A good-ass run

Today's run made up for everything bad I had to say about all the other runs this week. I think I'm starting to look at my long run as my fun run. For some reason 6 miles seems a lot less painful than 3 or 4. Although, the wind today was not necessarily the most fun thing ever. It turns out that running into a headwind is just as tiring and energy consuming as flying, driving or biking into one. On the plus side, I did get a little boost from the tailwind in some places.

There are three distinct groups of people out on the Seattle streets today.

First, the gays and the PFLAGs. Today was pride day, which means a big parade down 4th Ave this morning and a big, gay party at the Seattle Center (that's where we store the Space Needle) for the rest of the day. The start of my run took me right past the SC, and I saw many, many celebrants. I wonder, is "a straight guy would never dress like that" an approved method of identifying gay men? Probably not. Basically, my first mile was spent waiting at stop lights and dodging the gays. Also, Denny Way is much hillier than I notice it being when I'm in a car. Running up it from the Westlake/Denny intersection was a wonderfully challenging way to start off my run. Make sure to re-read that sentence with the appropriate amount of sarcasm, please.

Miles two to five were mostly populated by our second group: Seattle Sounder FC fans. For some reason, it seemed like half the fans from today's game went to the park for a nice walk after the Sounders' win. There was a sea of fluorescent, lime green, XBox 360 emblazoned jerseys. They were mostly slow moving, but they made up in their lack of speed with the size of their herds. Meaning, I found the sidewalk blocked many times and had to take to the grass to get around them.

The park was also inhabited by lots of other people, including several other runners one of whom actually acknowledged me. I feel some solidarity with other runners when I'm out there, but I seem to be the only one. I try to give a quick nod or smile when we're passing, either male or female, but no one ever returns the gesture.

I do love running through that park though. There is such a great view of Elliot Bay, and Mt. Rainier was looking particularly beautiful today. Even though I'm running, I feel somewhat like I'm having a lazy Sunday when I watch all of the other people lounging on the grass covered slopes watching the ships roll in and out. Yet again there was a question on how far I actually ran there. I know what the route says, but I think this week there might be a problem with it rather than the iPod. Nope, I just checked and it looks like I may have gone a little bit past where I was supposed to turn around, and that might have totaled a quarter of a mile which enabled me to stop early at the end of my run. So, yay Pod-diddy for being accurate, and yay me for not turning around too early.

Mile five found me encountering the third group, tourists. Anytime I'm near the waterfront or Pike Place Market I know to expect las turistas. They're mostly harmless except for the walking in packs thing. It's a wide sidewalk, but it's not so wide that I can easily pass all the time. I spent a large chunk of that mile dodging. Here's a tip for everyone, it doesn't matter if you're walking, running, driving, flying or whatever: If you see something coming at you at a greater speed than you, DON'T LOOK AWAY! Feel free to make a hole for me to go through, but do not look behind you when I am less than 10 feet from you to make sure your wife is still back there somewhere. And do not let your kid dodge out in front of me. I weigh anywhere between 163 and 166, and I'm moving at between 6 and 7 mph, so if your kid steps in front of me, I'm going to be the less hurt of the two of us. It's a lot like a car turning in front of a semi; it's just a bad idea.

So after going through the obstacle course, I got to the most challenging part of the run, the final mile. Straight up Madison to 5th from the waterfront and then down 5th to Westlake. Now, when I say "up" and "down" in this instance, I'm not picking convenient directions or anything like that. Madison to 5th from the water is a ridiculous hill, and it's even more of a challenge when you've already run 5 miles. The bonus for this is that the lights are timed friendly to pedestrians. In this case that means that I get to every light just as it switched to "Don't Walk" and thus earned myself a 2 minute break. Running those hills is hard, but I made an interesting discovery: it's much harder to walk the hill than it is to run it. First, when you run it you get it over that much faster. Second, there's something in the way I push when I'm running uphill that is different from how I push when I'm walking. It's not fun either way, but if I have to choose I prefer to just run up the damn thing. Then, once I got to 5th Ave, I got to run a nice gentle grade downhill to my end point. I ran right up to Westlake Center where I treated myself to a nice smoothie from Emerald City Smoothies with plenty of carbs and some good proteins to help my poor battered body rebuild better, stronger and faster.

