Monday, September 25, 2006

The Need to Run

Today hasn't been a great day. It is the end of the fiscal year at work, and my last week as a supervisor, so it promised to be a crazy 5 days. The week took a definite downturn, though, when my grandfather's wife died this morning. She isn't my biological grandmother, but my Mom's mom died before I was born, so she is the only grandmother I have ever known on that side of the family. I can't really say we were ever that close, but I know she made my PaPa happy, so that made her OK in my book.

I don't think she ever had a cross word to say to me, my wife, or my kids, and thinking about it now, I don't know that I ever heard her say a negative word about anyone. As a person who is a total ass, and never really has anything positive to say about anything or anybody, I can't imagine the type of person it takes to stay that positive in the face of all the shit the world throws at you on a daily basis. Part of me thinks the energy it would take would be unimaginably soul draining, but part wonders how much better life would be if your glass was always half full. How would it feel to be genuinely happy to meet and spend time with people? To love the company of not only friends and family, but people you barely know? How hard would it be to stay cheerful and upbeat while battling cancer like she did? To stay strong and not break down while watching your spouse of 30+ years die a slow, lingering death? I can't know.

This is a time when it would be comforting to believe in a God who holds a special place for people who are willing to believe, based on nothing more concrete than a 2000 year old book full of sometimes wonderful, sometimes contradictory stories. I wish I believed but I don't. That would be too easy. I've heard too many Christians describe life on Earth as a hell to be endured while trying to earn your place in heaven. I refuse to live my life believing that. What is wrong with living a good, decent life just for the sake of making yourself, those you love, and sometimes people you don't even know happy? Is that not reward enough?

Marjorie was a sometimes wacky, sometimes downright odd person, who seemed to make everyone around her happier. I never really thought about it much while she was alive, but that seems to be the norm. How little do we really see people while they are just across town somewhere, living their lives while we live ours? Crossing paths at Thanksgiving, Christmas and the occasional funeral. Promising to see each other more often next year. How much time do we spend actually living and not just being alive? I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I can tell you that it isn't enough. But I can tell you that my heart beats a little faster when my wife walks in to a room, my smile gets a little bigger when I hear Logan laugh, and I'm sure I can walk on air when Emma runs to hug me when I walk in the door.

So while my heart is heavy today, as much for those left here to deal with the pain as for those who are gone, life has to go on, and it is our responsibility to make sure it is a life well lived. Nobody is going to do that for us.

As the title says, right now I am feeling the need to run. Running has become symbolic of the person I want to be and the life I want to live. It may be petty, but maybe that is what life is about. The petty things that make us happy. I'm not smart enough to know, so all I can do is try and judge what I see through the prism of my life. I can't be Marjorie and become a people person, but that isn't who I am anyway. I am fine with loving my family and the few friends I really care about. As long as I can make them happy and pick them up when they need it, maybe it will have been worthwhile after all.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Renaissance Run


Ran my first race of the year today, and my 4th overall. Rode with Aaron, Shell, and the kids to Midwest City for the Renaissance Run 5K with hopes of definitely setting a new personal record, and possibly running sub-30. I achieved the first goal, and fell a little short on the second, finishing with a 31:01, which is exactly a 10 minute pace. I am pretty happy with how I ran, knocking 2:14 off of my previous best. I honestly don't think I could have run any harder, so I am not that disappointed with not cracking 30.

The pace at the start of the race seemed to be much quicker than I had hoped for, and the first block or so was up a pretty good incline, and I think that may have taken some of the wind out of me, because I couldn't seem to catch my breath the whole race. My legs felt great, and never seemed to give out, which was encouraging. I think I can address the lack of oxygen with cross-training, which I haven't been doing much of lately.

All in all, though, a good race for me. Thanks to Shell for providing the pic of me right after the finish, and congrats to Aaron for completing his first ever race, and setting his PR mark at a very impressive 30:39. I'm looking forward to running the Trolley Track 10K next month, and I am guaranteeing a PR for both of us. Mark it down.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Back on Track

Moved back onto the track for a 2 mile training run tonight. The hills here in town have been kicking my ass lately, so I thought that getting back on flat ground might help my hamstring problems. I only ran an easy 2 miles, but I had what would have been a really good run if it wasn't for the wind. It wasn't too bad, though. Track running is more mental than physical, because when you are on the track, you can pretty much quit whenever you want to. When you are running an out and back course, you can quit, but you still have to get back to the truck somehow.

