2009, A Look Back...

With four full days left of the year 2009 I might as well go ahead and do a little year end analysis.



I’m almost embarrassed to post my 2009 running goals, seeing as how I didn’t quite meet them all. Although, I guess I didn’t do too bad.


These are the goals that I wrote into the front cover of my training log book:

Plan- Run 900 miles in 2009

Actual- With 4 days remaining of the year, I am currently at 1190.81miles.

Plan- Complete my entire “manual” running log book.

Actual- Yep, it’s full and complete. There’s just something in me that can’t rely entirely on a computer log. I like writing it all down!

Plan- Run at least 1 Race every single month.

Actual- I ran a total of 20 organized races this year, running at least 1 each month.

Plan- Run my 1st Half Marathon (In 2 hours or less)
Actual- I completed the Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon on Oct. 3, 2009… although it took me 2 hours, 5 minutes and 56 seconds.

Plan- Explore Trail Running

Actual- Easy enough. We ran a total of 73 miles of trail running and 2 XTerra trail races.

Plan- Beat Race PR’s on my 5,10,12 & 15K distances.

Actual – Not a single PR this year. Although I did get very close to PR’s I set in 2007 and never quite got close to again in 2008. This is going to be a focus on my 2010 plans, seeing as how I failed on this one! Thanks to RC, now I know HOW to do this one.

I am going to wait a few days and ponder my 2010 goals. One problem I’m having is that I got a sudden injury in my heel and ankle area last week. Very bad timing for an injury. It is hard to be optimistic and goal oriented when I am not even sure how long this problem is going to have me out of running. I might see a Dr. and get some more definite answers. That will be another post.

Go With The Flow

I've accepted the fact that I am injured.  It has fully sunk in and I'm OK with it.  Really, I am.  No, I'm not lying.  Ok, maybe a little.

Since the painful slow Christmas Eve run at the loop on Thursday, I rested all day Friday, Christmas day.  I soaked my foot in ice water & applied heat in 20 minute increments.  Chuck massaged my heel a lot too.  We went to my Mom's for Christmas dinner.  In between soaking & heating my heel, I ate and we watched movies on HBO all day.

Saturday I bucked up and took RC's advise.  Which was to spend equal planned running TIME on the elliptical at my desired Heart Rate.

Meet my new buddy.  The Arc Trainer!

See, I hope this sweaty fling is short lived.  I don't want it to turn into a long term affair.  Although I am thankful to have a gym membership and access to cross training equipment.

Saturday I spent 1 hour total with an Avg. Heart Rate of 162 on this bad boy.  Sunday (today) I managed 2 hours total.  My equivilant running time should have been a 2.5 hour workout, but I couldn't manage another 30 minutes. 

Thanks to Shyenne's new Kindle.  The two hours of cardio went by as quickly as I could have hoped.  I'm reading Midnight in Madrid.  Pretty good so far.  Shy's grandpa got her new nifty electronic book for Christmas.  But she's sweet enough to share with her Mom!

This week's training hasn't been totally wasted.  I still got out and burned some calories.  Hopefully I'll be back up and running soon enough.  With the cross training I should be able to pick up where I left off.  I might even take advantage of the running break and get some swimming practice in.  One of these days I am going to do a sprint Tri.  Maybe sooner than later. 

Christmas Eve 2009.... Long Post

This holiday season has been less than stressful for me.  Simply put, we decided that we were only going to do Christmas shopping for our kids.  We set aside a budget.  In November we went out one friday and spent that budgeted amount on the kids presents.  What do ya know, we were done shopping.

The next weekend was Thanksgiving.  The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went and bought a tree and wrapped all of the presents.  We decorated the tree, placed the presents underneath.  What you ya know, we were done with decorating and wrapping presents as well.

I havn't given a second thought to the holiday hussle and bussle since then.  I am very thankful to not work in retail anymore.  Oh, how that made me hate the holiday season.  That's behind me now.  All I've done this year is sit back and enjoy.   Well, maybe I threw in a lot of running in there too!

A month has gone by and Christmas will be here tomorrow.  In the morning I'll get to watch my sweetheart Shyenne inspect her loot from Santa and open her gifts.  The rest of the day's plans are to eat a lot of food and relax.  Ahhhhh. 

As for running.  I could whine and complain on this one.

I decided on Tuesday, two days after an amazing 16 mile training run for my Half Marathon in 4 weeks.... to run my first Marathon.  I decided that instead of running the Snickers Half Marathon on May 6th, I'm going to bite the bullet and run the FULL MARATHON!  So, I emailed RC about my decision.  I asked for some advise and reassurance that I'm not insane for wanting to do such a thing. 

