Getting better

I put in a run of a little over an hour yesterday. I'm definitely feeling better. No coughing and hacking while I go. After the run - well that's a different story, but at least I put in some miles tonight. One hour ten minutes, 7 miles. Nothing record setting, but I did get my miles in.

Time to do some recovery Friday for the Saturday 20 miler. I'll make sure to carry *water* this weekend and get some food before takeoff.

Talk to you all later!

Think I'll Stop and Cough up a Lung...

Maybe there's another reason I couldn't finish my long run last weekend. There has been a cold that was making its way through our house the past couple of weeks. I thought I had been able to avoid it, but no such luck. I started feeling bad on Sunday, and by Monday I was congested and coughing. To be sure, I did not have it as bad as the others in the family had it, but nonetheless, I've been hacking away for the past few days.

I missed Monday's run because of travel. I had to go to Yuma Arizona for a couple of days. I had hoped to be able to make it there in time to get my run in, but I wasn't able to leave until late in the afternoon, so I didn't get into Yuma until early evening. It was a nice drive though!

Yesterday I laced up my shoes and ran north out of the NAC. I did put in an hour, but had to stop and cough up a lung a couple of times en route. Bottom line was that I couldn't make 6 miles (5.92 according to the Garmin). I'll do another hour today, and then take Friday off in anticipation of Saturday's long run.

My Garmin is back!

Yea! My Garmin is finally back and running properly! As I noted in my last bog entry (yeah - I know I'm behind), I had received my Garmin Forerunner 305 back from Garmin. I hooked it up to my computer and was having the same problem as before - a USB device malfunction error. The device itself was working - i just couldn't communicate with my computer. I got back on the phone with Garmin on Tuesday. We eliminated all of the hardware in place with one exception - the docking cradle. They agreed to send a new cradle before we went into the depths of software hell to figure out what wasn't running right on my computer. Yesterday the cradle showed up. This morning I plugged it in. Guess what? Success! Turns out that there was something in the cradle that was causing the problem.

I have a bunch of other things to write about. Hopefully I can spend some time this weekend and over the week catching up. Runs went well during the week. Nothing earth shattering or of special importance to talk about. Short runs are now 45 minutes each. Long run this weekend is 16 miles. The only problem is that it's supposed to be 85 degrees here today - so I think I'll carry extra liquids and drop my pace a bit to deal with the heat. I'll post when I get back.

Back to normal

I'm back to my normal running schedule. Yesterday 40 minutes easy, 4.1 miles. Nothing real exciting. Took the lower back bay trail so that I could do the hill at the end of the run. Overall nothing of any real interest to talk about.

Today I think I'll do some cross training in the afternoon. Perhaps a light row and some time in the weight room.

One piece of good news - yesterday Garmin finally gave me an RMA and offered to take my Forerunner under warranty. So I packaged up my 305 and sent it away yesterday. It's going to be 10 to 14 days until it is repaired and returned. Until then, it's running with my Polar and pacing the old way....

Wow ...

It's been almost a week since I posted last. So much for a daily log!

This week was a hectic week. First, I got to travel to Hank Hill country (no offense to anyone from Texas). Got into Houston at 10:30 Tuesday night, drove an hour to Livingston, got to the job site Wednesday morning, put in a few hours, and got back to Orange County by 10PM that evening. Whew!

I did get a run in on Thursday per my training plan. I think my "rest" days did some good, because I was able to put in a pretty easy 4.2 miles on Thursday.

Friday was another issue though. Work work work. Next thing I knew, it was 5:00 PM and I hadn't even had a chance to get a bite to eat since breakfast at 6:30 AM. I was physically and mentally exhausted, and even though a run probably would have been therapeutic, I just couldn't get myself together to change and drive somewhere for a run. So instead it was dinner at this new Japanese restaurant (at least new to us), and crash for the night.

