Last run of the year

There are the mile splits (the first two times)! I'm pretty happy with the run; several times, my watch had to tell me to SLOW DOWN, which take for a good thing as I was wanting to go faster. But, keeping in mind that I was supposed to be taking it easy, I settled for maintaining around a 12 min/mile pace.

EDIT: I forgot to tell you all what the best part of the run was! I was wearing shorts and a short sleeved tech shirt! It was 60 degrees F!!!

Glad I was able to run one more time in short sleeves before the end of the year.

GEAR!!

Did I mention that I got a Garmin Forerunner 305 for Christmas? I didn't? Well, I did!

I ran with it on Monday, but I hadn't taken the time to set it up with the heart rate monitor or any of the other bells and whistles. I was mainly concerned about getting it to find the GPS satellites, getting used to the weight (who thought 2.72 oz could feel so heavy?), and making sure I knew where to look for my pace, distance, and time.

So, yesterday, I took the time to go through and set it up. I put in my current weight for calorie counting, my current age for max heart rate monitoring, and alarm chirps for mile increments, slower than set pace, and faster than set pace. It was quite the workout!

Anyways, I took off on my intended 1.5 mile run and just had to test out the limits right away. I slowed down to >14 minute miles and was rewarded with a beep! I then sped up to <10 minute miles and was chastised with another beep! Yay, the limits worked.

When I resume regular training, I'll set those limits tighter, but for yesterday's run, they were perfect. At the one mile mark, I received the congratulatory beep. I need a sign: Will run for beeps.

The only thing that I had trouble with were the mile splits. I realized this when I uploaded my information to the computer, and it wasn't separated out by miles. After looking over the Garmin program thoroughly (and updating it), I decided that I had some how missed that part of the setup.

Sure enough, after mucking around in the menus for quite some time, I finally figured out that I had to set the lap time to "on" and the default lap to "1.00 Mile." I haven't tested it yet, but I'm fairly certain that my run on Friday should be broken down into mile splits.

Speaking of Friday, the weatherman is calling for highs in the 50's! Yesterday, I ran in shorts, under armor shirt, long sleeve tech shirt, gloves, and headband. Tomorrow, I might be able to get away with shorts and a short sleeve tech shirt! Here's hoping!

Another good run

I'd like to run faster, but I know that I need to hold back and make sure everything is good to go. Here's hoping that I can crank it up to 2 miles on Friday!

On the run again

Ok, back into running. Slow...short...easy. These are the keys to working my way back up to where I was before I injured myself. I figure I'll do this same pace and distance on Wed and Fri, assuming that everything feels all right the next couple of days.

Then, next week, 5 milers!! or maybe jump it up to 1.5 milers...yeah, that's more likely.

Swim?

Ok, with a groin pull, that means no frog kicks, which means no breast stroke. After some time off swimming and doing all freestyle (front crawl), it's no wonder I was slower and couldn't go as long.

If my groin feels ok tomorrow, I'll do another swim. Of course, my wife and I went back to the gym and worked out, so something I did there may have aggravated it. Must remember...no leg stuff on the workout machines.../sigh.

Not so fast

Well, that nagging groin pull that I've been dealing with (and the cause for my week's rest last week) is back, so I've decided to rest it until 27 Dec.

Then, my plan is to start running again, albeit, slowly (11-12 min miles) two times/week.

I'll re-evaluate after each run.

Stinks not being able to run; I never thought I'd ever say THAT!

Back to it

I thought the 10 min/mile pace would be fairly easy, and it was. Although, toward the end of the run, I felt my left hamstring was strained a bit. A nice soak in the whirlpool helped me to get it stretched out, as well as helped me work on my other tight muscles.

Stretching is really nice when done in a jacuzzi. mmmmm....jacuuuuuuuzzi.

Ssssssssssmokin'!!

Sub 9 min/mile pace! Oh...YEAH! I am really happy about my time and excited about getting back out there training for my mini marathon in May.

