Experiment 230.6

Yes….I know….It’s not Fat Tuesday.

I’m calling it Fat Tuesday because that’s what I feel like right now. I worked really hard to drop the 26 pounds only to have my vacation add 10 pounds back to me. I know that sounds like BS, but it’s not. I’ve always been able to lose weight rapidly, but I’ve also been able to put it on astonishingly fast. I’ve lost 30+ pounds multiple times in my life, but I’ve also put on 40+ pounds multiple times in my life. As I get older, I can’t trim off the weight as fast, but I sure as heck can put it on just as fast!

Last week, I made sure to enjoy my vacation. I ran twice in Hilton Head for 3 and 4 miles respectively. The 3 miler was on the beach and Hilton Head really has some great compacted beach to run on. It’s way better than anywhere else I’ve tried to run in the sand and there’s so many people running and biking on the beach it makes it a great environment to get some miles in.

While there we made an effort to eat at a different restaurant for each meal. The resulting 10 pounds that I put on was real proof that the concept was quite enjoyable. I’ll have to say that Red Fish was by far my favorite place even though I didn’t get my best meal there. I ate, drank and was merry for the whole stay.

Upon my return I shook the dust off the legs with a couple of sub 9 miles on Saturday to finish out my lame week of running. I did start this week out on a good note by getting in a ”Memorial” 5 miler with Kat. I planned on an easy 3 tonight but we got rained out. Boooo! I’ll see if I can’t get a tempo run in tomorrow or maybe some speed work depending on how I feel. Since I’m not running the King Tiger on Saturday, I’m going to participate in the fastest mile competition on Friday night. I plan on turning my mile times in to Chris even though I’ll miss the next two weeks.

Since I have no idea how I will run while on vacation, I’m considering this week a rap.

The past 7 days total mileage is modest at 16.25 but the elevation gains are respectable (707 total feet) since I ran a 5k in Charlotte, 6.2 on the Literacy Course and 3.3 on the Forest Hills Course. Last nights run was brutal beucause we doubled up (which to me is always harder) and the heat and humidity combination for the previous two nights was miserable to me. Tonight I was sore, tired and unmotivated with the Forest Hills course staring me right in the face. I had plans that if no one showed up, I was going to bail out and not feel the least bit guilty about it. That’s when Cathy pulled up and I knew then there was no crapping out tonight.

We both felt like microwaved dookie but slogged through the 3.3 fairly well. I was so sore that it felt like I was moving in slow motion and on a couple of hills I couldn’t take the aching bones feeling I was having in my quads so we walked briefly to catch our breath and then cranked it back up. With the soreness, two short walk breaks and the overall difficulty of the course we still managed 9:59 for our overall pace. On a day like today when the last thing I wanted to do was push out 3.3 on a difficult course, I’ll take anything I can get.

For the next week I’ll be on a vacation and I may not be motivated to do anything. Just in case I’m wrong, I took three running outfits. Maybe I can sneak out for a run on some of my days and explore new territory on foot. It’s always better that way. Besides, it’s nice to have that on the Garmin map when it’s uploaded. The other motivator for this is that I am 197 pounds and I have worked my ass off (literally) to get there. While on vacation, I’ll eat any damn thing I want! Running will help keep those pounds off because when I get back, I’m going to go right back to my slow carb diet and 180lbs will be my new goal.

I’m outta here!

I’m suffering from full blown blog neglect lately, so this is my get back up to date release.

CPCC Skyline 5k - Another fun time at this one again. If setting a new PR doesn’t make you happy, then having breakfast at Zada Jane’s with your friends afterwards will! I set a new mark with a 27:19 at this race and had a blast in the process. Boy, the language at the breakfast table would not have made Granny very happy. LOL!

The Race for Literacy - This was my finest moment as a runner and it had nothing to do with my performance! We were represented at our hometown race by the running club and by our couch to 5k clinic participants and boy did we show well! Everyone did really well and it just felt so great to be a part of something that helped others. Some of the performances were downright impressive! I was most satisfied by training and running with my daughter in her 1st 5k. I was so proud of her and what she accomplished on race day. I haven’t quit thinking about it yet! The best part of this is that she’s asking when we can run again. Seems that I’ve definitely planted the seed, I just have to focus on watering it properly!

Twilight 5k - This was a race where I had no idea how I was going to do. I thought I could turn in a respectable time, but running a evening race is always hard for me. I don’t deal with the heat very well and you’re always heavier after a days worth of food and water. Last year, I bonked big time and struggled to turn in a 29:04 and that made me very pessimistic about this year. We got to the site later than intended, it was a mad dash to get the bibs on and chips mounted, then I ran back to the car to drop off our race bags and shirts. I really wanted to have an extended warm-up period and be 100% ready for the start; didn’t happen. Despite this, I clocked a 26:15, surpassing my previous PR by 1:04. I would have never predicted that and considering that I stopped to walk twice during the race, I’m astonished at the time. I think having a better warm up before the race and not stopping to walk twice would have easily translated into a sub 26. That’s okay though, I’m in full on training mode now and it only gets better from here. Speed-work will be my best friend over the next several weeks.

