Running with dachshunds

Whew! I had no idea a week and a half off would take so much out of me. It was a good week, filled with travel and fun. I've decided that there's no point in lying to myself anymore. Next time I go on a trip, I'm not going to take up the space in my luggage with running clothes, because I know that I'm not going to run and I AM going to want that extra space for whatever gee-gaws, thingamajigs and whatchamacallits I pick up gallivanting around the country. I may make an exception for work-related travel, if I have to do any.

This week marks the first official week of my training program, and I am looking forward to getting to it. Ironically, my first week looks much like the previous weeks with 3-4 mile runs for four days and a 6 mile run on the weekend. Actually, the first week, according to the plan, is a 5 mile long run, but I'm skipping that. Plus, bumping my plan up a week gives me a chance to skip my long run on 9/20 when I will be recovering from having all four of my wisdom teeth yanked out. I predict incoherence and a dependency on percocet (already got the prescription - hehe!). I might want to save some of those percs for after the marathon, now that I think about it. Actually, I think we've got some other good stuff floating around somewhere, so maybe I don't need to skimp myself on the perckies.

Today was only my second chance to work out with the Garmin (codename: Grendel), the previous opportunity being the Torchlight, so I'm working through the settings. I had it set so that it would pause every time I stopped so that my time waiting at lights did not work against me, and I reset that so that it didn't auto-pause today. That was a mistake. It made me look bad (read: SSSSLLLLLLOOOOOOWWWWWWW). I changed that one back as soon as the run was over. I also made a setting change so that it automatically counts a "lap" every mile. That one I really like as it will allow me to see the splits for every mile.

Mile 1 - Time 13:31
It's not obvious yet, but this is the first sign that I shouldn't have turned off auto-pause. Thirteen and a half minutes to go one mile?! That's less than five miles an hour, and I know exactly what caused my time to be so slow: stoplights. If I had paused while I was standing at the lights, my time would have been much more like miles 2 and 3. It just made things look ugly.

I went earlier today than usual, which meant that there were more people crowding up my running space and more people on bicycles. I recognize the bicycle as a valid method of transportation and easier on the environment than a car is, but a sidewalk is for WALKERS; if you want to ride a bike, get on the road and get off my nice, safe path. And you with the walker! Stay to the right!

Mile 2 - Time 9:16
Yeah! That's more like it! Between 6.5 and 7mph, moving at a decent clip. I love that I'm going faster, but there are no breaks, unless I make one for myself, in miles 2 and 3. I "zipped" through this one, wheezing the whole way and hoping for the end of the second mile to come faster. Faster, dammit! Really, I don't even remember much about the second mile. There just wasn't that much going on.

Mile 3 - Time 9:45
Hey! Where'd my 30 seconds go? Oh yeah, that walk break right at the beginning of the mile. But that can't be all of it. I must have slowed down a bit. I checked Grendel often and saw my pace all over the place. It must have been slower more often than I thought. I'll bet what happened was that I looked down and saw a slow pace, so I sped up a bit to a satisfactory pace, and as soon as I stopped looking at it I slowed down again.

I saw a lady running with her dog (hint: look at the title). She looked like she was going fast enough, maybe 5-5.5mph. The poor little dachshund looked like he was going twice that speed. His little legs were a blur. I can't decide if it was a little bit of animal cruelty or just good human/doggy bonding.

Mile 4 - Time 12:27
Seriously?! Stoplights again. I'm more disappointed about this mile than the first mile, because I was consciously giving it more. I wanted to finish strong. I ran fast down the sidewalks only to arrive just as the "Don't Walk" sign went solid. I'm enough of a scofflaw that I'll run against the light, but traffic was constant enough that I was almost guaranteed to be run over. I'm not willing to get run over just to make up some time. I charged up the final hill to my apartment, glad to put this first post-break run behind me.

I was feeling a lot better by the end, but that's always the case. I can't wait to start increasing the miles. That's for next week though. Tomorrow is another four miler, which will either be on my other 4 mile route or on the treadmill, I haven't decided yet. I can't wait to start planning out routes for the increasing mileage. There are some parts of Seattle that I'm not familiar with, and this will be a good way to explore them.

16 weeks from Sunday until the Seattle Marathon. Incidentally, that means 16 weeks from tomorrow until Thanksgiving. I'm going to do some carb-loading at Maggiano's. Between now and then, I'm going to eat pretty much whatever the hell I want. I'll be burning enough calories for it.