Training Widget

Saturday, July 31, 2010

A perfect morning for a long run...

Day 577 - July 31, 2010

...and I took advantage! I meet a friend at 5:30 and we were off. The temperature was about perfect in the mid 60s and the humidity was very low. Around mile 4, the sun started to break the horizon turning the clouds a fiery pink before rising above them and passing up the opportunity to fry us on the open road. Even with our planned stretching and rehydrating breaks, we were finished with the 16 miles before 8:00! I felt great and probably could have done another couple of miles with no trouble. But, I'm happy with my 43 for the week and 182 for the month! My goal of 175 turned out to be a piece of cake.

The streak is now 19 months complete. Here are the stats:
July - 182 miles
YTD - 212 days, 954 miles, 123 hours, 15 min, 30 s
Streak - 577 days, 2415 miles, 312 hours, 21 min, 26 s

Saturday, July 24, 2010

back to back hour 1 hour plus runs

Day 570 - July 24, 2010

Got out early again today and ran another 8+ miles. That gives me 23 in the last two days and 44 for the week. I need 36 more to get to 175 for the month! After this week, that should be a piece of cake (Famous last words!)

Friday, July 23, 2010

Daily commute

Day 569 - July 23, 2010

Today I ran to work. Now for some, that would be no big deal, but I have a 20 minute drive on a normal day. Commuting to work for me requires a 14+ mile run. Perfect for my long run this week and right on schedule for my marathon training! The best part was I convinced my carpool partner to join me. I "picked him up" two miles into the run and we ran the rest of the way into the office. We were both pretty tired, but it made the run more fun having someone to commiserate with.

Today's run also put me over 900 miles for the year and gave me 130 for the month. With 8 days remaining, I only have 45 miles to go to reach 175! That would be my best month since college. Hopefully this will all pay off in October!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

107 miles in 20 days

Day 566 - July 20, 2010

Here we are just 20 days into the month and I have almost matched my total miles for all of June. With today's 8 miles at the track, I've logged 107 miles for the month. Crazy.

Today was one of those days where compromises were required. I've been encouraging my wife to run more and to meet her running partner in the mornings before I have to go to work. Well, yesterday I was going to get up early and go to the track for an 8 mile interval workout but I overslept and was lucky to have time for 2 miles. No big deal, I'll just run it on Tuesday. Whoops - that's the wife's day to run early.

Knowing that we have solid plans this evening, there was only one option. Get up and run BEFORE my wife's early morning run. Yes in deed, I was out of bed at 4:45 am, out the door at 5:05 and on the track to start at 5:16! After a mile warm-up, I ran 8x800m repeats with a 400 jog in between. I then drove home so the wife could leave for her run and I ran a mile in front of the house while the kids slept. Turns out I finished my mile before the wife even pulled out of the driveway, so all turned out well and I was finished with 8 miles before most of my neighbors were even awake.

And to all those people who say they don't have time to run, I say "Pishaw"! If you have the will, you have the time.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Running in new places

Tonight was one of those serendipitous moments when by pure chance I picked the right direction to start my run.

When I booked my hotel for today, I thought I was going to be near the river and less than a mile from the mount Vernon/Potomac river trail (I'm sure that's not the right name, but it doesn't really matter). When I got to my hotel last night, I realized I was in strip mall off the interstate hell. No sidewalks. 1000s of cars. No where near the river. I'm really not sure how I made that mistake.

Anyway, I still needed to run. I poured over Google maps and nothing looked like an obvious place to run. So, I just decided to wing it, dodge the cars as best I could, log a couple of miles, and call it a day.

At the first intersection, I decided to change direction. I really don't know why I did, but less than a mile later I was on a bike path with no traffic. How lucky was that! I ended up running a fairly safe 6 miles. I even beat the thunderstorms, but I looked like I had been out in a downpour when I was finished. It was a bit humid, but I didn't care. I proved yet again that getting out is over half the battle. I was ready to bag the run, instead I logged 6 miles, just because I didn't give in. Awesome.

Hope everyone else had a good run today!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Interval training

Day 553 - July 7, 2010

Made it to the track for my second interval session of the last week. On Sunday I managed a 4x800 workout which was considerably slower than I expected, but I blamed that on all the travel. Today I ran 3x1600 and was much happier with my times. I was expecting to run sub 6:30 pace, but was much faster with times of 6:22, 6:17, 6:18. From here I hope to get my interval times down and increase the number of reps to where I can run 10x800s or 6x1600s.

Less than four months to Marine Corps.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

family group run

July 3, 2010
What a great run. I convinced the wife to run a couple of miles with me before it got dark. As we were lacing up our shoes, my nephew asked if he could join us. We started down the street and Nephew #2 and daughter and daughter #2 came running out of the backyard to join us. It was a lot of fun to spend a half hour running as a group. Being late on the day, lots of people were sitting in their yards and cheered for us when we ran by. When we finished, I went back out and repeated the loop and logged five miles for the day.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Happy 4th of July

Day 548 - July 2, 2010

The last 48 hours have been crazy exercise. I ran twice on Wed for a total of 5 miles plus played an hour and half of pick-up basketball (mostly full court). Yesterday I played an hour of ultimate football then went out for an 11 mile run last evening. Today I barely made it through my two mile recovery run. I'm feeling old today. I haven't been this sore in a long time!

Hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend.