Experiment 230.6

Week 3 is in the bag.

I can’t say too much about the week since everything went as planned. I’m still over the weekly mileage but that’s still due to the routine starting out a little below my current fitness level. That will change in week 5 when the prescribed mileage starts matching up with what I’m doing now.

I am a little disappointed that I didn’t get in a bike ride on Friday due to being behind with work due to 4 days of jury duty, but I was able to get all muscle groups worked in the gym for the third consecutive week. I’ll take that and be happy.

Speaking of jury duty, I may post a separate blog entry this week to describe a few thoughts about serving on a murder case. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

Another highlight of the week was returning to the 10x400 intervals on Tuesday. We had a crowd of 5 there for the workout and it was the first time in a long while that I ran a full set. I would like to keep doing them but I need to have a designated day that works in the current schedule and doesn’t fall on leg day in the gym. Actually, I like the pattern that we’re using of keeping the intensity high during the week and shifting to a time on the feet approach on the weekends. As the miles start to add up, I’m curious if I can keep everything this way.

With an increase in gym and running intensity, I also had a spike in appetite. I failed to control my portions this week and it showed when I hit the scale. I actually weighed a few ounces more that last week but I remained at 187 pounds. Losing a bunch of weight on this routine is going to be extremely difficult and I’m questioning my sanity when I said I wanted to lose 20 pounds. WTF was I thinking?

Another thing that I’m trying to figure out is why I felt so bad yesterday evening and all day today. I can point in the direction of a 35.35 mile total but that was fairly spread out. My muscles felt okay today and I had an acceptable amount of energy but my joints were bothering me something terrible. I’m not sure if it’s hydration or what since I sweat buckets full in the past two days. Yesterday was bad because it was hot, but this morning the humidity was sky high and it just sucked the sweat out of us. By mile 7, every article of clothing I had on was completely saturated. Right about that time, we felt a small drizzle and it was more than welcomed by the three of us. 

Another thing I instituted this week was the use of my new CamelBak hydration pack. After two trial runs, I can say that I really love running with it. It doesn’t move, it holds 70oz (that’s 7 standard fuel belt bottles) of fluid, and it’s got room for everything you need to carry. I can even add two more 20oz bottles in the front vest pockets! This morning, I had room for gels, keys, wallet and my phone. I never felt like I was carrying too much and it was great to have too much fluids and not have to conserve. Especially considering the sweat volumes coming out of my pores. I was able to have fluids as I thought I needed them for the whole 13.1 and there was still enough left for me to chug and chug and chug when I was done. It was great!

Until we meet again……

I bet Jody thought he wouldn’t ever see those two doughnuts again, but when you know me, things cannot ever be that easy!

I’ve often thought of using my bike to make “quick” runs to the store for crap or a small amount of groceries. Dean Karnazes does this on foot and I think it’s cool as the other side of the pillow.

Let me find these at an affordable price and every plate in the cabinet will end up in the big green rollout.

Wow, so that’s what 10x400 feels like for the first time in forever. Yesterday afternoon, I was taken into deep water by Chris and subsequently drown. Not thinking about the rigorous leg workout I did the morning of, we ran a mile for warm-up and then I started my first interval like a bat out of hell, turning in a 1:19. Then it hit me that I had no idea how long we were going to rest in between sets. The only phrase I could muster after Chris stated “1 minute” was “Holy shit”. Knowing that was too fast for me to last, I toned the next one back but realized that I created such an oxygen deficit that I was going to catch hell for the remaining 8. Eventually, I was forced into resting a little longer and when I regained my second wind, I was able to improve my times a bit. We jogged out a .65 cool down and then ran 2 miles of the literacy course. When it was over, I was completely toast and flat-lined. It’s been a long while since that’s happened, but that’s what leg day, intervals and improper fuelling will do to you!

What stuck with me is that I need to fuel a little better and maybe consider switching my leg day. Once I get a few weeks of this under my belt, I think I’ll be able to figure out what I’m doing. For now, it’s learning where I am all over again. If I’m going to follow through with the goals I talked with Chris about, I need to get really serious about the speed work.

And with this envelope I shall seal my fate. July 27th and Landsford Canal 50k, here I come.

Lately, so many little things in my life are resuscitating my early childhood memories from my grandparents’ house.

