Holding Pattern

Lest I go an entire month without a blog post, here's a recent recap of running events and mini-tragedies since my last post:

I lost my Garmin 305. It was inevitable--it joins the ranks of two ipods as small, expensive running paraphernalia I should never be trusted with. I'd like to replace it, but I'll probably have to wait until after my birthday and/or Christmas. Oh well.

My running had already been in maintenance-mode that bordered on going completely into downhill-mode. And not the kind of downhill that means I was running faster. I'd decided I was going to lift some weights and focus on my core strength to get ready for Boston training. Then, I got hit by a softball. Since then, I haven't exercised a bit as I've been recovering from a concussion. There's a lovely picture of the wound at the bottom of the page. If you don't like gore, don't scroll to the end. Sorry if you already scrolled to the end and didn't want to and are now sick to your stomach.

The softball injury occurred while running--funny because it's usually those overuse injuries that get me. I was running from first to second. The shortstop had bobbled a grounder and it was going to be a close play at second. He proceeded to throw the ball hard and unfortunately the ball missed the second baseman and caught me in the head. A week later I'm back to almost full speed and hope to start exercising again.

Once I get used to my new work schedule, I hope to settle into a workout pattern. I think I'll shoot for two or three days of strength training and at least three days of running starting next week. By November I'll be ready to go nuts with running to prepare for the Boston Marathon.

Holy Ouch!

Running Origins continued...

After a trip to Norfolk, Nebraska coupled with a month layoff from teaching I've had a lot of time to ponder the beginning of my running career. In my previous post I said the origin of my recreational and competitive running was Northeast Nebraska; that wasn't entirely true.

I was always an active kid and movement was a big part of my life. My parents signed me up for soccer when we were living in Lincoln, Nebraska and as soon as I was old enough I started playing basketball. I liked to run and move around--in sports, PE, and just playing outside.

I'm not sure when the first time I tried to run more than was required for an organized sport, though one event sticks out in my mind. My dad was a recreational runner when we lived in Lincoln and continued his running habit when he took a job as a principal out on the island of Oahu in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Fortunately for our family he took us with him.

One day while we were living in Aiea dad took me running with him. He usually ran on a paved trail next to Pearl Harbor. It wasn't the kind of picturesque beachfront trail you'd think of when picturing Hawaii. Pearl Harbor has some nice areas but the shoreline is mostly industrialized though with some military memorials and parks sprinkled here and there.

Still, my dad still found the trail pleasant enough to run on--it was flat and free from runner-hunting cars so he seemed to enjoy it enough. The day I ran with him--I don't remember if I asked to come along or was invited--I was most likely 11 or 12. I'm almost certain I'd never run at a consistent speed in one direction for any distance beyond a couple hundred meters before this father and son run.

What I remember about the run was this: I'd stay with my dad for a little bit, get bored, and sprint ahead. I'd cruise by myself among rotting mattresses, old Bento Meal containers, and puddles of brackish water until I started getting winded. After I got too tired my dad would catch up and the whole process would begin anew.

Besides some trysts with junior high track and field (no further than a couple miles I'm sure), running for football and basketball in high school, and running away from a couple of rednecks in rural Nebraska, running for running's sake didn't happen again for me until the 11th grade.

I've already mentioned the story of how I started high school track in a previous post, so I won't get into it here. I did have a good couple years of track in high school--made some good friends, ran some decent races, and ended up with a small scholarship to a small college near Lincoln, Nebraska. Unfortunately my college running career was short and injury-riddled.

I'd be surprised if I got more than 25 miles in a week of high school running, and my college team probably averaged 60 a week for freshmen, more for older runners. Most of the season I didn't run near that much. Instead, I made friends in the training room with injured athletes from every sport. Quadriceps tendinitis, shin splints, and finally tendinitis in my hip made college running more painful than fun, and after a season of cross country and two seasons of track I was finished running competitively for six years.

Thanks to my wife asking me to run the Twin Cities Marathon last October I'm back to doing some competitive (albeit amateur) running. Reading frequently about training and injury prevention and improving my practices has also helped me stay relatively injury-free and thus made running more enjoyable.