That's it for this week. My leg problem wasn't an issue today like it was yesterday. I was able to hold my pace for the most part, although when I'm not actively thinking about it my steps shorten and my legs move faster. It's the way I'm used to running at the moment, and it will probably take a little bit of training to get me to habitually take slightly longer strides.

3 point updates

Due to circumstances completely within my control, I didn't update much this week, so I have three runs to talk about right now.

Wednesday, 4 miles on a treadmill. My plan for this one was to pick one thing and just focus on it. I'm moderately proud to report a mediocre success. I wasn't able to just concentrate on one thought, but my mind didn't flit around aimlessly for 40 minutes either. I spent a good bit of that time thinking about a potential new job, but that has since become a moot point. Another bit of time was spent thinking about a bit of fiction that I would one day like to write, but I pretty much hate everything I came up with in retrospect. So, my basic idea for that one is intact, but any of the specifics I thought up on the 'mill have been trashed. I think there was one other thought that I focused on, but I can't remember what it was right now. Maybe it will come back to me sometime.

Thursday... uh, let's call Thursday a carb-loading day. Yeah, that's what it was. My department at work threw a happy hour. I should have gone for a four-mile run, but instead I went to the Oceanaire and drank many beers. And a Shirley Temple with vodka. I got there at 4:45 and didn't leave until 9:00, so a run was not in the cards. I may have overloaded on carbs and calories, but I had a good time.

Friday, 4 miles outside. I switched my Thursday run to Friday, to make up for missing it and the massive caloric intake in the form of hefeweizen. I liked my run up Westlake so much last weekend that I decided to modify it so that I could do a four mile out-and-back. Even though I calibrated my iPod, I'm still not completely sure of it. I need to re-plot the route on walkjogrun.net but zoomed in as far as I can go. That should help me see how close it is. This is the first time in forever that I have done any sort of exercise on a Friday, and I have to say that I didn't completely hate it. And again, I wasn't the only one out there doing it. Apparently a lot of people like to go for a run around the lake on Fridays after work.

Saturday, 3 miles on the 'mill. This one was different somehow. I was so frustrated by things at the beginning that I almost just quit. First, I started off and had enough tightness in my groin-ish area that I had to stop and stretch it out a little bit. I've been having some uncomfortableness when I start off, but it goes away after a couple of minutes of activity. I'm going to have to start stretching both before and after my runs I think. Although, I've seen some articles that say that stretching before is not necessary and may even been counter-productive. Then, once I got that stretched out a little bit and started my run over, my swinging hand managed somehow to stop the big red STOP button on the 'mill after only .6 miles. So, damn! What am I supposed to do? Part of me wanted to say "screw it" and just walk for a while, but I bumped the speed back up to 6mph and started going like a trooper. Crap, I just dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back.

I had a little more success on my "1 thought" efforts after I finally got going. Instead of thinking about something unrelated, I focused on my breathing and my stride. This was of course while Paula Dean tried to distract with smoked brisket and freaking berry empanadas! GIMME THE EMPANADAS AND NO ONE WILL GET HURT!!!! I know that a lot of the literature says that you should take shorter strides for increased stride efficiency, but I found it somewhat easier to run the last mile when I focused on taking longer strides. My long strides, even though I'm average height for a guy, are probably still considered short. I've seen myself run, and I'm definitely not a full extension kind of runner. I'll see how that works out for me tomorrow when I do my Tour de Seattle.

I have to be a bit careful with what I let my mind do to me. I'm determined to run this marathon, but my mind keeps trying to trick me into giving up or quitting. Now, I'm smarter than my mind, sometimes, so I'm not giving in to its insidious plot. Just because I'm tired is no excuse to give up. I'm keeping my eye on the prize. I'm going to focus on finishing my first marathon and how that's going to feel. And how much I'll get to brag about it afterward, although, there probably won't be too much of that at work. In my little 18 (give or take a few) person department, I know of two current and one former marathoners. So they'll give me a big fat "been there, done that." Still, aside from them I don't know anyone that's done it.

