doubts

I just don't know. Do you ever think that god is trying to tell you something? Well I hope he is not telling me that something. This week my Achilles just seems to be giving me more fits this week. Some of it I believe is in my head. I am focusing more on it than usual. But with that said. I think I am as ready as I can be. The run is just three days away and I am going to finish if I have to hobble on one leg.

On a different note. I just think that our house has become the more popular house in the neighborhood. We now have a trampoline. I am a little leery but my wife said it might get our couch potato like offspring outside. It seemed to have worked. Only time will tell if it will continue.
It is quite fun.

I am longing for my peace and quiet though. There are no lazy evenings because now there is always somebody here.

Oh well, welcome to parenting.

Love running and everything about it.

later.

Taper and loving it

Well it is not bliss but it will have to do. I finished up my second to last run last night. It was eight miles and I made it under the projected 9 min mark. I am hoping for a great week but It started off a little shaky. I got some bad news on the family home front. To big of a story to tell but I am disappointed anyway. I am going to try and rest as much as possible this week.

I am looking forward to this weekend. I always love the time I spend with my wife as will as the running. It is usually peace and tranquility.

Love running and everything about it.

Later.

Surprise in the sun

Today I am off work. How surprising you might say. Well my company I work for is owned by Armenians. That is a country bordering Turkey. (If you did not know, I had to look it up.) It turns out that today is the annual recognition of the Genocide. So here I am. This day started out great. I got up and did the bills then went for a run. The weather here is so wonderful. I started off on my 3 mile run at a leisurely place. I then decided to pick it up a little. By the time I was done I had run a pretty good pace. Surprise number 1. Then my wife, offspring #2 and I went to lunch. Great lunch by the way. So we leave the restaurant and two turns later I get pulled over by a cop. He informs me that I slowly rolled thru a stop sign. I say hog wash. My wife and I sat there in astonishment. We think he was having a slow day. Now I know that they are doing there job but I am now paying a fee that is like going 120 mph in a 25 mph zone.
Surprise number 2. Then my offspring #1 comes home from school acting as if his throat is going to break. Surprise #3. I say Three strikes and we are done for the day. I might as well as go to bed. Tomorrow has got to be better. If this is how the Genocide day goes I will just work next year.

The Flying Pig Half is just a week and three days away. I am excited and nervous at the same time. I love this weekend every year. It is our chance to get away from the kids for just one night and enjoy a somewhat care free evening.


Love running and everything about it.

Later.

Last long run of the training

You know, when you get up for a run in the morning and say to yourself I know this run is going to be bad. It is not going to go well. First thing is that I almost turned over and went back to sleep. So I say to myself that I need to get up. I make myself get up and start getting ready. I realize that I am still a little sore from my week. Bad sign number 1! Next I start running and it seems to be more tiring more quickly than normal. Sign number 2! For some reason I was sweating more than normal. Sign number 3! (Not Hot) So I got 6.5 miles out and turned around. At around 5 miles left and the next 1.5 miles straight up hill I realize that my body is starting to move down below.(If you know what I mean.) Sign number 4. When it starts to become uncomfortable I decide to walk a little. The uncomfortable feeling goes away so I start back up. Sign number 5! With me walking breeds more walking. So for the next few miles I have to walk a little every mile. I ended up with a horrible time and a bad feeling. This was my last long run before the race in two weeks and It was supposed to go well. But in my experience you have to have one horrible run during the training period. This just happened to be it. 1.5 weeks of taper and I am there.

I always make myself feel better after a bad hard run by telling myself - a bad mile is still a good mile. They still help my training.

So I must follow my own advice and say.

Love running and everything about it.

Later.

My son and our adventure

We will go back in time for this blog entry. My son and I went to a Kentucky basketball game during the beginning of the season. It was the week Tenn beat Kentucky in college football. The reason I mention this is because behind us sat an older couple dressed in Tenn. clothing. Brave one I might add. We really enjoyed the game and afterward we went down to the court. Here is a picture of my feet on the court. How cool is that. Now I must mention that I am a die hard Kansas Jayhawks basketball fan so Horaay for me!
Go Jayhawks.