If you've stayed with this post for this long I commend you. I have no idea how many people read this blog, but it's nice to write things down and reminisce about the past. Tomorrow Laura and I are headed up to the Superior Hiking Trail north of Duluth for a four day backpacking trip. Laura's talked me into breaking my goal of running every day in August. After I run tomorrow I will have made it 28 days straight. I suppose missing a couple of runs while hiking ten miles a day won't kill my fitness. If I run three miles or more tomorrow I'll have over fifty for the week.

Running Origins

Last week I was down in Nebraska visiting the parents in my old stomping grounds of Norfolk--a small town in the Northeast corner of the state. Norfolk is the birth of my recreational and competitive running. I went to a small Lutheran high school there and my junior year my dad (who happened to be the principal) informed me that I would not, in fact, be allowed to work every night of the week--not if I wanted to use his car to get there.

A three mile round trip seemed like a long way to walk to work at a gas station, so I resigned myself to the idea that I'd have to work only a couple of times a week. With basketball season over I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all my free time. In hindsight I probably should have done a little homework but that's neither here nor there--though it did probably cost me thousands of dollars in lost scholarship money.

So, with some extra free time on my hands I decided to go out for track. I'd ran around the track in junior high a couple of times and it didn't seem too hard. Also, I really liked the new track coach. My school had about 100 students so making the team wasn't really a problem.

Back then I had a wiry frame of 6' and 135 lbs. Finding clothes that fit was a nightmare but my track coach thought I'd be a good fit for the 2 mile. And then, in the year 2000, I began the wonderful hobby of running around to nowhere in particular.

Being back in Norfolk, running around town, and getting to go fishing with my dad and my old track coach got me a little nostalgic about running. Sometimes while I'm running I wonder what kind of a runner I would have been if I'd started running before age 17 or if I didn't stop training seriously for several years after two seasons in college track. But those thoughts are best entertained in a forthcoming post.



The trip to Nebraska was great. I got to spend some quality time with my brother-in-law, see an old friend, hang out with both my sisters and two nieces, and get some work done for my parents. I also got to see Coach Tom Osborne speak at an event hosted by a business whose owners are friends with my parents.

I used to have a blog about fishing, so in honor of that blog and my former high school track coach, I thought I'd throw up a picture of my biggest fish this summer--a blue catfish caught while fishing for bass in a puddle of a farm pond in Northeast Nebraska. In this shot you can see it trying to chew my fingers off as Coach Rathke looks on.

Watchless

Yesterday evening I went on a nice picnic with my wife at a park about 5 miles from our house. We'd gone to church in the morning and the day was so warm I was planning on running in the evening. After all our daily activities, including swimming, it was after seven by the time we finally got to the picnic. Fortunately I had my running gear on already--I was planning on running once we got home.

Then, an incredible idea hit me: I would just run home from the lake park. I knew there were sidewalks the whole way and it'd save me time. This would have been a pretty normal run except that I didn't have my Garmin.

Now, I know running can happen without charting your average pace, distance to the hundredth of a mile, and heart rate, but I hadn't done it forever. So, on my run from Holland Lake back to our townhouse I was free of a Garmin. In fact, I didn't have a watch at all. No watch, no iPod, nothing.

It was strange in some ways--every once-in-a-while I would check my wrist only to find that there was no digital display between my arm hairs. I also went to pause my time at least twice when I had to stop at stop lights. In the end, however, it was nice to get through a run with nothing but the sensation of movement and the meandering train of thought running through my head. I think I'm going to get a few more runs in sans the Garmin--just to keep things interesting.

Eight days through August and I've ran on every one of them. The first week I made it 47 miles, which was actually a fair amount more than I was planning on. Nothing's hurting too bad so I'll aim to stay around 45-50 miles for a couple weeks--I'm just hoping the weather cooperates. It's hard to get any real long runs in when it's 85+ out.

Holy Hot!

It's official: I'm a wimp. Running in cool, nice weather is just fantastic. Running in 20 degree weather is also OK if I dress right. But after the temperature hits about 78 degrees and the humidity is past 60 percent I tend to curl up in the fetal position and slowly rock back and forth on the sidewalk whilst sucking my thumb.