I'm kind of bummed about the Rock 'n Roll Marathon. I totally should have set my goal at the beginning of the year to do the 1/2 marathon at that one instead of giving myself a long lead time to work up to the Seattle Marathon in November. To be perfectly clear, that was my former goal. My new goal is to run the whole damn thing. All 26.2 miles of it, hence the name of this blog. Anyway, the RnR was going on today and it was all over the news. I had the opportunity to buy a bib earlier this week (or maybe it was last week), but I didn't take it and all the available ones got sold fast anyway. I should have signed up for it on my own. I know my longest run so far has been 6 miles, but I'm sure I could have pulled off 13.1 today even if I hadn't had any time to prepare. Oh, well. Next year, I'll run RnR. I'm not sure yet if I'll do the 1/2 or full, but I'll do one of them. I'm going to want a collection of cool medals once I get my first one.

Nothing to think about

I'm going to try to pick up my pace a bit. For the most part I'm content to go 6 mph, but I'd love to get that up to 8 mph. I don't have a strategy for that yet. Perhaps doing a gradual speed increase isn't the best way to do it, but I'll have to do some research. I wonder if I should be doing some sprints followed by a slower period and how that would work out. I'm not deviating from my pre-marathon training just to speed up. I could probably do it as part of one of my medium runs. Those are already four miles, so I could do a half mile slowish warm-up, then do quarter mile intervals. I'll see what the google has to say about that.

I have noticed one problem with my running that I've got to overcome. I don't have anything to really concentrate on or think about while I'm running. Sure, I've got television, and sometimes I get sucked into a good news story, movie, or cooking competition, but it's not enough. Today I was watching a show about the best fried food and a show about the best bar-b-q and neither of them could hold my attention. The only "best of" show that would have been better is one about the best fried bar-b-q. On a side note, if someone could score me some tempura fried bbq bacon I will love you forever.

So, I have nothing to focus on, and that means all I think about is how much my run hurts or how much longer I have to go. I need something that I can reliably think about for half an hour to an hour so that I can totally zone out. I've got some ideas of things that I could flesh out, but in addition to having nothing to focus on I also have a mind like an unlocked steel trap. It doesn't hold a damn thing. Really, if I want something remembered I have to write it down.

Screw it. Tomorrow I'm going to really concentrate on one idea while I'm doing my 4 treadmill miles and then after I'm done I'll write down (probably not here) whatever I've come up with. Perhaps that will workout for me.

Whipping the iPod into shape

I've got two weekend runs for this post.

Once again, my three-mile Saturday run was at the gym on the treadmill. I watched some show about gum, which was sort of interesting, but I could have done with something a little more action packed. And I feel like I've been sweating a lot more lately. Maybe it's because it's gotten a little warmer outside and the air conditioning around here isn't up to it. Or maybe it's because I've been hydrating a lot lately and I just have more liquids inside me to help cool me down. On the plus side, there were no lopsided women in front of me and no one ran on the world's loudest and most annoying treadmill.

There was a simple goal for my Sunday six-mile run. Get to the track and calibrate my Nike+ sensor. No longer will I be shackled to its lies. I've tolerated it too long already.

If I haven't mentioned it, one thing I like about running in a city is that I basically have built in rest points in the form of stop lights. Usually, if the light is red then there's an excellent reason not to cross against the light. Let's face it, in a fight between me going six miles per hour and a car going thirty miles per hour, the car is going to win. Even if we were both going six miles per hour the car would still win.

This run was an out and back route with a quick stop at the track at David Rogers Park. Most of the run was straight up Westlake, which is a good scenic route. I ran on the other side of Lake Union than than I normally do on my Thursday runs. I think the west side of Westlake is much prettier than the east side, and I've decided to map out a four mile out and back that keeps me west.

I think it must be nice to live on the lake in a houseboat. If I didn't have a condo, and if I thought the value of a houseboat would increase the way a condo in this town will (fingers crossed), I'd be all about buying one and living on the water.

Based on the route I mapped out I knew that there were going to be some good hills on the way. The last half mile to the park was a hill and not a particularly gentle one.

There should be some sort of warning before the sidewalk stops, that's all I'm saying. I didn't know that I'd picked the side of the street that only had half a sidewalk until it just disappeared out from under me.

I made it to the track just fine, although the iPod was still telling me that I'd gone further than I actually had. It wasn't as bad this time. Yesterday at the gym I calibrated the sensor for walking, and I guess that gave it some good information for running as well. Still, once I got to the track I did what I went there to do. I went once around walking and once around running. Now my iPod doesn't have any more excuses.

