What ever it takes!

Some soreness lingering but worked itself out after about 1 mile, my main problem is this stupid cold.  I just can't seem to shake it.

8 miles in 53:20 6:39 avg pace.

So I take Fish Oil, Glucosamine, Emergen-C, Calcium (since my stress fracture) and sometimes Iron on a daily basis.  I swear by some, not sure about others but they seemed to be a good idea.  Well here is a website that actually shows scientific evidence of whether or not supplements actually do anything.  Kind of interesting.

 http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/

Have you ever thought to yourself "Man, that Rob guy has a sweet job,  I wish I had his job?"  Well, my boss finally realized that I am in way over my head and has approved another one of me.  Here is the job listing if you're interested.

http://jobview.monster.com/Network-Engineer-Job-Salt-Lake-City-UT-US-103557819.aspx

Seems my little downhill jaunt jacked up my right leg a bit, I just can't seem to get normal again. 6 miles slow then I finished off with 10 x .1's with .1 rest.  Started at 12.1,12.2 .... 13mph.

8 miles in 54:55 6:51 avg pace.

Saturdays race looks awfully cold, Pretty sure I wont be able to blame a bad performance on heat exhaustion.

Decided to swim this morning,  I really dread that initial freezing cold plunge into the pool, that .5 seconds of misery is enough to make me not want to swim most mornings.  It turned out to be a really great idea, I thoroughly enjoyed my swim, it cleared my mind and my leg feels 97.3% better, still a little bit sore right behind my right knee.

Just found out I may be taking a few last minute trips this year before Christmas, first to Sao Paulo Brazil, never been to South America so I'm pretty stoked about that one, and then to Prauge, Czech Republic, sounds cold in December but looks like an awesome place.

There is still an opening at my work :)

 http://jobview.monster.com/Network-Engineer-Job-Salt-Lake-City-UT-US-103557819.aspx

6 miles in 39:40 6:36 avg pace.  Last Mile in 5:40 just to see what it felt like.

I really don't know what to think about Just Cuz 1/2 tomorrow,  6 hour round trip drive for 1+ hours of pure torture. I would like to PR but with the weather I'm not sure it's going to be ideal, and frankly I don't have a lot of confidence in myself right now.  I'd say I'm in at least as good of shape as I was last year, I  have more experience running sub 6:00 pace for extended periods of time but I've just had so many quirky problems lately I don't know what to expect.  Plus Jeff and Rob aren't going to be there to push me, I'm just going to have to let my watch do the pushing. 

I guess we'll see, I just hope it doesn't end up being a whole lot of driving for another disappointment.

Oh, I bought some new Nike Free TR Winters, they have treads on them like snow tires and they are water resistant.  I thought tomorrows race might be in the snow, but I also wanted them for running this winter.  I wore them on the treadmill this morning for a test run and they seem fine, they don't really feel like real Free's so I'm not sure where they get off calling them Free's.

******WARNING******  This race report contains whining and complaining, if you are offended by this type of material skip directly to Chapter 2.

Chapter 1:

So last year my neighbor who is from Pocatello told me about this race and said he was running it,  I thought it sounded fun since Britt was running the Halloween Half the week before and I had to be an athletic supporter for her and couldn’t run that one.  We made it a family outing, stayed in the Marriott the night before, the kids got to play in the pool, I met Rob Murphy and Jeff Shadley for the first time and got to run with them, the weather was perfect, the wife and kids had a great time in the park at the finish line and as an added bonus Rob Murphy took a wrong turn at mile 11 making it possible for me to be the overall winner.  (not complaining yet). 

This year we decided to do it again, since I got a free entry for winning last year.  I e-mailed the RD and told him I was coming back and he said “no problem I’ll take care of it”, I made reservations at the Marriott, planned our family outing but on Thursday the weather man changed all that, Britt decided she didn’t want to come and sit in a cold snow storm waiting for me to run, she told me to just go alone.  Since I wake up at 4:00am every morning anyway and the race didn’t start until 10:15 I just decided to drive up this morning and cancel the hotel.  (still not complaining)  Got on the road by 5:00am and drove 3 hours in a blinding blizzard, I thought about just turning around a number of times but thought, “nah, I told the RD I’d be there and I try to always keep my word”  Got to the finish line, packet pickup got out of my car and realized, I hadn’t felt 20degree temps for a while,  it was cold.   Went to get my packet and low and behold, no packet, no registration for Rob Rohde.  I explained the situation to the packet guy and he made a call (to Lance I presume) and then handed me a timing chip.  I asked him if I needed a number and he said, “nope, just the chip”  OK, “do you need my name?” he wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper and off I went to the bus.