Later.

My son and this trip around the block

Well in the middle of the week I decided to take my midweek run. I chose a 5 mile super hilly course. I did better than I thought but it showed me that I might struggle on the Pig half marathon course. We will see. I finished in 42min 8 sec. Not bad for me and that route. Later when my son got home from school I decided to take him out for his first run. Now he has been talking about this for a long time so I was a little behind the eight ball. We ended up going around a half mile. In the middle he did the classic drag your feet thing and fell flat on his face. Like a trooper he got back up and moved on. I was so proud of him. He said he was not tired but later he told his mom that he was sore.
He might be a runner in the making. We will see.

Love running and everything about it.

Later.

Change my blog

So I decided to try and change my previous blog. Being new to the blog revolution I changed my existing blog and messed it all up. That is why I had to transfer all my previous entries to a new blog.

Sorry for the confusion.

Love running and everything about it.

Later.

So how would you like 12 miles on the mill?

Well I woke up this morning for my long run of 12. I turned on the TV to see the weather and guess what! 37 degrees and windy with a touch of rain. Make that a lot of rain. So I quickly turned around and found the comfort of my warm bed. So when I got out of bed I had to finish up the dredded tax forms. Don't worry it was just the city and school the others were done weeks ago. After that I went to the Y. I figured that some miles where better than nothing. Before I knew it I had plans to finish my 12 on the mill. I had brought wild cherry life savers for a little flavor and gatorade. Around 3 miles in I popped one in my mouth. I chewed on it, what seemed to happen next is a peice got logged in my airway. So while running and my eyes watering I caughed. Alot!!! With a mile left I got the chills, you know because the Y likes the room to be set at 100 degrees.
After I got home I have a tendency of relaxing in my car for a few minutes. While I was doing this my neighbor was walking by and seemed to think that something was wrong. I quickly jumped out to reassure him I was ok. Later I gourged myself on Chillis chicken strips with fries and corn. Yum Yum. That was my day in a nut shell.

Love running and everything about it.

Later.

Bad language

I know this should contain some exercise news, so here it is. I did a tempo run today. My three mile run was under 24 min. which is pretty good. I have run faster but that will do. The y did not have towels at 1:45 pm in the afternoon which seems stupid. I think I was covered in an inch of sweat when I got done. Then I did 10 min on the bike.

On with my title. The people at work use bad language all the time. I think that they feel it is there god given duty to use such language. I just can't understand it. I mean, I understand the occasional slip or when you are steaming mad. They could be having the best day ever and they would swear every other word. I even think they call me girly just for not talking like them. Now granted they are good friends and treat me just like they treat everyone else. I just have not figured out the fascination.

Just my thoughts.

Love running and everything about it!

Later.

My reason for running

You know the reason! It is the same for everyone. To get healthy, stay sexy looking, have rock hard legs, and my favorite (get big veins in my legs). With that said I just feel a sense of accomplishment. The running 1 or 2 miles is great but that does not prove anything to me now. I can do something that most people can't or don't want to do. That may be selfish but to me it makes me feel special. For someone who spent most of his childhood feeling average it finally feels wonderful to feel better than average. My wife thinks I am strange that I get emotional after a huge race. What she doesn't understand is that moment is a completion to all the preparation of the prior months. We as runners have worked so hard. Each at there own pace and difficulty but they still finished. That gives me chills. I used to never like watching the Ironman on TV. Now I can not get enough, I understand thier feelings and how hard they worked. I dream of the day I can do a tri. I love the runs but it would be another challenge and accomplishment that I can be proud of. In my shelfishness I wish that all those people who knew me before and made fun of my average ability could see me know. That is shelfish but It would make me feel damn good.

Love running and everything about it!

Later.

My hope

Well I mentioned that I was planning my running year. If all goes as planned I will be running 3 big events.

