No Computer, No Blog

My computer is dead, and I've been fighting various ailments for the last two weeks. Expect some updates in this space when I get a functioning computer.

Recruiting Runners

I should be in bed right now, but it's the second day of the baseball season and I am in the zone. I've already watched three games, and I plan on fighting tooth and nail for TV time until the end of the World Series. Sarah, if you're reading this, you've been warned.

Speaking of Sarah (she's my lovely fiance, in case I haven't mentioned), I think I have convinced her to enter the Brent Kelly Memorial Five Miler, taking place at the Irving Nature Park. She occasionally joins me for walk/run intervals, and has made some major progress despite an irregular schedule. She has yet to run five miles, but I fully expect she'll be ready come race day.

Today we decided to walk/run the Nature Park. Since the main road is marked every 500m, I decided we should run 500m for every kilometer. No problem. Sarah averaged about eight minutes per kilometer, which isn't bad considering we were walking half the time. Better yet, she ran the last kilometer non-stop in six minutes, which bodes well for her times once we eliminate the walking breaks. Total time for the Nature Park: 52 minutes.

While we don't run together very often, I really enjoy our outings. There are very few distractions, and it gives us time to update each other on our day. Having someone to run with also encourages us to get out of the house; I know am much more likely to go for a run or walk if I know I have someone to go with, and I am pretty sure Sarah would agree. I imagine we'll run many more races together in the future if Brent Kelly goes as planned.

I had a few more things to add, but I just looked at the time and realized it is far past my bedtime. Hopefully I don't fall asleep in class tomorrow, because I am teaching. Fingers crossed.

Sluggish Sunday

Two blogs in two days? That's an unprecedented amount of output, but I wanted to let you know about the amazing run I had today.

Ok, I am lying. My run today was terrible. It was just one of those days where I couldn't get anything right. Wrong clothes for the weather? Check. Badly planned route? Check. Dead legs? Check and check.

First off, let's start with the clothes. For some reason, I decided that three layers was sufficient for ten degree weather. Maybe in January, yes, but not in ten degree weather. Within minutes my t-shirt was soaked with sweat, and it wasn't too long before my hoodie followed suit. Gross, and uncomfortable.

Secondly, my route - a little loop from my house to Sheldon Point - was challenging and problematic. The trails at Sheldon Point haven't been taken care of in ages (I really hope they fix them up before they officially reopen the Nature Park) and I spent much of my time dodging fallen trees and muddy hills. In some place the trail was nearly non-existent, which led to me getting lost. Eventually, I gave up, and found a trail that led back to the main road.

And my legs just weren't cooperating. I recently bought a pair of Mizuno Elixir 3's (from Alex Coffin's Fitness Shop, of course) in the hopes that their light weight would inspire some faster training runs, but my legs were dead for 80% of the run. I expect some of it is due to last week's layoff, but it's still frustrating to crawl through runs that were easy just 10 days ago. Here's hoping for a noticeable improvement this week.

A Long, Lazy Road to Fitness

My blogs are getting more sparse by the week, it seems. At first it was a lack of time, and then it was a lack of progress. I couldn't find time to run my last week of school, and pretty much spent the entire time gorging on terrible, fatty foods. Now I am paying the price. I went for three runs so far this week (I will hopefully do some sort of long run tomorrow), and I struggled to find the motivation to do more than my usual bare minimum. A body at rest tends to stay at rest, I suppose.

I did manage a halfway decent run yesterday, however. I planned a quick jog around the Irving Nature Park (6.5k), and decided upon arrival to attempt to throw some speed work in to make it interesting. I started out relatively slowly, thinking I would pick it up around two kilometers in, but then changed my mind and just started running harder than I normally would. Perhaps it was my lack of activity for the last couple of weeks, or the fact that I wasn't running very fast to begin with, but I wanted to push myself and see how my body would respond.

My body didn't respond, at first. My first kilometer wasn't much faster than my normal pace, and my second kilometer was only slightly faster than that. By three k I was moving pretty fast, and was starting to approach my planned marathon pace. If I could match that pace for the entire run, I figured, I wouldn't be doing half bad. Of course, that meant I would have to make up for the pedestrian pace of my first two k, but I was up for the challenge.

The fourth kilometer was right on target. I started to fade on the fifth kilometer, but tried to keep it together, knowing that I didn't have much further to run. I pushed hard for the last mile, sprinting down the last hill, only missing my goal by seconds. It's not quite marathon distance, but it'll do in a pinch.

Tomorrow I will attempt a long run, and if all goes well I will also blog about it. Hopefully Easter dinner doesn't derail my plans.