High Beams

Distance: 6.5
Quality: 8

Again, Shannon was kind enough to give me a 4:30 am wake up call today. Fortunately I was lucky and she went right back to bed. So I got to sneak out for 6.5 today. I tortured myself on Lago Blvd., which gives me a 2 mile long hill in the middle of the run. Of note, Eric told me a while ago that he was shooting for a fast marathon on 2 mid-week runs and a long run each week. I thought he was crazy, but now I find myself doing the exact same thing. I don't see how people with 2 kids, a job, and a wife could possibly do much more during the week...without harming the relationship.

Rant: high beams in residential neighborhoods

If you find yourself driving down your residential roads in the pre-dawn hours, please don't turn on your high beams. I spend half my morning runs with my eyes trying to readjust to the dark. What on earth do you think is going to jump out and surprise you when you are traveling at 30 mph on a road where most people are still sleeping. Paperboys don't exist anymore, falling saguaro cacti are very rare, and if you hit a Javelina then you get to make Kahlua pig for the neighbors over the weekend. Please ditch the high beams, or at least let me come over to your house to blind you with a camera flash every couple of minutes. I would argue that the road is a lot safer without blind pedestrians walking around, wouldn't you?

Now get back to work.

Bad Blogger!!!

I apologize to my faithful following of...2 or 3 readers who venture to this site. I fear that I'm now just chronicling a document that will only be read by me and my brother (if I plead for him to revisit the site).

Here's a quick run down of the last 10 days, or is it 11??? OMG!

1. woke up early to do 6, but I was greeted by Shannon in the hallway (what the HECK was she doing up that early?!?!?!?) and she saw that I had on running clothes, which was followed by a much-louder-than-needed plea to go on the run with me. Traditionally this is not an issue, especially since she's MUCH lighter than Reese, but the jogging stroller had a flat. Long story short, after negotiating with Shannon (and losing), then pirating parts from the other jogging stroller we have, inflating the tire and getting everyone strapped in, the time I had for a leisurely (the only pace I can muster) 6 mile jog, had turned into just enough time to sprint out 3.

2. long run. I had myself down to do 12 today, but I only know that I did 2 hours of running. Why? When I took Shannon on the run the other day, I strapped my GPS receiver to the stroller...and never turned it off. I had just enough battery life to make it about a half mile into the run and then I went old school, which is jog out an hour, turn around, and jog back for an hour. Who knows how far I ran.

2. In New Jersey. Working from 7am to 8pm every day didn't give me a lot of time to run. And considering that I forfeited 3 hours to go east, I wasn't about to get up at 2am pst to go for a jog. So I squeezed in a late night run at about 8:30 on Wednesday. It was COLD!!! See-your-breath cold! I used one of those skull caps that you see the NFL guys wearing, and it worked very well. I highly recommend one if you are going to be doing cold weather running. Anyway, I ran for 52 minutes and I swear that I was doing a 7 minute mile or better the last two miles; however, I'll never know. Yet another GPS issue. For some reason it didn't lock onto the satellites out there and it kept going on and off through the entire run.

One final question to y'all: WHY IS NEW JERSEY CALLED "THE GARDEN STATE"?!?!?!?!? I can see it being called "the what-is-that-smell state" or "the concrete state" or the "runners-beware-of-all-cars state", but there ain't no gardens in that state.

3. long run back in AZ. How does someone essentially do an "out and back" run with the out split being 1:26 and the back split being 30? Let's just say that the "out" portion of the run involved being lost and crawling under not one, but two barbed wire fences. After being lost on trails for an hour and a half, I found the road and made a beeline for home. I'll give those trails a try again and we'll see if something better happens.

4. 4 turns into 6. Shannon, yet again, is helping to shape my training schedule. She got up at 4am the other day. I was afraid that she'd not go back to bed, so I curled up next to her (can I tell you how happy I am now that she's out of the toddler bed?) until she zonked about 15 minutes later. At that point, I was awake and had no hope of catching some z's before it was time to run, so I took off at 4:30 for my am run. And with the additional time that Shannon introduced to my schedule, I upped the miles from 4 to 6. I was home before 5:30 and ready to start my day. You should have seen the look on my business partner's face (Kurt was in town for some quarterly work and he's from the east coast, so he got up pretty early), when he saw me before the sun was up and asked if I was going to get out and run soon, only to find that I'd already cranked out the run before the sun, paper boy, wife and kids ever started moving.

Again, I apologize for the mass blog dump and I promise to be a little better in the coming weeks.

Now get back to work.

Pre Dawn 4

Run: 4 miles
Time: 42:20
Quality: 2/10

I was sore after the 10.5 this weekend and the blistering 9 minute mile pace (hahahahahahahahahhahah - that's me from 10 years ago laughing at me of today), so the start of the run was sloooooooowwww. Then I started to hit my stride in the middle, but then I had a little lower GI tract issue and started running like I worked for The Ministry of Funny Walks (Click on this link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w). Enough said.