Ended up with a second place finish, waited for the result to be posted, low and behold, no Rob Rohde.  I went to the timing table and explained the situation, he went through and found a “Bandit” runner chip time, with a time of 1:17:44, must be me.  Since the next person back was 1:20:00.  He told me he’d fix it, I said “do you want my name” he wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper.

The RD was running the race, so when he finished I went and told him what happened, and he told me “don’t worry, we’ll take care of it”  Well, when I got home he had already e-mailed out the results (actually pretty impressive) most races don’t do that for days, but low and behold, no Rob Rohde.  I suppose he still has time to make it right, but what about the poor guy that thinks he got 3^rd place and really didn’t, what about the poor guy that got 2^nd place (me) that there is no record for at all and apparently ran the race “Bandit”.  This is the sort of stuff that drives my wife crazy, she always asks why I spent so much time and money running races instead of just going and running 13.1 or 26.2 miles.  What is the reason?  To get the medal and see your name on a piece of paper with your PR on it.  To her point, I could have woke up at 4:00 this morning, gone to the gym, set the treadmill to -1.5% decline and speed to 10.1 and run a 1:17:44 13.1 mile run and been back home before anyone even woke up.  Instead I drove 6 hours in a snow storm to freeze my butt off and got the same results.

*******Complaining done!*********

Chapter 2:

Pretty darn good race today!!!  I was sad that Rob and Jeff weren’t going to be there, but decided to just go have a good time, I wanted to run a 1:15:?? So I made a famous paceband for the course and a 1:15:00, Marlin introduced himself to me and we rode the bus up together and had a great conversation, he is really a great guy and it was nice to find someone to talk to.  Driving the bus up to the top I realized that I should just rip off the pace band, the course was solid ice for the first 3 miles, and patchy ice for the next 3.  Oh! Forgot to mention, the race theme was “Super Hero” my costume consisted of a “The Flash” pair of underoos with a lightning bolt across the…. Well on the front.  A fairly attractive Wonder Woman came up to me at the start and looked at my Underoos, then and me and said “nice lightning bolt”  That made my day.

At the start line I overheard a kid saying he was going for a 1:14 so I hung out with him on the start line, he was wearing regular racing flats and I figured he would be a goner in the first 100 feet.  We talked it over and decided to go out slowish together, gun went off, and him and I were gone, I was surprised I wasn’t falling but seemed to find decent traction on the side of the road, he kept running and skating, I’m amazed he didn’t fall down.  We hit mile 1 in 5:30, and that was being careful, seriously ¼ of the total elevation drop for this course happens in the first mile, it’s pretty insane, especially on ice, I looked back and couldn’t see anyone else at all.  Mile 2 I proved that I can overheat even in 28 degree weather,  I slowed at the aid station just long enough to rip off my sleeves and hat,  Scott (the kid) got a small lead at that point which was fine cause I just turned on my music and went to my happy place.  Had to concentrate pretty hard through mile 6 just not to crash on the ice, then it got better, unfortunately after mile 7, this course is no longer easy.  Rolling hills and then at mile 8 out of the canyon headwind with blowing snow,  I felt good and was happy for the cold.  I actually think 30 – 35 degrees is probably my race temp.  Scott was slowly getting further away but I could always see him in range, by mile 10 I realized I was gaining on him, thought for about 30 seconds “maybe I can catch him” that was short lived cause right then a wicked headwind hit me.  Then at Mile 11 the course plays a real cruel joke and turns off the main road and goes straight up hill, Blah, I lost site of Scott and realized I didn’t have time to catch him anymore.  Never really died, I just couldn’t go any faster.

Finished in 1:17:44, only 8 seconds off of last year and only 20 seconds behind the winner, so I was actually closer than I thought.  Pretty darn happy actually, I know it’s easier said than done but I think without the ice at the top that today was at least a 1:15:?? effort, I’m going to call it my half marathon PR on an ice skating rink.

