Bertha Vos Costume Classic II

Friday Evening
If you haven't read the last post, go do that now. Ok, so I got a call from my runner friends and as predicted, they will not be able to attend. A little while later I gave the race director a call and found out that late registrants were welcome and the race was in fact rain or shine. So this was really going to be it. Nervous energy was now copious. We had to run some errands so it was a little after 7:00 before I could run. Since it was so late I was stuck on the treadmill. I decided to scale back the walk to .25 mile cause I still hadn't gotten anything ready for the race yet. I walked that in 5:00 and then ran a mile in 15:04, slow even for me. I wasn't trying to go slow, it's just that I run slower on the mill, odd I know. Afterwards I felt better though. It served to burn off a little of that anticipation shake I was developing.

Saturday - Race Day!
I slept well. That run last night really calmed me down. Unfortunately I am not a naturally organized individual. That means I woke up at 6:45 with the intention of leaving in an hour, having to get two children ready to go and not yet having packed myself. It all went well though. I through my gloves, headband, watch, and a spare change of clothes in a bag and I was packed. Got the kids ready and ended up leaving for the race only 10 minutes later than plan.

I knew the race was going to be small, but showing up 5 minutes after registration was supposed to open, I did not expect to be the only people there. So my wife and I waited in the car and debated whether we were in the right place. A minute or so later two car fulls of cross country runners (they had CC stickers on there cars) showed up and started getting ready. I got out of the car to ask them where the registration desk was and all of sudden I could see down the large hill where we were parked. The barricades and decorations told me the race was going to be at the adjacent building at the bottom of the hill. I asked to make sure and they said it was down there. The parking lot of the building the race was at was all blocked off so we the racers had to park next door, up this hill. I wasted no time in getting down to register with the hopes that I would be early enough to get a shirt. I registered without a problem. The space on the entry for t-shirt only went up to XL. Not really my size, but that's ok soon enough I'll be able to fit. So the lady takes my form and money. Then she says, "Oh it looks like we ran out of XL, Large is all we have, do you still want one?" I said sure, knowing full well that I will have to run for another year before I have even a chance at wearing this. I checked out where the start would be and looked at a course map, just a simple out and back. Back up the hill to the car with a half hour before race time, nerves ablaze. Checked out the shirt, it's pretty cool. Race name on the front graphic on the back definitely something I would wear, if it ever fits. We sat in the car and tried to distract me for the next fifteen minutes. Finally it was 9:15, race start was 9:30, I figured I should do a little warm up. So I got my watch, gloves and headband on and my pants off. Boy I just realized it's a little cold this morning, like under 50 F. No matter, I'll warm up once I'm running. So I ran along the parking lot driveway to the road and around a corner to where the start was, ie the long way, maybe 1/4 mile. This is when I notice how slow I really am. Other folks running longer warm ups are a lot faster than me. They pass me giving off a breeze, like I could draft behind them or something. No matter, I get to the spot and the wife is there camera in hand under an umbrella. Oh yeah did I mention it was raining, great day for a first race. The next ten minutes took forever. People kept showing up, but I could tell that unless a bus pulled up in a second this was going to be a very small field of entrants. It was mostly young people with their parents. I saw a short bald man come line up and felt better about not looking like I belonged. I figured he might be someone I could run with. A couple people had heeded the call of the race director and actually dressed in costume (the race was the Bertha Vos Costume Classic II). Batman, Minnie Mouse and a clown were the most obvious, but a couple people also wore wigs. Since there was a child's mile race about an hour after this one a lot of people had their kids there also dressed up. (My oldest is far too young for that, so when we saw what the weather was like we sent her to grandmas.) Finally the race was going to begin. I lined up in the back. I told my wife to comeback to the finish line after 45 minutes and I should be close. The air horn went off, and we were racing. I couldn't find bald man, oh well maybe I'll catch up to him. There were no bib numbers and they weren't keeping track of your time unless you finished in the top few. They had a big clock at the starting line so I hit my watch when I passed it and made a mental note that I'd have to remember to stop it when I passed the clock again, my timing would be my business. The course was dedicated to the northbound lane of the road. There were cones setup in the center to separate us from traffic which was shared both ways in the southbound lane. The pack ahead of me disappeared pretty quickly, but that was ok as I planned on being last. I ended up going back and forth with a couple groups. The first was a dad with 3 kids. One kid wanted to run fast and the two others wanted to go slower. The dad kept going between. He'd tell the two behind me, "Ok lets run up to that guy (me)." Then I'd hear them catch up to me then they would start walking and he'd keep running up to the one ahead of me. Then he'd fall back to check on the other two and repeat the process. Oddly enough the one out front and one of the kids behind ended up stopping at the 1/2 mile mark where their mom was cheering them on. The Dad and daughter left racing ended up passing me and finished a good ten minutes ahead. The second group was Minnie Mouse and her daughter. They were run/walking or is it run/dragging if you walk faster than your kid and hold hands? Anyway they stayed mostly ahead of me till the halfway point. They stopped to talk to the woman dressed as a witch who was turning people around and that's when I pounced. I stayed ahead of them for the rest of the race, but only because the kid was gassed, definitely a year to early for her on this event. I did end up seeing bald guy, it was about 13 minutes in or so, he was all alone heading back, and he was flying. I told him good pace, but I think he was going too fast to hear me. My wife said he finished in 19:??, so much for judging that book by it's cover. I congratulated the top 5 or 6 racers as they passed me. I got a few responses and a few people encouraged me while I was running. There weren't any official water stops, but a lady had set out a folding chair at the side of the road with cups of water on it, I thought that was nice. There were 3 volunteers and one cop along the course making sure people didn't turn down side roads and shouting encouragements. The guy at the 2 mile mark had his car stereo blasting really loud which gave me a little boost. The course was on a very windy road. So after every curve I kept expecting to see the finish. There was a guy who walked out of driveway to check his mail and he yelled to me that I was doing well and he had just started running 4 weeks ago. I yelled back I was 3 months in, that felt good. Then all of sudden I was there. I could see the clock it looked like 42:?? I tried to run faster but it was up a slight incline and I was already going as fast as I could. I finished in 44:05, a default PR, and a minute faster than I expected. I also completed my biggest goal for this whole thing in running the whole way, which seems like a forgone conclusion but deserves celebration. I was indeed the last person to finish running, the ten or so people that finished after me were all walkers. Immediately after my wife had a water and an apple waiting for me. Even though I was soaked the water was what I wanted most. I tried to sip it but it was gone quick and she went off to get me another. I did some stretches and then drank some more water and we were out of there. I noticed as I was walking back to the car that my nipples really hurt. I figured it was from being out in the cold for an hour. As the day wore on though I learned that I was a victim of nipple chafing. I wore my long sleeve tech shirt, but I didn't wear my compression shirt underneath which is what I had done when I ran in the rain previously. So I learned an important lesson, rain = compression shirt. I was in pain all weekend, but it was a small price to pay. On our way home we stopped at a couple stores and that was good to get out to the car and walk around a bit. I'm glad that I found the race, but I have no interest in running it next year. The people were nice, but I think what I'm looking for is something more race like or official. Something that feels more like an event.

Letting it all hang out before the race. Why be self conscience, so what if I'm 320+lbs and I'm going to run. You can see the barricade blocking the parking lot entrance in background.

I'm the red blob in the center. Minnie Mouse is on the left and the clock is on the right.

Coming in for the finish. The clock and me aren't really in sinc since I started in the back of the pack. You can see the cones they used to separate the racers from the traffic.

Weekend Blog Dump + Weigh In

Thursday
I did my weights routine, it was uneventful.

Friday
I ran 2 miles this afternoon. A more concerted effort was made to start slow and consequently I had a much better time in both respects. I finished the first mile in 15:35 and the second in 14:21, making this the first time I have ever run 2 miles in under 30 minutes (29:56 for the mathematically impaired). It was a little rainy out, but it didn't bother me once I was wet.

Saturday
Since last week's "1.8 mile walk then run light day" turned out to be only a 26 minute workout I decided to increase today's to 2 miles. This marked the first time I had walked a whole mile with no running since the beginning of August. No surprise I was much faster today with a 17:51. My run after that went really well again. The wind was at my back and pretty effortlessly I PRed again with a 13:04. I've been thinking a lot about changing things up a bit and moving my XT/rest days so that this workout could be turned into an all running one. My thinking is that if I move the XT/rest days to Tuesday and Friday that would actually fit my life a little easier through the winter. So we will see how that goes and what happens to the light day. I think I'm going to add a little workout schedule on the right so that it will be easier to keep track. Oh look at that I did it and it's there.

Sunday
I did my long run this morning. It ended up being 4.31 miles. The route was one of the first routes I ever mapped out on runningahead. It goes around the section I live in, section 17. In case you are not familiar, in the legal description of your property it indicates what section, township, and range your property is located in. Populated sections of land typically have at least roads on each side. Sections are typically 1 mile by 1 mile squares. To get around my section it's a bit longer because the north line goes through a small lake, as you can see below.
Because sections are numbered in such an odd backwards snaking pattern I numbered all the surrounding ones out on the above picture to make it a little easier to understand. There are typically 36 sections to a township. At least this is how Michigan is divided below the county level. The road that slashes at an angle through section 17 is M-115. It is known among most northern michiganders as our answer to the German autobahn. Stray deer and cops appear to be the only thing that can slow people down there and that's only temporary. Heck, their corpses litter the road where even they fail. So I was really lucky to get to cross this road twice on today's run. As most cases the apprehension was worse than the deed. The first crossing I only had to slow down for a second and then I got across fine. The second time I sprinted across because the cars were closing in but there was enough time to make it. It definitely didn't make finishing my run any easier (the sprint), but I only had about .6 miles left so it wasn't that bad. I finished the whole thing in 1:06:52 with no walking.

Monday Morning
I weighed 320.6 lbs this morning. That is a loss of 5.2 lbs this week, bringing my total weight loss to 46.4 lbs. It was nice to break out of that rotten routine of gaining a little weight back every other week. Knock on wood that is behind me.

Faster Than The Speed Of Me

Monday
I did my weights routine, it was uneventful.

Tuesday
I ran my tar chip 2 mile route this afternoon. It was the first time that I have ran in the rain. As Vanilla says it's not the running while being wet that is the problem with running in the rain it's just the initial getting wet that sucks. Even that though wasn't bad compared to what I did to myself. In an effort to be faster I went out faster than I normally do. I knew that I screwed up about a little over a tenth of mile in, but because a school bus was going to stop right about where I was going to be I had to keep up the pace for another tenth of a mile in some odd vanity fartlek type of fashion. I was pretty tired after this, so I slowed down, but it didn't really give me any relief. I hit the mile mark at 15:25, which is the best time ever for my first mile on this course since I started keeping track. The second mile sucked almost as much as the first. My head was telling me to walk but thankfully my tired legs were far too stubborn. I finished soaked to the bone with 15:22 making my total time 30:47, another 2 mile PR. Though the times look good now, I don't ever want to do this to myself again. I like starting slow and getting faster. I like finding my groove and feeling like I could run forever. I like to feel like I'm floating down the road. None of these things happened today.

Wednesday
I ran 2 miles on the Pheasant Ridge loop in town yesterday afternoon. The weather was much more docile today. I made the mistake of leaving my compression shirt at home. I usually just wear it as a body bra under whatever cotton shirt I have on. This meant that I would have to run outside with out jiggle protection for the first time ever, oh and lets throw in a bit of an audience too. There aren't as many people out and about in the residential neighborhood that I run through as there could be, but there's always one or two. And one or two is more than I see in my own neighborhood out in B.F.E. I'm exaggerating though because I wasn't nearly as self conscience once I started. At one point I think I may have made an old lady's day. I had just passed a mile at 14:59 (not that impressive because the first mile is mostly downhill) when I saw an old woman up ahead walking on the sidewalk across the street from me. Immediately I was like, 'alright I'm going to pass this lady.' Try as I might it took almost a tenth of mile to catch up to her and then another tenth to finally pass her. She was probably thinking that she's pretty spry since she was keeping up with somebody running especially with her dragging a leg and walking with that walker. I finished with 15:46 making a total of 30:45, yet another 2 mile PR. I still started a little fast today, so on Friday I'm going to have to make a more concerted effort to start slow.

Weekend Blog Dump + Weigh In

Thursday
I did my weights routine and it was uneventful.

Friday
I ran 2 miles this afternoon and boy was it cold. I never did check what the temp was but it felt downright frigid for the first 15 minutes or so. I did have an inkling that the temp would be a problem so I wore a long sleeve cotton shirt for the first time. My hands were what ended up suffering the most though. It looks like I will have to invest in some kind of running glove. I tried start out quick and the cold definitely helped that happen. I hit the 1 mile mark at 16:19 which is probably the fastest I've ever ran the first mile. I ended up finishing in 31:14, making my second mile 14:55.
Saturday
Today I had a bit of a shopping spree before I ran. I've been looking at watches at a few different places. While ebay had a fine selection, the price was about the same as our local Wal-mart. I ended up getting a Timex Ironman Triathlon watch today. I've been timing my runs with the stopwatch on my mp3 player. While it is perfectly adequate for overall time, it's not as ideal as I had originally hoped. The display is fine for seeing the minutes, but for some reason the seconds are printed very very small. There is also no split/lap memory capability with it. Anyway the new watch has 100 lap memory that I can store in multiple workouts. It also has a 9 setting interval timer which may come in handy if I ever do speed work. Eventually I'd like to get a Garmin GPS watch, but for now it something I can't afford. I also purchased a long sleeve tech shirt, which I will give a try to on tomorrow's long run. I totally forgot that I needed some gloves, luckily as we were headed to the grocery portion of the store wal-mart was nice enough to clog an isle with a giant crate of tiny cotton stretch gloves. They were only a $1.47 for two pair. This has to be a first that their isle clogging ways have actually benefited me. On to the run, the watch and the gloves worked great today. It was very windy today and maybe one degree warmer. I walked the .8 miles into a fierce wind and was still faster than last week at 13:20. My run back was greatly aided by said wind, blowing me in at 13:33, another mile PR.

Sunday
Today was a beautiful day for a run. Low-50's overcast and almost no wind. I realize that this may sound depressing to some, but fall has always been my favorite time of year. Summer is nice and all, but it's always been too hot for me. Being fat, I sweat at the slightest provocation. God forbid I should have to turn my head or nod, you'd think I just went swimming in my clothes. Fall though, supplies temps that I can totally get down with. Take today for example, probably the second least amount of sweat I've ever expelled on a run (first being yesterday), but I ran 3.82 miles in 59:47, the furthest and longest I have ever run. I managed to run and drink through both of my water areas, so that was a plus. Overall I felt really strong. The total distance surprised me a bit, I didn't know I could do that. The new shirt is definitely a a good purchase for cooler temps, I'm going to have to get at least one more and maybe a pair of the workout pants too.

Monday Morning
I weighed 325.8 lbs this morning. That is a loss of 4.2 lbs this week, bringing my total weight loss to 41.2 lbs. The pattern of one week big loss, one week small gain, isn't especially satisfying, but at least overall I'm still losing.

Week Long Blog Dump

Thursday
I did my weights routine. I'm not calling it the freetrainer.com routine anymore as I only got 3 of the exercises from that site.

Friday
I ran my 2 mile home route again tonight. This was the first time I had ever started running in the rain. It ended up stopping about .2 miles in, then it got really hot and humid. I must have started slow as I checked the time at the mile mark it was 17:30ish. I tried to pick up the pace at that point, but didn't really feel like I was going any faster. To my suprise when I finished the time was 33:06 with no walk breaks. That meant the second mile was a ridiculous negative split of 15:30ish. I have been thinking all along that though the course is relatively flat or slightly rolling slopes, that the far end of the road is a little higher in elevation than the one closer to my house. Later that evening my wife and I celebrated our five year anniversary at Outback Steakhouse. It's not the most unique place ever, but the food is really good. We usually do most of our celebration dinners there, as it is our favorite. Though it was a chance to eat a good 10,000 calories, I'm sure I was much closer to 1,000. FYI you can get the loaded cheese fries appetizer in a half order and not eat them all, old me never knew either of these things were possible.

Saturday
I did my light day today. Instead running and walking on the treadmill I decided to take it outside. Taking what I think I figured out yesterday about our local geography, the plan was to walk .8 miles down the road and then run the last mile back. When I made it to the start of the run I was surprised to see the time was 14:32, which means there isn't a whole lot of time difference between me walking and running. Anyway I started way too fast, after the first .1 mile I was feeling rotten and already second guessing this idea. I struggled through the run only to be surprised when I made it to my driveway in 14:05, which is a great mile PR for me. The whole time I was doing the run I thought I'd never do this again, but the success was undeniable so I'm sure I'll do it next weekend. Later that evening we had friends come up from down state and I had an opportunity to sabotage my weight loss again, this time with several beers. I'm not upset at myself because I know that if I take every opportunity I have to drink a few beers at the end of the year it'll only add up to 10 or 15 occasions.

Sunday
I did my long run today. It wasn't easy considering the excesses of last night. But before that we went up to the High Rollaways again. This time I was armed with a camera so what follows is a bit of fall from northern Michigan.

These first two are the area closest to where you park. The view there is good, but if you walk down the trail a bit to the deck the view is even better.

Said Trail. It is very nice like this for the .25 mile portion between the parking area and the deck. It continues on in both directions but is not nearly as well manicured.

Said Deck

The view isn't as colorful as years passed, but this will probably be as good as it gets this year. By the time the rest of the leaves change, what is colorful now will be on the ground. I put this picture together from two pictures I took while standing on the deck as that is easier than figuring out my camera's panorama feature.

Ok, on to the run. This was probably the toughest run I have done in a long time. By the time I ran it was about 3 hours since I had eaten breakfast which in retrospect is bit long for what I had in store. In the first 39 minutes I only took one minute long walk break and that was when I picked up water going back by my driveway which is about the 1.2 mile mark. Anyway after 39 minutes I was headed home but my body just felt like it had nothing left. My mind said run, but my legs just wouldn't. So ended up taking 5 more minute long walk breaks on the way back. I finished 3.27 miles in 56:14 with 6 minutes of walking, which is odd because I thought I had it timed to be done in 60 minutes. So I guess next week I will take a crack at trying to run for 60 minutes again.

Monday
I weighed 330 lbs this morning, considering my scales and I behavior it wasn't bad news at all. It's an increase but I wasn't good with my caloric intake on Friday or Saturday evening, so I'm not surprised. I was at a conference for work today and had a real opportunity to pig out. Luckily I stuck to my mantra of food as fuel and ate really well. A side salad and a reasonably sized self assembled sandwich. I skipped the desert table entirely (loaded with about 15 kinds of cheese cake) which made me feel really strong until I was out of the room, then I wanted to go back in bad, but I didn't. Later in the day I did my weights routine.

Tuesday
I was back in town this afternoon to run 2 miles. I used the same course as last Tuesday, but when I was in the subdivision I went around an extra block rather than just sticking to the outside loop to get the extra .2 miles. The run wasn't bad considering the wind. The whole course is very open so on a windy day like today it turns me into a sail. Luckily the wind was against me for the downhill and with me for the uphill. It was much cooler, which definitely helps out a lot. I finished in 31:58 with no walk breaks, no pains, and the fastest time I've ever done two miles.

Wednesday
I ran 2 miles yesterday evening. It looked like it was going to rain the whole time, but right before I started the rain stopped. It was the coldest it's been in a long time so I decided to try running with a long sleeve shirt over my compression shirt. It was helpful in the beginning, I don't think it took anything away from my running. I tried to start out a little quicker than I normally do, knowing full well that no matter what I would probably run the second mile faster. I didn't feel my groove until about .8 miles or so, but I knew I would run the whole thing even before I found my groove. I finished the first mile in 16:34 which is better than being over 17 minutes. The second mile took 15:03 making for a total time of 31:37, being the second day in a row that I've run my fastest two miles ever. I broke 100 miles today. I remember when I started I thought it would take forever to get to 100 miles. Now that I'm here it doesn't feel like a milestone. I just look at my 10 miles per week average and wonder when that's going to start climbing.

Weekend Blog Dump + Weigh In

Friday
I was supposed to do a weight workout tonight, but that didn't happen. I could post a few different excuses, but it just didn't happen so the excuses don't really matter. I did however buy a digital scale, I'm not sure whether this is good or bad. I really disliked our old scale as it was always inaccurate. I'm not even sure if it was supposed to give an accurate weight to a person my size as it is a dial scale and I made it go around twice. At least the new one will be accurate as long as I am under 350 lbs.

Saturday
I broke my mile PR today, 16:40, I had the treadmill set at 3.6 mph. It's not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but it's good for me. My feet hurt during the run, but I attribute that to the 5 minutes of walking I did at the start. I thought a longer warm-up might be helpful but at this point not much good comes from walking before I run on the treadmill unless I am drop dead tired. I finished out my 30 minutes with just walking to keep it light so I wouldn't be too spent for tomorrows long day.

Sunday
I was a little disappointed in my initial endurance today. I was not able to keep my initial run segment going for longer than 11 minutes which is much lower than the last few days. I didn't slip into the 90 seconds walk 90 seconds run though until about 27:00 so that helped me run for 29:00 out of 42:00 total. My right foot fell asleep at about the 18:00 mark and I wasn't sure if I could continue, somehow I pushed through it and around the 33:00 mark it woke up. I've read on the Runner's World Beginner Forum about other people that have this happen and it goes away like this, so it may just be a feature of my long runs until my body gets used to them. Felt good when I was done, having covered 2.256 miles. It'll be distance PR Sunday for the next few in row as I continue add time each week until I get up to an hour.

Monday Morning
I weighed in this morning with 333.8 lbs bringing my total weight loss to 33.2 lbs. I figure I might as well post a weigh-in once a week now that I have a reliable scale.

I Run

In thinking about the mental aspect of running, I realized that my goal for my routine hasn't been clear and straight forward for some time. I've been trying to run for more time, but I've been unwilling to slow down because I didn't want to sacrifice my mileage. At this stage of the game I need to throw the mileage expectations right out the window, and if I don't care about that then speed can follow it out too.

Now that the goal was/is all cleared up, I can focus on what's important. Running, that's what I'm trying to do here. Sure I want all the great benefits of running, but first and foremost I want to run. That brings me back to last Saturday, I ran for 17 minutes straight. I quit because it was a mile. I watched the time and distance slowly tick away to a mile. As I got closer to the goal my crazy brain told me that was a long way and I should be really tired. Learning from that experience I may have now found the most important tool for running on a treadmill for me. A towel. Securely placed over the treadmill display, it blocks out all the negative sub-consciousness that comes from knowing exactly how far I've come in what amount of time.

Last night I told myself that I was going to run for five songs on the album I was listening to. After that I'd check the display and see where I was. I started by doing a two minute warm-up walk. Then I set the treadmill to 3.5 mph (my most comfortable running pace) and I just ran. My legs did tighten up a little, but they didn't hurt during those five songs. My feet never hurt during those five songs. I'm sure having a rest day before trying this helped, but I think not taking walk breaks helped too. Somewhere in the middle of the 4th song I really wanted to look at the display. I kept doing a body inventory and confirming to myself that I was not in pain and that I could do this. I told myself that as long as I had been running for longer than 17 minutes I would take a little walk break after the fifth song. When that song ended I pulled the towel off and the timer read 21:52. I ran to 22:00 minutes and then took my walk break. I had run for twenty minutes straight! My walk break was two minutes then I ran for two minutes, took another two minute walk break, and finally ran the last two minutes. I finished with 24 minutes running out of 30! To me this isn't run/walking, this is running. Only taking two, two minute walk breaks with a two minute warm-up, now that is huge for me (pun intended).

So this is what I want to do now, I just want to run. Obviously I want to get rid of all the walk breaks and run for thirty minutes straight. At this point I can't imagine that I am more than a week from that goal though. My plan is to do the same thing tonight, run without the treadmill display and see where that gets me again. Depending on the level of discomfort it should tell me whether I can run back to back days or if I need to incorporate more rest days for now. If I can only run every other day then so be it, I'll take the progress with lack of injury over the over training any day. So if tonight goes well then I will probably do a rest day Friday, then another crack at the mile on Saturday with just a minor speed increase (like .1 mph), then the long run on Sunday which will be for 42 minutes this week, and finally a rest day on Monday. Boy do I like to plan.

Weekend O' PR's

Friday
An uneventful run. I stayed on course and did the same plan as yesterday. I am totally sold on this routine. For me it just feels right. I know I get a good workout and just when I need a break it shifts back to 90 seconds walking and 90 seconds running, which is cake at this point.

Saturday
My wife and I took our oldest daughter (2) to the John Ball Park Zoo today with some friends, so I wasn't sure what I'd be able to do as far as a workout goes. I also had planned to do a longer total workout tomorrow. The zoo was about 2 hours of walking and it is on the side of a hill, so the stroller made it extra fun. We got home in the afternoon and I took a little siesta. I did my best not to actually fall asleep knowing that would spell demise for my pending workout. I was able to rise from the dead at some point and summon enough energy/wakefullness to get ready to run. My plan was two-fold: 1. See how far I could run, no walk breaks; 2. Attempt to run as much of a mile as possible. I am so slow I often question the value of a warm-up for me at this point in my training. I decided the best way to help myself complete my goals would be to bump my speed down from 3.7 mph to 3.5 mph and cut out my usual 90 second warm-up walk. The first .4 miles where the toughest just because I knew how disappointed I would be in myself if I were to take a walk break then (Having completed this distance in straight running about two weeks ago when I tried something similar). It was tough on my body, but it was probably tougher on my mind. Somewhere after .5 miles I got the feeling that I could actually pull it off and that is all I really needed to do it. 17:08 from starting I had RUN a mile. I know it's slow, but I ran the whole thing which felt like a giant PR. For the first time in my life I ran a mile. Even when I was young and I would run in gym class I never actually RAN a whole mile, there were always walk breaks. I was on such a cloud afterward that I wasn't even upset about Michigan losing.

Sunday
Last night we ended up drinking with some friends so I wasn't sure how today would work. After being awake for a few hours though I felt fine and decided today would be ok to try the long workout idea. My plan, as I put in an earlier entry, is to add 6 minutes to my long run each week until I get it up to about an hour. It was a little daunting going into this since 30 minutes usually takes about all I have. I decided to bump my speed down from 3.7 mph to 3.5 mph just to give myself the best opportunity to finish. I think the biggest help is that I do have an excel spreadsheet of all the times printed out and taped on the treadmill, so I could tell myself that I only had x amount of run breaks left. I ended up finishing fine, I even thought to myself that I could have done more if I had to. My mileage for the day ended up being an obvious PR of 1.89 miles with 20:30 running out of 36 minutes. Oh and I've started calling my run segments run breaks, just as a little psychological warfare. I was really happy with how yesterday and today went together. I think it is important to go a little easier before the longer day. As I have yet to find a cross-training activity, I think the mile run is good for an easy day. I can either work on adding speed or a tenth of mile and have it contain some kind of progression but still not make me fatigued for the following day. Ideally I can find a used exercise bike here in the next couple weeks to make me feel better about taking running rest days.

Improvement? No Vacancy

Well running after a rest day certainly didn't seem any easier. I'm sure the difficulty I had was not related to the rest day, but rather my unhealthy addiction to increasing the amount of time I run. It was tough but I made my 18 minutes of running. Somewhere around the 21:00 mark my whole right foot was asleep, but I persevered. About 30 minutes after I was done I felt fine. The morning after I feel fine. I think my right foot is just my body trying to slow me down. Ideally I don't want to slide backwards, my current routine of 60 seconds walk and 90 seconds run is difficult, but I've proven I can do it. So I will do my best to stick with it knowing full well that it will get a little easier every time I complete it just like all my other routines. My legs and feet want to be what is holding me back, but my brain and self doubt feel a lot more powerful.

Weekend Blog Dump

Friday
I needed a good day today and boy did I get one. My previous workout had been 90 seconds walking and 60 seconds running. Unfortunately the only thing I could think about all day was, "I wonder how far I could run if I just kept running." My plan when I got home was to do my normal workout and then maybe tomorrow try run as far as I could thing. Well after I talked to my wife I was even more anxious about seeing how far I could go, so I just said the heck with it and went for it. I did my mini warm up of 90 seconds walking and then I ran... for 6.5 minutes straight. I know it may seem insignifigant if you've been running for awhile, but I doubt I have ever in my life run that long continuously. At 3.7 mph that amounted to .4 miles! Anyway after I walked for a little I decided I'd run again but of course by this time my stamina was pretty low so I only lasted 90 seconds. Now for my normal workouts I have printed out from excel (yes, I'm a nerd) the exact times of when I'm supposed to do what. So I ended up walking till the 11:30 mark and from there I ran and just stayed on my normal routine. When my 30 minutes was up I had ran for 16 minutes and a total distance of 1.616 miles. Before today I considered what I was doing as walk/running, because a majority of my time was spent walking, but 16 minutes running is definitely run/walking. I know these hurdles I keep clearing are all in my head, but they make me feel like I'm really accomplishing something.

Saturday
I bought some new workout shorts today and had a bit of a surprise. I am no longer a 2XL short size. I put them on when I got home and they were far too loose, almost nothing holding them on! So those have to go back to the store. I felt a little bit tired today after yesterdays big jump to 16 minutes running, but I want to keep progressing so I went for another PR today. Doing the math for my workouts, to keep things even I have a 15 minute running formula and an 18 minute running formula. Since yesterday's 16 minute routine was unconventional I decided that I was ready for the 18 minuter. This would be 60 seconds walking and 90 seconds running. Well it didn't take too long to figure out just how wrong I was. By the 16:00 mark I was absolutely dead on my feet, so I walked through that run mark and stayed on routine for the rest. Then at the 28:00 mark I ran for the last 2 minutes. I finished with 17 minutes of running. Not the PR I was shooting for, but still a PR. I think the biggest lesson I learned today was to listen to my body and watch my past performance. If I wake up a little sore the day after doing something I've never been able to do then there is no shame in taking a rest day.

Sunday
I woke up sore today and decided to learn my lesson so I declared a rest day. After 25 days in a row of working out I felt very guilty doing this. I hope that with this rest day I will be able to come back Monday even stronger. Also I returned the shorts from yesterday and got the XL size which was $2 cheaper (another bonus)! I almost forgot to mention that I did run out to our mailbox and back today which is only about 500 - 600 feet, but still it marks the first time I've run outside in years. I will definitely need an adjustment period when I switch to outside running as with just that short distance I could feel it in my knees and feet that I was doing something more strenuous.

Fixing Broken Fixes

Well the treadmill did it's thing again last night. So that scratched the idea that it was a sweat related problem as I have been sticking to my running like a normal person routine. On the bright side I was able to up my workout to 90 seconds walking and 60 seconds running which put me at 12 minutes running out of the total 30 and 1.55 miles so another PR. That means that after over a week of walking and two weeks of incoperating running in, I am finally at the beginning level of the Couch to 5k program at www.coolrunning.com. I know I need to be more patient with my progress, I'm working on it. The results from tieing my shoes tighter were almost negligible. After I was done I immediately called my father in-law who knows what he's doing when it comes to electricity. With him talking my unexperienced self through it over the phone I was able to shut off the power in the basement, pull out the outlet and determine that is of the insufficient 15 amp variety. So then he brought me a 20 amp GFI outlet and I replaced it. The circuit breaker that our basement is on is 15 amp, which means if anything pops in the future it will be at the circuit breaker. So if that happens then we know we will have to replace that as well. It just feels good to know for sure that we have the problem under control, also not being a handy individual it feels good to now know how to install electrical outlets.