Now back to work.

Beautiful Weather

Distance: 10.5 miles
Time: 1:42:55
Quality: 8/10

A low pressure system hit AZ this weekend and the morning run on Sunday was 49 degrees at the start. Ohhhhh, it felt great. I even wore a dark shirt, as I knew that I would not be burning up at the end of the run. Also, the route was an out-and back on the AZ Canal (still highly recommend it for any Arizona runner out there!!), with us going into the breeze and against the canal for the first half. I noted to Brice that we'd be hauling ass on the way back, but I was only joking...or so I thought.

We both felt good and stepped it up the last half of the run with our final four miles at a 9:04 pace. Ok, so that's not quite 'hauling ass' (Eric, my brother, on his worst run might see a mile at 8:10, so we have a way to go before we could honestly say we were going fast). Nontheless, it felt good to be moving at a pace that felt like a full jog as opposed to a death-march-shuffle of the feet.

Also, I was glad that I opted to NOT wear the heart rate monitor on Sunday. I'm sure that it would have triggered some sort of 911 alert and scrambled a Search and Rescue team for me. Also, also, as I'm writing this the day after the run, I must note that my quads, glutes, calves, and quads are all very aware that they put in extra effort yesterday and they are not afraid to tell me that.

I have a bit of hope that I'll be able to look at a Marathon pace that will get me in at 4:30 or better. We'll see. I have to keep reminding myself that distance is more important than pace right now. In fact, whenever I get the urge to chase down a runner who crosses my path on my morning runs, I chant "distance, not pace" to myself. It tends to pull me back a little.

Now get back to work.

5 around the Fountain

Distance: 5 miles
Time: 55:10
Quality: 5/10

I'm fighting a cold and couldn't get out of second gear today. It's totally dark if you start running at 5:10 AM and the significance of this is that bats are still trying to get that last meal before the sun comes up. One bounced off my head this morning and I didn't take it too calmly. I always thought I was a little braver, but put a bat in my hair and I get a little freaky. Happy Halloween.

The leg sleeve still seems to be doing well, which gives me hope that the long run this weekend will be a good one. However, I have to say that it's a bitch getting that thing off your leg when you finish your run. Also, you sweat like a pig with that thing on. My sock and shoe on my right foot was drenched. Does this open me up to blisters now? Oh how I hate my right leg.

Get back to work.

McDavid Leg Sleeve

Distance: 4 miles
Time: 42:43
Quality: 7/10

Yes, I was a little disgruntled that McDavid dragged their feet on my leg sleeve, but it arrived. I ran with it this morning and it looks like it's helping the leg. I put a little extra speed in on the last mile to see if the shin hurt after I cooled down, but it was silent. So far the leg sleeve gets high marks.

8.5 in Chicago

Distance: 8.5
Time: 1:27:49
Quality: 3/10

Cautionary tale: Don't party and then expect a good run the next day. While you might be thinking that these words are common sense, I must remind you of my stupidity.

The picture is of Kurt and Mary (my wife) at Frontera Grill.

Saturday we went to Rick Bayless's restaurant, Frontera Grill and had great food and even better margaritas...3 to be exact. Then we went back to the hotel for a beer. Then we went to dinner at Bin 36, a local wine bar, to put more nails in the running coffin. Let's first talk about a few of the MANY cheeses I tried such as: Brind D'Amour, Pierre Robert, Manchego, Stilton, Comte, and at least 6 more nefarious cheeses from goats, sheep, and cows. Did I mention that I'm a little lactose intolerant? But that didn't stop me from eating it all. And we shouldn't forget the wine, which included a Rose Prosecco, a flight of Syrah, and then a bottle of Syrah because we liked one of my flight so very much.

For those of you keeping tab at home, the glasses of wine, beer, and margaritas total about 8 or 9 at this point.


Now let's talk about the run. In the 8.5 miles that I jogged, I hit 3 restrooms. The one on the waterfront next to Grant park is VILE, avoid it at all costs. The port-a-potty at Burnham Harbor was quite nice, but you needed to hop a fence to get to it. Finally, a quick visit to the convention facilities at McCormick Place turned out quite well, I blended nicely with the people attending the National Radiology Convention.

Chicago

Delinquent blogger. Here's 4 posts.

Run: 5 miles

Time: 52:53

Quality: 8/10 it felt good

I ran along Lake Michigan today and I thought I'd only go for about 3.5, but when I saw the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium, which also is very close to Soldier Field, I kept running. They looked like they were pretty close, but they are very big and the distance was a lot further than I thought. Still, it was great fun.

Note of disappointment. I purchased a McDavid leg sleeve for my shin splints and paid the extra cash for it to be FedEx'd out to me before the trip to Chicago. They waited three days to ship it and it, unfortunately, arrived the day I left. So it's in AZ and I'm in pain. Grrrr.