YAY!

I'm a lurker, which everyone knows. But today I got a shout out from one whom I lurk.

See here. I'm "S". :)

Do you have any idea how cool that is? She and I don't even know each other. I've been reading her for a year and then last December I emailed her when I wasn't able to comment on her blog and asked her some questions. She posted the questions which led my running partner, SG, to email her asking for my email so we could run together. And the rest is history.

I'm so stoked. :)

Irishman over-Half Marathon

So today was the Irishman in honor of St. Patty's Day here in town. Normally the Irishman consists of a 5 mile, 5K, and 1 mile race. You run these and they give you your times for each and then an overall time at the end. You also get a finisher certificate and another t-shirt. The things I do for beer and t-shirts.

So Karen and Jen were coming down for the Irishman with me, Sarah was going to run the 5K and Joey was coming down for that too. So I opened up my home so we could meet up and walk to the starting lines. I live right in the middle of them so this seemed smart and economical on my part. We could walk there, warm up, and we wouldn't have to deal with parking.

Well, I'm about .8 of a mile from the starting line. We walked this road 5 times, plus another little stretch (.7) to the start of the mile. So another 4.7 miles on top of the 9.2 we already ran. That's 14 miles we covered today. And we were going to walk to the bar where the awards ceremony was happening but we were running late so we drove instead.

I wasn't ready for 14 miles today. OMG. That hurt. And I'm really tired. I was going to go see "Milk" tonight, but I think I'm going to stay home and rest on my couch instead.

Wow. It was an intense day but a lot of fun. I'm really glad Karen and Jen came down to run it with me. If I had had to do that alone, that would have really sucked.

Rough course

Today SG and I ventured to her running area. She usually starts around mile marker 7 and then runs a couple miles out and a couple back. That was fine. I was up for 4 today.

That was until we ran around the first bend and the path wasn't cleared hardly at all. Granted most of the main drifts were off to the side so there was at least a semi-path, but so much ice and at spots thick snow.

That just wore us both out. And as we're walking I'm realizing we haven't run since Wednesday, and Friday afternoon I ate Ritz bits with cheese and a bunch of Twizzlers, and I missed breakfast that morning. All these factors just wiped me out. So the run was a more than a little rough.

Tomorrow, thank God!, is a new day and a new month. We're going to run again in the morning since it's supposed to get windier and some big football game is going to be on.

And I need to be running every day this week. No more excuses! And to add to my focus, I signed up for Brooks Sweat365.com tracking thing. Should be good. I need some motivation. Brookings is coming up quicker than I realize.

Back on the streets

In the non-prostitute sort of way.

SG and I ran 2.5 tonight - our usual route, at our usual pace, with our usual walks. It was good, but I need to figure out someway to run more. We got back to the arch, and had maybe .25 mile left and I felt so great and ready to run more.

But it's dark out at 7pm and I didn't have my reflective shirt or any other protective gear (PPE as we call it). So I came home. But I really could have run some more.

So how to do this? I don't know. I'm very excited for the weekend. At least it's supposed to be nice this weekend. I'm thinking of running with the Heathens Sunday morning. I like church, but maybe I can do both. Nothing against SG but it might be fun to run with some other folks too.

Random thoughts today

You know there is something horribly wrong with you when you get out of the car to walk into work and you think, "Huh, it's kind of warm out this morning." Then you check the temp and see it's 1 degree out. Uh...

The 10-day forecast says it's going to be warmer after today, so I'd actually be okay if SG wanted to bail tonight. It's supposed to be 10 degrees, feel like 0, at the time we usually run. That's not bad, if there isn't any wind, but I have a feeling she'll bail. I'm okay with that. I have a lot of cleaning to do tonight - my apartment is a mess - and the next 10 days look really nice for running (with the possible exception of Thursday).

---
Well, I talked with SG and she's okay with taking tonight off. Thank God for that. I feel like crap, so it's good I'm taking a day. Plus I just have a mess of a house and I really will feel better if I clean tonight. Tomorrow! Tomorrow I run!

---
And I'm thinking I need to get a shoe dryer for this spring when I'm running in the rain. This would be a great investment.

SFARC

Well, I finally did it. I sent in my registration for the SF Area Running Club. K had recommended I do this when I first moved here two years ago, but I hesitated. I'm really not a fast runner and when Jacqueline would talk about her runs and lament when she was running so slow (at 9:30 min/miles) I just cringed. I would kill for a 9:30 mile.