I’ve mentioned several times in the past that I want to start cataloguing all of the stories and memories from my aunts and uncles while they are all still alive. I don’t know how I’ll ever find the time to do this but it would be an incredibly rewarding endeavor. There was so much that went on in a house with two adults and thirteen children, that it could make for endless books, comedy, or even a TV series. Even though my aunt’s husband is a published author, I just can’t see anyone else doing this because I don’t see another person being able reel it out of everyone then put a sick twist of humor on it like I could. No, I’m not a good writer but that’s why they make editors, right?

In the meantime and while it’s on my mind more than normal lately, I’m going to start publishing my own group of memories here and there. Maybe when some of the dust settles, I can get to focusing on a gathering process before too much time goes by and I lose the opportunity to collect the treasure chest of memories waiting for me.

Recently, we’ve been meeting at the St. Luke UMC track and running a 5k on Saturday mornings. The course takes us by three places that are near to my heart. They are my Aunt Debra’s house, my grandparents’ house, and then through a line of piney woods, the lot that held the trailer I grew up in. As we’ve run by this short section of road, I’ve instantly zoned out on the memories of playing as I grew up there. Amazing how fresh they still are today and how you can be instantly transported back in time.

It starts with a long stretch of gravel driveway, leading to two similar lap-siding houses. They are not large but both have additions that maximized the use of space. The bluish one on the left is my Aunt Debra’s house and the greenish one on the right was my grandparents’ house, or what we called “Mee Maw’s”. The two houses shared a strip of land and the long driveway divided the two. Down the left side was a fence put up by a neighbor who had lots of farm animals and the right side was marked off by a barbed wire fence that served us well when playing army and such. The back of the property had more barbed wire with a natural drainage area behind it that seemed as big as a creek to a young child. In the far right back corner was a pile of some old materials from a previous structure  that I have no idea from where it came but the painful memory of a nail going right through my shoe and into my foot is still very real even today.

On the neighbor’s side of the fence you can jump over and screw with a bunch of goats or walk down to his pond that I’m not sure ever had a decent fish in it. I would find out later that nothing ever lived in that pond because my aunt’s septic tank was leeching into this pond. Over the barbed-wire area in the back was a mess of a place that you couldn’t really play in because it stayed soaking wet. In the back right area, near the construction pile was an old garden patch that hadn’t been used in years. All around that overgrown garden area were some kick ass wild blackberries. Directly behind my grandmother’s house was this interesting area a few of us played in. There were some great climbing trees and an old dog pen that we used to play on. Beyond that was a forestry company that had lots of old machinery to play in and when they weren’t in the office, we had a field day on that stuff. That is, before we discovered that black widow spiders would bite your ass and that they were everywhere. I also remember a few wasp nests that were scary large.

To the right side of the property was my favorite place to play as a kid. Those woods were so cool before being spoiled by one of the earliest cell phone towers I can remember. There was this big ravine there where we could ride bikes, cut vines and swing across, or uncover an unknown yellow jacket nest in the ground. After getting our asses tore up by them a few times, we learned that nothing would kick yellow jacket ass like a bucket of gasoline! Along that edge of the property on our side of the barbed-wire were some fantastic plum trees. There were also these trees that picked up the nickname “blind berry” because someone told us that if we ate those berries, we would go blind. We would later learn that was our parent’s way of keeping us from cramming some poisonous shit into our mouths but we tried every damn berry that was growing on that property and if you let “blind berries” turn purple before eating them, they were damn good! We also found other trees that didn’t have nick names but great little sour berries on them.

Then there was this stuff we called “sour weed” that was growing at random and it was really good as well. I remember finding out later that the leaves were better than the stems we watched the older cousins eat. I think we tried it all back then.

We played in this one washed out area that we called “The Mine” because where the dirt had eroded the soil, lots of cool rocks were exposed and we dug for them from time to time. We mostly found pea gravel and some nice quartz stones but we all had dreams of finding gold that never came to fruition.

Beyond “The Mine” was the largest area of trees that we play in for hours a day. I would cut the trees down and tie them together with twine that I stole from the neighbor with the farm. I made teepees and forts out of my oversized Lincoln Logs. I took small twigs then picked large oak leaves off of the trees and made my own camouflage hats. The first time my cousins seen one of those, I was done for. Next thing I knew, I was making 15 of those damned hats! After that, I didn’t care for them as much. Shit was too much like work. Not that I knew what work was back then.

