8-31-13 Swallowing of Blackberry Gel

Total Miles for the Week: 14.15 of 16

So today was different, I didn't have any apprehension about running 6 miles until about 10 minutes before i started today. I am happy to say I did more running (slower than I would have liked, but I did run) than I did walking. The first 2 miles were hell. I worked my way up hill and started at too fast of a pace to finish it in a good amount of time. I stretched in the shower before I left to run, hoping that would be enough. I need to get out my sports massage and stretching books from massage school and redesign my stretching so it works better for what I'm doing. Today was the first time my IT band started to hurt some, I'll need to address that too.

So I posted I would be trying gel for the first time today as I ran. I didn't expect what hit my mouth as I was squeezing it in. I laughed after I had it. If you have never had gel (quick caffeine and carbs as you run, in a handy pouch). I took it when I reached the three mile mark. It's texture was like gel toothpaste, thick and smooth. Part of me wanted to chew it, another part wanted to spit it out, but the part that won just swallowed it and quickly drank some water afterward. It worked surprisingly well. But I believe that my attitude change after mile two helped it greatly.

Starting at mile 2.1 I started to have an attitude shift from hating life to wanting to push further. At the 1.5 mile mark I had justified to myself that I would go to the gym and run three more miles and finish my run that way. I would have regretted it if I did end up doing that. But I did turn and started running toward my car again, but by the time mile two was coming around I decided to run a mile and a half past my car and complete my 6 miles for the day. When I ran past where my car was, that was a great feeling. The side of my mind that wants to succeed was taking over. My last three miles I did a slow run almost the entire time (taking two 2 min breaks). I finished my run in 1:33. My last 2 miles were in 43 min compare to my first three which were 50. So it took 2 miles to have fun with running today, but I am looking forward to my new schedule next week for running.

Next Races:

3.1 for Don 5k: September 21

       I will be running the 3.1 in the morning and 7 more miles after the race. My goal is to beat my last time.

Provo Halloween Half Marathon: October 26

       Hopefully I will be sprorting a Batman technical shirt to run in (sans cape and cowl) this will act as my            long run for the day. Then my wife and I will do something for our anniversary. My goal is to finish.

Thankful 13 5k: November 28

       This is a maybe. It depends on what Silvia and I do for turkey day. My goal is to PR and have fun.

Tri-State Marathon: December 7th

       Just over 3 months away. My goal is to finish it.

Until Monday!

-Riley

8-30-13 Training Intensity

I ran this morning, it was a nice run. I used the suggested outline for running in Runner's World magazine. Since I'm a runner now, I read things like Runner's World, it only makes sense. It was a section on doing the long run. Today was a short run, but I used a principle in the section to do the run. The principle was to run 10 minutes, then walk 2. I modified to to fit the troubles I have been having and turned it into run 1 mile, walk 2 minutes. So I was able to do that twice, then finish with a 5 minute cool down. Today was the first run this week I actually had fun running. It was on a treadmill but that doesn't matter it was fun. Tomorrow morning I will be going up the canyon and run home. I will aim to do what I did today, run 1 mile walk two minutes. With the run a mile and walk 2 minutes I also decreased my pace to just around 13 minutes. I was never winded, and when ever my legs started to bother me I used a phrase from my training book, but it doesn't matter. So my ankle started bothering me, but saying it doesn't matter took my focus away from it and onto something better, the run. My calves started to burn, again it didn't matter... and back to the run. I got light headed and stopped for a moment, I was able to recover raster, because it didn't matter.

About training intensity, my understanding is that you don't want to increase too fast. Injuries are more prone to happen. It cost me going through a couple of different medical tests because I thought I was ready for more than I could handle. I am now able to run a sub 12 minute mile and need to do that more often, and I think that Wednesdays will be the day to that (I am not focusing on increasing my speed by leaps and bounds, just to work on my mile speed). I have a 3.5 as my intensity today, just because I know I could have repeated at least 1 more mile.

Here's the changes I am making to work out plan including my classes at school.