Apparently, Sunday equals soccer-day at David Rogers park. There was at least one game about to get under way and I think another that had just ended. If I were ever going to do soccer, I think I could find a team in that league, whatever it is. There was a group of five guys who had just finished playing, and it was obvious that they were part of the Barley and Hops league. Except for their ringer, because every Barley and Hops league team has to have a ringer. He looked like a reasonably fit guy with a bit of Mexican or South American ancestry.

After calibration it was time to go home. I feel like the way back is always shorter than the way out, and I think it has a lot to do with being able to recognize landmarks and know how far into my run I was the first time I passed them. Running down the hill by the park was a lot more fun than running up it.

I saw lots of people taking a stroll by Lake Union. I think I need to find a route going all the way around Lake Union, too. Now that I'm certain I won't have to run over the Aurora Bridge (the last destination for many a despondent person) I can justify it a lot easier. I'm going to try mapping it out and see if it's something I might like to do next weekend.

Right now now my lower body feels like hammered dog crap. And my energy is low. I came home, showered and immediately took off again. I thought my exercise was over after the running was done, but that was before I decided to walk over to the downtown grocery store and stick two 12-packs of Diet Sunkist (best. diet. drink. ever!) into a backpack and carry it across town. That might have been the last straw for me tonight.

2 days, 2 runs

This being Thursday evening, I should have had three runs (11 miles) under my feet by now. Unfortunately, stomach issues caused me to cancel my Tuesday night 3 mile run. Laziness kept me from posting about my Wednesday night 4 mile run.

Last night was all treadmill. It was good but hard. At the end I sweat so much that I looked like I'd taken a shower with my running clothes on. I had the Food Network on, but I wasn't paying attention to it. I can't remember what I was paying attention to instead, but it wasn't food related. The woman on the 'mill in front of me caught my attention a time or two, but not for good reasons. I couldn't figure it out for the longest time, but she was definitely lopsided. Her left side was significantly more tensed than the right, and looked more developed too. And, she had a heavier step on the left too. It was very strange and very disturbing.

Also, I was able to conclusively determine how much of a liar my iPod is. I did 4 miles on a treadmill, which I have to think measures distance pretty accurately. My iPod said I went 5.16 miles. I'm told that those sensors are 95% accurate out of the box with no calibration. I apparently got one of the other 5%.

Today's run was HARD. I went outside for my normal 4 mile route, although I keep tweaking it a little bit. At the two mile mark I had to run up a ridiculous hill. Last week with the same route I was going down that same hill. It had a definite effect on my energy. I went about 4.25 miles, and it took me about 46 minutes, so I wasn't going the speed I wanted to go. I tried telling myself in the last mile that I wanted to leave everything on the "field", but no matter how hard I tried to sustain some speed I kept slowing down. I also took a few more walk breaks this time than I normally do. I don't know what was wrong. Hopefully it was just an off day.

Weekend running is looking sketchy this week. I'll be able to do the important run, which is my 6 mile run to the track so that I can calibrate my iPod sensor (3 miles there, calibrate with a quarter mile, 3 miles back), but I don't know if I'll be doing my Saturday run. We've been invited to a party of sorts, and the people that are throwing it are kind of professionals when it comes to partying. This is all about the Fremont Fair, which has a parade that I've been told you can't miss. I've missed it both years I've been here. The party starts at 10:00 and the parade starts at noon. If I'm already drinking at 10:00 or noon, chances are I'm not going to be running later in the day. We'll see though.

The iPod lies!

So my six mile run was just as interesting as I thought it would be, and it turns out the hills were going to be an issue no matter which way I chose to run the route. When it came time to do the run, I chose to go opposite the way I had plotted it. So instead of going down Denny to Myrtle Edwards Park, I went down Virginia to 5th then over to Madison.

First, 5th Avenue. It shouldn’t surprise me that this is such a people-heavy area. I had to run next to (and below) the Monorail for a little bit, and once I got near Nordstrom I had to start dodging people. Pine and 5th is where a lot of retail shops are, and when we have nice weekends there’s a lot of shopping going on. Plus, there were some cruise ships in town today, so we had the people that were getting ready to go on their Alaskan adventures boosting the local economy a bit. We also had weary travelers back from their Alaskan adventures, but given what they do to your credit cards on cruise ships, I doubt most of them were contributing much to the local economy. So for a few blocks on either side of Pine, there was lots of weaving around shoppers.

