If you want to check out the latest installment of my Living Testimonial, click on over to my entry at Five Keys Fitness.

Things have been moving right along recently.  This past week I’ve upped my high weekly mileage for 2008 (not that it’s much to write home about, but hey), and made April my biggest month since October ‘07.  Yesterday, I ran an easy 6 miler, and things went very well.  My legs feel good right now, and I’ll be heading out for an easy 3 in a little while.  When things are good, they’re good.  Right now running feels very good to me and I plan on doing my best to keep it that way.  Which means not being too stupid, but also staying with a consistent plan.

Softball season starts for me this week, with a game on Thursday.  Starting next week, it will be games on Wednesday and Thursday through mid-July.  So running will have to fit around that little bit of recreation.  Thinking back to last year, I can easily fit in an easy 3 mile run after a game.  My only concern at this point is that it will very likely be 4 straight days of running, increasing to 5 straight days.  If I can figure out a way to shift the schedule a bit, I’d like to have some recovery time.  Maybe as the season closes down, I’ll be able to handle it.  For now, I’m not so sure.

I’ll update here later tonight with my current progress in the run out West.  For now, thanks for stopping by.  I’ll see you out there.

Update:  Through 112 days of 2008, I’ve run 128.8 miles.  Here is the updated graphic:

Today’s fun fact: I’m near Spiceland, Indiana, population 807.  Spiceland-area historical data shows that it sees 159% more tornado activity than the overall U.S. average.  The average commute for residents is 29 minutes (compared to 26 minutes as a national average).  And as of early 2007, there were no registered sex offenders living in Spiceland.  (It’s amazing what kind of weird crap you can find on the internet).

I have no idea.  But occasionally I’m going to put up a visual representation of my 2008 mileage.  I mentioned in my last post that I was going to steal the idea from Guinness74 over at Conspiracy of Happiness, and now I’m following through.  I don’t have a goal destination in mind like he did, but rather I’m just going to see how far I go in the year.  I decided that since I live relatively close to Interstate 70, I would just (virtually) run West on I-70 and see where I ended up.

After 111 miles in 105 days, here is where I’m “at” right now.

I started near my house on January 1st, and now after my run last night I’m just outside of Jacksonburg, IN.  I’m guessing the towns and cities will start passing quickly as my training ramps up.

Today’s fun fact: Jacksonburg is an unincorporated town in Eastern Indiana.  Just east of Jacksonburg is Martindale Pond, a 15-acre borrow pit that contains an abnormally large (percentage-wise) population of bluegill.

Life has been busy lately, and I’ve been more than a bit lax in updating things in my haunts around the internet.  My apologies to all one or two of you who actually visit. 

Yes, I’ve been running.  The last three weeks I’ve been a pretty good model of consistency in getting back into the swing of things.  You can check out what’s actually happened at the usual place, my online running log, which you can find by clicking here.  If you want to check out the plan in place for this Spring, you can click here. 

And then there is the new addition to my online presence, my “living testimonial” I’m writing for Equivita.  Equivita, if you remember, is the place where I work out.  They’re helping me work towards my first marathon, the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon on November 23rd.  I’m writing a year-long testimonial of how the staff at Equivita are helping me through the process, my ups and downs of training, and other general thoughts.  You can find this website by clicking here.  I’m pretty excited about this project, and I hope you can find time to stop by and tell me what you think (comments are welcome!).

Before I close this entry out, I have a little business to attend to.  Guinness74 over at Conspiracy of Happiness has tagged me to write my own six word memoir.  Here goes nothing:

Searching for truth, passion ever present.

I think it’s kinda tough to come up with a memoir at the age of 30, but I don’t think this is all that inappropriate.  Let me live two more lifetimes and then some, and give me a few more words to work with and I bet I come up with something a little better.  :)

As is my custom, I decline to tag anyone going forward.  Mostly, because I don’t know all that many people online.  But I do appreciate the tag from Aaron (and hope that his leg is healing well).  Once I get around to it, I’m going to steal his running graphic he was using before his injury, which was a cool visual representation of his running mileage going across the country (this is a little simplified, check out his archives for more details).

I guess I also need to update a thing or two in the sidebar.  I’ll get to it. 

Thanks for stopping by.  See you out there.

Here is the updated chart with December’s numbers (click to enlarge).

December

• Goal: 25.5 miles
• Actual: 8.8 miles (35%)

I spent most of the month voluntarily on the bench, letting my legs and feet heal.  I came back in the last week to finish off a 400-mile year.