I will post splits later, I need to go to the Chilli cook off at the Church now.

Mile	Split	2010 Split
1	5:31	5:00
2	5:35	5:15
3	5:56	5:48
4	5:55	5:47
5	5:44	5:45
6	5:59	5:52
7	6:08	6:04
8	5:48	5:54
9	6:00	5:58
10	6:08	6:05
11	6:25	6:21
12	6:35	6:26
13	6:32	6:32
13.1	:31	:31
Total	1:17:44	1:17:36

Humm, those splits don't quite add up for this year.  They have me at 1:18:something.  O'well, I like the official results better.

Here is a picture at the start line, I'm the second from the left with the Red Underoo's, the guy in the blue compression socks was the winner.  Check out the ice on the road.

1 hour on the elliptical and then 30 minutes of weights and stretching. I'm done hurting myself for the rest of the year.

I was thinking this morning, it sure would be nice to go to Florida this week. Then I realized, I am going to Florida this week.

My favorite quote from the New York City Marathon yesterday.

Announcer 1: "What do you think it means that Gebre is still wearing a hat at mile 18." Announcer 2: "Well, I think it means his ears are cold."

Now that is some info I can use in my next race.

I've decided my whole problem in life (as far as running goes), is that I weigh to much for the intensity I'm trying to run at.  My body just breaks down, and I'm sure that's my over heating problem too.  I can't figure out how come I can't loose weight, I started running, lost 80 lbs in like 5 months but now I just can't seem to go any lower, I've been this weight for 2 years now, whether I run 50 miles a week, 90 miles a week, nothing seems to make a difference.  So now that I'm not in any sort of training mode I'm going to change it up a bit, for the next month I'm going to attempt to run really far, really slow.   Today was sort of a trial run so not as far since I am still a bit sore from Saturdays race but I'm going to test the theory that low intensity burns more fat.

See ya in a month, hopefully 10 -15 lbs lighter.

12 miles in 1:30:00  7:30 avg pace

This is going to be harder than I thought, more mentally than physically.  Luckily my scenery is going to change a lot over the next month.

16 long, slow, boring miles in 1:59:10 7:26 avg pace

Long day, I woke up at 3:00am and got to the gym by 3:45 so I could get my run in before traveling to Miami.  I wore my HR monitor today to see where I'm suppose to be running for my weight loss initiative.  I think I should be between 120 - 130 bpm for best results.  Started at 8:00/mile pace for the first 7.5 miles,  Bumped up to 7:30 pace for 1.5 miles and then I realized I was running late and better hurry to get to the airport so I ran the last 3 miles at 6:20 pace.  12 miles in 1:30:46  7:34 avg pace for entire run.

Got to the airport and RAD  (Rachel) was sitting there waiting to get on my same plane, she was on her way to North Carolina to run a Marathon, I talked to her for a bit, and wished her luck.

Got to Miami, did some work, went to dinner and then I just couldn't stand it any longer I had to go for a nice run on the boardwalk along the beach.  7 more slow miles in 59:10  8:27 avg pace.  Hope all Y'all are enjoying Utah, but this 70 degrees along the beach, well, I could get used to it.

Ahh!!! What the heck?  I just went to sign up for the Ogden 1/2 and it's sold out!!! How the heck did that happen.

I'm pretty sure running doesn't get more perfect.  65 degrees, on a flat fully lit boardwalk along the beach with a nice cool sea breeze.  It's going to be hard to leave this place.  I normally don't run shirtless, but I figure if the women can go topless here, so can I.  I woke up at 5:00 am (3:00am Utah time) to get my miles in, ran 9 miles on the boardwalk, 2 miles along the beach then I decided running in sand was going to make me hurt so I went back to the boardwalk for the final 3.

14 miles in 1:51:04  7:56 avg pace.

I wonder how well my weight loss program would sell??  "All you have to do it is run 16 to 20 miles a day and you too can burn up to 1 -2 lbs of fat per week"  For some reason it doesn't have a ring to it.

There goes that pesky job of mine getting in the way of pleasure.  I was on the phone with Cisco TAC until midnight last night trying to fix a network issue.  I ended up figuring it out myself and upset that I didn't think of it 5 hours earlier.  Oh Well, all is good now.