I don’t forget how hilly this town is, mostly because it came as such a shock when I moved here, but I don’t always remember where those hills are. Running down 5th to Madison was a gentle reminder that I will get plenty of hill-work done just doing some normal outdoor running. I had to run up a relatively gentle hill to get to the ridiculous downhill that is Madison to the waterfront. I wonder if I should have just walked it since running downhill like that can be hard on the knees. It doesn’t seem to have bothered me this time, but if I run down that steep of a hill often I can see where it would become an issue over time.

The waterfront was nice. There were lots and lots of people, so I was dodging and weaving again. So many people looked at me like I was an alien. It was like they had never saw a guy running before. Oh, and why is it that four people need to walk side by side and take up the whole sidewalk? If you’re doing that, I will politely say “excuse me” or “coming through” and then run right through your group. I’m on a mission and I don’t want to stop to wait for you to clear a hole. I certainly don’t want to run out in the street!

I was about halfway between Madison and Myrtle Edwards Park when I started thinking that my Nike+ on my iPod might be lying to me. The calibration on the sensor is definitely off. Skipping ahead to the end of the run, it said that I went 6.62 miles at an average pace of 8:43. There were some times when I was able to speed up a bit and sustain it for a while, but there’s no way I averaged 8:43. That’s much faster than I would normally run a three mile run. And I’m pretty sure the distance is off by almost a mile.

Anyway, back to the waterfront. By time I reached the park I was around 2.5 miles into the run, but my iPod was already telling me I was at three miles. I didn’t realize at the time just how off it was. I ran through the park, following the route that the Seattle Marathon 5k Run used last year. I felt a little guilty running down the bike path instead of running on the pedestrian path, but bike riders ride on sidewalks around here all the time, so turnabout is fair play. I should have ignored the iPod and stuck with my plan. I was trotting along and it suddenly told me that I had two miles left to complete my distance workout, so I turned around and started back home. I think by doing that I cut off about a quarter of a mile off my run. The pedestrian path through the park was a great place to run. There were some gentle hills and it’s right by the water. I watched one of the cruise ships leaving town (the Norwegian Pearl) for a second, and I just generally admired the scenery. A good part of that was admiring the edge of the sidewalk so that I didn’t go tumbling down onto the rocks.

At the end of the park it was time to start the last leg of my journey. To my surprise, I was still going to have to end with a massive hill-climb to get back to my area. Broad felt like it went almost straight up. Let me say that once you’ve been running up a hill, it’s kind of a pain to step on the gas to get across the street before the lights change. But after getting to the top, the rest was a piece of cake. I found the Space Needle, and turned down Denny to get that last little bit before I could hit the shower.

In the end, my iPod said I did 6.62 miles in 57 or 58 minutes. I have a hard time believing that. I’m pretty sure the calibration in the sensor is off, but that’s an easy fix. I just need to go to a place where I know how far a quarter of a mile is. I could do that on a treadmill, but the sensors don’t like treadmills either. It’s got something to do with forward motion or something like that. I heard about a track on Queen Anne hill, and I mapped out a route to it. It just so happens that it’s a three mile run there and a three mile run back, so next Sunday I’ll run there, hop on the track and calibrate my sensor, then run back. I’ll kill two birds with one stone. It will be interesting to see exactly how much the sensor is off. This will basically be an out and back route, so I’ll be able to see the difference between what the iPod records on the way there versus what it records on the way back.

Back on the hamster machine

Today I was back on the treadmill for a three-miler. Nothing much to report here. We were at the gym late in the day, so we were the only ones there. That means that I got to watch Paula Dean doing a disco themed show. She wore a black wig through the part I was watching, which made her look young and kind of pretty. Weird. However, I was mostly distracted by the show on the other TVs, "Adventures in Babysitting". There's some great nostalgia right there.

I did my first mile at 6mph, then a half mile at 6.5mph and another half at 7mph before moving back down to 6mph for the last mile. That's all that can really be said about the run itself. It's hard to think of insightful stuff when you're not actually going anywhere or seeing anything.