So I ran the 2 miles in 23 flat, with a couple of short walk breaks, and I ran the last quarter in 2:05, just to pick up the pace a little. Didn't really seem to run too hard at any point, but I didn't do any carb loading before I ran, which seemed to effect my energy level. But with race day 3 days away, I wasn't trying to do too much, just have a nice run without hurting my legs. Mission accomplished.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Easy run

Not much to post after yesterday's novel. Had a nice, easy 3.54 mile run in 42:02, for an 11:52 pace. Having serious doubts about trying to break 30 on Saturday. I'm not sure I am fit enough for that yet. I'm having to kill myself to maintain the paces I have been running, so I don't know if it is worth the toll it is taking on my joints to run this hard. Right around a 12 minute pace is comfortable right now, and anything faster hurts. I will have to see how I feel on Saturday to decide if I want to try and break 30, or if I just want to set a new PR. Here is the record so far:

117 9/10 M3034 Chris Jarred Guthrie OK 33 33:15 (Creek Classic, 117th out of 135 men)

Maybe just breaking 33 minutes will be enough. I have to figure out if I am ready to race this year, or if it is enough to just enjoy the races, and then next year get more serious about my times. Not sure.

Monday, September 18, 2006

The Hunt for Red October

Have I mentioned that I love the movie The Hunt for Red October? Well, I do. I normally don't like to put a lot of non-running related stuff on my blog, so you may be wondering why I am talking about movies all of a sudden. Hopefully, it will all make sense before I'm done.

I knew we needed to run 5 miles on Sunday, and since Aaron thinks we are regressing if we run slower than 12 minute miles, I was planning for a tough evening. I have been fighting off little nagging aches and pains (slight groin pain, left knee and hamstring pain, and general soreness), so I wanted to prepare as well as possible hoping to make the 5 miles as easy as possible. As I mentioned in my last post, I took Thursday off to recuperate, and I continued that on Friday. I felt better on Saturday, so I thought I might do a little cross training just to loosen up. I know Aaron has been really getting after the cross training, and I'm pretty sure that is why he isn't having the soreness issues I am, and why I still outweigh him by almost 20 pounds. I wasn't looking to work out hard, so I decided to do a little biking with a little running. I rode my bike from downtown Guthrie to the track at the high school, and ended up running 200 meter intervals 4 or 5 times. I probably ran them at a 9 minute or so pace, which is a little faster than race pace. Pretty much right where I wanted to be. This was about 11 in the morning, and since I hadn't eaten anything else, I didn't really feel like I had a lot of energy. To be honest, though, I just wanted to work out all of the kinks before Sunday.

Sunday I did a pretty good job of eating all day, and didn't spend too much time on my feet, so by run time I really felt pretty good. My groin would still hurt a little when I stood up or sat down, but it normally doesn't bother me too much while running. We had a relatively flat course mapped out with a downhill finish, so I really felt pretty confident about a good run. I wasn't sure that I could run 12's all night, but who knows?

We started out running pretty well, if not comfortably. One of the problems with running 5 miles as opposed to a shorter 2 or 3, is that the warm up can't be quite as strenuous. If I am only running the shorter distance, I can afford to run a quarter to a half mile as a warm up to really get my body temp up and get the joints loosened, but if I am running 5, I need to make sure I warm up easy to save as much gas as possible. Consequently, the first quarter to half never feels very good. By the time we made it up the first hill, though, everything was working smoothly, and I commented to Aaron that I probably wouldn't feel as good for the rest of the night as I did right at that moment. It was one of those rare moments when running seems like one of the greatest things in the world, and everything is right.

Turns out, I was right, I didn't feel that good for the rest of the run. Around mile 2, my groin was really starting to hurt everytime I lifted my right leg, and then my left knee was hurting everytime my left foot hit the ground. The one, two, one, two, of pain I was feeling was like a musical version of the Inquisition (without the dancing from The History of the World, Part One). Once the third mile came, my right knee also started to bother me, and if I was running by myself, there was a good chance I may have stopped. But stubborn pride wouldn't allow that. Eventually, my right knee started to feel better, just in time for some new pain (!) in my left leg. It was right behind whatever that bone on the inside of your ankle is. At this point in the run, I just referred to it in my head as the "Ow, what the fuck is that pain??" bone. Probably not how it is listed in Grey's Anatomy, but put yourself in my place for the sake of continuity.