Monday: Racquetball at 11, Short Run #1 (end of day)

Tuesday: Mid Length Run in the Morning followed by swimming

Wednesday: Racquetball at 11, 1 mile sprint end of day

Thursday: Short Run in the Morning followed by swimming 

Friday: Off Day

Saturday: Long Run

Sunday: Teach the 8-11 year old kids at church (hard mental work out had to make note of it)

I hope my ramblings make sense, and you get as much from what I am writing as I get from training.

Until Next Time...

-Riley

8-28-13 School and running

Last night I wake up around 3 am and couldn't fall back to sleep for nearly 2 hours. Then adding school into the running mix has been exhausting this week. I am going to go out right now and run and it looks like to the gym I go. I will add an incline to my run in hopes to better prepare for that. It is 4 miles and will be about 45-55 minutes to get it knocked out for the day. Then home to shower and back to school for my afternoon class, then I will take my sketchbook and do about 20 thumbnails for my assignment in narrative illustration, then have some fun for the evening playing games (since I don't have the homework load this first week of school).

So I was able to make it two miles before I was struggling to keep up with the treadmill. I may have my wife drop me off up the in the canyon tomorrow morning and turn my Thursday into a 4 mile  morning. That would work really well. Today I am leaving it where it is and moving forward to tomorrow. I believe that's the right thing to do in this instance. I may even make tomorrow into my long run, and do a 4 miler on Saturday.

I guess we'll see how it goes.

Until Next time...
Riley

8-26-13 Running outside...

Today was a short run that turned long. I neglected to stretch before hand and my body didn't like what I was doing because of that. So my run today should have taken me around 40 minutes to finish, if I were on a treadmill. It's funny how much I dislike the treadmill is now becoming how I miss it because it is easier than running up inclines and on uneven ground.

I started out my run today at a slow pace to warm up a little, and then went up to my gym running speed (somehow forgetting that the first half of my outdoor runs are all up hill). My calves started to feel like they were on fire, so I made if a half mile. Not having a moving belt under my feet makes it a little harder to keep running, because if I slow down to a walk, I don't have to adjust the speed, or run the risk of doing something silly like falling off the treadmill.

Today before my run and after my days of classes (first day of school for the fall semester at UVU) I went to the Runner's Corner (running store I always talk about) and was able to ask some questions I've had about prepping for a marathon. I was given some solid advice. The first was a check to make sure I was wearing the right clothes, and how much that makes a difference (that wasn't my question but we talked about it before talking about compression socks). So I gave in and got a pair of Zoot compression socks after talking to the employee about them. She uses them herself and said that they helped increase blood flow to the legs... and some other stuff too. I tried them today, but without proper stretching I couldn't tell you if they helped or not. I will try again on Saturday with them. We talked about hydration, and came to the conclusion I need something more with me because of how much I sweat. I am training with a bulky camelpak right now and would like something a little lighter, and they had some options for me which will work well. Then rollers to stretch out IT band and other areas. The last subject was on nutrition, use of Gels. She encouraged me to start using them on my long runs periodically so I could get use to them. Because on long runs you need to replace energy being burned, so gels help with that. I forgot to mention I went in to get longer shoe laces for my running shoes. They didn't have any that would work.

Until Next Time... (insert old batman TV show ending quote here)

-Riley

8-25-13 Changes on the blog

I modified a couple of things on my blog here.

1. Background image is the Provo River Parkway Trail. I do my run uphill then down hill back to the parking lot at the mouth of the canyon. It's where I am doing my outdoor runs as well as where the Provo Halloween Half Marathon is going to be. I took the photo this evening, it's of the bend on the path that I stopped at just before my 2.5 mile turn around point that I was aiming at getting to before a walking and water break.
2. I changed the name of my blog to be something more personal and reflect what this blog really is.
3. I added a countdown clock which is kinda fun and keeps things in perspective.

I hope you like it as much as I do

8-24-13 Five mile run in the canyon

Initially my run today was going to a drop off at a park 5 miles away and run home (almost all down hill). But I woke up a half hour too late to do that. So I drove up to the popular entrance to the running/biking paved trail in Provo Canyon. I averaged a really slow mile and would like to say it was because I was going up hill, but that's not a solid reason. I stopped to walk too many times. But because of today I have decided to run outside (only on the treadmill when the weather is too severe to run outside or I am feeling especially lazy). The reason for the change to out door running is because I am running a marathon outdoors, I am running a half marathon outdoors, and I am running 2 or more 5k's outdoors. So why use the treadmill as a crutch. It will be a little of a learning curve to run outside, but I believe I can do it. Also the weather is cooling down so those 100 degree days won't be happening.