But as SG and I started running together we talked about it and decided to join. She wisely paid the dues right at the beginning of the year. I finally got mine sent out this week and my confirmation email today.

I am excited. I'm hoping to get faster this year but I know I won't be as fast as Jacqueline for a long time. At least I'll have some sort of club to belong to. AND we get 15% off at the Runner's Block store, so that's a bonus. :)

I didn't run today. Flippin' cold and windy. Tomorrow I head out of town and back late on Monday, so Tuesday I'll get out again.

Fabulous Meme

Jill posted her 5 addictions today. In honor of her nose dive this weekend, which she did with grace and poise, I shall post my addictions:

1. Blogging. Duh. I have three blogs right now that I post on. I have 70 blogs I check every night and another 30 I check once a week because those writers don't update as often. I also have another dozen or so which are just running blogs that I check once a week or so as well.

2. Diet Coke with Splenda. I can drink other diet sodas, but Diet Coke with Splenda is my absolute favorite. Sadly it isn't sold in this part of the state, but happily Deaner is willing to pick it up when he's on the west side of the state for work. He's such a doll. I don't know what I'll do if he ever retires. I really think Diet Coke should have an online ordering system, but that's just me.

3. Lists. I love to make lists. I will make lists of what I need to do for the day. If I have already completed some tasks before making my list, I will put those tasks on the list so I can cross them off. I'm not good at prioritizing, but I do love to make the lists.

4. Baking. I love to bake cookies and pie. These are truly my two favorites and I do them well. I wish I could eat more of what I make. But then I'd balloon up and since I like to run, I can't do that.

5. Chicken. I eat chicken every day - either before or after. Meaning, I will eat eggs or chicken itself at least once a day if not twice and often three times. I love chicken. I once told my bosses to not worry about the bird flu because I would totally be one of the first to go. Of course then one of my bosses said I've probably built up an immunity and I'd be the only one who'd survive.

I know we're only supposed to write five, but here's one more because it is really close to the top and the purpose of this blog:
6. Running. Duh. My friends get annoyed I think about how much I talk about running - my races, my splits, my pacing, my diet, my training, my struggles. Man, if I were my friends I would hate me, but I love me and that's all that matters. :)

Still went

SG canceled this afternoon due to her friends' moms' death.

This was not a good thing. Of course death isn't hardly ever good, but today I really needed to have someone waiting for me because I was not having a good day. These late nights caught up with me today. I was more pms-y today than I ever am during an actual pms week.

The whole way home I kept trying to talk myself into running. "Don't not go, Moe. You'll regret it." "You're not going to have another 34 degree day for a long time. Relish it." "At least go for a little while, you need to do something." "Just run, Moe. Just run."

This went on the whole 15 minute drive home, the 5 minute walk to my apartment, 2 more minutes while I called Debbie to see if she could talk me into it (she wasn't there). After a nice 10 minute crying jag while I was getting dressed, I finally went out.

I only ran 2.25, but I rarely walked. My time was 25:26, which isn't great, but I had to stop for a few stop lights, and took a 2 minute 1 block break while I walked and stretched in the middle.

I will admit, that after I ran I felt better. It was good to get out because I know that the next few days are going to suck, weather-wise.

And maybe I'm just getting to the point where I can't stay up late anymore and I have to run every day or I won't function well. I think I'm almost there. That'll be good for my continuing marathon training. I need to need to run.

now if only Spring would actually show up.

Another one!

SG and I weren't going to run today, but she wrote after looking at the forecast for the weekend and asked if we could run today instead. Yeah, like I'm going to say no.

The only bad thing was I had planned on running longer today during lunch and working late to make up for it, but since I was running with SG I opted to just do that run, which was only 2.5. I toyed with running more because it was 30 degrees out at 7pm in this northern Midwestern state, but I bailed. Maybe tomorrow I'll leave work early and do the full run like I did last night instead.

Nice run

Okay, I know it's all 25 degrees out and there's a bit o' wind chill, but I was actually WARM tonight running.

I skipped my solo long run this afternoon since I needed to run some errands and I watched the inauguration all morning. So I decided I'd run to the park to meet SG, run our 2.5, and then run home. I figured it'd be around 5 miles, but I don't know if I measured wrong or what.

