It is time to restart the training season

Well friends and neighbors I have been missing from the blogosphere for several months and I have to tell you it has been a lack luster off season. I have not had the healthy recovery I was planning on, instead I have put down very few miles and have developed a new pain in my leg, yes that leg, now it seems as if at all times my knee is hyper-extended. It hurts when I am walking, sleeping, and least of all running - hurtful, just plain hurtful. I have decided to not let this go on and on like I did before. I am going to go see a doctor next week and I intend to get this corrected and corrected with out surgery ever again. I can not for the life of me figure out how this happened. I went to bed health and literally woke up with this condition about 3 weeks ago. This has been really hampering my return to the training season ahead of some big runs.

To give you an idea what I am training for in 2011, I can tell you it is going to be a fun time for me, and hopefully my wife will continue to be indulgent, as I begin to train for my first 12 hour ultra run. It is called the World Unicorn 720 this means that I will start hard core next month aka tomorrow. It is going to be super important to but down really consistent numbers to build up my wind and my stamina. Then I will be looking forward to possibly a short easy race in Tybee. It is a little beach run with a turtle release that I think the kids would enjoy seeing up close. After these two new races I will be going to some of my regular races.

The 4th of July race on St. Simon's, The Beach Run on Jekyll, and then the Disney Wine and Dine 1/2 Marathon. All this leads to the true test of mind and body for me. I am looking forward to my first Rock and Roll Marathon in Savannah in November! Then I will be turning around for the GOOFY in January! In case you thought I was crazy before when I first started talking about the Goofy last year, I can assure you this second half of the year will really make you think I have jumped off the deep end. I will provide more information in the coming months about how I will be totally doing different every thing to make this a reality.

I thought I ran a lot last year and honestly with all these races I don't know if I am adding any extra miles as much as I am rearranging the miles that I run. I am excited about this run season and I hope that like last year I can have my kids catch the fever. I would love it to have RK at more runs this year, the little ones as well as the Disney stuff, I can not tell you how much I think accomplishing a race builds her up. As a father I love to see her excell.

Up coming posts... how to train for an ultra - Dave Style!

A bridge, a race, and something new

I have run the Sydney Lanier Bridge over the past weekend. It was fun and as always the view is breath taking. I saw some friends and had a good run. I have to be honest about the race... I did not do any running before. I have since ran a little, but no where I need to be. It is also doubtful that I will make the Jacksonville bridge run this year.

However, there is a good sign in all this I have made a new friend and his name is Warren. Now Warren and I are not best friends yet, but we will be. He is part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes out of Savannah and they are wanting to expand south. Well after talking to him I am going to start doing "brick workouts" on Jekyll. Now this is super exciting for me.

I have never done a brick workout and I don't have a bicycle, but there is always Craig's List for that. I was also impressed by this nice guy. He is currently training for his first Iron-man and that is impressive. I am looking forward to taking my training to the next level and I think this might just be the way to do that. So anyone wanting to join me on March 10th on Jekyll you will get some great training and a chance to meet some nice people who are into fitness to boot.

See you there!

Ouch!

I had some fun this past weekend. I had a great time with the kids, spend some time out with my buddy Dave, my wife cleaned out the garage with out asking (love her!), and went for a nice dinner with the family where everyone was on their best behavior. It simply did not get any better then that, so feeling frisky I thought I will treat myself to a Happy Hour margarita or two. As with every choice there are consequences.

To quote an old Hank Jr. song I enjoy "the hangover's hurt more then they used to..." I didn't think those two $1.99 margarita's were that strong, but yesterday I felt pretty hungover before I even went to bed and managed to feel about as bad when I woke up. I did not think those drinks were going to hit me, but what do I know. I'm inching closer to 40 everyday.

I think what has happened is that I had concentrated so hard on training and taking care of my body (minus the occasional hot wing fest...I have to have a vice) that those couple of drinks really did me in. So imagine my surprise when I found my self with a little hangover pain this morning...ugh. As I start gearing up for the final races of my racing season, and the training that goes with it, I think that I need to remember that I need to respect what goes in to my body, because I'm not sure I have the strength for the morning after any more. Speaking of which, I think there is a nice tall glass of cleansing water calling my name.

I am not sure if you have ever heard of skinny jeans, you know that new girl thing about jeans that are too small, but I think Meg must have thought I needed a skinny shirt. I'm not sure if it is the same concept, but what do I know about fashion. She was so thoughtful at Christmas she wanted to contribute to my marathon success so she bought me things such as almonds and walnuts to eat while I ran and she bought me a champion quick dry shirt for me to wear when I run to keep the sweat down and not over heat.



Well, it was finally warm enough and with enough daylight to go running today and I decided to use the very nice new running shirt that my wife picked out for me. It looks a little something like this:

I am not sure what she thought, I would look like if I wore this, but without it she must have thought I looked like this when I run:

and that by encouraging me to wear this skinny shirt I would look more like this:

I am not sure that worked out like she wanted because I think I still kinda look like this guy:

(I'm the bald one)

I am not sure wearing my skinny shirt will make a big difference, but I did try to suck in the gut a little bit more when I was running, I mean the shirt was not forgiving at all and I did not want to jiggle too much when I ran.



In all fairness it took me a long time to get comfortable enough with my shape to wear those quick-dry shirts they give you at the race (please see above shirt). I am sure that with a little more hard work and exercise I may get comfortable with a possible new body shape to wear my skinny shirt. On the other hand if I hit it big and have enough money to have a personal trainer, a personal dietitian, a personal spray tanner, and a house on the beach I might even look a little more like the guy in the middle who ever he is.

It may finally be time.

It may have finally happened. What has happened you ask? I was eating dinner and saw two great things it was 610p and there was still sunlight to finish a run by. That means that o can now come home make dinner and go for a run, which is good because I have been hating waking up early to run in the dark and cold. I have been feeling so guilty about not putting down some miles, but it is COLD and DARK!

I am going to try and run three easy miles in the morning, hut now I feel better knowing if I sleep in - there's always tomorrow evening.

A Cheering Section and Black Toenails

It was brought to my attention after the last blog that I had forgotten one of the most important aspects of the marathon. That was I actually had a cheering section this time. My wife and our friend Tara showed up at the finish line to cheer me on. In all fairness Tara showed up for her much faster husband Ben, but everyone stayed around for me to finish. I managed to see them at the finish line and they helped to push me on to finish the run. It was a good uplifting moment to see people at the finish that I actually knew, it helped so much to make the post race trip back to the cabin such a better trip then normal.

As an aside I did manage to gain a source of runners pride through out all this and I gained black toenails. Now some of you may wonder why that is such a big deal? For me it meant that I went all the way through the pain and exhaustion to do something that so few in this world can claim. For me, my black toenails means that I am a marathoner and proud of it.

Marathon Thoughts

It has been a while since I have posted. I have been busy, but I know that is no excuse, so now what you have all been waiting for, my thoughts related to the marathon, post race recovery, and now post race training.

The marathon was amazing. I ran and ran and ran and had such a great time at a race that was meant to be fun and in classic Disney fashion it was. The marathon was a result of roughly six months of training. It all started in July when I trained for my first half, also at Disney, the Wine and Dine Half Marathon. I had been playing with the idea of a marathon since I did my first run over eighteen months ago. I simply picked up my marathon training following the end of the half. It was a very long training program.

It was also hard, it was not so much the long weekend runs that were difficult, I just came to expect to run one of those days for a really long time. The part that made the training hard was the dark morning runs and the lengthening of the mid-week runs. I never suffered so much injury during any other time then I did during those runs. It was worth it to a point, but the injuries did leave me out of training for two weeks; quite possibly the most important two weeks, the tapering weeks. Needless to say the day finally came when we traveled to Disney and it all became real.

At Disney I decided to take it upon myself to do somethings that I thought would help. I ran a little 5k on the Friday before the Marathon. I thought of it as an excuse to loosen up before the race and let my muscles relax. I did have a second motive, remember that two-week running hiatus, it was due to a painful foot issue on the top of my foot.  I was afraid that it was a fracture and I had hoped the time off would have helped heal my foot. Luckily it appeared to be a minor irritant at most and the run was super successful. I then took the rest of the weekend off. I did not go to the parks, stay up late, or anything. I made it appoint to rest and stretch. Now on to the marathon and my thoughts related to that run.

The marathon is an amazing undertaking by any person, especially if that person is me. I don't know the last time anyone looked at me but, I am not exactly the form of a traditional runner. I am tall and heavy and average speed, not tall, lanky, and full of speed. That being said it was more of a start finish mentality, I wanted to do well don't get me wrong, but I knew I was not going to do it in five hours like I wanted so I decided to make the best of it. I choose to stop for pictures, race against people I could pass, find ways to cut the distance (take the inside corner don't run way to the outside), and generally change my attitude to be one of fun and happiness. That worked for a while I would say for close to 20 miles that worked and then it began to not work.

I had discovered that the constant starting and stopping for the pictures and such was wearing me out much faster then I had anticipated. I had a weird pace through out the entire race. I was using the run/walk method proposed by Olympian Jeff Galloway, and it seemed that as soon as I hit a good stride I had a water stop. Well, I knew enough to stop for water, but dealing with the ongoing starting and stopping was killing me. In retrospect I think I should have ran faster and that would have made things more enjoyable for me and I would have been better overall. 


Around mile 20 is when it started to wear on me - the race was taking a mental toll. I had stopped getting pictures by this point, but I was really beginning to worry that I would never have finished the race. I knew that I had a 10k left, but it was not enough to repeat that to myself, it was annoying. I had OK music going at this time so that was not it and I WAS NOT about to stop, I was just annoyed by the whole thing. It got better at mile 23, but those in between miles were horrible. I had lost track of which miles I was on, I felt like I was running in molasses, my feet had swelled, me knees had swelled, nothing was well lubricated and functioning as it should. I did not break with my routine though and then it happened. I hit EPCOT and I knew it was over, it did not matter from that point on and the best part was things started to click again. I got excited, I felt my feet stay swollen, but they were not growing. My muscles let me know that there was more to give and I took full advantage of it.I dug deep to finish strong and I had the common sense to take out my headphones as I crossed the finish line so I could get a good picture at the end. 


I crossed that finish line and new it was finished and well ran and that made meeting my family all the better, because I left without wondering if I could have done more.


Now, I am in post training mode and I had to tell with the body turmoil that came on me following  the race. I had to deal with my body not shutting down, but not functioning at 100%. Let me explain. I was good Monday, but I think on Tuesday when I got sick it was an opportunistic virus took over with my reduced immunity system. I slept, became feverish, and hurt all over for a couple for days. I took zero week off (zero week is the first week following the marathon) and as a result slept a lot and I still find myself sleeping and feeling more sleepy now then before. I have been sticking to my four week recovery plan and I am in the end of week one and I feel better everyday. The running is picking back up, the nights are lengthening allowing for running when I get home from work, and my body is responding well. I have even added some weight training ( and trust me I needed it) to help in the recovery.


I know from my reading that any aerobic activities that lasted over several hours hurts the body more then helps and I developed several micro pulls and tears in the body and only time would heal them. Time and long hot baths and showers and Advil and muscle rub. I am probably about 90% now and I think a lot about what will come next, what race, what trial, what, what, what?...Well dear friends, I can tell you. I have the Cool Shark 5k, the Sydney Lanier Bridge Run, and then the Gate River Run! After these have been completed I will take some time off and really rest for a few weeks.


I do have a last bit of good and exciting news about further races down the road. I met up with an old college friend Clint Houchins and he, and his lovely wife, have inspired me to run the marathon again. I am trying to rub that enthusiasm off on my wife and convince her to run the Wine and Dine Half-marathon in October, either with me or someone else as a relay. I have also decided  that I am going to try another unknown. In Savannah for the first time ever the Rock and Roll Marathon Series is coming and I am going to do the half and only the half because - Clint and I have agreed to run all three Disney races on marathon weekend! That's right, I found a man as crazy as me and we are going to do the 5k, half, and whole that weekend! I am totally thrilled! Look out world here I come...

P.S.
Did I mention I am over half way on my new shoes, looks like I will be getting a new pair before I know it.