Tomorrow I'll be doing my first 6 mile run of pre-training. I've plotted it out on walkjogrun.net. Click on that link if you want to see it. I'll probably run it backwards, since as plotted I'd have to go up a MASSIVE hill toward the end of the 4th mile. I don't think I'm ready for that quite yet. I may have to wing it a bit when I actually get to that downhill. It may be too steep to run down. We'll see. It should be both annoying and fun. Annoying because of all the freaking tourists and other people. Mostly tourists when I get down to the water and there will be plenty of them around 5th and Pine as well. The fun is all about the view. There's the waterfront, the touristy areas, the Space Needle. Either way, it should be a nice run.

A run by the lake

I did an outdoor run today. It was roughly four miles, but I'll need to hook up with walkjogrun.net to be sure. I've done the route out before which I know is two miles, but I did something different on the way back.

In any case, I did get to run by the lake. You know, there's a difference between running with a large pack of people in an organized race where they have the streets blocked off for you and running on your own with traffic flowing freely a couple feet away. Cars are heavy, even the small ones. In those big groups I have enough freedom to look around and take in the sights, at least in the beginning of the run before I'm just struggling to make it all the way through. When I'm not in an organized race I've got to keep an eye out for hazards, hope a guy on a bike doesn't run me over from behind, hope a car doesn't run me over from any direction, and pay attention to street signs. I don't get as much sight-seeing that way.

I saw six or seven other runners coming from where I was going. I don't know if there were any more ahead of me, but I really felt like I was part of something.

I think I was a bit slower than usual today. I looked at my watch a couple of minutes after starting, and I ended about 43 minutes after that. So, I'm guessing that I was running at 5.7 mph or so. I like running on a path I'm somewhat familiar with. After you've done it the first time, you have a pretty good idea of where you're going and how much farther until you're done. By the time I got home I was sweating ridiculously, but I had fun doing it.

I wonder if there's some advantage in running in a hilly place like Seattle. Runs from my apartment, at least as I've done them so far, start going uphill. Sure, it starts going down fairly quick, but that's still a hell of a way to start. Of course, my last mile to home is uphill too. So... yeah. I'm getting some hill work. I can't wait to try my five mile route. I'll go down to Elliot Bay and then have to come back up a lot of hills to get home. We'll see how that goes whenever I get to that one.

Tomorrow is an off day. I can just lay back and relax. I'll need the rest. My long run is on Saturday and it's a six mile jaunt, which is actually farther than I've run before, although not by much. I think we're going to Green Lake, which is supposed to have a nice path around it. I'll need to figure out how many times I'll have to circle it before I get there. That requires a degree of advanced planning that I'm not always good at.

4 miles and I didn't go anywhere

Today's training was on the treadmill again. Four miles this time. I ran it a bit slower than normal, 5.7mph instead of 6mph. So it took me 42 minutes instead of just 40. I think the extra time was worth it. Tomorrow I'll be doing my four miles outside. I've got the route, although I'll bet that rush hour traffic causes me a delay or two.

Today we had a bit of role reversal with the television watching. I said yesterday that I like to watch the food network. She likes to watch the local news. I claimed my treadmill and switched the channel to the local news so that She would have something to watch, but when She got on her treadmill, She switched it to the Food Network! That's MY channel!!!

Still, I did get to see some interesting news. Of course, it was mostly about the shooting at the Holocaust Memorial, but there were also interesting stories about elections in Iran and a woman who through out a mattress with a million dollars hidden in it.

As far as runs go, it was fine. I think going slower let me hoard enough energy to go the whole distance. It will be interesting to see if I can do the same tomorrow. I'll have traffic, allergens and hills to contend with.

Pre-training Begins

I'm starting with some pre-training for a couple of weeks before I start the real training. This week I'll be running 3 miles today, 4 miles each tomorrow and Thursday, 6 miles on Saturday and 3 miles on Sunday. That's going to be my basic schedule until August 9 when I start the training plan.

I went back and forth on which beginner marathon plan to use. I had one I thought was good from coolrunning.com, but I have decided to go with a different plan from runnersworld.com. It came highly recommended from a co-worker that has run several marathons. She said that this is the plan that she used for her first one and it was great for a first timer. I'm willing to take that, especially since she has quite a bit of experience with marathon running.