Over and out.

I had a great run with Project 52500 and swimjholt tonight. We decided to take it easy, venture to Forest Hills and run 5 to 6 miles. With the heat and humidity that I am yet to be accustomed to, it became an easy but brutal run in the hills. the overall pace was somewhere around 10:30, but the slow speed was overshadowed by my inability to deal with the heat and produce adequate amounts of sweat.

I did enjoy the convo and running some of our old hills on the Forest Hills course. Though labeled “easy”, runs like this really kick your butt and tend to leave me rather wasted at the end. I guess it’s better to get used to it now than try to later in the summer. Time to really consume the water so that I can manage heat control a little better. Losing weight and body fat % is also going to help me cope with the warm weather that I love to dread so much.

It wasn’t the total mileage I wanted, but it was an enjoyable 55 minutes of misery.

First thing is first. I am exactly 1.7 pounds away from meeting my goal of being under 200lbs by the Race for Literacy. It’s been really tough staying discliplined enough to make this happen, but when I get on the scale every week it’s worth it!

So in my previous post I stated that I PR’d in the CPCC Skyline and I’m really happy with that. It wasn’t my best day but I gave my best. I still couldn’t open up my stride like I wanted until the second half of the race, but that was fine too. With the limited amount of speed-work I’ve been able to do and the ongoing Achilles issue, I’ll take a previous PR minus 5 seconds any day of the week!

What’s really interesting to me is the Garmin metrics that were collected during my run. When I crossed the finish line, I told the running peeps that I ran mile 1 too fast, mile 2 too slow, and mile 3 just right. After uploading the run, Garmin told me that I didn’t know what the heck I was talking about!

Here are the splits:

Mile 1 - 8:52

Mile 2 - 8:38

Mile 3 - 8:42

Mile 3.1 - 1:03

Notice that the mile I thought was the fastest was really the slowest and the mile I thought was the slowest was really the fastest. I’m usually pretty good at remembering what cost me my goal or the significant miles of a race, but I missed it on this one. I picked the three miles that cost me my half marathon goal this year with perfect accuracy, but I missed 2 out of 3 on this one.

The other thing that I noticed about the results is that the course is not as easy as we think it is. The elevation gain is 160 feet for this race and that puts it around 70 more feet than the literacy course we think is so challenging. The big hill drop at the end makes you forget the fact that the first 1.25 miles of this course are a steady climb.

Having the Garmin Foot Pod with my GPS is also becoming a very valuable tool to analyze my performance. Cathy really did me a solid on the Foot Pod deal! Reviewing the results of the cadence measurements confirmed my thoughts of getting into my proper stride in the second half of the race. It’s almost like looking at two different races all together. The first half of the race was ran around 192 steps per minute and exactly at the second half I got right in the zone of 180 steps per minute. I struggled with my Achilles until I got to the halfway point and once there, I could open up my stride a bit and I felt a great forefoot strike going on. The Garmin metrics reinforced my thoughts and feelings during the race and gives me something to reflect on while focusing on proper cadence during training runs.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I got to watch both running peeps turn in PR’s on Friday, I PR’d and made keep the pounds coming off. I’ll be resting the Achilles since it’s got some soreness in it and I’ll be back on the course with the Ct5k-ers on Tuesday.

After uploading my run, I see some VERY interesting metrics. I plan on doing a full analysis and posting this to my blog sometime this weekend. To take the run apart and present the facts is going to be something.

Bottom line: I’m still hurting a bit, I can’t open my stride all the way until 100% loose, I wasn’t feeling 100%, but I still set a new 5k PR of 27:19. I’ll take it!

More to come.

I’ve had a decent week this week. It’s nothing that I can brag about, but it’s been good work on a long road to recovery. I’ve had workouts of 6.2 miles on Monday, 2.75 miles on Tuesday and Thursday, with rest days on Wednesday and Friday.

I’ve got the upcoming CPCC Skyline 5k on Saturday and I’m totally confused and unsure of how I will do. I haven’t been able to do any speed-work or hill repeats since re-aggravating my Achilles, but I turned in a favorable 10k on Monday with the 1st half of it being 28:25. That’t not bad for a training run during a injury recovery period, but that doesn’t necessary translate into a PR at the 5k on Saturday either.