Anyway, it ruined my double yesterday, and almost ruined my morning run except I can't ever sleep after working late on network problems so I was up at 5:00 am anyway and decided to go run.  I actually had the time to go further but decided with the lack of sleep it wasn't a great idea.  I was going to only do 12 but a little photo shoot on the beach made me need to back track.

About 6.3 miles on the sand, and 6 on the boardwalk.  Hopefully I can get out this evening for another 6 on the something.

P.M.

6 easy miles along the boardwalk after work in 48 minutes.  8:00 /mile avg pace.  Tomorrow I'm going to try and expand my Miami Beach running geography.  I've pretty much been just running back and forth on the path for 3 days, not going to say it's boring cause I know the alternative but a change would be nice.

Got 8 hours of sleep last night for the first time in quite a while so I was feeling pretty good this morning.  This was my last long run in Paradise, and it was a perfect morning once again.  Pretty much ran my normal route except when I got to the end of the beach instead of turning around I ran across the bridge to Miami.  Ran to Port of Miami where all the cruise ships leave from and then back.

5 miles on the sand, 7 on the boardwalk, 4 on the road.

16 miles in 2:07:01  7:56/mile avg pace.

P.M.

Why do so many people choose to run at night when it was clearly designed to be done in the morning?

8 long hot humid miles in the dark on the beach.  Tomorrow morning I fly home so I'm not sure how the running thing is going to work out.

Sitting in the Delta Crown room waiting to leave sunny Florida and go back to reality.  Woke up early and ran a quick 6.25 miles before my flight. 

Airports need treadmills!!

6.25 in 48:44  7:48 avg pace

A late flight, and a wife that has different views about what I should do in my spare time than I do made it so I didn't get my afternoon run in yesterday.

15 miles on the treadmill in 1:52:52  7:31 avg pace

I got on the scale for the first time since I started this little weight loss experiment last week.  And guess what?  I didn't loose a single pound.  Seriously, I've ran 112 miles all between 7:30 and 8:00min pace in the last 7 days, haven't eaten great due to travel but it's not like I was eating at Chuck a Rama everyday and somehow I didn't loose anything.  I don't get it, what is wrong with me???

P.M.

5 miles with my 9 year old after school around the neighborhood dirt roads.  The hills and gravel roads where harder on him than I thought they would be so we were pretty slow.

5 miles in 40:54  8:11 avg pace

This is totally a new type of running to me, I've never run at a pace where I felt like I could seriously go forever without ever getting depleted.  I don't drink water or eat anything and never really feel drained.  My legs do get a little sore but seem to be recovering day to day.

16 miles in 2:04:25  7:46 avg pace

P.M.

Went to the Gym for lunch, weather was perfect for a run outside, so what did I do?  I ran on the treadmill.   Was planning on 6 but I was actually enjoying myself so much I decided to finish off the full hour.

8 miles in 1:01:10 7:38 avg pace

Still going....

16 miles in 2:03:30, 7:43 avg pace

Guess I better get the Christmas lights up today, there's a storm a brewin'

P.M.

Hung lights all morning, almost done just need a Lowes run for a couple more things.  Broke away for a "quick" run with the dog.  First signs that I'm finally falling apart, my left knee started bugging me pretty bad for some reason, which is strange cause I've never had my knee bother me before, I've had every other problem but not the knee.  I blame it on light hanging instead of resting in between runs.

6 miles in 50:17  8:22 avg pace.  Ouch!!  That actually had to do with a very out of shape dog more than the knee.

1 more food for thought, extracting rocks out of the souls of Nike Free's is almost as good as popping bubble wrap.

Seriously I'm not sure what to make of all this, I may keep up the high mileage for another week just cause I have the week off but there is no way I could do this and have a normal work schedule.

I don't really feel like I'm getting a whole lot out of it truthfully,  I'm not really tired when I get done, I don't even sweat, and my legs have been more tired after walking around convention centers all day, and I haven't lost a single pound so I'm not really sure what to do.  Strange that 20 miles a day doesn't wear me down at all.

8 miles in 1:04:00 Then I felt like I needed a change of pace so I did the next 8 in 56:00.

