ok, so here we are again. Playing the old Blog catch-up game. So much has happened since my last entry that I don't know if it is even worth going through or should I just start fresh AGAIN!
Ugh, well I think I will at least try and catch-up on some notable items. Sorry for the extremely long post but here we go.....
Notable Item #
1) I registered for the C.A.R.A. 5K
2) Trained on the
actual route for the 5k. Hills, yuck, I don't do hills very well but non-the-less I trained on them.
3) Hurricane IRENE showed her tail
4) C.A.R.A. 5k Cancelled at the last min. & could not find another replacement race. I did try though. Anything within reasonable driving distance was cancelled as well.
5) After church on the 28th came home and thought I was 19 and super-fit-man and wanted to see if I could actually run 1/2 marathon distance. So on a whim out the door I went. No fluids, nope none the day before nor any that day. No Breakfast and nothing out of the ordinary the night before. The temp when I decided to do this was about 88 deg however quickly shot up into the 90's that day.
NEEDLESS TO SAY; I think I about killed myself that day. I ran about 10k and was tired but ok and decided to push on. Stopped for a stretch & quick drink from the fountain and off I went. So to get in the millage that I was hoping for I ran the above mentioned CARA 5k course twice back to back. Did I mention that I do not do hills very well? I have a really bad habit of pushing up the hills in fear of loosing time that I end up sprinting by the end of the hill and this course has a MAJOR incline at mile 2. 56ft in 1/4 mile. So now after that I hit the fountain again and on the home stretch. The temps were up and my body was hurting, never in my life had I run / limped that far in my life.....this was all new to me. Guess I should not have started out the run at my normal 5k training pace. Well I made it home and rad directly to the shower where I stayed for the next 15 min trying to get my core to cool down. Oh my gosh, worst possible physical experience of my life! You can look at the
route here if you want a good laugh.......I vowed to
NEVER do it again! The whole adventure took me 2:24:48 and my "Semi-Moving" time was 2:06:29. I was a complete failure!
6) Two days later was the regular meeting of the
running Tribe and out we went on yes more hills. I ran ok but hooked up with one of the other guys who was struggling and paced him for the last 1/2 of the run. (RunKeeper Here). First half was somewhere in the 7's and the last half was at about a 9:30 pace. The last 1/2/ was a welcome pace after the brutal run on previous Sunday. Interestingly enough, the run was good and I was not as sore as I thought I would be.
7) Sept 2, ran the
Cara 5k rout again this time with much better results. The hills are still difficult but are getting better all the time. Still have that nasty habit of trying to sprint up them, oh well keep on working.
8) NOW HERE IS THE BIG NEWS! You remember in item #5 when I said I would never do that again?! Well that was last week, hahahaha. I decided to give the 1/2 marathon distance a try again. This time I would do some proper prep work.
The night before I went to a local Italian place with the wife and had a HUGE plate of pasta carbana, completely hydrated the previous day & went to bed at a decent time. Got up that morning & ate a piece of toast & 1 egg packed up my phone, spice drops, and filled my Camelbak with water and out the door I went to meet one of my friends from the Tribe. We drove to the American Tobacco Trail where we put in 14.68 miles! That's right folks, 14+ miles and what was great about that is I never got winded and my body did not start shutting down until about mile 11, not bad though. Somewhere about mile 12 my hams, quads & calfs wanted to give out. They hurt so bad but it was one of those pains that we as runners expect and just have to push through, which I was able to do. I was very impressed with myself at the two mile markers that I wanted to give up I was able to really focus and push through and ended up putting in sub 8Min miles (Miles 11 & 13).
So you keep asking what is the
BIG NEWS........well..........
.an 8:22 average pace! That's right folks, 14.68 miles in 2 hrs 2 min and 48 sec!!!!! AND I DID NOT DIE, it was a great run.....It is amazing what a little planning will do for your runs. I did have one problem though, my right shoulder developed this sharp shooting pain in the front-dead center and my neck started to really hurt. I'm sure this has to do with the stupid plate in my neck but I am also wondering if I have a gate / pronation problem....more on that some other time. PLEASE I encourage you to take a look at the
RunKeeper map & stats and provide any feed back that you would like!!!
Note: about mile 13 there is a drop in pace. This is where is briefly stopped to help a guy out with his horse trailer on hwy 64......strange, but ok :-)
| 1 |
8:40 |
21 |
| 2 |
8:16 |
22 |
| 3 |
7:45 |
-14 |
| 4 |
8:00 |
10 |
| 5 |
8:33 |
74 |
| 6 |
8:23 |
18 |
| 7 |
8:14 |
-39 |
| 8 |
8:44 |
2 |
| 9 |
8:10 |
44 |
| 10 |
8:07 |
-41 |
| 11 |
7:52 |
-74 |
| 12 |
8:47 |
29 |
| 13 |
7:51 |
-12 |
| 14 |
9:29 |
-24 |
| 15 |
8:49 |
-13 |
9) Lastly after spending 30 min in the basement with the wife & kids riding out tornado warnings on Tues I met up for our weekly
Running Tribe meeting at 6:PM. Run was terrible my neck and shoulder hurt very bad so I only ran 1/2 the course. It was very stormy & raining so no "Official" gps reading from RunKeeper but I did manually enter in my time.
Things of NEED
NEW SHOES, Winter Running attire &
A GPS Watch. I would really like to find something that I could wear as my everyday watch, but that is not a deal breaker
Looking at the new
Nike watch, but wow $300.00 for a newbie in the GPS Watch game? Not so sure about that.
Looking at the
Garmin 405cx, but not sure about the whole touch bezel
Looking at the
Garmin 310Xt, has ALL the features that I want. BUT HOLLY SMOKES, $350.00 NEW!!!!
Finally considering trying to find a used
Garmin 305. Seems to be the tried-and-true watch that everyone sets as the standard.
As always Keep on running friends and give me a shout-out !!
Later
Well no running this weekend, No new running shoes, No New Calf Compression Sleeves, No New Vibrams....Ugh.. 
On the way home from work I stopped to get gas in my
motorcycle and broke the kay off in the gas tank lock. I called the wife and asked her to bring me
my spare. Well, while I stand there
waiting I decide to try and get the broken part out of the lock. I went to my Tail-Bag and returned with the wire
portion of a binder clip. Carefully I placed
the end of it into the whole where the key was broke off and tried to rotate it
back to the lock position so I could actually get some gas and go home to worry
about the broken part there, but alas the lock would not budge. 
Now comes the super idea of the day ! My knife had a broken tip on the blade that
looks like it just might fit beside the broken portion of the key and with the
handle at a 90degree angle (not locking the blade out, 2nd mistake) I
wedged it down there and started trying.
The more I tried the more frustrated it got. Finally out of an act of aggravation I put
more pressure on the handle and twisted really hard. POP, the blade flew out of the key hole and ……
yup you guessed it, sliced a nice hole in my right-hand index finger. Ughhh, an even longer story short, called
some friends to come and get my bike and take it to a local shop and off we
went to the urgent care. 
Five stitches, a tetanus shot and a prescription for
antibiotics later we were on our way home.
So much for paddling today!