Flying pig Half marathon. Already signed up for.
Chicago marathon if not sold out.
Stone creek 50k. If I make it through the marathon (they are a week apart)


love running and everything about it!

Later.

Sometimes I am around and Sometimes I am not.

Well I know it has been a long time since I have had any entries. Excuses Excuses. Well I started my training back around Feb something. I signed up for the Flying pig half marathon and was trying to plan my year. I since have had some fustrating times. Now that I am no longer on second shift it is harder to work out. I find that I am tired when I get home. Again no excuse but it is a major adjustment. Then my left achilles is bothering me. Some days it is fine and on other days it never stops aching. I am up to eleven miles in my training program and that run went perfect. It could have been faster but I will take a 9 something pace per mile. This also is with the extra pounds I have taken on this winter. I have been able to get some workouts in each week but my eating habits have not improved. To top this off my toe now has a sore red spot on it. Almost like it is infected. I wonder is God trying to tell me something? Is he saying enough is enough or perserve through this, continue what you love. My joy of running has seemed to leave until I am actually about half a mile in to a run. Then I settle in. Don't get me wrong. I love running it makes me happy.

Love running and everything about it!

later.

Turkey trot with the freezing rain

Well I did it. I know big fatty 2 by 4 can actually run. I was just beaming with joy. God really carried me through this one.
The week before the race I decided to run the race on the treadmill. The treadmill is always my worst nightmare. I don't mind running on the thing but it always says I go slower than when I run on the road. After 40 minutes I set a new personal record. I was satisfied that I would be able or at least hopeful to repeat in the race.
Standing there with thousands of other runners in the freezing rain I said to myself this should be fun. The year before had sleet at a horizontal angle. It felt like being sand blasted so I thought we can do this. My friend was somewhere in the crowd but I could not find her. I did manage to see her husband twice. He cheers me on in alot of races which means a lot. So off we go. I knew that I was moving pretty good. When the race was over I had finished with a total time of 38 minutes. This is faster than any other pace. It turned out to be 7:36 a mile for a total of five miles. After the race my friend on the side of the road called me. He said you might have placed. I said Naw. (Country like) Well when I got the results a few days later it said that I placed third in my division. This was the 225 lbs and up. So they gave me a plaque. See bigfoots can run also.
Then I was off to play football.

Later.

Strange spinning class.

Now I know that normaly spinning class should be uneventful but tonight I had an embarrasing moment. So we start our warm up and get into the workout when I look down and see powder on the floor and start to realize that my bike is squeeking. So my wife promptly says get a new bike. So I stop pedaling. The instructor says are you ok? Like I am having trouble in the first five minutes. Not! So I get a new bike. Then as the workout continues my bike starts squeeking again. People keep looking around and wondering who's it is. I am a realitively shy guy so this was slightly out of my comfort zone.
When class was over I removed my bike and saw the dust. It looked like I had sweated dust.

Another fun day at the Y.

Later.

Y on Friday with the PR!

So I decided that on Friday I would attempt a 5 mile run that resembled the turkey trot. I finished with a new PR. 39 min. 56 sec.

For me that represents an under 8 min mile for a all 5 miles. That is awsome for me. I know I know that is not all that good but for me it is great.

On other news my foot seems to be still hurting. I thought it was an arch problem but I am starting to wonder if it is a stress fracture or something. It has odds times of stinging and discomfort and other times it is just fine. It mainly hurts when my foot is bent or in a stressed postion. After the trot I plan on giving it a rest. Hopefully that will fix things.

Later.

Spinning class

Well it was spinning class again. My wife and I went to the Y. Our teacher chose not to show up this week so we had a sub. She had a reputation of being really hard. Here class had some hard moments but overall I have had worse classes. Now that being said, maybe my resistance was not up high enough. Class was fun but nothing special.

Later.

Crappy Monday.

