Day 370 and 371 -- Push up day 4

• 2.87 miles
• 8:00/mile pace
• 2350
• Houston, TX
• A double up effort as the meetings/conference/dinner ran late and I had to squeeze this one in -- seriously thought about ending the streak, but didn't want to end with a 6 in the number and also just couldn't allow the streak to end in the home town of faithful streak reader, Craig M. Brandenburg.  
• Downtown Houston:   From the corner of Smith and Jefferson, down Jefferson to Dowling, left to Polk and then returned -- included for CMB in case he may care to know the details...loosely associated, Dowling is not a thriving road, economically speaking...well, not legally at least. 
• 25 push ups, standard (hands just outside/wider-than shoulders and at shoulder level with relation to length of body:   Going forward I will try to add a bit of detail with regard to the type of push-ups being done...starting with next effort I will begin to a) vary the types and b) increase the volume occassionally...until I get burned out and then just do streak extender efforts to the utter bordom of anyone following)  

Day 360

• 4.23 miles
• 7:44/mile pace
• 2045
• From/To Home
• Felt like this was a good effort after a pretty long day which included the following:
• Waking up in a tent
• Swimming against various river currents
• Hiking 4 miles uphill carrying a backpack
• Driving 100 miles or so
• Giving Case a handful of bull rides as that is his new thing since we went to watch bull riding on Friday night
• Note in relation to the above list -- hiking with Laurawesome and CMB was really cool, they're excellent backpackers, great company and never one up our kid stories with stories about their kids. 
• I felt like I was running much faster than 7:44/mile pace...but I think that has to do with the fact that I was quite sore from the backpacking and may have run the first mile much slower than the final 3+.

Day 308

• 1.7 miles
• Slow
• 0640
• From/To Home
• Have decided to take it very easy for a few days to see if that will help me...yes, I am concerned about the fact that I will not be "improving" my fitness, but when JEC asked the other day if I were perhaps overtrained it seemed quite possible...so...today I ran a very slow loop within the neighborhood and only sped up when I caught up to a pregnant lady that has been faithfully running throughout her entire pregnancy, which I estimate to be 8 months long and counting -- seems I am more vain than I am committed to the extended recovery effort, but the increased speed only lasted maybe .2/mile, so probably no harm done.  

Day 276

• 5.15 millas
• 7:46/milla pace
• 0605
• Playa Mujeras, Mexico
• Lector fiel, Sr. CMB, me dio la gran sugerencia que debo fijar en la lengua que corresponde a la localización en donde cada uno funcionada se registra.   Necesitaré ir de nuevo a enmiendo algunos postes anteriores, pero hasta que consigo a ése dejo esto ser el primer poste que comienza esa práctica. 
• Esto era un funcionamiento “fácil” en la rueda de ardilla pues el hotel que estoy permaneciendo adentro no sugiere que funcione fuera de la facilidad.   Asombrosamente, yo por lo menos, la exhibición de la rueda de ardilla demostró la medida imperial en vez de métrico -- Habría podido jurar que esa vez última era en México la rueda de ardilla que era encendido era métrico.  De todas formas, más fácil para mí, aunque este funcionamiento no era tan fácil como probablemente debe haber estado.
• http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html  if desired.
• OK, I just used that in direct reverse and the translation is abysmal, but I found it to be humorous and since it is unlikely that any of my 3-5 readers care as much about whatever I was trying to say as they'll appreciate the butchered translation I will gladly leave it as it is...the alternative would be to just type in English, as I have with this portion, breaking the just accepted rule, but adding "El" before some words and ending nearly all words with the letter "O" as I like to do when mocking my inability to speak Espanol.