16 miles in 2:00:00 7:30 avg pace.

No afternoon run today, I'm planning a little somethin' special for tomorrow morning.

Well, I think I defined a new level of crazy (or stupid) today.  This is the sort of thing that happens when you give someone like me too much idle time.  All my long runs on the treadmill this last week made me think of lots of things,  “What’s for dinner” “When should I hang my Christmas lights?”  “I wonder if I could run a full marathon on the treadmill?”  “I wonder if I could run a marathon PR on the treadmill?”  You know, those kinds of questions.

Yesterday on my run I thought about running 26 miles on Thanksgiving morning just for fun, then I thought I should just do it tomorrow since I feel good now.  It has also haunted me that my marathon PR was 2:51:30 at Des News and that was after my (at the time) biggest mileage week as a “training run”.  I can run 6:30 pace pretty easy and always think I could just run 6:30 pace forever, so why don’t I even have a marathon time to back that up?  Basically because every time I run a Marathon setting a PR by a minute or 2 never interests me, I always go out too hard, blow up and end up feeling bad for myself for weeks after.

So anyway, all this made me devise a crazy plan for this morning, wake up early go to the gym and run a PR marathon.  Wow!  Who thinks like that, especially after running by far the furthest mileage week I've ever had (not quite 140 miles this week)?  Apparently me.  I couldn’t sleep very good last night, first sign this was the real deal, I woke up and 3:30 and decided to get on with it so I headed to the gym.  I wanted to make it as honest as possible, which meant when I hit the start button on my Garmin I couldn’t hit stop until I was done, I knew I would have 2 treadmill resets, one at mile 9 and one and mile 18 (to keep the splits easier to track) and wasn’t sure how much time this would cost me.  I decided to use those 2 resets as my only “aid stations”.  I also wore my HR monitor to keep me honest from doing something crazy like, (jumping off the treadmill for a rest while it still went).  So anyway, I felt that these measures would make it honest so I could feel good about it.

Started at 9.2 mph 6:31 pace then at mile 5 I bumped it to 9.3 to try and make up for the resets, did that again at mile 14.  The resets only ended up taking about 15 seconds so not to bad.  My HR went pretty high at first and I thought maybe I wasn’t going to make it, by the first reset though I was feeling pretty good and decided I would make it.  By the second reset I was actually feeling better and better the longer I went, my HR even was dipping down a few bpm too, not sure how I got feeling better after 20 miles.  So at mile 20 when I realized this was really going to happen I kept bumping up the speed every mile thinking I wish I could finish all marathons like this.  I really wanted to break 2:50 so I pushed pretty hard the final 2 miles.

In many ways this was the best marathon I’ve ever done, no bathroom lines, no long bus ride, no standing in the cold, and it started right on time.  Well, 4 minutes late for one last bathroom break. 

Does it count as a real PR?  Who knows?  I say yes, but it’s my run and my blog so I can say whatever I want.

26.2 miles in 2:49:26 6:28 avg pace.   A 2:04 PR. 

Distance	Time	Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:32	153	167
2	6:31	160	162
3	6:31	161	163
4	6:32	161	163
5	6:31	162	164
6	6:27	162	165
7	6:27	163	166
8	6:27	163	165
9	6:27	163	167
10	6:46	162	168
11	6:31	162	165
12	6:31	161	164
13	6:32	160	162
14	6:31	159	162
15	6:27	160	162
16	6:29	160	162
17	6:25	159	162
18	6:23	160	165
19	6:45	159	163
20	6:31	159	161
21	6:27	159	164
22	6:27	158	161
23	6:23	158	161
24	6:23	158	160
25	6:19	159	162
26	6:14	163	165
26.2	1:06	165	167
Total	2:49:26	160	168

 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/129577165

16 miles in 2:06:25  7:54 avg pace.  

I'm kind of worn out but not really that sore.

So much for my high mileage week, woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.  Stuffy, Achy, and just all around yucky.  1 hour on the elliptical, 1/2 hour of weights then hottub and steam room.  I feel 100% better now, but glad I didn't push it.

I've been waking up very stuffy the last few weeks and thought it must be from the furnace and dry air, so this week I installed a whole house humidifier onto the furnace thinking it would help.  My fingers aren't falling apart from being so dry any more but for some reason I and the rest of the family are still waking up very stuffy every morning.  After getting up and moving it seems to get better but it's really annoying.