I should have know that my boss had a bad weekend. Monday started off somewhat ok. My boss strutted in and begins to tell me that before I move anything I need to clear it with him. Now here is some background. This company is expanding and we are opening up our location. I was told by another executive that this was my department and that I am to set it up the way I want. So I start work quicky. I prepare the room start arranging the equipment and so on. 2 months go by and I have a new piece of equipment coming in so I rearrange stuff to make room. Also I have 13 years of experience so I know what I am doing. There is more that I could share but no need. It just felt like a slap in the face. I mean I can't determine for myself if a shelf should go here instead of there. Come on. That is stupid. I am not a little kid.
I do an excellent job and give them no reason to question me.

So I think that I can hit the gym for some stress relief. Work out was good but the 5 miles went by without a hitch. The weights were fine also. The problem. Is that I still left the gym aggrevated.

Later.
l

Friday at the y

So it was friday and it was just like any other ordinary day. I ran on the treadmill preparing for the last race of the year. Which is the Turkey Trot 5 miler in Miamisburg Ohio. The run went fine with the common but all to embarassing stubles. My I-pod was not charged to that was irritating. When I finished my run I did my normal weight training. Someday I will see results.

later

Spinning class

So Tuesday, we are sitting there in the living room and I can tell my wife is grumpy. I noticed she was not going to spinning class so I convinced her to go. That is only if I went with her she says. So there we are in the Semi circle and on the stationary bikes. They have me doing all sorts of things like hill climbs, no bumps, sprints and squats. These are all tricks of the instructors to make your butt hurt the next morning and I don't mean your muscles. The seat feels like it kicked my butt into next week. I think there is not bruising otherwise I think I would file a report on the drive by bike beating. Of course the instructor is about 15 to 20 years older and he is kicking my butt.

Fun Fun Fun.

Later.

Cross training

Monday afternoon I started some cross training. After my big runs I have taken just over a week off and now intend to start things up again. I did a 3 mile run on the tread mill in 24 min and 40 sec. Not bad for me. Then I did some weight training. I can tell that it had been awhile. After working on my upper body I hopped on the bike for a 10 min. ride.

The next morning I felt like my arms would fall off.

Helpful hint to anyone who is reading. Don't tell others you are sore. They will poke you all day.

Later.

Review of the Germantown 50K (31.06 miles)

I have to say this was just a spur of the moment thing. It was just a week after the marathon and i just took a chance. This takes place a the Germantown reserve. Although the race entry was just over 50 or so people it was wonderful. They are all so friendly. It is 4-7.75mile loops. Each loop had 5 or 6 steep hills and then on the other side of those you have to go down them. This is a trail run so you are running on rocks, stumps, and roots. The leaves were turning and falling on the ground. This made for some great scenery. The three aid stations were well stocked and were enough to keep you fueled. I even found time to make calls on my cell phone. I mean you have to fill the time somehow. (It was just for a few minutes).
At the start of the second loop my arch in my foot gave out. It was a sharp stinging pain that would hurt when I was on uneven ground. My saying was (to persevere) and that I did. At the end I felt again like I had really accomplished something. I mean when you think about it how many people can go that distance in one day.

It took me 7 hrs. 29 min. and some sec.

I will plan on running another Ultra marathon next year.

Rating: (1-10 with 10 being the best)

Race course-8 (really hilly)
Aid Stations-9 ( Super friendly but no entertainment)
location-8
Fun-8 (not fun unless you like hiking in the woods by yourself)

Review of the Columbus Marathon

When i decided to run the marathon it was because a friend of mine had decided to run. I was on the fence and they pushed me over the top. Now I have to say that this friend stomped me. It was wonderful training with somebody and we hope to do it again in the future. When getting to Columbus Ohio we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The runners expo was also located there. (This was convienent) We checked into the Hotel and proceeded to the expo. I picked up my runners packet and all the free goodies. We then walked to Short North and ate at Marchella's. It was a wonderful italian restuarant. The appearance inside the place was cool. After finishing our meal my family and I went back to the hotel. We settled in and watched a movie. The next morning I was up early and thought I had everything ready. It figures I had forgot my outside running shirt. So after getting all ready I went downstairs and cut the arms off on of the T-shirts I had. Then I headed out to the race. The course was wonderful. You get to run through downtown, Bexley, Back downtown, through Short North, around the burbs and then finally back through Ohio State. The support was enourmous. There were lots of aid stations and lots of cheering fans.

