It's Wednesday, but Saturday's coming

I told myself that I should run a good three times this week in preparation for the Solon 5K on Saturday. After all, I didn’t get much running in last week while we were on vacation. I was good on Monday, ran 2 miles, felt decent. I intended to run again this morning, but after not getting to sleep until around midnight, 5 AM for running was just too early. Maybe this afternoon or tonight. I’m thinking today, maybe tomorrow, and then take Friday off to rest. We’ll see how it goes.

Otherwise, it’s been a fairly uneventful week thus far. Monday night we were home - first Monday night home since softball started back in May! Last night Becky did supper with some friends from church, so I had a night at home with the girls. Then last night I screwed up the Master Boot Record on my basement PC, so I spent the remainder of the night trying to get it wiped and re-loaded. I think it’s pretty well wiped now, so hopefully the Sony Recovery disks can do the rest of the work for me.

All sorts of wacky stuff

Or at least what counts for wacky in my world. I realize my life is pretty calm compared to some of the rest of you.

  • I ran 2 miles this morning. And actually ran the whole thing, didn’t walk at all. My time was 19:14, which isn’t awesome, but is tolerable. I’ll shoot for the 5k distance again tomorrow.
  • I witnessed something last night at our church softball game (the last one of the season :-() which I had never witnessed before: the two umpires getting into a shouting match with each other. In our league, each team volunteers a player to ump the game before (or after) their own game. It’s usually very low-key. But the field ump made a call last night and the plate ump over-ruled him, and they got into it. Then towards the end of the game the plate ump ended the game and walked off the field, when the rule clearly states that we could’ve started the 7th inning. Grrrr… but it was a good game, we played well and won.
  • Evening shows like this one make me wish I lived close to Nashville. The closest any of the Square Pegs will be getting to Iowa this year is when Andy P plays in Omaha and Lincoln, NE. Not close enough.

Well, I guess most of that wasn’t wacky. But it was stuff, though, you can’t deny it was stuff. One outta two isn’t bad.

Odds and Ends August 2006

Odd: 13, the number of runs we had last night in our softball game. Also the number of runs our opponents had. After 7 innings it was just too dark to continue to play (8:30 pm or so), so we called it a draw. It was a beautiful night, and a fun game.

End: The end of the run yesterday was about 2 miles from where I started it. Enough, at least, to get my blood pumping. I did the first mile without walking at all. Woohoo!

Odd: 15, the day of the month today. Which means that it’s my brother Ryan’s birthday today!

End: This is the end of the post.

More running

It hasn’t been a real productive week for me as far as running goes; three mornings this week we we had rain come through between 5 and 7 am, which is my usual running time. I did get 2.5 miles in on Tuesday, but that was it.

So today, after cleaning out the gutters and mowing the lawn, it was time to go run again. The Solon 5K is only a month away… My times for this run:

Mile 1: 8:02
Mile 2: 18:50
Mile 3: 29:57
End : 32:43

I came in a couple of minutes quicker than last week’s run; my first mile was actually a couple of minutes slower this week, but I had a more consistent time for miles 2 and 3 this week.

Only a month to go before the big race. Hopefully I can find time to run more than once a week before then. :-)

My first training run

I have a 5K course mapped out through our neighborhood, so I gave it my first try at that distance on Friday. It was early afternoon, probably 85 degrees out. Here were my split times:

Mile 1: 7:43
Mile 2: 18:56
Mile 3: 31:38
End: 34:20

I was cranking it out the first mile, didn’t have to walk much at all. Actually, through the whole thing, it wasn’t the cardio part that was slowing me down - it was my legs. My calves were cramping up pretty bad. The second mile I walked more; obviously, I went from an 8-minute mile to an 11-minute second mile. The third mile was then about 12 minutes. There is a nice long uphill grade to finish the third mile, it’s a good test.

All in all, 34 minutes isn’t too awful for my first try. I need to keep at this, though, so I can be better prepared for the 5K on September 16th.

Taking the Plunge

This weekend I signed up for a 5K run. I’ve never done something like this before. I’ve not been a big runner in past years, but with 30 approaching and too many pounds around my waistline, it is time to get more serious about it. I have increased motivation to run; finding time is still the difficulty.

Inspired in a good part by Jeff and Adriene’s efforts, I sent in my registration Saturday to run in a 5K in Solon on September 16th. In a fit of insanity, my sister Rebecca agreed to run it with me. She’ll probably beat me, too. So now I have seven weeks to try to get ready for it.

I’m not really scared of the distance; when I get out and run now I do 2.5 - 3 miles in about 30 minutes. I still end up having to interspurse some walking amidst the jogging. I just need to push my endurance up so I can walk less and jog more.

An aside here: I found a really cool website that has been helpful: mapmyrun.com. It uses the Google Maps API to allow you to chart a run (even going cross-country if you want to!). It’ll then show you the mileage of that run, and, given the time it took you to run it and your age, height, and weight, will even calculate a calorie burn. Maps can be saved and shared. Pretty cool. You can see my little 5K training map if you want to.

It’ll be tough to train any this week, seeing as I have a full day today and then I’m headed to Seattle tomorrow morning early. Maybe once I get back and it’s a bit cooler I can start cranking out the miles. I’ve gotta try…

What A Difference the Shoes Make

I bought a new pair of Asics running shoes over the weekend and wow, what a difference they make! Beside the fact that they don’t tear up my heel like the old ones did, they also have a much greater amount of padding and bounce when I run. What a nice change! Here’s to hoping I stay disciplined with the running so that I wear this pair out sooner than the last pair. :-)