Oh, and I think that the last 1/10th was not really a tenth. The third mile marker had to have been off...

EDIT: Stats for those who are interested:
26th/62 for my age group (40-44)
438/805 guys
654/1820 over all
33/72 people from Greenwood!

Rest Week

I think I may have strained something on Saturday's run, so I decided to rest this week before my race this Saturday. Another excuse I have is that it's been pretty nippy out so far this week.

Oh, and I've had appts after work Mon, Tues, and Wed, and since I have a race on Sat, that means no running on Thu or Fri to rest up for it.

Add all those together and it equals no running before Saturday; at least in my world.

10K

The snow put a halt to my plans for an outside 6 mile run with Bad Brad, so I took it indoors, tacked another quarter mile on, and ran a 10K! Booya!

And for those tracking things at home:
1. No, I didn't run yesterday. I stayed home from work with some intestinal issues, and just couldn't get up the gumption to run.

2. Yes, this is the farthest distance that I have run in one shot.

Triathlon Workout...again

I almost skipped it, but I'm glad I stopped by the gym and pounded it out. The hot tub time was definitely worth it...

COLD!!!

I could only make it 3.65 miles. Time for some running tights. It was 28 degrees with 18 MPH winds, so windchill (I hate that I have to make excuses with windchill...) was 16 degrees. In Anchorage, I scoffed at windchill, but here in Indiana, it really makes a difference.

...and of course, after 5.5 years of living here, unfortunately, I've acclimated...

What's this???

A non-workout post??

scandalous...

Looking over the last couple of month's posts, I realized that I hadn't included hardly any non-workout posts. Yeah, boring me...

Unfortunately for you all, I'm very excited about my runs and workout stuff, so I won't be eliminating them. Remember who you're dealing with - Mr. 1 or 0. I'm either on or off, never in between...So I turned the WoW switch off and the fitness switch on.

An aside, yes, I have had temptations to return to World of Warcrack, but thankfully, I immediately remember the time sink that it is and the unhealthy worship that I engaged in with it. The temptation passes very quickly.

Of course, I can't be running all the time, so there is a natural limit to how much I can engage in my current activity of choice. I need that to help me keep it in its proper place. WoW didn't have that for me, so the limitations had to be self imposed (difficult for me) or had to come from familial pressure (very bad idea to let it get to that point.)

I can't remember if I let you all know that I had picked up Dragon Age: Origins. I did. I played through it once and have another character that I've done a little bit with, but truthfully, it doesn't have the same hold over me as Warcrack did, even on the first play through.

I've been sitting on the couch more, along side my wife. That's been nice. We watch some DVR shows (NCIS, CSI, It's Me or the Dog) or just read. It's funny that I'm exercising more AND being the couch potato more.

Speaking of reading, Thomas Sowell put out a book in 2008 called Economic Facts and Fallacies. I'm reading through it right now; it has been very beneficial in understanding some of the political rhetoric that is being bantered about these days.

Dr. Sowell takes several large areas of Economics that have quite a number of "facts" associated with them and dissects the associated data to come up with alternate theories as to why things are the way they are.

One such misconception is in regards to "the poor." While media and politicians are fond of referring to the poor (bottom 20% or whatever is the percentage du jour), what they don't mention is that "the poor" are not an enduring class, meaning that most of the current poor will not be in the same income bracket 10 years from now and that with no government intervention.

The fact is that a 20 year old in that particular bracket most likely won't be making the same money when he is a 30 year old. Of course, exceptions abound, and I'm wondering if my oldest son will ever make enough money or have the motivation to take care of himself...<.<....>.>.....

I've also had some time to polish up my piano playing. My two Chopin pieces are coming along nicely, and I can play through each of them without the sheet music. That isn't to say that I can play them perfectly; execution is not memorization...

And finally, it's going to be at least a two post day, because I have some running to do. I'm still not sure if I'm going to do my speed work today or 4.58 miles. I don't think I should do both; I'll probably make up my mind after seeing the weather at 3 PM. There were snow flurries this morning...