Saturday started out equally as hectic. The first thing that we had to do to start the day was to get my youngest son on a plane. It is spring break for the local public schools this week, and he had an opportunity to train (he's a rower) in Seville, Spain. Now, I do a fair amount of travelling, and I have *never* seen the airport as crowded at it was Saturday morning! We were lucky to get him on his plane and away on time. In fact, I had to "tip" a skycap to get him on his way. An hour was marginally enough time before his flight. He made it by the skin of his teeth....

With that stress point behind me, it was time for long run Saturday. Our runs are now getting quite fun. We had a 10 mile out and back on the San Diego Creek trail. I had to "old time" it as far as pace, because my Garmin is kaput (that's another story)! So, I was happy to see that my brain still worked, and I was able to maintain a 10:00 pace for the entire run.

One thing for sure - as these runs get longer, I need to start eating before the run. About mile 8 or 9, I can really start feeling it in my legs. I do carry a water belt and carry up to 40 oz of liquid. Saturday, I carried 20 oz of water, and 20 oz of Ultrafuel (http://www.twinlabfuel.com/wcm/mb/fuel/en/content/products/Ultra_Fuel/index.jsp). I was turned onto Ultrafuel when I was rowing. It came highly recommended by Xeno Muller, Olympic Gold and Silver medalist, as a replacement drink. The advantage of this over a drink like Gatorade is the mix of complex carbs that can be used immediately by the body for energy. I really can tell the difference when using Ultrafuel on long runs. My 20 ozs give me about 300 calories that can be used during the run. When put in perspective, the 10 mile run for me burns about 1500 calories, so the 300 is about 20% of what I burn.

Today is a rest day. Now to tackle the Garmin problem.....

Scaling back for a while

Remember two weeks ago when I ramped up my training time? Guess what? Time to ramp back down for the time being! My body is telling me that I'm trying to do too much too fast.

Nothing serious has occurred - yet. But I am just starting to feel aches and pains that I had not felt before. Pain in my shins and calves. A sore ankle. Stabbing pain in my knee every now and then. Not to mention kind of constant tiredness in my quads and just in general. Yesterday it was a real struggle to finish a 45 minute run! I started out fine, but by minute 30, I was struggling to get one foot in front of the other. I really tailed off the last 10 minutes or so. These are all signs that I'm going out too far too fast. The last thing I want to do is miss the marathon because I'm hurt!

So, it will be off today and depending on how I feel, maybe off tomorrow before our "long" run on Saturday. Then, I'll get back on track with the Cal Coast training program next week. I think next week we ramp up to 40 minutes a day 3x per week. I'll keep one cross train day on Tuesdays and try to get in the weight room on Thursdays.

So for today, I'll put my feet up on the table today and kick back!

Back to Running

I'm writing this a day late. I think that a combination of the 5 mile walk on Sunday, the time change, and the hills on yesterday's run really took it out of me. My kids were laughing at me last night when I hit the sack at 8:15.

Yesterday I started at the Newport Aquatic Center and headed south. The first thing that confronts a runner heading either north or south out of the NAC is "the hill". If you head north, the hill is not quite as steep, but the northerly route dumps you into a residential neighborhood where you compete with cars for running space on the streets. Heading south, on the other hand, allows you to get onto the Newport Back Bay trail within half a mile. Of course, then you face "the hill" - probably a 100 foot climb up to the top of the bluff at Castaways. A mile or so later after running the trail at Castaways, its back down to the intersection of Dover Drive and Coast Highway, and then up and over the overpass on Coast Highway over the bay and finally down to sea level as you run the trail behind Newport Dunes:

Then, on the way back, you get to do it all over again! Needless to say, by the end of my run yesterday my quads were screaming - and that's at 10:20 per mile!

Today it's back onto the erg for a little bit of *light* erging, then a stretching and weight session! Time for some rest!

So Cal Day

Today was a typical Southern California day. Santa Ana winds blowing. At least 80 outside. Beautiful, sunny day. The type of day everyone loves *except* for us runners. Tonight was my 3 times a week one hour run. So I filled the water belt and did an Upper Back Bay trail run.