After a short pit stop for water at the 4 mile mark, we buckled down and tried to really push the last mile. The first half mile of the run we picked is pretty much uphill all of the way, so it was pretty much survival all of the way up the hill. Instead of the left turn we normally take at the Masonic Temple when doing our 2 mile loop, the one mile loop we finished with Sunday made a right turn. I kept thinking Aaron was going to start veering right (he was probably 20 yards ahead of me at the time) as he came up to the corner, but instead he started to turn left. I was tired enough at the time to have flashes of letting him go about a half a block before yelling at him so I could slow up to wait, but he was having a tremendous run and I couldn't do it.

Since we had started picking up the pace while running uphill, my lungs were really starting to burn. I had accepted the pain in my legs, which is all tendon and ligament ligament pain right now, and kept running strong. My muscles felt really good, and my lungs were holding up as well as could be accepted. I knew that the last half mile needed to be strong, just to prove to myself that I could run through all of the discomfort. Here is where the Hunt for Red October came into my mind. (Thought I forgot, huh??)

Hopefully, everyone knows the plot to the movie, because this post has been long enough. At one point in the movie, Ramius (Sean Connery) is heading South, trying to figure out a way to defect to the US with his Russian sub (Red October), instead of playing war games with his countrymen and their subs. One of his fellow Captains (Capt Tupolov), finds out that Ramius is defecting and figures out that he has been sitting still for hours while Ramius is moving away from him. So, to make a short story long, Tupolov asks his Chief of the Boat if 105% on the reactor is possible.

He is told that it is possible, but not recommended.

Go to 105% on the reactor, he orders.

Where are we going, he is asked?

To kill a friend.

That is how it felt in my chest for the 4 1/2 or so minutes it took to run that half. I feel like I asked for more than 100% from my lungs, and while maybe not recommended, that is what I got. I felt strong running the last quarter or so, but my lungs felt like they were about to explode. I was gasping and sucking in huge breaths of air, trying to get the oxygen I needed to keep from killing myself.

I thought I had a chance to catch Aaron coming down the stretch, but he held me off by a half block or so, which is fine, because I thought we both had a really good run. Painful, but good. I ended up running 5.03 miles in 58:18, for an 11:35 pace. Still pretty fast for me. I am curious to see how long we can stretch our runs while still running 12's. So far, we are up to 5 and still going strong.

I will be running solo this week while Aaron is in Austin, and then we are running a 5K on Saturday. I'm curious to see how my legs hold up this week while getting ready for the race. The more pain I feel, the less likely a sub-30 gets. I need to keep the ultimate goal in mind, though. I need to stay healthy for the half marathon, and not hurt myself in the smaller races. I guess I will see how I feel come Saturday....

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Update

So here is what has been going on with the running. We have been following Hal Higdon's program pretty closely, and I feel like I am getting a little better with every run. I think the last run I talked about was last Wednesday when I ran 3.39 miles in 44:24 (13:05 pace). Thursday, Aaron and I mapped out a 3.1 mile (5K) course to try and simulate race conditions, and I finished in 33:36, which is faster than I have ever raced a 5K. It's not often that you run in training faster than you do on race date, so I think that is a pretty good sign.

Sunday, we ran a 4 miler on a little bit different course than we usually do, that included an out and back to the high school, and had a really good run. We were hoping to average 12 minute miles, and made a note of each half mile so we could keep track of our pace without having to kick at the end. We stayed a little ahead of pace (about 25 seconds) until we had about a half mile to go, when we noticed that we were down to 10 seconds ahead of pace. We finished strong uphill, clocking in at 47:10 (11:43 pace). All in all, a pretty good run.

Tuesday on the other hand, sucked. Aaron's first and last run choice was a 3.5 jaunt through hell. We were taught as kids that hell was an unbearably hot place where you spent eternity after a life of sin. Not so. Hell, it turns out, is a leg and lung punishing run up hill after hill after hill. Followed by running up a steep incline. And mile 2 seemed to be more of the same. After that, though, mile 3 was, yep, you guessed it. Hilly. On the plus side, the last 1/8th of a mile was downhill, so that was cool. We still ran an impressive (for me) 40:03, which turned out to be an 11:15 pace, which was pretty unbelieveable, because we had at least 3 walk breaks thrown in. So apparently, we were running too fast for the rest of the run!!