Then I decided to run a bit more more so I ran to the park, about a mile or so, ran the 2.5 with SG, then ran 1.25 (the first half of our run, then another .5 or so. So that should be only 5.25 but when I put it into map my run it ends up being about 6.8, which I'm dropping off at least .3 because it's following the roads and I don't follow the roads. I'm going to have to try this again because it's just not working right. hmmm

Anyway...however far I ran it felt really good. SG and I need to pick our pace up a bit because it took us 36 minutes to run the 2.5 and I know we can go faster. I know there's no shame in running but sometimes I just want to go...run fast! But I also remember how I felt two short years ago when I started running and how sucky that felt so I'm giving her a break. I'm going to push her harder next month though. I know we can do it; I'm just being nice right now.

Okay...back to map my run and I'm going to try this again. If it changes I'll let you know.

Thug

The last time I ran alone I commented how I thought I look like a mime when I run, but in actuality I look like a thug. So I thought I should prove that point.



yeah, I'd be scared too if I saw this fat thing come running at me in the middle of winter when no one else is around. :)

Freakin' wind

SG is asking to back out tonight and I don't blame her. We're windy here in the state of wind. We really should have the wind mill things in the middle of downtown. Sheesh. We could provide power for the entire town.

Anyway, I think I'm going to pull out Tony Horton tonight instead. I knew I should have run this morning but I thought since we've taken a couple weeks off and ran last night I should let my body rest a little more. I am going to run twice tomorrow. It's supposed to be 34 tomorrow and I don't want to waste the day. I suppose I should finish my errands today then instead. I'll have to figure out my schedule. Hmmm.

Finally!

Thank goodness. SG and I got out tonight for a 2.5 mile run. Thank GOD! We were both getting cranky. But by the end we felt better than we have since we last ran...almost two weeks ago.

The too bad thing was the wind. It was supposed to be nice but the wind on the way back was a little much. Oh well. We still made it and tomorrow we'll go out again. I'm really glad we did.

I have 17 weeks (117 days today) until Brookings. I'm a little nervous because the weeks are ticking by rather quickly. But soon I'll be able to run more consistently because I won't have the weather to fall back on.

I really am glad SG and I made it out tonight. Hopefully the repercussions won't be too bad tomorrow. :)

Question

Hey, just in case anyone is reading this besides me... I have a question.

When the weather gets warmer I'm going to run to and from work, but I need a backpack or something to carry the stuff I need from work back and forth. Last summer I tried one of those cinch bags but it bounced a lot and got annoying.

I don't want anything too big, but something that will stay secure to my back without killing me.

Any ideas?

Winter blues

Obviously, I haven't been blogging because I haven't been running. I'm so pathetic, but when it's -22 degrees and -55 wind chill, it's just not going to happen.

But tomorrow, ah, yes tomorrow it's supposed to be 23 and feel like 12 at the time I'm supposed to run. I'm so excited. It will hurt, but I so need to get out and run. I miss it.

I joked with Boss3 today that he needed to get out of the office because he was getting whiny and cranky, but in truth, it's ME - I'm the one getting whiny and cranky. And then I had two donuts for lunch so then I was on a sugar high all afternoon which was interesting.

But tomorrow I will run. And this weekend I will run. This weekend is going to be warm, but windy, and yet I will run. I need to get my fat butt off this couch and get out.

Diet Delights

On one of my email sites they have helpful tips. Today's health tip was this:

You've heard it repeatedly -- exercise more, eat less fat. But exercise is tiring, and a low-fat diet is about as much fun as eating paper. There has to be a balance somewhere.

According to the February 2000 Journal of the American College of Nutrition, there is a way out -- all you have to do is exercise more.

Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo studied the effects of different diets on endurance runners. They had marathon runners eat diets that ranged from 17 percent to 44 percent of total calories from fat.

They found that on the low-fat diet, the runners simply weren't getting enough essential nutrients, particularly calcium and zinc. Women runners on the low-fat diet weren't getting enough essential fatty acids either.

As a result, the researchers had to advise the runners to eat more, rather than less, fat.

Maybe this is my problem right now - I don't have enough fat in my system so I'm feeling blah and unmotivated and unenergized. Maybe I need to eat some ice cream. Or Frosted Flakes. Or Lucky Charms. :)

Very thankful

I'm very thankful that there are 18 weeks until the Brookings marathon because if it was in 16 or 12 and I was dealing with this weather and lack of opportunity to be outside running would truly suck.

