one thing....
In the most recent situation, I walked out to check my mail and found a letter from an old friend. Letter had not been mailed. The friend had "snuck" up on my porch while I was home, dropped the letter in my mailbox and left. When I found the letter there was no phone number or address or any other information in the letter telling me how to get in contact with her. She even told me that she did not pull in to my driveway and then drove away without shutting her car door because she was afraid someone might hear the door. Now, this was not an attempt to avoid seeing me. She had other reasons for not wanting to be "confronted" leaving something at my door.
We did get in touch that day and got together for a long conversation. I found out that, for nearly a year, she has lived right around the corner from me. As a matter of fact, I run or walk by her apartment nearly every day. Her daughter, who was only 5 years old the last time I saw her, is now 17 years old and had actually "thought" that she had seen me at one point. She probably had.
It made me think about a day several years ago when I worked for my last employer. I worked at Meijer and, as I was walking around the store, I saw someone I recognized. The only thing was that I could not remember how it was that I knew this guy. I walked around several times looking at him, trying to figure out how it was that I knew him. He finally said something to me to let me know that he also recognized me. As we talked I realized that we had been in the Army together. Stationed in Germany together. He had never lived in Ohio and was actually not a US citizen when he first joined the Army, yet I ran in to him in my own home town, where he had moved to go to school.
Things like this happen occasionally. Whether it's coincidence, devine intervention, fate, or whatever, it keeps life interesting and keeps me in mind of one thing....
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Set the Bar Too Low or Had a Really Good Day...Or Both
Well, my ultimate goal was to average about 12:34 per mile for today's half marathon. I started off at about 11:04 a mile so I tried slowing down. Five minutes later I was still at 11:04 a mile. As I continued to run and continued thinking that I was slowing down, but my per mile pace kept getting faster. I was basically running negative splits without even meaning to. By the time I got to mile 10 I was averaging about 10:45 per mile. I slowed down the last three miles and finished with an average pace of 11:14 per mile. Still much faster than the 12:34 I thought was going to be my "push it" goal.
I had wanted to finish in under 2:44:40 and ended up coming in way under that. My official finish time was 2:28:43. My best time is about 2:20 back in 2009 when I was training for a full marathon. Before I set a goal to beat that time, I'll see how my training is going. However, I will set one goal now for the Columbus Half Marathon in October. That will be to finish in under 2:23. That would mean averaging about 11 minutes per mile for the whole 13.1.
The course for the Little Miami half marathon was just as advertised, shady the entire way. As a matter of fact, it was almost 4 miles in before I could even see the sky through all the trees. It was a very flat and fast course. The only down side was that it was run on a bike path and there were a lot of bikers, some of whom obviously had no clue about common courtesy of how to act when sharing a bike path with runners. Other bikers were courteous and careful when biking around the runners, but I really think it's safer to run on streets that have been closed down than it is to run around bikers on a bike path that is being shared...even in a scheduled/organized run.
My legs were REALLY sore when I finished today, which is the norm for running half marathons. They feel a little better now, which is good, because I am jumping right back in to training this week. My long run on Saturday will be six miles, and in eight weeks I will be back out on the race course.
Columbus has tremendous crowd support for the first half of their marathon, so I'm looking forward to running that morning.
I had wanted to finish in under 2:44:40 and ended up coming in way under that. My official finish time was 2:28:43. My best time is about 2:20 back in 2009 when I was training for a full marathon. Before I set a goal to beat that time, I'll see how my training is going. However, I will set one goal now for the Columbus Half Marathon in October. That will be to finish in under 2:23. That would mean averaging about 11 minutes per mile for the whole 13.1.
The course for the Little Miami half marathon was just as advertised, shady the entire way. As a matter of fact, it was almost 4 miles in before I could even see the sky through all the trees. It was a very flat and fast course. The only down side was that it was run on a bike path and there were a lot of bikers, some of whom obviously had no clue about common courtesy of how to act when sharing a bike path with runners. Other bikers were courteous and careful when biking around the runners, but I really think it's safer to run on streets that have been closed down than it is to run around bikers on a bike path that is being shared...even in a scheduled/organized run.
My legs were REALLY sore when I finished today, which is the norm for running half marathons. They feel a little better now, which is good, because I am jumping right back in to training this week. My long run on Saturday will be six miles, and in eight weeks I will be back out on the race course.
Columbus has tremendous crowd support for the first half of their marathon, so I'm looking forward to running that morning.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Running Bug Biting Harder
My second goal (which is normally the goal that I expect to be a little more difficult but can push for goal) would be to finish in under 2:54. That would be averaging 13 minutes per mile for the entire 13.1 mile course. I averaged a little less than 15 minutes per mile back in May, so that would mean bringing my average per mile pace down quite a bit, but something that I also think is doable.
My third goal (which is normally the hardest of the goals) is to finish in under 2:44:40, which would mean averaging about a 12:34 per mile pace. That would also mean that I would finish this as my 2nd fastest half marathon. I have been able to maintain a pace better than that for my 10 mile run, so I'm hoping I can maintain it for the full 13.1.