Then, I find out that my Aunt Anita, who's current stationed in Iraq, is running five miles three times a week--in Iraq!. Now, I heard it was hot there so I thought I'd check the weather to find out if the rumors were true. Apparently the high today in Baghdad was 113. And the low there--86. I thought I was miserable running in 80 degree weather this morning. Of course the humidity in Iraq is only like 15%. It was around 80% here all day, so take that Iraq.

I'm looking forward to when the air gets a little dry. I'm tired of having my sweat fail to evaporate and finishing a run with a tech shirt that's carrying 3 lbs worth of perspiration. It doesn't matter how good a tech shirt is at wicking sweat from my body, when the air is already thick with moisture it's going to stay right on that shirt.

Running's going pretty great now that I'm in between teaching assignments. I've run 9 days straight now and I'm shooting for running every day in August--minimum of three miles per day. So far I'm two for two!

Busy Busy and back at it

This past month-and-a-half have been pretty busy and I'm sorry I haven't been doing a lot of running or blogging during that time frame.

It's been a busy time for my wife and I and I'm glad to finally have a few minutes to do some blogging. To save some time here's what I've been up to this past month-and-a-half.
1. Starting a new job teaching summer school. Getting the basement of our house ready for new carpet
3. Not doing near enough running
4. Getting my internets fixed (twice)
5. Getting to run a random three mile race in Good Thunder, Minnesota
6. Finishing a summer school teaching job
7. Taking some young adults to New Orleans and Sikeston, MO
8. Running when I get the chance.

I think most of those speak for themselves, but it was especially interesting running a three mile road race in Good Thunder. My wife and I planned to do some camping with friends in a state park near Mankato, but because of poor weather we instead to stay with our friend's parents in Good Thunder. Good Thunder just happened to be having Pioneer Indian days. On Saturday morning one of the festivities was a "5k" fun run.

On Runner's World's website it said the event has around 100 participants and the course is certified and chip timed. I'm going to have to say that was not the case. Maybe they planned for chip timing but didn't do it because the power was out--I doubt it though since I think there was between 20-30 runners participating. I also doubt it was a certified 5k course since my Garmin said it was 3.01 miles.

It was fun anyway though because my wife and our friends all ran it and we had a good time before and after. I hadn't run a 5k since Jan 1 so I thought I'd see how I could do. I went out pretty quickly and ran the first mile in 5:35. Most of the first mile was on pavement but then we turned onto gravel and it got a little tougher because the gravel was very wet and tough to get good traction. I still managed a 5:34 on the second mile but on the third mile we turned onto an even soggier gravel road and there was a head wind. I was also running all by myself. The race finished up a little hill and since there was no one near me I decided not to sprint it in. Final time for 3 miles: 17:12. I thought the guy at the finish told me 17 flat and didn't bother to check it until later when I uploaded the data onto SportTracks. Whatever. My last mile was 6:01 so definitely not a great final split. I'd like to do another 5k and see what I can do with some better conditions and pacing.


I've got some time off now as I work to find employment, do odds and ends around the house, and get back in the groove of things after spending almost 11 days on the road. I'm hoping to be doing more running and blogging in the next month.

Here's some shots of my (not-so) recent running activity. I forgot to put a shot of me pacing, so here it is along with a shot of the Good Thunder running crew.

Minneapolis Half Marathon

After a pathetic amount of running last week I celebrated Memorial Day by running the course for the Minneapolis Half Marathon. I'm pacing the 1:45 group which means I'm supposed to run even splits at about 8:01 per mile. Due to tangents and such this really means I need to run more like 7:57-7:59 per mile, which is what I did Monday, running 13.2 miles at 7:58 / mile. 

It was hot and I got a sweet sunburn on my shoulders where my other running singlets don't cover (it actually wasn't bad, but definitely pink). I was really proud off myself for writing down directions and then laminating them with packaging tape so I could put them in my pocket while I ran. I showed my wife and I was all, "isn't that great?" She looked at me like I was crazy because she thought I'd just laminated directions for how to get there.

After I explained to her how they were directions for the half marathon route she realized my genius of using packaging tape as a cheap alternative to buying a $300 laminating machine.

I'm nervous and excited to run this half marathon as a pacer--I'm pretty confident I can keep even splits, especially with the help of the Garmin 305--but it's a different kind of nervousness knowing other people are counting on you to run even splits to help them meet their goal.