The Upper Back Bay on a day like today is simply a stunning run. Especially at sundown. The only downside today was the wind. At least when the Santa Anas blow, it's a warm wind. Plus, it wasn't blowing that hard, so the effect was negligible.

I'm going to get back to reading the Higdon book this week. I'll jot some more ideas as the week progresses.

Still in my office....

But I got my run in today.

I have a large program running in Virginia. A bunch of work going on in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee. I get to sit here in 70 degree, sunny weather in Southern California.

I also get to catch up a little on my radio listening. For a while now, I've been a Phil Hendrie fan. For those of you who may not know who he is, Hendrie is a Nationally syndicated radio personality. His claim to fame is that he performs much like a voice actor does. He has several characters where he provides voices. His characters are an assortment of politically incorrect folks. He will have his characters call into his show. He then carries on both sides of the conversation with his character on some current topic. For example, one of his characters, Rudy Canosa, owns a lingerie store. On Valentine's Day, Canosa called in to Hendrie to talk about gifts for Valentine's Day. While they are talking about that, foghorns start going off in the background. When asked what those are for, Canosa explains that the foghorns are to warn his sales staff that an "extra large" woman has come in the store. They need to be earned because these fat women will stretch the lingerie when they try it on. So you get the general idea. You can catch Hendrie on KTLK (1150 AM) here in Los Angeles 9PM to 1AM. You can also catch Phil on his website at http://www.philhendrieshow.com.

My bigger problem though is that I'm an early to bed, early to rise guy. So, I rarely stay up to listen to the show, relying instead on podcasts of the show made available at http://newphilhendrieshow.com/forum. Likewise, I also have a computer set up to record another of my favorites, Coast to Coast AM. I use a product called Replay AV from Applian Software to capture the recording right off KFI's Internet feed. When I come in in the morning, I have the previous night's C2C ready to listen at my leisure.

So, while sitting here tonight (this conversion job in Virginia has been running for 4 and a half hours now), I've been able to listen to last night's C2C AM (I fast forward through the news and commercials), and finished up the 2/22 edition of the Phil Hendrie Show. Of course, I got the first hour of Phil on my run tonight.

So far, I'm on week 2 of my hour long runs during the week. I *can* tell a difference too. I am running with a little more energy and am much more comfortable through 4 and 5 miles. I am managing to keep my pace at 10:00 or a little better, and keep my heart rate in the 150 range. I'm still not fast, only making it through about 6 miles on each run, but I'm hoping the speed will come as I build a better base. For now, I'll just keep plugging along.

Headwind Hell Part 2

Today was another day like Wednesday. When I left for work this morning, it was lightly sprinkling. But, the rain actually woke me up during the night last night. So it was a dark and stormy night (to coin a phrase).

It didn't rain the rest of the day, and actually started clearing up in the late afternoon. So, by the time I got to my run about 3:30, not only was it sunny, but there was a good stiff breeze blowing from the South. And by a stiff breeze, I mean whitecaps on the back bay's water.

Having experienced this on Wednesday, I got smart today, and ran into the headwind for the first half of my run, and got a nice little push from a tailwind after my turnaround. The final numbers? 6 miles in one hour. Not too bad. Also, I'm not sore, which is good for tomorrow's run.

Headwind Hell

Today was one of those rare days in Southern California. Stormy, rain off and on, and later in the day - windy. I took off on my hour run today and for the first 30 minutes, everything seemed pretty nice. A little cool, but in a long sleeve shirt, it wasn't too bad. Heart rate below 150, making about 10:00 per mile. Everything cool. I got to my turnaround point, and I found out why. The wind must have been blowing 15 miles an hour at my back the entire time.

The way back was *not* fun. I got to run into a headwind and uphil. Got about 5.8 miles in and spent time looking for quarters.......