Trials of Miles

Ok, there are a couple of good things about running in the middle of the day:

1) Re-awakens me. I hid that midday lull, and after I get a few miles in, my blood is rushing again, and it wakes my mind up.

2) It's good for me, and slowly becoming a habit.

Bad things:

1) Cooling down. Middle of the day, heat is high (and will get higher come next month, so hello treadmill), and even a cold shower doesn't do much.

2) Sometimes makes for a longer day. If I go longer than 45 mins (using this as my lunch break), then I have to stay later.

3) Cooling down. Ugh.

*chugs ice water*


Wow, has it really been 25 weeks since I last peeked in here?

I'm a bad fitness blogger.

I had some minor surgery last month, but it was recommended to me to not run for at least two weeks. Well, two weeks turned into almost four, as I was just lazy.

Gym time has been fine. I've been trying my mix up my weight training, and it's been interesting. Trying to move away from machines, unless I'm just have a tired morning, and be inventive with the free weights and the exercise ball. Good stuff.

I've got a lot of ideas from the Men's Fitness website. Good stuff. Lots of things I hadn't tried before, that I can tell have made a difference, especially with core routines.

Workouts the last few months have been steady, and good, with very little muscles weariness, but just enough muscle soreness.

I've mixed up a lot of what I've been doing in the gym. A lot more free weights and varied routines, a lot taken from the Men's Health website, a few more from friends' suggestions.

With running, I've incorporated two days a week for sprint workouts, usually lasting between 30 - 45 mins. Running is probably the easiest way for me to get a workout in for the day, since my schedule is so tight. I'm averaging three days a week in the gym, using my lunch break to cram in 40 min workouts and a 2 min shower before heading back to work, but almost always 5 days a week running.

The good news (for me anyway) is that I've stayed below 190 lbs now for over three months. It makes me feel pretty good, to stay constant, and I can tell in my running that losing that excess weight has made the pressure on joints and tendons ease off a bit. The sprint workouts have definitely helped build stronger muscle in my calves and quads, so I'm carrying my weight more efficiently now.

I'm shooting at another 10 lbs lost before I start looking at signing up for a race. Over the last 5 months or so, it's been about a lb a week, but in late Sept and Oct I've plateaued, so I'm thinking I've reached a balance between muscle mass and total weight, and there's a few more fat pockets that need some trimming.

I have, of course, forgotten what day this is since I've begun this thing, so we'll have to figure that up later.

This last week or two, I've been trying to do time trials, taking about fifteen minutes to run out, away from the house, as far as I can, then turning at the 15 or 16 minute mark, and then trying to beat that time back, to show a reverse split (which I have yet to accomplish).

This little, eleven dollar digital pedometer is probably one of the coolest little gadgets I've ever got. It used to be that I would actually use my car and map out courses, using the odometer. With this, having set it to my pace, I can run out of so many minutes, look down, hit split on the watch, turn, and then run back to the house. It feels like it's helping.

It was cool this morning, in the upper 60's I guess, but the humidity ust sticks to you as you try and run through the air. Good run though. This is... the 6th run? in a row where I have NOT stopped to walk.

Still haven't kicked out a reverse split, but I'm getting closer. Also, it looks like I'm running out farther for the time I have. I've had 4.89 miles in 31 mins; 5.2 miles in 33.37 mins, and 5.3 miles for 32.12 mins. Not spectacular per miles splits, but good distances.

For a while, I had plateaued with the weight thing, usually between 184 and 187, which I was pretty pleased with. I haven't stepped on a scale lately, but I've been running a lot more and I feel lighter. This could mean that I've dropped a couple of lbs, but it also says a lot to my legs getting back some lost muscle, and simply supporting my body better. I haven't really noticed any pants fitting much looser.

If anyone has any suggestions for a kick ass chest and triceps workout, I'm all ears. I'm getting a little burned out with my routine.

Off to the showers with me.

4.2 miles. 28.32 mins. Not bad, but certainly not great.

It's so windy outside right now, that running up the last hill, it actually felt like I was going nowhere.

Note to self: When runny on a brisk, Spring morning, do not wear a Flash tee shirt, and then come upon a gaggle of high school cross country runners. You cannot keep up with them. You should not try. Your knees will hate you for it. Why are you not listening to me?


So, warm weather here again means I can get back out to the roads. It's just not the same running indoors. It does nothing for me, mentally. There's something about outdoor running that exhilarates me, and can never be copied by pounding the treadmill in the gym.

I love my new shoes.



Nike Air Hayward's. Zoom Air, runs the entire length of the sole. Wonderful cushioning. I highly recommend them.

Weight training has been going smoothly the last few weeks, and I'm still sitting just below the 190lb mark. I have to write that off to too much eating out, and not enough running, but it's still reasonable for me. I expect to drop a few more lbs in the next few weeks, as long as I keep rising in the morning, putting the shoes on, and hitting the pavement.