After finishing this half marathon I will jump right back in to training for the next half marathon that will be coming up on October 21. The Columbus Half Marathon is a terrific course with a lot of crowd support. I ran the full marathon in Columbus back in 2009, but the second half of that course did not have nearly the amount of crowd support that the first half had, which can make for a long run.
After finishing that half marathon I will jump right back in to a training program, but I've now got to re-evaluate that. I am going to be running the Las Vegas Half Marathon in December. I had originally planned to finish up Columbus and jump back in to my half marathon training, which I might still do.
However, yesterday the running bug bit a little harder, and I signed up to run the Myrtle Beach Marathon in February. No, not a half marathon this time, but a full 26.2. With no other races, I would typically start training for a full marathon 20 weeks out, meaning late September. So, the question I have now is...do I fall in to the middle of marathon training and use Las Vegas as my long training run for that week? OR Do I do half-marathon training to prepare for Las Vegas and then jump in to full marathon training following that? I'm not yet sure how that will play out since right now I'm training to run the full half marathon for Columbus, but plan to do the Myrtle Beach Marathon as a 5 minute run/1 minute walk marathon. It may be October before I figure this one out, but we'll see what happens.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
The Taper
Well, in just over a week I will run my next half marathon. I've stuck to the training schedule much better than I did for the last half marathon I ran, so I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing some improvement in my time and in how I feel once I've gone the 13.1 miles.
I also hope that the weather next weekend is as cool as it is this weekend. Yesterday I went out and walked 4 miles and it felt like I was walking on a nice fall afternoon (my favorite season). After work today I will head over to the Olentangy Trail and run 5 miles.
The last couple of weeks I've been "tapering" in my training. Basically, what that means is, I've been cutting back on how far or how long I run. The purpose of the taper is to allow the muscles to recover from the hard training they've been doing over the previous 12 weeks. During that time period they've been put through a lot and not given a lot of recovery time. The taper is meant to give the body a chance to truly recover and rebuild itself so that it is in the best shape possible on race day. However, you don't want to stop running completely or you won't be loose on race day and it will take longer to settle in to a decent pace.
One of the things that I like about running is that it has taught me a lot about life in general. In life we sometimes have to back off and rebuild. Give ourselves a chance to fully recover and utilize all that we've been taught. But we don't want to stop living life completely or it could take a while to settle in to a good "pace". BOY....is that insightful or what?! I should get a job writing for a fortune cookie company.
Today marks my 20th consecutive day at work without a day off. As it stands right now I will be off work for the next two days, and am planning on taking full advantage of the time off. I guess by "full advantage" I really mean, not working.
Tomorrow I will get in my weekly weigh-in to see if I've lost any more weight since last week. After that I'll head to church, then I'm taking my brother, who is also trying to lose weight, to a running store to get him a good pair of walking shoes. After that I'm taking him to lunch/dinner to celebrate his completion of his course of study for the Methodist Church, where he serves as a minister.
On Monday I've got to do a light run and I may try to go catch a movie. There are a few movies out right now that I'd like to see, so this may be an opportunity to relax and go see them. You know....taper.
I also hope that the weather next weekend is as cool as it is this weekend. Yesterday I went out and walked 4 miles and it felt like I was walking on a nice fall afternoon (my favorite season). After work today I will head over to the Olentangy Trail and run 5 miles.
The last couple of weeks I've been "tapering" in my training. Basically, what that means is, I've been cutting back on how far or how long I run. The purpose of the taper is to allow the muscles to recover from the hard training they've been doing over the previous 12 weeks. During that time period they've been put through a lot and not given a lot of recovery time. The taper is meant to give the body a chance to truly recover and rebuild itself so that it is in the best shape possible on race day. However, you don't want to stop running completely or you won't be loose on race day and it will take longer to settle in to a decent pace.
One of the things that I like about running is that it has taught me a lot about life in general. In life we sometimes have to back off and rebuild. Give ourselves a chance to fully recover and utilize all that we've been taught. But we don't want to stop living life completely or it could take a while to settle in to a good "pace". BOY....is that insightful or what?! I should get a job writing for a fortune cookie company.
Today marks my 20th consecutive day at work without a day off. As it stands right now I will be off work for the next two days, and am planning on taking full advantage of the time off. I guess by "full advantage" I really mean, not working.
Tomorrow I will get in my weekly weigh-in to see if I've lost any more weight since last week. After that I'll head to church, then I'm taking my brother, who is also trying to lose weight, to a running store to get him a good pair of walking shoes. After that I'm taking him to lunch/dinner to celebrate his completion of his course of study for the Methodist Church, where he serves as a minister.
On Monday I've got to do a light run and I may try to go catch a movie. There are a few movies out right now that I'd like to see, so this may be an opportunity to relax and go see them. You know....taper.
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