I should have run this morning. I said this, "I should be running" all morning on my way to work. It was semi-warm and not too much wind. But I had made plans to get to work and get the bios done and some other stuff for work.

Of course 2 hours into my work it starts snowing and blowing horribly and now we're in a blizzard watch or something. And I didn't get a run in. I'm going on almost a week without running.

I'm not too worried because there have been other times where I've missed a week, and since the marathon is still 18 weeks away I should be okay. But it's frustrating nonetheless.

I do want to run, so I may have to suck it up and land on the dreadmill tomorrow. God help me.

Okay...this is the last time.

I skipped yesterday - but that was planned, sort of. SG was going to skip and when it started snowing really bad I thought it'd be better if I skipped too.

But today! OH! Today...I should have gone out. But my back has been hurting again - I slept wrong. It was my own fault and I should have used moist heat but the day kind of got away from me.

So when SG texted and said she wanted to bail today I took it and ran - just not literally. I decided to just go home after work and relax. It turned out to be good, I think, though I haven't run since Tuesday and that's not a good thing.

But it's early in training so I'm hoping this won't affect me too much. This was my downfall last year. I signed up for the marathon and then wasn't able (or just didn't) run enough during the winter and spring so I wasn't ready in May.

And yesterday I signed up for the Irishman - this will be for the Saturday before St. Patty's day. I'll run the 5M, 5K and 1M races. I know I won't win the Leprechaun Shoe trophy but it will be something new for me to attempt. Now I just hope I don't screw up my training by taking all this time off. (Even if I am sick).

Sick :(

So yesterday I felt crappy and this morning I felt the same. So, in my brilliance for once, I went to the doctor.

That was fun. Dr. P had me say "ahh" and then said, "Wow, that looks painful." haha. So he figured it was strep or mono. Joy. But he could have a diagnosis in 10 minutes. Fair enough.

Well, it turned out to not be strep or mono, but could have been a fast acting strep or a different form of mono, not sure it if was viral or not so... as he said, "That's my long spiel to tell you we're putting you on antibiotics."

Joy! Amoxicillin for 7 days, three times each day! I can't wait.

So because of this, and the fact it's freezing rain right now, I begged off running again. Sarah was okay with that, I think. I don't want to keep bailing but it's still early in training that I think we'll be okay. And I won't get any better if I don't rest.

So I'm going to rest tonight, maybe tomorrow but definitely back out there Saturday.

*sigh*

I have to say, I'm really glad that SG and I are taking today off. I have no energy today. I know my body is adjusting to the lack of flour and sugar, but I don't know that Dr.A from SB really understood just how much I'd be running. :)

So today we're taking off. I need a day to recover. Plus I have a pus or snot thing in my throat that's been there all day. I'm worried it's strep or mono and I just can't handle that right now. So I'm going to take some NyQuil and go to bed soon and see what's what in the morning. If it's still there I'm going to try to get to the doc and get it checked out. I can't be sick. I refuse to be sick.

It's mime time!

Does anyone else remember that? From Animaniacs? Love that show.

Yes, I'm a mime when I run...at least that's what I thought until I got home tonight and realized I look more like a thug than a mime. I wear black pants, black jacket and thug-like black stocking cap, but white gloves and shoes. Well when I got home and looked at me in the mirror I suddenly realized why the couple walking on the bridge by the river took off rather quickly when I came toward them.

Oh well. I had a great run tonight. SG and I ran 2.5 and it felt great. Then we were talking about taking tomorrow off and I kept looking off to the other trail. SG says, "You're going to go more aren't you." Not a question, she could totally read my mind.

So I went for another half mile just to check out the trail. We've been running the downtown route because it's been well-lit and since we run at night we thought this would be best. But I'm getting bored with it so I want to increase our options.

The only problem with this route is there's limited lighting in a few places, so tomorrow on our rest day I'm going to buy a Maglite. I figure that will help with our lighting problems as well as providing a weapon if needed. But I don't think we'll need it. It's so cold, no one is outside.

So again, Keith - no step count. It's hard to function a watch with dual gloves on. :(

Day one

I'm not going to number these days because I know I'll get all confused after about 5.