The highlights of the month include:

• A four-mile run on New Year’s Eve, which finished off a good year for me.

2008 will see training for my first marathon (November), the Race for the Cure 5k in May, and the Relay for Life also in May.  There may be additional races here and there, but nothing big is planned for now.

Thanks for stopping by. See you out there.

Here is the updated chart with November’s numbers (click to enlarge).

 

November

• Goal: 24.7 miles
• Actual: 17.8 miles (72%)

First month since July I was “under budget”.  After this year, I think it’s okay.  I have unofficially run about six times as far this year than any previous 12 month period in my life.

The highlights of the month include:

• Running a 5.5 mile run on November 17th in honor of Ryan Shay, who passed away at mile 5.5 of the men’s Olympic marathon trials.
• Running in the freezing cold at the Flying Feather Four Miler.  Did I mention I was wearing shorts?!?

December has seen no running to date.  I’m officially off to heal until the 22nd, and all I’ll probably do between then and the end of the year is a few runs of 2-3 miles to start getting back into shape, and to crack the 400-mile barrier.  Awesome!

Thanks for stopping by. See you out there.

All three of you have waited patiently for my report of this freezing day (or maybe you haven’t, I guess I’m assuming you have), so here goes.

Since my half marathon in October, I’ve been hurting.  Some of the hurt preceded the race, and some may have resulted from the race itself.  Whatever the cause, I was in some pain.  I have pain in my right psoas muscle that flares up from time to time, depending on the activity.  I also had (I think I’ve finally kicked this one) pain on the outside of my right foot which made hard striding feel something between achy and excruciatingly painful, depending on the day.  With all this taken into account, I did very little recovery running between the half and the Thanksgiving Day four mile race (I just checked, it was only 17 miles in that month between races).

With my lack of training leading up to Turkey Day, I didn’t really know what my plan was going to be.  Part of it depended on the weather: if it was decent outside (over 45), I might think about a PR even though I hadn’t trained much; if not, I was just going to try and enjoy the run.  The week leading up to the race was fairly nice, with temps soaring into the high 60’s.  But the 24 hours before the event saw the temperature plummet.  Waking up on Thursday, I checked the digital thermometer and saw a reading of 35 degrees, and it looked very windy outside.  Yikes!

I (foolishly) decided to be a superhero about the whole thing, and wore shorts.  Even though I was wearing two long sleeve shirts, a hat, and gloves, the shorts made me question my sanity.  Three months prior, I was having to run after 10 PM to avoid 90 degree days, and now I was dressing for a windy run with near freezing temps.  In shorts.

The crew showed up to the house (I was running with my wife Cheryl, buddy Cletus, Dad, and WSM), we packed up and drove the 20 minutes or so to the parking area.  This was the same site as the Cinco de Mayo Cuatro Miler, and that race had about 400-600 people entered and the parking was a bit of a nightmare.  With 2000+ people in the Flying Feather, it was even worse.  By the time we showed up to the parking lot, we had to park on the fields at the school.  No big deal, but it had poured rain the previous two days and we might as well have run a cross country course.  On top of this, we had to wait a few minutes for a shuttle bus to take us to the start line.  Did I mention I was wearing shorts?!?  If the rain had not come through the previous days, I probably would have jogged the 3/4 mile to the start line.  But between not wanting to soak my shoes prematurely and not sure my legs would permit me to run much more than four miles, I stood shivering waiting for the bus.

We caught the second bus (I think) that arrived and they deposited us at the start line.  I checked my watch, and we still had about 20-25 minutes until the start.  I’m still wearing shorts.  Dad and WSM slide over to take a bit shelter from the wind by backing up to the building.  Cletus heads inside the spa to hit the head before the gun, and Cheryl (who was dressed significantly more appropriately than I) stuck with me as I stood right out in the middle of it all.  Why did I do that?  Because I’m a badass.  A badass wearing shorts.  Or is that a dumbass wearing shorts?

Then the snowflakes start falling.  Awesome! 

Not really.

The crowd lines up behind the start line, they play the Star Spangled Banner (dear yuppie Dublin moms, it’s okay to shut up and put your hand over your heart and sing.  Show a little respect.), and we’re off.  I still hadn’t outwardly vocalized my plan, but I knew I was going to go out hard and see what happens, if only to finish quickly and stay warm.  I hadn’t done any warmup, so I was literally starting cold in more ways than one.  This didn’t prove to be a major problem, thankfully.  The first two miles were into a headwind.  Not cool.  My gloves, which had kept me warm on every other cold weather run I’ve done, were rendered useless as a warming device as the wind sliced right through them.  As the course entered Glacier Ridge Park, we went from a two-lane road with plenty of room to a 10-15 foot wide asphalt path and quite a bit of crowding. 