Day 235

• 11.82 miles
• 8:35/mile pace
• 0550
• South Mountain
• Met up with Dean for a run on his turf and really enjoyed it -- good route, great conversation...and not as painful as I feared it would be considering that I completely fried myself on the Salt River yesterday with Laura, Craig, Becca, Tess, Dra and hundreds of tatooed folks.   I look like I've been stained with half a dozen tomatos shot at me from a pitching machine.
• After the run I got an absolutely incredible tour of Dean's office building and recommend it to anyone who can get the opportunity, seriously awesome.  
• Random point that is probably only interesting to me -- Dean's Garmin measured our run to be .14 miles longer than mine did...

Day 214

• 8.85 miles (6.85 hard, estimate 2 easy on return)
• 9:02/mile pace (during first 6.85, slower on second run)
• 0614
• Dreamy Draw Park to top of North Mountain via trail 100 -- aka LMI North Mountain Challenge
• Failure.   Not only did I fail to break 1 hour, looking back I am convinced that I also prevented my fellow suffering friend to do the same as he literally stopped and waited for me at one point so that we could try to make up time during the flatish section.  Pathetic on my part, seriously.  It could possibly be consolation that with a finishing time of 1:01:54 I shaved almost 3 minutes from my previous effort, but it isn't.   For whatever reason I just didn't have it in me to push any harder than I did, which is disappointing.   I don't know or even think that had I really pushed as hard as I could have I'd have shaved off 2 minutes, but it is still poor that I couldn't muster the stomach to try it.   What this means, of course, is that I have to try it again, but I'm not setting a date on "3rd time's a charm" until I've put myself through a lot more training.   For record keeping purposes, Craig's official time, and the NEW 2012 LMI North Mountain Challenge course RECORD, was 1:00:27.   (And I reiterate, he STOPPED for me...he is quite strong)
• The return was basically a shortcut through neighborhoods hooking back up with Trail 100 for the very end to get us back to our vehicles of choice.  For some reason, I think because I wanted to practice running downhills faster (something I've always been pretty skilled and fearless doing, but learned Sunday that it is possible to go MUCH faster downhill by seeing Craig go), I finished the last 3 or 4 tenths of a mile quickly...hopefully that will start me on some serious training for my next attempt!  (The return from bottom of North Mountain was 3.38 miles and took us 35 minutes, but I estimate that we only actually ran 2 miles since we had to pick our way through a mountainous section etc. -- probably a conservative estimate as perhaps we ran more than two, but whatever)
• A special thanks to Just Enough Craig for going through this with me again and providing significant inspiration...semi-related, I'm still shocked no one else showed up to join us, I thought for sure my millions of readers would've been interested....
• IronChad, I now look forward to running 10+7 with you and drinking lemonade while you're off biking between the 10 and 7.

Day 213

• 1.7 miles
• Brisk
• 0555
• From/To home
• Tapering for Sunday's sub-1 hour attempt with Craig...or maybe I was just too lazy to do more...probably both.

Day 212

• 2.14 miles
• Slow
• 0630
• From/to home
• Short easy run because it may be a taper run?   Have to talk to LMI champion, CMB, to see when we're doing our little second effort at The North Mountain Challenge, but just in case it's tomorrow I felt I needed to be ready...which I'm not, I'm not ready, I'm worried.   Anyway, happy quatro de Mayo.
• Left knee feels fine now, hopefully it was just something I needed to get used to. 

Day 204

• 2.8 miles
• 6:47/mile pace
• 0540
• Westbury, NY
• A quick streak extender -- as is often the case when I travel within the U.S.A. I failed to look at any weather forecasts before beginning my trip.   Running fastish helped me tolerate the chilly temperature and additionally finish my 2.8 miles faster than I most probably would have.   Sure, I could've just run on the treadmill, but then, per previous promise to faithful reader and 2012 LMI Champion, JEC, I may have needed to run further or longer, neither of which I was eager to do this morning.   Anyway, happy enough with this run, probably mostly because it is now done.