So... pre-training. Today's run was on a treadmill. The bonus to running on a treadmill is that it's inside and I can miss most of the effects of all the wonderful allergens floating around out there. It's air conditioned. I know exactly how far I go. When the treadmill says 3.00 miles, I can stop. When you're running outside, you're settling for being close to your mileage. Sure the route may say you're going 3 miles, but in reality it might be 3.02 miles or something like that. That's a whole 20 seconds of extra running!

Scenery is a neutral element. Sometimes I get lucky and I can change the channel on the television to what I want to watch. I love watching the Food Network when I'm running. Not that I'll ever be cooking like they do, but I like to think that I'm running so that I can eat all that good food. But you have to be careful when you're changing the channel on one of the common televisions at the gym. You have to be polite and not just change because you want it changed. I'm not fool enough to think that everyone around me wants to watch Iron Chef America while they're running. So today I watched one of the "Law and Order" series instead of messing up someone else's view. If I had been outside I would have had plenty of stuff to watch just to make sure that I didn't trip and fall.

One of the negatives for running inside is that I get no breeze at all. The treadmill has a little-bitty fan, but the wind from it only hits my face when I'm perfectly positioned for it. Outside, I'm cooled down by my passage across the earth. That sounds so poetic. Additionally, I'm stuck at whatever pace I have the treadmill set on, which is so mechanical, for lack of a better word. When I set my own pace, I average about 6 mph, but that's helped by me going slower going uphill and much faster going down. I might need to make a pro/con list for inside and outside running. Maybe since I'm doing two 4 mile runs this week I should do one inside and one outside. I have a good 4 mile route already, so maybe I should take advantage of it again.

Furry Fury - Furry 5K Race Report

Race: Furry 5K
Location: Seward Park, Seattle
Terrain: Asphalt, generic road
Biggest Challenge: Hill at mile 2
Time: 00:28:31.5
Pace: 9min 11sec mile
Ranking:
- Overall - 193
- Gender - 105
- Male age 30-39 - 33
Date: 6/7/09

I love it when races start at a reasonable time. Seven, eight, or nine o'clock is entirely too early to start off running for someone that isn't a morning person. I can do it, but I'd prefer not to. The Furry started at ten o'clock.

Given how much Seattle-ites love their dogs, it's not unusual to find a few four legged friends at any run. Some of the races don't allow dogs, but in general dogs are just as welcome as people. Today's run though was all about the pups. The race was to benefit the Help The Animals Fund and the Seattle Animal Shelter. All that translates to lots of dogs; cats were discriminated against, but they probably wouldn't have been willing to run anyway.

I was pretty close to the front for the start, which means that there were a lot of people with the potential to pass. A whole lot of them ended up doing just that. The first mile was good. I think I did it in just under 10 minutes. The route was beautiful. We had Lake Washington on the left and some trees and other forestry on the right. I was a little concerned by the "poison oak" sign about half a mile in, but I wasn't planning on running into the woods, so I got over it quick.

I love how the dogs had different running personalities, which didn't necessarily match their person's. There were some dogs that were obviously out for a jog, some that looked like they were planning to sprint the whole way, and some that were obviously running their humans. Additional fun came from bathroom using dogs. I saw one poor runner that was jerked to a stop because his dog stopped in the middle of the path for a potty break.

Just after the first mile marker we got the "OMFG! Who the hell put this ridiculous freaking hill in the middle of the course?!" hill. That was a real challenge. It was about a 40 degree incline (+/- 5 degrees) and went on FOREVER. I ran up the whole thing, but it was a significant slowing factor. I wonder how long it was. Everyone slowed down, and there were a lot of people who walked it for a bit. Completely reasonable considering the ridiculous incline and ridiculous length. After the hill was a slight decline and some meandering and then the water station. This was my only stop/walk area. I don't run and drink at the same time. It's a good way for me to choke.

I must have missed the second mile marker. I'm told that it was there, but I never saw it. I had an idea of when I was supposed to have passed it, but since I didn't see it I didn't really know when to start pushing my pace. My goal was to make this my fastest 5k to date, which shouldn't be too hard since the rest of them have been 30+ minutes. I suppose I could have started running faster after 20 minutes of running, but I didn't, so there's no use getting upset about it. I saw my favorite dog of the race during the last mile; a whippet, I think, that looked like he could have run all day. Other than that, there's not much to say about the third mile. Once I saw the finish line ahead and the Mile 3 marker, I picked up the pace for the last tenth of a mile. I want to make sure I finish strong on every race. I don't know if that will help me anywhere, but I like the idea.

