Tomorrow California opens up. I'm calling it VC day (Victory over Covid). It's been 15 months where our lives changed in many, many ways. But this is a running blog, so I'll just focus on that.
The biggest change was the loss of in-person racing. I still ran. Even more than normal, actually. Last year was a record high for mileage. With no vacations, no work (I quit uber driving), no going out anywhere, the highlight of my calendar was my running schedule. So I stepped up to 5 days a week a
I feel like an old man.
Obviously, there are older men than me. Obviously, there are men my age and younger who are in worse health. Perspective is so important.
Aren't comparisons supposed to be with ourselves? That's supposed to keep us from falling into the rabbit hole of self pity, since there's always someone who's better-looking, stronger, faster, whatever than we are. So what happens when your ideal comparator - yourself from before - is all of that? The maxim falls apart at a c
Short memory.
It can be a strength sometimes. Sometimes not.
I think there would be fewer families with more than one child if mothers remembered exactly how much labor hurt.
As I start to put some miles on after this last injury, I have to be very purposeful in my approach. Too many miles, even if I keep it slow, are not a good idea. Don't think I'd consider myself fragile. Not an ironman, either. I'm just an old guy who wants to run. I think I'm done trying to be fast anymore,
May 2021 in review!
Total mileage for the month: 289.8
April 26-May 2: 60.2
May 3-9: 77.7
May 10-16: 63.0
May 17-23: 41.5
May 24-30: 69.1
We made the May OMRR newsletter cover!
Just a normal Thursday morning!
Races:
May 15: Tobacco Road Marathon (non-technical dirt tr
Pretty big, anyway.
It was 11 weeks ago tomorrow that I came up lame with my Achilles tendon hurting. I'll continue to blame the Cumulus. It was either a factory second (thus the clearance pricing from Asics?) or a lemon or maybe it was just sitting in a warehouse for too long. They were never right from the first mile. I had hoped they just needed some break in or that the change from the Rincons was more dramatic than I expected. Either way, it was the DL for who knew how long.
With
Woke up this morning, determined to be more diligent in my efforts to fix this Achilles.
Did a little more stretching while we were in Idaho for the wedding. Twice a day most days. Didn't see see much improvement, and of course getting more and more discouraged. Knowing that I'm going to need a new pair of shoes when I (hopefully) start again. Not even going to complain about starting from ground zero. Running is running, after all. But what's the point of spending $100+ on running shoes if
The Tobacco Road Marathon in Cary, North Carolina was exactly what I needed! When I initially decided to add a marathon to my season after my 50k, I wanted to PR-chase, but no options for that pursuit lined up (details here), which I now see as one of the biggest blessings God could have given me. I went into this race with no time goal because I wasn't sure how much the gravel would slow me down. My major goals were to enjoy it all, to be thankful, and to compete in the elite field. What I
Wow! 2 Loopettes at the same race! We will meet one day!
My friend H has been trying to get me to race more. He's convinced that I'm way faster than I think I am.
I hemmed and hawed about signing up for this 5k because it was only 2 weeks after the marathon. After the marathon I've been having some left calf pain/tightness. I think it's just fatigue so have been trying to give it some time to heal without completely sitting myself down (*shudder*).
I ran fast on the trails with H
YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! I get to write a race report again!!!!😍😁
My training has been inconsistent at best. There are some weeks I get in 15 miles with 1 workout and other weeks where I get 0 miles. So, I didn’t have much in the way of expectations, but my Mother’s Day present to myself was to race in person (without the stroller thanks to my mom sacrificing racing herself to watch DD and DS). Plus, an excuse to go to Cape May and the beach is always good!
My goal was under 24 minutes
You know, once this Achilles finally gets better (although, truth be told, I have times nearly every day when I wonder if it ever will), my next comeback to marathoning is going to be quite the adventure.
In the meantime, still working on the house. Things are going VERY slowly. I decided that since I'm doing so much trim I better do it better than I have before, which means I needed to learn a fair amount about how to do it correctly. I've never been happy with how my previous trim work ha
April 2021 in review!
Total mileage for the month: 307.1
March 29-April 4: 101.6
April 5-11: 92.0
April 12-18: 72.6
April 19-25: 52.5
April 26-May 2: 60.2
I take my best professional
race photos in training races
Though this one from mile 21 at
Frisco came out well #runhappy
If you read my last blog -- Confident -- you know I'm not a super confident runner .... or apparently person as several people have pointed out lately. I'm a work in progress, I suppose. I did however feel super confident in my training leading up to the marathon. The 1 mile PR, the amazing last 20 mile run and an 8 mile bridge run where I ran an 8:07 mile without trying (unheard of for me).