After that mind-numbing (and body destroying) trip, I was ready to call off our 2 mile speed run we had planned for Wednesday, and just run a couple of easy 13-14 minute miles for recuperative purposes, but I let Aaron talk me into running fast anyway. I felt terrible while warming up, and felt even worse for the first mile or so while running about a block behind Aaron. The last mile was downhill, though, so I tried to pick it up as much as I could, and then really kicked it in for the last half mile. The second mile I felt really good, and finished strong for a 19:36 time trip, a 9:48 pace. I'm not sure if I can maintain that pace for another mile, but we will find out in a week when we run the Renaissance Run in Midwest City.

I begged out of tonight's run due to soreness and general malaise, and I am pretty glad I did. I am still too fat and out of shape to run as hard as I did 2 days in a row. Right now, I need to surround the hard runs with restorative runs. I knew running fast last night wasn't a good idea, but I really wanted to know if I could run under 20, and luckily for my psyche, I can. I need to listen to my body a little better, though, to make sure I don't get hurt. I am starting to have little nagging pains now that I can't afford. Besides the knee, I am battling a little bit of groin pain all of a sudden. I probably shouldn't use the words "little bit" and "groin" in the same sentence. Maybe having a tremendous pain in my groin sounds better. Or massive. Massive sounds good, so lets go with that. Damn right.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Getting there. Slowly.

I will try and give a more detailed post tomorrow, but just a quick update on the training. It is going great. Aaron and I have lost the ability to run slower than 12 minute miles all of a sudden. To the speedier people of the world, that may not seem too fast, but to a couple of Clydesdales, it is pretty quick! Aaron and I seem to be perfect training partners, with me pushing him in the middle of the runs, and him leaving me in the dust at the end. Tonight may be the last time he gets to pick our route, though, because he tried to kill me with hills. Somehow, we ended up running up Cleveland for one steep block, running up College for what seemed like a half mile, running up Walnut from the bottom of the hill to the Armory, up the little(!) hill on Hammill Lane, uphill all the way through the park, up 2 blocks to the temple, then one lap around the temple (going uphill for half of it). Luckily, the run ended up being a block shorter than I thought it was going to be.

Unbelievably, I ran it in 40:03, for an 11:15 pace. Considering we walked at least 3 times, we were moving pretty good the rest of the time. Tonight was also the first run in my new Asics Kayanos. They felt great. I may try and figure out how to post a picture tomorrow and show the new kicks.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Junk Miles

Turns out that I am not invincible. I can't just lace 'em up, walk out the door and have a great run. Not yet anyway. With Kary being sick today, I didn't get to run when I wanted to or eat when (and what) I wanted to, and it really effected my run tonight. Not a problem, because there are more important things than running, obviously, but it was a good lesson. The best runs come after you prepare for them. To be able to run at my full potential, I need to eat well all day (including a pre-run, high-carb snack) and I need to have a good solid warm-up. I didn't really do any of those things today, and I felt terrible for the whole run.

On the plus side, though, even though I didn't feel strong or fast, I still ran 3.39 miles in 44:24, for a 13:05 pace. Not too bad considering I had no idea how far I was running! Plus, I walked a little bit in the first half mile or so to warm up a little bit more, I walked a little bit going around the temple, and then I walked the last block and a half. So I guess the good news is that my slower pace runs are getting faster.

I would like to have probably 2 (maybe 3) runs before the 5K at a sub 11 pace to prepare for race day, and settle into running somewhere around 12's the rest of the time. I will be curious to see how far I can go running 12's. 5 miles? 6? Can I run a 10k at a 12 minute pace? Probably not at 245, but it wouldn't surprise me at 235. Could I run 12's for 13.1? Doubtful. But then again, I didn't think I could run 4 miles in less than 46 minutes either. As a superheavyweight. Who knows what I could do as a cruiserweight?

Monday, September 04, 2006

45:31

I didn't feel quite as invincible on tonight's run as I did on Friday, but still had a pretty respectable time, 45:31, for an 11:21 pace. It is really funny how the mind works. I was cruising along reasonably well for the first lap, when it dawned on me that I ran the first 2 in almost exactly 22 minutes. After a quick tree-watering and drink of water for myself, I headed back out after losing about 30 seconds to a minute. That is when my mind starts mentioning that 11's are too fast and I can't keep that up for 4 miles. Maybe we should slow down a little bit so we don't run out of gas. It's just a training run and nobody is here to see us, so what is the point of killing ourselves. Right?? Self-preservation is a bitch.