The Skyline Course is unique in that it’s not difficult but most of your real work is at the beginning and there’s a steep slope downward at the end. Last year, I turned the corner and said “Oh my, look at that downhill!”, so I kicked it as hard and as safely as I could for a PR of 27:24. It was unexpected and I was doing well for most of the run anyway, so the kick at the end allowed me to push into the PR zone.

I can’t look at myself in the mirror and say that will happen this year. I still can’t open up my stride and with the absence of speed-work in my routine, I’m not going to be as fast for the first 2.65 like I was last year. I do have a different plan of approach this year, but I have no idea how I’ll perform until there.

If I can equal my PR from last year that would make me very happy so I guess that’s my goal for tomorrow - 27:24.  

Great workout with Brent tonight and I must say it did a lot to increase my optimism for the race on Saturday. I still think I’m about 45 seconds slower in the 5k that I was last year, but I’ll do my best to leave nothing in the gas tank and we’ll see what that yields.

We agreed on doing a double literacy loop and we set out to start fairly fast and I think we challenged each other fairly well for the 1st 5k. We came in around 28:25 for the 1st loop and that’s not bad considering I can’t get a full stride, Brent wasn’t rested, and it was just a training run.

We started the second loop a purposely slower than the first but still managed a respectable 5k. All told we did the workout in under an hour.

I’m feeling it a bit in the Achilles, but overall I would say that I am very happy with the workout tonight. The slowest split was 10:26, the fastest being 8:33 for a moving average of 9:39. My cadence came in at 188 steps per minute which tells me that I’m a little over the target of 180 because I can’t open my stride up like I want to. As long as I am on the road to recovery, I’ll take it.

Injury Report: The Achilles is still bugging me but I do feel like it’s improving. I only feel the sharp pain when I get into a longer stride, and my normal stride length presents nothing in the way of pain, it’s just that I still feel tightness in the general area until I’m good and loose.

Shoe Report: The Brooks Glycerin 9’s are still being really nice to me. They are nice and stiff where I need them, have enough flexibility to make the transition pleasant, and enough cushion in the heel to baby my Achilles while It’s doing whatever it’s doing.

Weight Report: I’ve stayed discliplined with my eating and it feels great to to see reduced numbers on the scale each week. This week? 204lbs! That’s over 19lbs and still falling! Now that I’m coming around with my foot issues, I can focus on increasing the mileage and the weight loss should continue.

Race Report: I’m planning on attending the Waxhaw run this Friday to support Brent and Chris. Brent is in PR land and Chris is tracking for an impressive finishing time as well. I’ve got a feeling they both are going to bring it on Friday. I have the CPCC Skyline on Saturday morning and eventhough I know I’m not where I need to be and should turn in a worse time than last year, I’m still looking forward to it and will give it what I’ve got! Regardless, breakfast at Zada Jane’s is going to be great!

Even though the participation has thinned a bit, I’m continually amazed at the participants and how dedicated they are. This has been a rewarding experience and I hope we can build on it form year to year.

My plans are to go out for 5+ tomorrow and really get my legs stretched out a bit. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. 

I wrapped up my week by having a “scout run” with OperationWTH and Project 52500 of a 6.6mi double loop in Waxhaw on the Town and Country 5k course. We took it easy (10:20 pace) and it’s got me feeling very positive today. Thanks to the running buds for the work and support! If only I could have worked out the brunch! Maybe next time.

So my feet issues have really been dragging my mental attitude into the gutter for the past three weeks. I’m happy to report that I feel as though I’ve departed from rock bottom and am on the road to recovery. I’ve been on the shoe hunt from hell for a while now and have tried on everything imaginable in an effort to pick a great shoe for me. I’ve tried on upwards of 40 models from all of the main running shoe manufacturers and I narrowed it down to two. The ASICS Kayano 18 and the Brooks Glycerin 9. Long story short, the Glycerin 9’s arrived Friday and I loved my run in them today. I really like my Free Run’s, but I still need some support for the problematic Achilles and let’s face it, I still have no problem making the weight cut for a Clydesdale.

Speaking of Clydesdale, I am slowing making it back to my goal of not being one! I’ve recovered from taking some time away from the strict eating regimine and am back to 207.8 as of yesterday. I’m back in the saddle starting today and since my foot issues are going away (fingers crossed), I’ll start to drop weight as the training intensity increases. My goal of being under 200lbs by the Literacy Race is in sight and definitely doable.

Speaking of training intensity, today was the first 10k I’ve had in a while. I didn’t feel my best today (cheat day was yesterday) and I had to be cautious with the right foot, but I was pleased with the increase in miles. I seemed to handle it fairly well and I definitely want it to grow from week to week until I am back in half marathon distance again. I need the 10k to be my baseline and the half to be my long weekly run. My distance schedule starts earlier this year than it ever has before and I need to get my training mileage and heat acclimation up. If the shoes pan out and my feet stay healthy, I’m on the road again!