I’m not known for my patience on the race course.

Despite my desire to keep my feet dry, I spent about half of my time in the park running in the grass, going around slower runners.  Now I’m not fast by any means, so I line up about halfway back in the crowd for most runs.  But I fail to understand why, if you know you are going to walk the entire way, you start at the tape?  I’m still passing people walking 1.5 miles in, and it’s starting to make me mad.  At least I think so, because I’m pretty sure the cold had shut my body down to only the most basic survival mechanisms and leg moving.  Okay, rant over.

Finally, at about two miles, we turn away from the wind and it feels like the temp raised about 15 degrees.  I was plenty warm, now.  The mile markers were little signs on the path, which explains why I missed every one of them.  I was okay with this, though, as it enabled me to run by feel instead of being a slave to the clock.  I was pushing a bit, but not as hard as I could have.  I was thinking during the run that I haven’t trained enough to feel comfortable ramping the effort up to 10 during a race.  I don’t do it enough in training to know how much gas I have in the tank, and I’d be afraid of not getting through a race with that effort.  Also, not knowing precisely how much distance remained to cover, I didn’t know when I could turn on the jets.  I have something to work on for next year, now.

When I figured there was about one mile to go, I picked it up a bit.  I was starting to get cold again, but I put it out of my mind by looking at people ahead of me and picking them off one by one.  I love these little mini-accomplishments, as they take just enough time to feel good about it, and piling on one after another really ramps up your confidence to keep going.  We exit the park and I’m figuring it’s less than 800 meters to go.  For some reason, whenever I know there’s less than a mile to go, I mentally calculate distance in meters or laps around a track.  It makes it seem very doable to me.  With “two laps” remaining, I pull out what little kick I have and go.  I just want to be done.  My psoas is starting to burn, my feet hurt, my nose is freezing, and I’m hungry.  Let’s go!

I make the final turn and see that while I’m not going to PR at the distance, it’s still a good race.  Crossing the finish line at 34:36, I feel very good about it.  It’s good enough for 441 of 1919 overall, 284 of 840 males, and 35 of 79 in my age group.  The rest of the crew did well also, and within a few hours of finishing we were all filling up on turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes.

I’d really liked to have trained better for this race, but given the circumstances I think I did well.  It was a milestone race for me, in that it was the first time I’d ever ran a race and not PR’ed.  That’s not saying much, since I’ve only done a few races in my life, but the reason I feel it stands out is that I wasn’t disappointed and I learned some things from the race.  Not the least of which is that I probably shouldn’t have worn shorts.

After the Four Miler, I’m taking time off from running for one month in the hopes that my foot and psoas will heal and I can start 2008 healthy.  As of this writing (December 11th), my foot feels great but I’m still having some issues with my psoas.  Hopefully I will have things worked out as the end of my mega-rest nears.

Thanks for reading the race report, I hope it was worth the wait.  See you out there (in a couple weeks, anyway)

Here is the updated chart with October’s numbers (click to enlarge).

October

• Goal: 25.4 miles
• Actual: 48.0 miles (188%)

The build-up over the prior two months was all for October.  I ran much less mileage than anticipated, but still rocked the half marathon.

The highlights of the month include:

• My first half marathon, run below goal time in 1:54:07.  What more do you need?

November has already been more about recovering physically and mentally than anything else.  It is now only 10 days until the Flying Feather Four Miler on Thanksgiving morning.  I think I’ll be okay.

Thanks for stopping by. See you out there.

After the half, I finally got back on the road Monday evening, heading out for an easy two-mile run.  I still have some pain in my right foot, but it’s not debilitating and I got tired of sitting around doing nothing.  Yesterday I rested (not tired from the previous run, just tired in general), and today I’m not likely to get out and go due to Beggar’s Night.

I’ve decided on some very broad themes for 2008.  1st six months: speed.  2nd six months: marathon. 

There, I said it.  Now it has to happen.

Details and goals forthcoming, and hopefully more running soon.

I have a Word-of-the-Day calendar at my desk at work.  It’s my response to my neighbor’s “You Know You’re a Redneck When…” daily calendar on their desk.  On Friday’s I do not forward through the weekend, as I’m a little supersitious about getting ahead of time.