SG and I ran tonight 2.5 downtown. It was a nice run, though windy at first as we headed into it. That didn't help my lungs too much and since we had taken four days off we were both huffin' a little. Of course, I let her set the pace and we ran a lot faster than I think we do or should but her rationale was, "The faster we go, the sooner we get done."

Truer words are never spoken and I'm adamant that there is no shame in walking, so we did walk a couple blocks throughout.

The run back was better since we were finally warm and the wind was at our back. We do get a slight hill in on this route which is good too. And we're going tomorrow.

Keith - I didn't get a step count tonight because I forgot your watch and it was just too damn cold. Plus I know we weren't running right. I will tomorrow.

Approved!!

I got an email from my trainer (did I mention how awesome he is even though he lives 4 hours away?) and he has approved my race schedule plan for the year! YAY!

Now I just need to get my training plan in place, my big calendar for my wall to track it, and eggs for SB.

Things are looking up!

Another day down

Today is cold. Ugh. I hate the cold and I don't want to tempt fate and exercise induced asthma, so I'm baking cookies today.

Tomorrow I go back on South Beach, Phase 1. I'm actually excited about this because it's so much nicer knowing what I can/should eat instead of trying to figure it out on my own. And I know SB works because it has worked for me in the past.

Monday is supposed to be warmer, though maybe windy. SG and I are planning to run tomorrow night at 6 since she has to work, so I may go out for another short run at noon to get some mileage in. Plus I've just been feeling like a bump on a log - a BIG bump...HUGE bump - all weekend so I need to get out and do something!

Plus, I need to stay away from the cookies as much as possible. :)

Struggling

There are moments in my life when I really really hate where I live. today is one of them. SG and I were going to run at noon today, but she just wrote and said the roads/sidewalks/driveways are really slick from the freezing drizzle we've had. She and her puppy even slipped, so she wants to not go out today. And I can't run tomorrow because I have family things going on.

I don't want to skip today. I need to get out, but I'm worried that now that she's backed out I won't get motivated enough to go. I think around 1 it'll be okay, but right now it's icky.

This is also the moment where I really wish I had been paying better attention when I bought YakTrax at REI...because stupidly I bought the walking ones, not the Pro ones, so I'm very hesitant about trying to run in them. I need to give them to mom and get some of the Pros, but I'm also trying to really curb my spending on frivolous things.

So if anyone is out there, please send some advice or motivation. I'm going to go shower and wake up and hopefully that'll help.

This is not a good start to the year. :(

Rest day

SG is feeling a little sore today from our 4 miles yesterday and it's cold out with subzero wind chill, so we decided to skip today.

This isn't a bad thing. Just like I told SG when we were planning our runs - there's no shame in walking. And there's no shame in resting. Your body tells you when too much is too much and if you try to push beyond that it'll shut down on you.

I'm tired too. Spent last night hanging out with Grady so I'm exhausted. She really wanted to come running with me today, but alas she couldn't. She'll have fun playing with Maya and Sasha instead. Another time she'll come with me to run I'm sure.

Log One

So I decided I needed a place to just write about my running. I'm truly addicted which is not a good thing, or maybe it is and I just haven't fully admitted that yet.

It's 2009 and my goals are to run the following:

St. Patty's 5K - March 17, 2009
Avera 5K - May 9, 2009 (part of tapering for next week)
Brookings Marathon - May 16, 2009
SF Half? Maybe - September 2009
Twin Cities Marathon - Oct 4, 2009
World Run Day - November 2009
Thanksgiving Day 5K - November 2009

And maybe a few others in the middle.

I have a new running partner, SG, and her goals are much different than mine. She's looking to run the St. Patty's 5K (her first in awhile), the Avera 5K, and then a 10K in September. She and I talked this morning and I'm going to run with her, if nothing else but to get me out. I'm a great procrastinator, as we all know, so having someone to account to and help get me out will be needed. But then after our run I'll go off on my own.

So here we go! I'm really excited for this year. 2009 will be my year for running. I can't wait. I started off with 4 miles with SG this morning. We walked a lot but still finished in under an hour. I think our average was a 14 minute mile which is a little slow, but we're both getting back into the sync of running.

I should be out again right now since it's almost 40 degrees out, but I think I'm going to just rest since we're running again tomorrow.

This will probably be a bit of a boring log, but if nothing else, it'll help me.