10-4 good buddy!

I can just barely remember when CB radios had a tiny hint of coolness to them. I doubt they were ever as cool as I thought they were, but maybe right after Smokey & the Bandit came out there was a bit of 18-wheeler, truck driver love. Maybe it was just the 80s in Texas though.

None of that has anything to do with anything though. I only mention CB radios because of the whole 10-4 sign-off. I still don't know what that means. I could probably find out on Wikipedia, but it's just not that important to me. What is important to me is what I've done for the past three days, which have been three days of pain and suffering.

I got home from work really early on Tuesday. It was at that awkward time where it was really too late to go into the office because I'd only be there for an hour or so, and what can you really get done in an hour? It takes me almost seven of them before I really get in the working groove as it is. One hour would be a waste of their time and mine. So, since I was home and I knew I needed to go three miles, I decided to walk over to Lake Union and start my run from there. My plan was to just go fast, which isn't really a very concrete plan now that I think about it. I should have made my plan something more explicit like "make my pace one minute faster than my normal," or "do a half mile fast and a half mile slow." Anyway, I did three miles: 8:13, 9:26, and 9:18. So, not horrible, but I obviously couldn't keep up my first mile's pace through the whole thing. Actually, I know that for the first half of mile one I was probably doing closer to a 7:00 mile and the second half was around a 9:30. Well, next time I'll set my goal to do all three at an average 9:00-9:15 pace. We'll see how that works out for me.

On Thursday, I went back to my trusty old treadmill. I didn't go into it planning on doing anything interesting or different, but then Lisa convinced me to do these things she called 10-4. Basically, you warm up at your normal speed for 10 minutes, then you do your next 10 minutes at a faster racing speed. After that you go back to your warm up speed for 4 minutes, then 10 minutes at warp speed. You get the idea. I did it for 5 miles. My racing speed wasn't even that fast. More like warp 1 than warp 9, but I was still gassed after the second 10 minute set. I had to take the next 4 minutes at a walk. Fortunately, I had some good television to watch. Bobby Flay was doing a fried chicken throwdown. I've never made fried chicken, but if I can ever get over my fear of boiling oil and being burned, I've got some great ideas. Damn, I'm craving some good, fried, country food. I wish there was a Babe's Chicken Dinner or even a reasonable equivalent around here. I could really tear up a chicken fried steak with some cream gravy and a heaping mound of mashed potatoes.

Hey, did you see that story that Time ran this week about how working out doesn't really make you lose weight? I think I finally get it.

I need to start collecting my favorite running blog posts from the week so that I can start actually referencing them. I say that because somewhere, sometime in the last five days I read a post with the subject "is your marathon training making you fat?" If I could remember where I read it I'd link to it, but the upshot of it was that you do all of your normal eating, then you're sucking down some energy gels (haven't tried them yet, but I'm getting close to ordering some) and drinking energy drinks, and afterward you're eating something for some recovery. I guess if you're not watching how many calories you take in you can really do some damage to the waistline in spite of all the calories you burn getting to your 26.2 mile fun run.

Today I planned on coming home and hitting the road for a 4 miler; however, Mother Nature had other plans for me. Eventually, I will have to be willing to start my running in the chill and the rain. Heck, there's an extremely good chance that race day will start out in the really-freaking-cold with an icy rain and snow mix. I've been told that it's happened before. And I'm in Seattle. We do rain here as professionally as Texas does heat. I just wasn't feeling ready for it today. And since I didn't pack my workout bag this morning or when I came home from lunch, I didn't want to change and walk over to the gym. I almost just said "screw it" and plopped my ass down on the couch to spread a bit, but I sucked it up and hit the mini-gym in my building. I didn't have to go outside, but I still got in my 4 miles. It wasn't bad, but let's just say that every 'mill is different. This one had lower arms than the one I'm used to being on, so it felt a little off; it had more buttons and looked more complicated than the ones at All-Star. And the room had pretty much no airflow. On the plus side, I had a private television that I could just plug my headphones into. And! It's football time! Look, I love me some Food Network, but if I have to choose between someone cooking pig or someone throwing a pigskin, throw Porky's ass downfield as far as he can squeal! I can really lose myself in a football game, and I will happily run as long as I need. I may have to switch up my schedule so that I run during Monday Night Football.

I get Friday's off, and my legs are thanking me for not using them tomorrow. If I could work from bed I would. The only bad thing about a non-running day is that it has to be a mostly non-eating day. Or a "eff-it, I've lost enough weight" day. Most likely that's what it will turn out to be.