I've recently got a punching bag.

I love it.

I started doing timing routines on it after I would run (for those who may not it, timing routine are for boxing, and it counts your seconds between moves, etc). The first few times, I would just be worn out, shoulders burning.

I looked up a few routines centered around the punching bag, and set time limits for it. Right now, I'm up to a max of 20 minutes. I highly recommend it. It's a great stress reliever (for me) and done with a combination of jump rope and stomach exercises, it leaves you with a great, solid muscle ache.

If you've never done a bag routine before, you may find yourself surprised at how quickly your arms and legs begin to fatigue, and how swollen your hands may be afterwards. I have a good pair of sparring gloves, and have now taken to wrapping my wrists and hands before I do it. It's possibly the quickest I've seen upper body results, from something that doesn't actually involve weight resistance movements.

Weight right now is still below 190, and that makes me pretty happy. It's been so damn cold lately in Kansas City that I've been a big pussy about running, so cardio is suffering a bit here. The jump rope and new bag routines are helping though, but I still stick with that there's nothing better than The Run.

Visits to the gym have been infrequent, but I still feel pretty strong. I'll throw in push ups and dips from a chair when I feel the extra energy in me.

Doing dips with negative resistance from a simple kitchen chair (arms behind you on the chair, drop elbows to 90 degree angle, s l o w l y raise back up) can be friggn' excruciating after a punching bag routine. Usually I only get in a couple sets of 10.

So, it's been about 100 days (guesstimating) since I've started this, and as infrequent as updates have been, I still have been able to stick to a decent schedule. Winter is always tough for me, to run. I always look outside, listen to the wind, and wince a little bit. It takes something extra to find the will to bundle up and feel my lips getting chapped, when I run through 6 degree winds.

Whew. Been quite a long while since I visited this space.

Running is ALMOST a habit again. There have been too many mornings that I've skipped, allowing myself to ignore my own schedule, and skip the morning run. Trying to make it almost automatic where I get out of bed, put the shoes on, and go run... that's the only way I know how to do it, and always get it down.

It's nice though... I can feel my legs getting stronger. My knees aren't hurting... as much as they were. There's still some occasional soreness in there, and I'll take some advil for it. Shinsplints are gone, hopefully never to return. Those are always annoying, walking around with these little needles in your legs.

I still have this racing bug... I can feel it, sitting the back of my brain.

It's like the younger version of me, the one who ran all the time, loved to race, and would run no matter the weather, has been laying in there, sleeping. Now he's awake, and stretching, and prodding this old man to get out there and do it again. I keep telling him to wait, and to remember that we've learned patience, and how much older we are now and how much longer it takes to recover. He's not caring though. He wants me to run. He kind of scares me. Crazy kid.

Weight work is spotty. Not always times after work to get to the gym, so I find myself doing any weight work at home, using body resistence. It doesn't feel quit the same to me, as a good session with weights or machines, but i still feel pretty strong.

Jeans are a little roomier. That's interesting.

Goooooood run this morning. It was one of those runs where I went out, did my 35 minutes, and when I was done, I felt like I needed to do more.

It's mornings like this that I think to myself that I would seriously love to race again. I'd luuuuuuv to. To look at that in a proper light, I would need to drop at least another 15 lbs to get to proper race weight, and at this point in my life, I don't think I want to do that. I'm happy right now, staying in shape, doing what I need to do to stay healthy... but man, that nagging little itch that I can feel in my legs when I have a good run like this morning, it just makes me wonder about racing again.

At 31 years old, if I were to up my training to a point where it was centered around the goal to race again in 8 - 10 months... I have this feeling I would discover setbacks, purely on the fact that my body is aging. I don't know if I want that. It would awaken a realization in me that I may not want to admit. I've never had very many injuries due to training or racing, in the past, but I think that uping the scale of what I'm doing now, with my age as a factor, I'd start to see more aches and pains.

On the injury note, I have been noticing soreness in my elbows and shoulders. I've switched back to free weights for the next four weeks, so last week was all weights, no machines, and I know that freedom of movement with free weights will lend itself to more strain on tendons. I'll watch it for now, and take a couple of advil when needed. I did have some shin spints last week, but I've got new shoes, and these wonderful Air Maxes are heaven to my sturdy toes. These little aches and pains are part of what makes me ease back a little, when my mind gets to thinking about a return to racing.

Still... there's just something about it. The rush. The speed. The competition. whew.

While I am not one to check the scale very often, yesterday I saw that I had lost 4 lbs, which puts me under 190 for the first time in... well, quite a few years, I guess.

I'm going to write most of that off to the change in diet in the last month or so. My weight work outs have actually been less over the last 30 days, so I'm wondering if some of that may actually be a bit of mucle loss.