I had so much time on that property to escape. I had quiet time to myself where I could let my imagination go wild with possibilities of what I could engineer from some twine, small pines, and big leaves. I climbed so high, ate all kinds of wild crap (I could have been way ahead of the organic movement…if only), and lived out my summers getting dirty and just being a boy. In retrospect, it wasn’t that big of a place but the endless possibilities made it seem larger than life itself.

Week 2 of the 50k training is in the bag.

As you can see from the schedule I had a great week that led to losing 2.6 pounds. The only thing I’m upset about is not getting in a bike ride on Friday, but I was crazy busy and couldn’t get the time.

Dump alert! A dozen doughnut dump isn’t that much different than a regular dump. Instead of one big submarine, just thing several, let’s say 12, smaller attack boats.

After running with a decent effort at the KKD, I struggled a bit with today’s triple loop at Landsford, but we still managed to average 10:15 and that’s what I think we should expect for the duration on LSD day. My heels are screaming like a motherfucker though.

I’m happy with the weight training and how that’s supporting my overall fitness plan. I feel like I had a great week in the gym and that it didn’t hurt my enregy levels.

I also had 3 solid weekday runs this week. I ran 4+ with LR on Tuesday, followed by a tough 6 in Forest Hills on Wednesday, and capped off with an unexpected fast 4 with Justin on Thursday.

Not a bad week but it can and will get better!

Over and out.

I really like the show “DDD”, otherwise known as “Diners Drive-In’s and Dives”. Today, I had my own episode of “DDD” called “A Damn Dozen Doughnuts”.

Going into this race, I was way more concerned about the dozen doughnuts I had to eat than the 4.8 miles I had to run. Turns out, I’m left with a matching impression - the real challenge was eating the doughnuts.

Being that this was the 1st Annual KKD in Charlotte, I’ll give them a free pass on the extreme slowness of the check in table and the 10 minute race delay because the police weren’t in their intersections yet. After being involved with the Literacy Race and knowing what it’s like to get an event up and going, I can sympathize with them. That being said, I didn’t get very much time to warm-up until Tim announced the race would be delayed 10 minutes. That gave me a little more time to get my old legs loose and I walked up to the start just about to break a small sweat. A minute or two goes by and Tim starts the race.

I felt fairly well this morning and a actually a little energetic even though I ate a very light dinner and no breakfast, so my stomach would be empty for the dirty dozen. I started out a little too fast and eased it back a bit so I wouldn’t be dog tired and winded while trying to choke down the doughnuts, but even then I managed 7:22 and 7:36 for the first two miles on a hilly course. As I watched these click by, I had thoughts where I wished it was a 5k race because after 2 miles and not going all out, I felt like I could have torched my 5k PR with a 7:00 per mile average. I’m trying very hard to resist the temptation of finding a 5k to run in the next few weeks, but I’ll hold off and really knock the shit out of my PR in the late summer or fall.

With 2 miles under my belt, I approached the 2.3 mile mark and the dreaded doughnut station. They have spotters that are looking at your wristband, seeing if you are a competitive or casual participant with a big table of doughnuts and glasses of water behind them. They give you your portion, you run under a “Competitor” banner, and you find a place to swine and dine on your fat fried bloat rings.

Here’s where the rookies like me and the real strategists who were out to win this thing got separated form each other. No sooner than I found a spot to eat and got my first doughnut down, a girl slaughtered her 12 and is taking off. DAMN!!!!! That bitch be eating the shit out of some doughnuts! About a minute later, an older dude who is in phenomenal condition is done and breaks the hell out as well. They would finish 1 and 2 with the dude catching the doughnut queen and winning.

Where I made my mistake (not that I had a fucking chance) was trying to eat the whole dozen as if I just had one to eat. This takes a long time and that long time for me was about 14 minutes. Every other doughnut, I would take a small drink of water to wash it down. It got progressively difficult to eat each one and the last two were tough to get down. Through the awful experience, I remembered how the mind can overcome matter during running - by getting lost in the experience. I used the same approach when downing the doughnuts by walking in small circles and not focusing on how many were left.