But training runs are as much for your mind as they are for your body, so this is all part of the process. I am still hoping to run a sub-20 2 miler before the 5K in less than 2 1/2 weeks. I still feel that if I can run at least one 2 miler in sub-20, or a 3 miler in sub-33, then a sub-30 5k can be accomplished. Right now I am still not sure. I would almost bet the farm, though, that if I can show up on race day at <235, there is no chance of NOT breaking 30.

4 Miler ( A day late)

As soon as we get the kids in bed, I need to knock out 4 miles tonight. The diet has been good today, so I am hoping that that will translate into a good run, but I never seem to have the good runs when I think I am going to. That is part of what I need to be able to figure out. I need to know what makes me have a good run and what makes me run slow. So far, I have figured out what not to do (taquitos!), but I am still working on what I need to do.

My running schedule is going to be off a little this week, because I didn't get my 4 miler in last night. I had planned on running with Aaron, and made sure my diet was good all day yesterday, but by the time I talked to Aaron, he had already run his 4, and I was in a bad enough mood that I didn't want to go out and run the 4 alone. So I'm not sure which days are going to be running days this week and which days aren't. Alot of it will probably depend on how my 4 goes tonight. We had planned on running 13's for the full 4, but I don't know if I want to run that hard by myself, so I will have to see how I feel after the first mile or so. If I run hard tonight, I will probably take tomorrow off, and then see how I feel on Wednesday to decide if I want to run or ride the bike on Wednesday.

One way or another, I need to get my weight down around 240 by next Sunday. That way I can get down around 235 in time for the 5K. Then I can really start to focus on the 10K. I have never raced the 10K distance, so I will be curious to see what that is like. I guess the next week or so will really depend on tonights run.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Breakthrough?

So I skipped my scheduled 3 miler on Thursday. I wasn't too worried about it because I had run on Tuesday and Wednesday, and postponing the run for one day wasn't going to do any harm. I thought it might actually help to have another day of rest for my legs. Friday turned out to be a bitch at work, though, so I wasn't sure how things were going to turn out. I made the mistake of trying to help my team, and asked the big boss man if they were going to let people go home early, and it turned into a big project for me that took about 4 1/2 hours and caused me to not get a lunch break. It wasn't too bad, because my group had a Mexican food day, and so I had been snacking all morning. I made sure to eat a big bowl of oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar around 7, hoping that would fuel me enough for the 3 miles at about 9:30.

I was very careful to warm up a little more than usual, and when I took off down Oklahoma Street, I felt great. I started off with a one mile loop down to Broad Street and back, and I was starting to get concerned that I was going to crash, because I was running at a 11:30 pace. Normally, I try to start pretty slow, so I can make sure I have plenty of gas for the last mile or so, but I was feeling so good, I thought I would just keep doing what I was doing and see how long it could last. Turns out it last for the whole 3 miles. I didn't have a single leg problem for the whole run (which was unusual), and I didn't have any wind problems either. I also didn't take any walk breaks. I finished the run with a pretty strong kick, and ended up running in 33:46, which is a really good 3 mile time for me. That time is right around my PR for a 5K, which I was 1/10th of a mile away from running. All in all, for a solo, non-race run, a very good time. You can always count on race day to give you a little extra boost, so I feel pretty close to the sub-30 I'm looking for. I feel that if I can run a sub-20 2 miles, a sub-30 3.1 can't be far behind. Maybe Aaron and I can make that happen on Wednesday.

Psychologically, last night may have been the breakthrough I was looking for. It sounds funny to say, but I actually felt like an athlete while I was running. Normally, I feel like a big fat guy trying to lose weight, but last night was different. I am usually excited about running before I go, and I usually feel pretty good afterwards, but during the run, I spend most of my time making small adjustments because of a sore knee, or foot problems, etc, but last night, everything felt like it is supposed to, and I could actually spend the time enjoying what I was doing. When I am struggling, I spend most of the run looking at the ground right in front of me, really conscious of where I am stepping. Last night, my head was up, I was taking in the scenery around me, and the time seemed to fly by. Maybe last night will be the exception instead of the rule, and I just caught lightning in a bottle, but you know what? Maybe it wasn't.