I finished with a time of 4 hrs. 27 min. and 27 sec.

Rating: (1-10 with 10 being the best.)

Race course-9.5
Aid and entertainment-9
Location-9
Fun-8

I would recommend this to anyone. It was reasonably flat.

Adventure to the top of a mountain

While I was in Gatlinburg Tenn. I had decided to take a hike by myself. So I logged on the internet and found a mountain climb trail that would be challenging. Now you need to know I have never done climbs like this before. So I was not certain what I was in for. I started out early in the morning while everyone was asleep. Unfortunately it was raining. I headed out anyway. I found the trail head after asking directions and driving way out to the way. This trail was the Chimney top trail.
It was over a 1400 foot climb. So I started while it was raining but it soon stopped and I tried to enjoy the scenery. The views were beautiful. As you progress along the trail you cross bridges and rock waterfalls. Part way up the hill you start hitting switch backs and a huge rock stair case. When you are 3/4 the way up you start to notice you are going around the mountain. You are no longer on the same side. Now think how I am feeling. I am in a different state, by myself, on a strange mountain, with strange animals and going somewhere I had never been with no map. I was slightly nervous. Mainly because the day before we went rafting and the guide mentioned that if we hike you should not scare a bear. So I think I reach the end of the trail. There is a post where a sign used to hang. I figure that the sign used to say keep going around the bend. The problem is that you had to shimmy along a cliff wall to the other side. Well when I did the path suddenly ends. So I turn back. Going back across I realized why it was so scary. I looked down. (a long way). Come to find out 12 people had died over many years in that location. So back to the story. I sit there for around 20 minutes. Then I head back down. A short way down I come across some people and start talking. They mention the view and I said that is strange. I must not have been in the right place. So they take me back to the cliff wall. They say start climbing. Well I must say the climb was worth every minute. I felt as if I had conquered the world. It felt great to do this.

A few days later I took my nephew up with me. Hopefully that is an adventure we will both remeber.

The picture on the right is a small view from the mountain top.

My time on the first up and down. 2.5 hrs.
Rating: loved it.

Review of my Air Force Half Marathon

I had scheduled the Air Force half as a warm up to the Columbus Marathon. I ran the Air Force half 3 or 4 years ago and since it is so close to our house I wanted to run it. Since I did not have to travel it makes it a real plus.
I love starting and finishing at the Air Force Museum but once you get out on the course it becomes boring. The course takes you up and through the base so spectators are not allowed to cheer you on. So much of your run is with no one there. For a bigger race fans help motivate me. My finish time was 1 hr. 59 min. and 53 sec. again not bad.

Rating: (1-10 with 10 being the best.)

Race Course-7
Aid stations and entertainment-7
Location-8
Fun-8

Take my opinions for what they are worth.

Review of my Indy Half marathon

The first race of the year was the Indy Mini Marathon. This race course took you from downtown Indianapolis to the race track and back. For the most part the race was boring and flat. I loved being on the race track. You get to run one complete lap around the track and it was a dream come true. I have attended the Indy 500 and other races for over 25 years. We stayed in a private hotel in goverment circle. We really enjoyed the downtown life. We ate at a couple of restaurants and even ate outside on the patio. The 30,000 people made it almost one of the coolest sites I have ever seen. To look across that many people it truly amazing. I finished with a time of around 1hr. 59 min. This is not my best time but for the weather conditions and course it will just have to do.

Rating: (1-10 with 10 being the best.)

Race Course-7.5
Aid stations and Entertainment-6
Location-9.5
Fun-9

Starting this blog

Well I think I have decided to join the ranks of the blogger society. I probably won't have to much to say but it is my first adventure into designing and creating web content. Hopefully this blog will be about my adventures in running and just other various rants and complaining.

To all those who dare to take the ride with me. Welcome.

To those of you who don't. See ya later.