The official finish time and (unofficial) average pace is still to be determined, but according to my watch I did it in about 28 minutes. That's in line with my normal running pace and something that I think I can sustain for a long run, at least after I get some practice with really long runs.

**UPDATE** Times, ranking, pace updated.

Food, Glorious Food!

One of the things I'm most looking forward to about training for the marathon is being able to eat pretty much whatever I want. If I feel like a Snickers at 3:00, no problem, I'll be running that off at 6:00 anyway. However, I need to keep in mind that that's not going to be a valid excuse until I start piling on serious miles per week, and right now I'm only running 9 to 12. That's not enough for me to have too many splurge meals or ridiculous snacks.

Still, I made a great start on consuming mass calories today. It's not going to look so awesome when I step on the scale tomorrow morning, but lunch was a gluttonous, caloric feast. I ate about 1600 calories, which came in the form of a bacon cheeseburger and garlic fries from Kidd Valley. And it was worth every single bite. It also showed me exactly where all of my weight gain the last couple of years came from. I didn't eat at Kidd Valley all the time, but I was eating at least enough to get that many calories in a single meal once a week, usually on Saturdays. That never stopped me from having something almost as bad for dinner. Sunday through Friday eating wasn't any better. I'd eat almost nothing for breakfast, a pretty large lunch, an even larger dinner, and I'd throw in some snacks just for good measure. I'm actually amazed that I never saw the scale top 200 pounds.

I made adjustments to my diet at the first of the year. See, my first goal for 2009 was to run a half marathon (now morphed to full marathon), but a second and closely related goal is to lose 30 pounds. I figured that all the running would make the pounds naturally fall off, and I think for the most part that was right. I've had a few weeks where there was no running at all but some good weight loss, but I'll chalk that up to my body just being confused about what's going on. I say I made changes to my diet, but I didn't change what I ate, just how much of it I did and how often. I now space four roughly 200 calorie snack/meals throughout the day and I have a 300-400 calorie lunch and about the same for dinner. Once I lose another four pounds I'll be able to bump my caloric intake up into a maintenance level of around 2000 calories a day. I'm also watching how my food breaks down. Most of the writing I've seen about runners talks about how much they need carbs before runs and proteins after. I'm not sure how successful I'm being, but I'm trying to make sure I get some of both whenever I can.

So, bottom line. Bacon cheeseburgers and garlic fries are good, and if you have a Kidd Valley near you I highly recommend you try both of theirs. But it's not something that I should make a habit out of eating. Still, it will be nice to be able to shove whatever in my mouth and know that I'm not overdoing it because I'll be burning it off soon.

Go Big or Go Home

We received our latest copy of Runner's World yesterday and that, combined with the enthusiastic support of my significant other, has convinced me to run the Seattle Marathon this year.

I don't normally do New Year's Resolutions, but I'm willing to set myself challenging goals. I sort of thrive when I have something I'm working towards. An aimless Larry is an unhappy Larry. This year, my main goal was to run a half marathon. I haven't done it yet, but the phrase "go big or go home" has been floating through my head ever since She put it in my head to do the full monty. So, I'm going to run the whole damn thing.

Wish me luck.

I have some options as far as training plans go, but I'm leaning toward Hal Higdon's Novice 1 Marathon training plan. I'm sure it's not exactly called that, but that will get you close enough if you want to go looking for it. My tentative plan is to update this after every run to help me see where my head is at with this thing, but I may send up the occasional thought balloon when the mood otherwise hits me. I think this is a good plan because if I tie this blog to something else I'm doing regularly then I'm more likely to keep it updated.

In addition to the marathon, I've got some other runs leading up to it. I'll be doing the Furry 5k (this Sunday actually), the Seafair 8k in July, the first annual Lake Union 10k in August, and the Brewhaha 5k in September. I'll probably find another short race to squeeze in for October.

I'm not planning anything spectacular. I'm only going to hold myself to one goal as far as the marathon is concerned: finish. If it takes me five hours, then that's how long it takes. I don't need to be the fastest, and I won't be bothered (too much) if I'm the last. The only one I'm really competing with is me, and I think i can whip my ass any day of the week.