With doing 5 miles today I was full of doubt for the first 2 miles. Then I just swallowed my insecurity and started to run (at a slow pace up hill) and went until I was just around the bend from the 2.5 mile mark. I was feeling a little dejected at that point but was intent on doing better going back. I did do better and used landmarks like to did the minute earlier this week, and focused on making it to a land mark, running to that bench, or until I pass this couple up here, or until I reach the street sign. It worked really well.

On a side note, runners are some of the nicest people as you run by them. I started to smile more as I ran because of how polite everyone was, waving hello, and saying good morning. They all had smiles on their faces (probably not but it seems that way looking back). So to everyone who is running after I post this, I challenge you to say something like, hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening to the next people you pass while running.

Until next time...

Riley

8-22-13 What matches black running shorts...

Today was a hard run. I have found if I run hard on Wednesday that my Thursday is a bit tougher. But I did something I have never done before which is kinda cool. I increased speed on my third mile (by a second) compared to my second mile.

Mile 1- 12:39

Mile 2- 13:45

Mile 3- 13:44

I am still having a hard time with the internal dialogue when running the first 20 minutes, but I found a trick that helped on the last 6 minutes. Take it one minute at a time. I was at 30 min of running and decided to do a 2 minute run 1 minute walk to finish off my last mile. I got to 31 minutes and said to myself, "It's only a minute more, why don't you push it to 35 minutes. I then repeated the process until 37 minutes, took a 1 minute break and then pumped up the speed to 6 mph. After running with the smaller stride of me going 4.9 mph, the longer strides were a welcome change.

With these blog posts they are serving as an accountability journal. I also look forward to see how far I will go and how far I've come. If you are starting a journey like the one I'm on (but maybe a little more sane with a Couch to 5k program or a 1 year marathon prep program) I would like to make a few suggestions.

•  Once you have even an inkling to do it, sign up for something and tell every living soul what you're doing. In massage school we called it Talking Your Vision. I believe the more people you are accountable to the more you will aim to succeed. I tell everyone I am running a marathon, I believe even my pharmacist may know.

•  Make sure you have the right gear. I am an avid shopper of the clearance section at just about every store I go to. My New Balance super dry running shorts are a $40-$50 pair of shorts and I picked them up for $20, I picked up two of my running shirts at Costco for $16, my fancy Asics running socks were in the clearance bin at the running store, my black running hat, and Rebok running shorts were on sale for 40% off. Right now is a great time to get running cloths (at least for me) because all of the summer stuff is going on clearance. The most important thing is that I am comfortable throughout my run.

• Use reference material to train with. The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer is only one of the running books I am using. I pick up Runnersworld magaine, I am reading Born to Run. This is a hard one for me, but I talk to people who do run. That's where going to the local running store helps. They usually have running meet up groups, who tend to be ok if you bail on the run after you hit your miles for the day.

•  The last suggestion is a reminder, starting running (or any fitness routine) isn't about winning the big race, but about learning who you are and how much you can bring to the table in your own life. Today I really didn't want to run, my legs ache, and calves are tight... but I got up and did it. Something I didn't have in me 6 months ago. I am able to push myself more than before, and I feel better for it.

On a completely different note, I have been thinking of the gear I run in lately and I like that I get free shirts when I run a race. So what goes with my black running shorts? My fancy socks, my fancy running shoes (I'm going to let them have a couple of days off after my Saturday run and use my older shoes), my technical shirts, my Walmart compression shorts, and my black hat. I would like to try our compression things like socks or the sleeves, but I found a pair of the sleeves in what would be my size and I couldn't fit my huge hands into the little holes. The compression socks are appealing to me because of the soreness I get in my calves after a run, if that could help decrease it that would be wonderful.

Until Next Time...

Riley

As of 1 minute ago I am signed up for the Provo Halloween Half Marathon.