So this morning I pulled off Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Yesterday’s word was “celerity”, a noun meaning “rapidity of motion or action.”  Benjamin Franklin used celerity as a synonymn for velocity.

How appropriate.

After long weeks of training and anticipation, it was finally here. The Columbus Half Marathon.

This was not only my first half marathon, it was my first race of more than four miles. When I began my HM training in late July, I’d decided to shoot for two hours. This was based on some previous race times and what I was capable of doing in training at the time. Before this weekend, I set a series of goals for myself. Bronze was finishing, silver was finishing in under 2:15, and gold was finishing in under 2:00. Things had not been going swimmingly in training the last few weeks (I missed more workouts than I felt I could afford due to life), so I felt that achieving that goal of 2:00:00 would be a great accomplishment.

Alright, already… the race.

I didn’t sleep much the night before (anticipation/nerves/excitement, take your pick). I think I fell asleep at about 2:30 or so, and got up at 5:30. Still, I felt pretty good. It was perfect weather for a race, clear and maybe 55 degrees. Until the sun came up, it was pretty cold standing there in my shorts and shirt. My friend Cletus (the one who suggested this whole running thing) and I managed to find my Dad and Wicked Step Mother (WSM) in the crowd, decked out in sweatshirts bearing their monikers (Dad and WSM) on the front, and Team Harris (our last name) on the back. They told me they would try to find some way to embarrass me (or at least that’s what I heard), but I thought it was funny.

8 AM was near, so Cletus and I headed towards the back of the pack (it’s a chip timed event) to line up. I didn’t really hear the gun, but people started moving so we followed along. Right before the start line, Cletus and I gave each other the obligatory low five, and we took off. To hit two hours, I knew my average pace had to be right around 9:09, but I didn’t have any intention of starting out that fast. The first mile, I took what I felt to be a pretty comfortable pace. With all the people dodging I was doing, it ended up being a 9:57 mile. I was okay with that, but I knew that I’d have to start working a little bit harder. Apparently, that’s what I did. I forgot to hit my lap timer on my watch, but the next two miles were an average of 8:50. The effort didn’t feel too much more, but I guess whatever I did worked out.

Somewhere between mile 3 and 4, I picked up a running buddy. A very chatty young lady told me that she was going to use me as her pacer. She found out I was trying to run 9:10 miles, and decided she was along for the ride. She was nice enough, but I’m not much of a talker so I was pleased when the full marathon course (which she was running) broke off from the half and I was back alone with my thoughts. While we ran together, we hit 9:33 for mile 4, and then 9:13 for mile 5.

I was back on my own during the sixth mile, and here is where things started to get a little… weird. My major concern going into the race was that I hadn’t done enough running at a 9:10 or faster pace, and my body had forgotten how to do that. As my body started to fully loosen up after five or so miles, I was feeling pretty good as we came back towards downtown. Mile 6 was done in 8:32. Mile 7… 8:29. Mile 8, 8:32. I hadn’t run this fast in a while, and certainly not for three miles in a row. As we neared the next place I’d expected to see the fan club, the crowds got larger and louder. I saw the crew, consisting of the aforementioned Dad and WSM, my wife, Cletus’ wife, a couple of our friends, and Cletus’ sister. They yelled and cheered, I cheered for them as a thanks for showing up, and heard my dad yell “You da man!” as I passed by. Who knew he could be so loud?

This seemed to be just the boost (ha!) I needed, as I forgot to hit the split button on my watch at the next mile marker. But the two mile average was 8:15 each. Pretty freaking good for the latest two miles of the longest non-stop run I’d done in my life. Mile 11 was 8:36, and I was still feeling good. I wasn’t breathing hard, but I could feel the pain building up in my legs. I knew I had two miles left, so I just sucked it up and ran. Mile 12 was completed in 8:20, and by now I can see the final turn in the distance. Even though the last mile was mostly uphill, I did mile 13 in 7:49 and the last tenth in 0:47. As I made the final turn, I could see the finish line and for some reason my stomach decided that this was the time to pass on this message: “If you run any faster, I’m going to expel your breakfast all over the course.” I listened for 10-15 seconds, but quickly decided that it would be worth it if it happened.

My stomach contents stayed put, and I crossed the finish line in 1:54:07. Breaking my goal time by almost six minutes, that feels pretty good. Actually, it feels real damn good. I don’t feel like dying right now, and I think a full is definitely in the cards for next year. But first, I’ve got the Flying Feather Four Miler on Thanksgiving morning. As for the immediate future… I’m off to sleep.