Stomach was also a bit of an issue this morning so I ran 6 slow miles, took a water break and then 6 faster miles.  Everything felt better while running the faster 6 so maybe that's the trick.

6 miles in 47:00 7:50 avg pace

6 miles in 38:15 6:22 avg pace

Full out sick today, went to the gym cause that's what I do.

1 hour on the elliptical, weights, hottub, and steamroom.  Now I feel a little better

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I'm pretty dang excited and a proud parent, I wasn't in the mood for racing but we went down to watch the American Fork Fleet Feet 5K and kids race.  We let the kids run the race and Zach my 4 year old (in bright orange) totally smoked the field.  I always knew he was fast but today he proved it.  Check out that form!!

I met Chad and Chad today to which was cool!

Got out of bed at 8:30am, walked to the kitchen for a drink and decided that was enough exercise for one day so back to bed.

Trying to figure out where my son gets his natural running talent.  Humm!!

Managed to squeeze out 9 easy miles this morning, first 3 were rough then it got easier.  The treadmill stalled on me halfway through, I'm sure glad it didn't do that to me on my treadmill marathon, I would have been mad.

Off to Brazil tomorrow so I'm not sure how running is going to go next week.  I'm a little nervous, I travel a lot but for some reason Brazil seems a little bit scary, especially since I'm going alone.

Well, I wasn't about to go sit on a plane for 18 hours without getting a run in first.  Woke up at normal time, went to the gym, ran a quick 9 miles, now I'm sitting at the airport waiting to get on a very long flight.

9 miles in 59:40 6:37 avg pace

After 20 hours of travel I finally made it to Sao Paulo Brazil, I forgot how miserable international flights are, and I have 3 more of them before the end of the year.

Since I'm a Marriott points hog I opted to stay 40 km away from where I'm working at the airport Marriott, which still makes some sense since I have to fly out of the airport too, plus it saved the company money.  Not sure it was such a great choice though, the area isn't very nice.  Of course for all I know these could be high price condos but anywhere in the US they would be considered "low income housing" to be polite.   I asked the hotel concierge if it was safe to run here, he said yeah just run on the road right out side the hotel, I asked how far it went, he said 1 kilometer, I said what if I want to run 10 kilometers, he said run back and forth 10 times :)  I opted to go to the gym.  Which is a very nice hotel gym by the way.

It was really hard to get moving after sitting on the plane for that long,  I was going to go for 90 minutes but either the humidity or jet lag got to me and I had to call it quits after 7.5 miles.  (12k).  I may try to get down again tonight.

7.5 miles in 60 minutes  8:00 avg pace

Oh! and if you were wondering, the treadmill belt spins the same way in the southern hemisphere as in the north.  I was a little worried about it.

***********************

P.M.

Turns out the concierge wasn't kidding, I looked out my hotel room window and saw 100's of people running on that road so I decided to go check it out.  Turns out they paved the inner lane with some red, like high school track like material for running on and it seems to be the thing to do.  It was exactly 1.25 miles around, I only managed 2 laps before it got dark (at 8:00pm) now off to the gym to lift some weights.

2.5 miles 7:45 avg pace

Long day mostly sitting in a taxi in Sao Paulo traffic, I was excited to get back to the hotel and run.  When I got back there was a monsoon rainstorm going on so I went to the hotel gym, every machine in there was being used and the place was a hot, humid, smelly mess.  I waited and got a treadmill but after 1 mile I decided it was the most miserable run of my life and nothing was worth putting myself through a whole hour of it so I quit.  Yep just up and quit and I may not run again today.  So there!

I'm going to pre-blog since this might be the last internet I have for a while.  I couldn't get a flight out of here early so I am stuck in Brazil for a whole day with nothing to do, so guess what I've done today?  Nothing!  Woke up, went to breakfast and then laid by the pool all morning.  Now I'm about to get kicked out of my hotel room and my flight isn't until 10:30 tonight.  So my plan is to go down to the gym and run 16 miles and then workout for a total of 3 hours and then go sit at the airport for 5.   fun fun. 

See you back in America in about 26 hours, if the storm coming in doesn't delay me.