Today, legs feel great. My back is tight in the lower regions, and I think that may be due to the increased running I've now placed into my regimen. I've ran more days in the last month than I had altogether the two, or maybe even three, months combined. My last weight work-out was for back and arms, but typically I don't feel that soreness in the lower back, unless I screwed up on form somewhere.

Here in the Mid West, the mornings are getting chilly now, so it feels great to get a morning run in before the sun comes all the way up. 56 or 60 degrees is about perfect for me.

Tomorrow is going to be a walk with the dog and stroller, playtime with the child, and then a core workout with the medicine ball (I ended up buying one for home, and I'm glad I did).

Yesterday felt pretty good. For most of this week, I felt as if there was a goblin inside my nose, squeezing my sinuses with grubby little figners, laughing at me, and kicking snot down my face. I hate being sick. So, really, no activity until yesterday.

Thursday was a day off work, for my child's birthday. I put her in the stroller, and we did the neighborhood hill walk, and went to the park, where I chased her around and we played on the kids equipment for almost two hours. She was worn out by the time we made it back home, so while she napped, I did a body weight workout for about 20 minutes, and then realized I was starving.

I've been on a big wrap kick, so I had a turkey, lettuce, cheese and tomato wrap, in a regular white tortilla. good stuff.

Even thought I felt pretty good, I was still tired as hell last night. Being sick does that to you, I guess. This morning I'm waiting until the wife gets back from school, and I'm going for a run. That will probably be it, for the physical activity for today.

I'm having to change my schedule around, to where I'm going to be visiting the gym now in the evening, and with all the kids activities, it's getting harder. I think I'm going to have to make it where I only have three days max to spend in the gym, and find other ways to work out in the morning at home. I think i might get an excercise ball.

Thursday, back and bicep workout, circuit training on the machines for the back, free weights for arms. Finished with a core workout with the medicine ball. Had a good soreness on Friday. Not like a pull or strain, but just felt some tightness from the day before.

Friday was full of yardwork, which in itself was a pretty good workout.

Saturday I ran in the morning, and then was down for the count. Virus or something caught me. Drained me. Today, Sunday, I'm taking it easy, drinking tea and water, and hoping this goes away. Trying to run with a cold just results in rivulets of snot running down my face.

Nothing. Zip on the excercise today. Today is a day off.

I had coffee and a banana for breakfast, vegetable soup for lunch, and pasta with meat sauce for dinner. And then some ice cream. Yum. Ice cream. A weakness of mine, but I don't give a damn. You'll have to pry my ice cream from my cold, dead hands. That's one of the reasons I need to stay in shape, so I can keep eating Peanut Butter Brownie Sensation.

I think it's good to take a day off when you feel like taking it off, but only if you're confident that you're no disrepecting your own schedule. I know (it being a crisp 60 degrees in the morning) that I'll be able to roll out of bed and take our other dog, Chloe, for a quick walk. If I didn't think that, and felt that I absolutely had to stick to my schedule, I would've went to the gym and did my thing.

Tomorrow's leg day for weight work, and then Sat is back/biceps. Sunday will be my other day off, but there'll be a run in there, somewhere.

Last night I missed the gym, due in part to needed car repairs, and in other to a birthday party we were having for my girls.

So, later in the evening, I did a version of the "prison workout". Push-ups, arm dips (triceps), leg raises, and then used a free weight resistence excercise to end the tricep workout. Negative resistence, subtracting reps from each set, slowing the movement down with each "up motion".

The push up excercises I did are actually ones I think I need to do more often. The good thing about push ups is that they work a wide range of the chest and shoulder muscles, abs... depending on hand placement. It requires work from your abs, lower back, rotator cuffs, and legs just to stabilize each rep, since you're balancing over the floor. Men's Fitness has a good example of the correct way to do a push up. I like the standard push up, then I do a set where the hands are placed close together, putting your fingers in a square, then I did a set where my feet where elevated behind me.

I'm beginning to step farther and farther away from specific body part training, and am looking for more excercises that do more for the core body parts, but add emphasis to the arms and chest. I still enjoy specific weight training, exepecially for the shoulders and arms, but looking at long term gains, I think core body training is where it's at.

Skipped running this morning, and took the dog for a brisk walk, something that I've been ignoring for her. Having a big black lab run/walk with you is a great thing. I swear that dog never gets tired. It was a crisp 63 degrees this morning. Good weather.

Tired, sluggish this morning. I drank a few ounce of coffee before running this morning, which was really nothing more than a slow jog. Couldn't sleep last night, for a number of reasons, but I think that really sapped me this morning. Only logged about 23 minutes.

Oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. Gym tonight. Now that schools started for the kids, I'm having to change my gym time to the evenings, which I don't like as well, and don't think it benefits me as well as working out in the morning, but it's much better than skipping altogether.

30 minute run this morning.

Tired, as always. It was cloudy, and spitting rain. I won't keep track of milage, until a few months from now, just concentrating on running without stopping, and I did just that.

My lungs hate me, but I expected that.