Weekend Blog Dump

Thursday
Finally today I got back to the 1.5 mile mark, to be exact 1.516 miles. To do it I had to up my running speed from 3.5mph to 3.7mph. Tough going though, my legs wanted to revolt earlier than usual, but I pushed through that noise. My only real concern when I up my level of activity is that I will be able to sustain it in future workouts. I'd hate to go too far and have to go backwards. Slow steady improvement is the best thing for my psyche at this point, doubt is the enemy. I'm taking tomorrow off of work to do something fun so that means my workout will be in the morning instead of my usual time of after work.

Friday
Wow early exercising is certainly not an easy thing to wrap my head around. Got up at the planned 6:30 am time which was actually sleeping in compared to my work get up time of 5:40 am. Felt tired though. About 12 minutes into the workout the ground fault circuit interrupt popped on our wall outlet that the treadmill is plugged into in the basement. It has done this to me once before and is very annoying as I have to stop and go over to the outlet and push a button and then go back to the treadmill and get it going again. I'm not sure why it does this, after the last time I switched to the top plug and it has been a week and a half without an interruption. Not sure what the fix for this will be, I guess I could handle it if it just did it once every two weeks or so. On the bright side I kept up the 1.5 mile pace.

Saturday
Tough going today. I would call this the first time I really didn't want to exercise. I pushed the workout as late as I could cause I just didn't want to do it. The treadmill did it's shut off thing again today. This time it was about 9 miles in. My thinking is that we may just need to have the ground fault circuit interrupt taken off this outlet. I can't keep this exercising up with the treadmill shutting off. A disappointing day even with a 1.5 mile finish.

Sunday
Fixes and firsts were what I needed today. I might as well just go through it as it occurred. After my first set of walking and running I noticed my hands felt sticky holding onto the handle/heart rate monitor (probably from all the sweat I constantly sweat onto them). So I took them off one at a time to wipe them on my shirt. When I took off my left hand one of the silver heart rate monitor panels stuck to my hand and came off the handle. There was a little wire hooked to it so it could only come off about an inch or so. Almost immediately everything clicked and I knew why the machine had been shutting off on me. All of my sweat must have been running under that panel and then running down the wire to a point where it would short out just enough to trip the ground fault circuit interrupt. I was immediately torn, I solved my problem, but how the hell was I going to fix it? I needed those handles to run, or so I thought. About this time my second minute of running came up so I tried to run like a normal person without holding on... and miracle of miracles I didn't fall over. Now I didn't have the most secure stride in the world, but I did it. So then it was on to walking and wow I could do that without holding on as well. So for the rest of the workout I did it like normal person. I had to catch myself a time or two, but that didn't shake my new found confidence and this will be my new routine. I ended up finishing with a new PR in distance for 30 minutes, 1.52 miles. My legs didn't get really painfully tired until about the 20 minute mark so that is better than it has been. I had one other small first, at one point I got into my groove and ran for a minute and 5 seconds. I know this seems a bit ridiculous to mention, but every little step counts when it comes to motivation.

One-Third There

Last night I changed up my routine and was able to squeeze a lot more running out. I started out with two minutes of walking and one minute of running and then I just repeated that 10 times. That means 10 minutes of running! Very exciting stuff. I remember last week I thought I'd be stuck on 6 minutes forever, but now 10 whole minutes. The one disappointment is that I still didn't get to a mile and a half (got to 1.484 miles). I was able to get to it only once before when I walked the whole 30 minutes at a 3mph speed. Since I've started incorporating the running in my workouts, my legs seem to have even less tolerance for faster walking speeds, as 2.7mph is all I can handle for any duration. I am grateful for the treadmill though because I know I wouldn't walk as fast if I wasn't walking on it. Oddly enough I feel like I'd run faster outside. I assume because of my body shape I can't seem to swing my arms when I run on the treadmill. When I do swing my arms I become really unstable and I feel like I'm going to fall over. Instead I have to hold onto the heart rate monitor handles on the front console. I'm blaming this on my body shape for now, but if someday I'm smaller and this is still the case I'll blame it on the narrowness of the treadmill's belt.