His answer was simple.  Yes, I could do it.  Although, if I want to do the full marathon in approx. 11 weeks, I would have to commit NOW.  He gave me a few training tips and a long run plan.  As soon as I read the email I was all in.

THEN... wouldn't you know.  Tuesday night's track workout came around.  We got there really early because I got off of work early and I didn't want to drive all the way back to Bryon then come back to Macon.  Amy showed up early so me, Amy, Chuck & Mom did some slow laps to pass the time. I ran about a 2 mile warm up. During the warm up my left ankle and heel was hurting, pretty darn bad.  RC finally showed up and gave us the game plan.  Which sounded super fun.  4 x 400's then a 2 mile "race".  Everyone was to guess their 2 mile time at tempo pace and then run it with no Garmin for pacing help.  There were even prizes involved for the winner who runs their actual time closest to their planned time!  What a cool "speed workout". 

I started running my 400's and immediately my heel and ankle was hurting SO bad that I couldn't hold even an 8:30 pace.  It was just the pain, not my breathing or my legs holding me back.  I did 3 400's and stopped and told Chuck how much pain I was in.  I'm not a baby, I'm pretty hard headed and will stick through a lot of things that hurt.  But this hurt REALLY BAD!

He told me I should really sit out the 2 mile run, that I should hold back now and not hurt anything any worse.  I knew he was right, and against everything in me, I didn't do the race.  I had tears in my eyes watching everyone else participate.  I just DONT like to quit.  I felt like a quitter, even though enough of me knew that I was not running for the right reasons.

I didn't run at all on Wednesday.  I iced/heated/rested/alieved... and used our TENS unit on my heel/ankle area. 

Thursday morning was the Macon Tracks "Christmas Eve Loop Run".  There was plans for everyone to bring treats and we would enjoy hot chocolate after our run. 

I was apprehensive about the pain in my foot.  I decided that I would run 2 to 3 miles out and back, getting around 4 to 6 miles in depending on the pain.  I told Chuck that I WOULD NOT cry and get all bent out of shape if I had to stop and walk. 

At the begining of the run Michelle Archer asked if she could run with me, we were running about a 10:20 pace.  She hasn't been running for about a month and wanted to start back slow.  We were perfect company.  We chatted and ran, slowly.  The pain in my foot kept on nagging.  It wasn't getting any better or worse as we ran.  A few times I stopped and walked with Michelle because her stomach was bothering her.   Walking hurt more than running.  I eventually ran a total of 5.28 miles.  Not bad I guess.  I would have loved to run a tempo run.  But that was out of the question.  My pace ended up being aound 11:00 min miles. 

I talked to RC and he is pretty sure that I developed achilles tendonitis.  I didn't realize that could come on so suddenly.

I'm worried that this is going to seriously interfere with my Marathon training plans.  Although there is no need to worry.  There is nothing I can do to make it disappear.  I can just do the RICE and see what happens.  Hopefully I'll be able to run some quality runs and my long runs soon.  I don't want to miss too much. 

We will see what happens???????????????

Reindeer Run 5K 2009

The Turkey Trots are behind us, bring on the Christmas holiday season! I started out right with my 3rd running of the Reindeer Run in Macon. To be extra festive I put together a little elf costume to wear for the race.

My Step Mom Michele was in town for the weekend so we were able to bring Shyenne and Chuck’s little boy Chase to the race. Michele was there for moral support and to keep an eye on the kids. The kids ended up being excellent race photographers.

As for performance expectations on this race, I wasn’t geared up for a PR. Having run the race before I knew there were a few challenging hills. My goal for the race was to at least get close to my PR, in the 24 min. range would suit me fine.


Chuck, Mom, Michele, Shy, Chase & myself got to the race about an hour early. Chuck and I headed out to warm up. We needed to warm up our muscles for the race, plus it was just COLD out and I didn’t have much covering my legs. We got in about 2 miles before the race started.

RACE TIME! I wasn’t nervous for this one. Just excited and jumping around. The race started on an incline, and stays on an incline…. For what seems like the first 2 miles! I had a hard time keeping my pace anywhere below an 8:00 pace. But I held it steady. Around mile 2 I saw my fellow age grouper Amy and decided that if I could keep her in my sight than I would end up with a decent time.


Running the final stretch of the race I saw Michele, Shy, & Chase cheering and taking pictures. It was great to see them at the end like that. I saw the time clock up ahead, I was in the 24 min. range. I pushed out all I had left in me to keep it under 25. My Garmin read 24:47, the official race results say 24:51.


I am very pleased with this race. It was a strong effort. It was a hilly course. I came in very close to my old PR… something I’ve done twice since I started training under RC’s guidance.

A little Inspiration

I have such an optimistic view today.