As I was driving the 6 hours down to Chesapeke, VA, I had my music cranked and was getting more ampe
How has it been so long? I meant to do better…honestly although my running has been decent, most everything else has been a struggle. I talked to a career counselor and I have changed some things about how I’m doing my job search, but I still have had no interviews and I haven’t seen a job that just jumps out at me as what I really want – a couple that combine elements of research/human health/nutrition were the best, but nothing has worked out…between days of monotonous data entry and the job s
The short-ish:
I'm an ultra marathoner! On April 24, I took on the 50k distance for the first time on a non-technical dirt trail in Willard, Missouri. I knew I was fit, but I also knew how much could go wrong in a race of this distance! Lucky for me, things went right for 27 miles and I fought through the final 4 miles well enough to land an overall person win, an overall women's Missouri state record, a course record (faster than the men's course record), and a killer runner's high. My
There are many adjectives that describe me.
Stubborn -- just ask my mom she'll tell you.
Diligent -- haven't missed any runs on my training plan
Adventuresome -- remember the Triple Trailfest and 50k on a whim
Shy -- OMG! Do you know how long it took me to walk into the CrossFit gym BY MYSELF?? or to meet my internet running friends?
But Confident is not a word that I would use to describe myself - especially in running.
I shy away from group runs because what if I
Progress can be slow at times. But progress is still progress. You do the best you can. You keep moving forward.
I remember having a pretty serious hamstring strain a few years ago at the height of training for the Rehoboth marathon. As is often the case, despite not being 100% healthy and with less than optimal training coming in, I went anyway because Loopsters. I'm not much of a party guy and even though Rehoboth is the most famous and enduring party Loopfest, I knew I wanted to touch ba
The short:
I added the Clinton Historic Half Marathon to my race schedule less than a week before the race. With my 50k being a week after Clinton, I didn't want to run too hard, but I thought/hoped I could win it without running all out. My running buddies Colin and Brad rode to the race with me, making for a fun trip, and I ended up cruising to 1st overall female in 1:24:37, which was faster than I thought I was going to need to run but still felt comfortable enough that I'm not worried
I’d say we were up bright and early on Saturday morning, but, while it was early (6 am), it was anything but bright. That big nasty storm that gave MeganKate and stewmanji snow, and popped tornadoes through OK and other states, crept up on Ontario while we were sleeping and it was pouring rain in Niagara Falls. Glad I was driving and not running. We drove past the river above the falls for a bit – icebergs! OMG, I don’t think I’ve seen anything that looked so cold before in my life.
It took
No running this week.
Went down to Ford Field for my second covid shot. More people than the last time I was there, but still a very smooth operation and next to no waiting.
There's one spot where the new tile didn't quite lock into place properly. The guys are supposed to come this week to look at it and hopefully fix it. There are a couple of other places where if I walk around barefoot I can feel my bargain basement underlay, but I'm going to let that go.
I've repaired the pla
Unless you count the fact that my Achilles is still being a butthead. I was going to give it some time before I escalated treatment, but as I was sitting at my office desk (dining room table) a couple of days ago, I noticed that It would give me a tweak almost every time I moved it. Not a ton, but not great and it hasn't gotten any better in the 3 weeks since I came up lame. So I pulled out the walking cast I used in 2006 for my ruptured PF and strapped it on. I'm going to use it all day until I
Then I'll write about something else. (let me know if you can see the pics now)
Went for my annual physical last Friday. As usual, it was a ho hum affair. Fortunately, because of covid (I think) there was no rectal prostate exam. And since I'm still active for a guy "my age", the fact that I'm not on any medications, my blood pressure and HR are optimal, and my cholesterol and other heart disease indicators are excellent, he didn't have much to say.
Until the blood test results came ba
March 2021 in review!
Total mileage for the month: 428.2, which is a pretty significant new monthly mileage PR for me (my previous was 400.2 in Dec. 2019)
March 1-7: 102.2
March 8-14: 91.9
March 15-21: 100.2
March 22-28: 90.3
March 29-April 4: projected at 100
Races:
March 13: Running of the Squirrels 5k in 18:36 (5:58 pace) for 1st overall female. I accomplished the goals I had for this tra
Guys, it happened. I was doing four sets of five minutes, in the hopes of eventually stringing along enough minutes to ditch the walk breaks all together, and it happened!
It was my third set. I was chugging along, listening to “Nice White Parents,” and fretting about the world, when I realized that I wasn’t struggling. I looked at my garmin, assuming that I must have slowed down, but no! I was at my normal pace. It just didn’t suck. I didn’t feel like all I wanted to do in the whole w
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