As I am finishing my fat 2280 calories of fat rings, I notice so many people that are done and gone. Via Karen, I understand that the people who are knocking them out in short time were smashing them way down into pancakes and it was making them much easier to eat. Having known that technique ahead of time, I could have trimmed off significant time from my overall finish, but after this experience, I don’t give a damn about how fast I can eat another dozen. This was my first and last experience with eating a dozen doughnuts in one sitting! It’s now 6:40pm and I haven’t had another thing to eat because of the doughnut backlog in my gut. I WANT TO TAKE A SHIT!!!!!!

Speaking of that, I wonder what a “Dozen Doughnut Dump” looks like. Don’t worry, I won’t post any pictures! Maybe…….

I personally didn’t see anyone puking and I’m happy for that because I would have joined in on the fun. Plenty of people hurled (one is plenty but there were more) but I didn’t get to see it and that’s one highlight of this race!

As for Jody and Kohl, they wussed out big time. When I was 13, I could have eat 2 dozen doughnuts and not bat an eyelash. Don’t come to me saying that I couldn’t do that either because I frequently challenged my twin uncles to eating contests and actually took a couple of titles back in the day. I’ll have to blog about that sometime, but think along the terms of entire gallon of milk or whole loaf of bread and you’ll catch my drift. My man Kohl consumed a whopping 3 doughnuts before giving up and finishing the race. Jody managed a career best 10 before giving up and finishing. I refuse to let that die and they will hear about being handed “Doughnut Destruction” at the hands of this mofo for a long time!

Side note: Being proud of the above statement is fucking ridiculous.

So, after finishing my dozen I become extremely curious about the rest of the race and how I’ll keep the doughnuts in my pot belly. I take off semi fast (for me) and see how that feels. I realize that the full belly is going to restrict me from moving with any sort of grace (not that I’m capable) so I ratchet it down to 8:00 and monitor how my gut full of fat feels. After about a half mile of this, I realize that I’ll be okay and hurling won’t happen (YAY!). I do notice my legs feeling icky and rubbery from not having breakfast but I’m hoping that the doughnuts are a fast acting fuel source. I pass several non-competitive walkers that can’t believe people have consumed a dozen doughnuts and are able to run afterwards. I actually got off on that a little bit and had a self chuckle about it.

I’m maintaining fairly well and not getting passed by anyone as I reach the last turns. I know from my Garmin that I’m getting close and when I turn the corner, BAM! what a freaking hill! It wasn’t that far but the grade was a bitch, so I said “piss on this” and walked until just before it crested. Once I got near the top, I kicked it a little to pick up the lost seconds but I’m still being dragged down by my gastric boat anchor. As I run down the hill, I see Karen and Jakob and I know that I’m almost done. I make two turns and I’m back at the start/finish…..hell yes! the Garmin says 49:50 but since I started it a few seconds late, I figure I’m really close to 50 for an official time - it was 50:06.

I walk back to the car, get my phone, and start texting my results. Brent calls me and while I am talking to him, I see Jody. I yell at Jody that Brent is on the phone and he yells as he’s running by “I’m a wuss Brent, I only ate 10”. I laugh hysterically since this is the first I hear of this. A few minutes later, Kohl comes by and Jakob is happy to tell me that his brother only ate 3 doughnuts. I think Jakob wanted to show his brother who the real doughnut assassin of the family was!

I’ll have to say that despite a relatively low turnout, it was fun and well run for an innagural event. For me, this is a once and done even though I think I could have performed much better with some eating technique and knowing what I was getting into ahead of time. Maybe I could trim 7 or so minutes off but I’ll probably never know.

Damn Dozen Doughnuts

Okay, I’m going to have a little caption fun with this…….

“My God, look at that bush!”

“Is that Lindsay Lohan I see in the distance? No, it’s Brittney Spears”

“Is that Brittney Spears I see in the distance? No, it’s Paris Hilton”

“Glove me, I’m going in!…I mean….trash bag me, I’m going in!”

“Is that a fungus or are you happy to see me?”

“Looks like I’ll have to break out the railroad tie again” (You’ll have to think about that one)

“Hello in there….there…..there…..there…….”

“You ever heard that song by Wreckx-n-Effect? All you need to do is zooma-zoom-zoom and a groom-groom”

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head. I’ll try again later.