Although it’s raining outside, and according to the forecast, it should be raining like this for the entire day.
That’s ok though. Work is slow right now. I have one project to take care of by the end of the day. It shouldn’t take longer than 30 minutes to complete. So, what am I to do?
I’ve gone ahead and printed a 2010 calendar to plan for some races for the upcoming year. This gets me all excited and in the mood to run! I went online searching for all sorts of races, 5K’s to marathons, road races to trails. Anything fun, new, different, same old favorites…you name it.
I quickly realized that one year is not enough time to do everything I want to do. For example if I pick a 5K that I’d like to PR on, I can’t expect to run a Marathon the weekend before. Chuck and I also have our kids every other weekend, so I have to keep in mind that if we want to run a race on the weekend we have kids, we would have to arrange for a babysitter. So you see, it’s not wide open to run whatever we want to run.
This fun search for races around Georgia and maybe even Florida, got me all in the mood to run… I was feeling my mojo.
Last week was a down week for me, running and otherwise. I was just not feeling it. I’m past it now and feeling wonderful.
I decided to go through the blogs that I follow and just randomly read over everyone’s past year of blogs. I came to the realization, that even though we say it to each other as a comfort when a fellow runner is down… but we ALL really do go through the same things.
Each and every runner that blogs goes through the same cycles.

• The “Oh my, I’m going be the best runner ever, I’m going to hit every workout, every pace, run every day, I’m a beast”
• Then the, “Ok, I’ve been running a lot, now what"
• Then the, “I hate running, I havn’t run in X amount of days, weeks, I wish I had the will to go out and run, what’s wrong with me?”
• Then the “OK, I’m through whining about this, let’s get out and run, do my best, be a strong runner, eat right, and hit every planned workout”

We all go through the same cycles. The beautiful thing is, that we always end up back where we started. Fully motivated, recharged, ready to go out and conquer the world.
Not only that. By reading all of my fellow runner’s blogs I remembered one reason I love running so much. It is such an individual experience. We can all be runners, but we all have our own goals. We can be at so many different levels of ability, yet compete in the same event. We don’t have to win the race to meet a goal. We just go out there and do it, do our best, and set our own bar higher and higher as time goes by.
All of this may have been inspired by the amazing speed workout at the track last night.
RC posted the workout on the Macon Tracks site, he called for a 1 mile warm up, 6 / 20 second strides, 2000m – 1600m - 1200m – 800m – 400m all at interval pace followed by a 1 mile cool down. It sounded tough, then I thought about the fact that after the first interval, it would only get easier. Sure enough, we got to the track early since we wanted to get started to get back to Byron. Mom was watching the kids for us so we didn’t want to be out too late.
We warmed up for our first mile, easy. We did our strides. I did NOT want to start that first 2000 meter interval – 5 laps on the track at a goal pace of 7:38. Ugghhh. Regardless, we started it. The first lap I ran a little too fast, so I slowed my roll a bit. Then I settled into the 7:30’s.
2000m – 7:37 Pace, complete.
Then we walked a 400m and geared back up to do a 1600 interval, one mile at a goal 7:38 pace. The pace felt good, I felt strong, and my stride felt very steady.
1600m – 7:35 pace, complete.
During our 1600m the regular group was meeting up for a briefing from RC about the night’s workout. I was already into the workout and I didn’t want to cool back down so I just ran through it. After finishing the 1600 meters (at a 7:35 pace) the meeting was just finishing up, and I looked at RC’s dry erase board where the workout is always written out. He wrote “Killer Intervals”. Ha Ha. The cool part is I knew I had already completed the first two and the last 3 would be a piece of cake!
I ran the 1200m interval at a 7:31 pace.
The 800m at a 7:38 pace, and the 400m at a 7:27 pace.
Overall I stayed under my planned pace of 7:38 so I considered the workout a success. Now I’m ready to tackle the Reindeer Run on Saturday. Hopefully I’ll have a good report from that race. PR or not, it will be fun!

Bartram Forest Winter Run

I just had a good feeling about this race from the beginning. I had heard a few things here and there from other Macon Tracksters about this race. I had planned to participate in it from the very first time I heard about it. After reading the race information I knew it was going to be a good one.  Of course, I was right.

I’m not even sure if it should be called a race, maybe more of an event. The whole idea is that you can run a 50K, a Marathon, or a “Fun Run” completing as many of the 5 mile loops as you wish. My plan was to do the Fun Run version of the event, to complete 3 loops running approximately 15 miles.

Not only was the event extremely laid back as far as which distance you wanted to run, but there was no definite start time, you could stop after each loop and indulge on a wonderful spread of homemade cookies and treats, grilled cheese sandwiches, water, gatoraide, coffee, and more. Sounds good doesn’t it?