Day 172

Sunday March 25, 2012

• 6.8 miles
• 9:30/mile pace
• 0900
• Dreamy Draw Park to North Mountain Summit
• My first ever Laura Matera Invitational start!!!  I was labeled the pre-race favorite and thought that was pretty cool.  I half expected to blow up and possibly finish dead last, but still, I thought it was pretty cool to think I might finish first...right up to the point that some no shoes wearin centaur decided to make a last minute entry at the behest of the dang Race Director.   From that moment on my hopes were dashed, but hey, at least I got to completely destroy my legs running up and down a zillion rocky hills and think about how mangled the vibram-5-fingers feet up ahead must be.   In all seriousness though, this was a really great event with a cool people percentage (100%) that I don't believe is matched by any other organized race in the continental United States.   It was very well run, very much appreciated by all and even had solid crowd support so into the event that they were calling out our individual names as we ran by (though unfortunately no one got my full name "payson BOBBY" right, deciding to just call me "BOBBY" only as if we were old friends, which I found to be a bit disrespectful actually).     
• The race was significantly more physically taxing than I expected it to be and the final .7 was flat out hard...I wasn't disappointed in my effort at all, but since I was so certain that I'd be able to finish in under an hour JEC and I decided to take another stab at it in a few weeks in an attempt to do just that -- pretty certain that all he needs to achieve the sub-60 minute time is to put on a pair of snazzy running shoes like mine, though bigger for sure, whereas I need to find a pair of kangaroo legs like his...hmmm, seems I at least need to get a few hilly runs in.   I'm thinking the weekend of May 5th-6th, but will have to check with CMB.
• Ms. Race Director Laurawesome, Thank you!!!  The event was very fun and I desparately hope to be invited to next years LMI, which I assume will end at the top of Humphrey's Peak.

Day 158

• 6.11 miles
• 8:20/mile
• 1930
• From/To home
• Got the boys to sleep and since our guest was going to sleep as well Becca and I decided we'd go for a run together to take full advantage of having another adult in the house.   This was Bec's first run since her marathon and she's had some pain in her foot (not sure which one), but she said it wasn't too bad on this run, which is nice.   Found out about my next race today, March 25, The Laura and Craig Invitational, can't wait, probably ought to increase mileage between now and then to prepare for the 7 miler, but we'll see. 

Day 157

• 2.78 miles
• Medium
• 1430
• From/to home
• Pushed boys in Burley stroller to the park, 1.2 miles from home and then after an hour+ of park time we returned home a longer way, though not long...thankfully first segment was long enough to satisfy my 2k everyday goal as Case insisted upon stopping to pick up pinecombs on the return home leg.   Anyway, glad to get it in, even though I had the greatest plan to accomplish later if needed (JEC, aka CMB).   Little dudes are getting heavy.

Day 149

• 3.48 miles
• 7:20/mile pace
• 0510
• From/To Home
• Strange right hip tightness/discomfort that I'm blaming on the guy that bent my ear for the entire CLT/PHX flight last night as I felt I had to angle my body towards him or he would be insulted...nice guy though and may give the company I work for some business, but whatever, not worth it if the discomfort lasts more than just another few hours.   Felt pretty good running, didn't push, but wasn't totally lazy about it either, pace was good.   Becca and Finn are on their way to Mobile/New Orleans for her marathon on Sunday, which is very cool, but also means I have to figure out some way to get my runs in for the next three days....options are:   Treadmill at the club, pending that I show up when day care is available.   Ask Laura to hang with Case while I go for a run, ideally with Craig.   Ask Catie to watch her two girls and Case while Chad and I go for a run.   Convince Case that he wants to sit in the jogging stroller for a while.   Each may require bribery, but I'm in no way opposed to that.

Day 128

• 2.45 miles
• 8:19/mi pace
• 0750
• From/To home
• Just slow streak extending run, worried about tomorrows long run (20-21 miles) so took it easy.   Now that I fear Craig and Laura read my blog I can't seem to be as casual about my comments anymore...not that I mind, they are some of our best friends and I'm honored to think that they care that I even have an unannounced blog, but I do need to go back and edit out any negative comments I may have put in the blog about anything since this is a reminder that all things on the net are public :).