We arrived in Milledgeville in plenty of time to get ready to run. Only to discover that there was only one bathroom and the line was very slow moving. Not using the potty was NOT an option. After that we still had to go back to the car and get our Garmins and stuff. Once we got back down to the start line, the race had already started. This is the first race I’ve ever missed the start of. Guess what? It didn’t matter. You could really start whenever you wanted to. So we started the Garmin and off we went.


The loop went something like this:

For about a mile we ran on singletrack trails. It wasn’t too technical. I just wore my regular road shoes. Not too hilly, not hard at all. Then we wended up on some kind of crazy newly made trail that seemed to be freshly bush hogged. It was grassy and uneven. There were holes everywhere and these nasty little small tree stubs that kept trying to grab my shoes. This lasted about a mile or so. Then for a good mile and a half we were on service roads with decent packed surfaces. I remember 1 GOOD hill and another not too bad hill up a power line road. The last mile and a half was back on a double track trail that was pretty easy to maneuver.

I ran loop #1, felt great. Stopped for a few minutes for a cookie and some fluid. Then headed back out for loop #2. On the second loop Chuck’s ankle and Achilles was bothering him really bad. So I kept up with my pace but he slowed down so he wouldn’t hurt himself any further. After loop #2 we stopped again and I ate a rice krispy treat and drank some more gatoraide. Chuck decided to sit out the last loop because he was really hurting. Mom and I took off for our final loop around the forest. The last loop felt the best for me. I ran it faster than each previous loop. While running the last section of trails back to the finish line I saw Chuck up ahead. He decided to run the course backwards to the water station then turn around to get about 3 miles. I finished my “fun run” strong and felt like I could handle two more loops and do a marathon. I have good sense so I quit while I was ahead. We snacked on some of FM’s fudge then headed back to Byron.


I finished with in a total of 2 hours, 30 minutes and some seconds. Not too bad.

Sunday morning when we got up I felt like I had been beat with a really big stick. My whole right side was sore. I guess “good” sore, not injury sore. Today is Monday and I still have some soreness in my calves, quads, and hips. Wow, those hills and uneven terrain really did me in.


Next year, I plan to do the Marathon.

Thanksgiving Week

Last week was a test for me. It all started with my Long Run Half Mile Hell Run that I’ve already written about. As far as running goes, the day was just bad. Not only did my running suffer starting on Monday, but my healthy diet did as well.


Monday-
About 10 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts greeted me when I arrived at work. I had no will power to deny them, so I ate 4 stinkin’ donuts for breakfast. Then, to make things worse, we celebrated the Warden’s birthday by ordering pizza and we all brought homemade treats. Unfortunately I participated in the celebration. Uhhhhh…
That night, thinking I was all past my blunder of a run on Sunday, I was just going to run on the treadmill, 5 miles. Yeah right. I had a tummy ache and ended up only running 3 easy on the treadmill. I was still in my funk apparently.

Tuesday- Track workout. I did the workout RC posted, which looked something like this:
3 Sets of (2 x 200, 2 x 400, 1 x 800), with the exception of the last 800 on the last set. I did horrible as far as hitting my goal times. My stomach hurt because once again, I ate too much at work… too much of the wrong food!
Wednesday- Rest Day. I worked until about 2 then we headed over to Brunswick for Thanksgiving. We ate dinner out and I had massive amounts of fattening food at the restaurant.

Thursday- Turkey Day! For breakfast we had Pecan Pie! Then we sat around and watched T.V. until noon. Then my mom and I went out (in a strange neighborhood, where apparently the dogs arn't used to runners!) and ran and "easy" 4.5 mile run. We didn’t eat dinner until after 4 because Chuck’s Mom had to work. Once we finally ate, I ate so much I was in pain.

Friday- I planned to run my tempo run, but we slept late, ate pie for breakfast, then drove back to Byron. By 5 PM I knew a run was not going to happen! I didn't even stress about it.

Saturday – Bartram Forest fun run. I think I’ll post a whole separate blog for this one! As far as food goes, I ate whatever I wanted at the race. Later we went out and had Mexican for dinner.

Sunday – RESTED AGAIN! We were so sore from the forest run that there was no way I was going to run. I spent the whole day cleaning the apartment. We also went and got our Christmas tree and decorated for the holiday. I finished off the bad eating / slack running week with Pizza Hut pizza and a Yuengling lite. No more junk for me!

I still managed to sqeak out just over 29 miles for the week.  Which wasn't the 40 I had planned on, but far better than I was doing 6 months ago.  If 29 miles is my lazy week, then I think I might be OK with that!