Week 8

Light week this week so this will be a relatively short post.

Tuesday I ran a nice easy 6 miles. I laid out a course in my neighborhood and ran in a area I'd never been thru before. The only bad part was that it was after dark and there weren't many streetlights. Luckily the streets were well maintained, no potholes to break a leg in. I did have one moment when a dog I couldn't see started barking and getting close to me but I just kept going and he eventually decided I wasn't worth the trouble.

Wednesday was an easy 5. I was off so went about noon since I had run Tuesday evening.

Thursday was another easy 6, Friday was an off day.

Saturday I did 5 miles and my calves started getting really stiff at about 1 1/2 miles. A short time after that, my right heel started hurting. I just kept going but as I got close to finishing, my right foot started getting really numb and tingly. That has happened to me once before but it stopped as soon as I quit running.

Sunday was 7 miles and I ran my old loop around my neighborhood course. This course is pretty hilly and used to give me fits before I started my training plan. I was out so long one Sunday my wife was about to come looking for me just as I got home. I had been anxious to do it since I have gotten in good shape. My heel was hurting a bit, so much so that I switched sides of the road. I've been told that if you always run on the same side of the road, one leg will get shorter due to the curve of the road and since I always run against traffic (can't have stuff sneaking up on me), my right leg is the one that has always given me grief. Anyway, I finished with no problem. The weather was nice but the wind was blowing pretty hard. Running uphill into the wind is sooooo much fun but I finished in good shape and recovered pretty quick.

I got home expecting to make breakfast but the wife wanted to go to the mall and pick up something. We ended up eating breakfast at a little place here in Pflugerville called El Rincon. El Rincon is a little family place, their tortillas are homemade and they have the best migas on the face of the planet. If you're a local, you probably already know about El Rincon but if you don't, you're missing out on the best place in the hill country to eat breakfast.

Next week should be fun, I have to do 18 miles next Sunday. I just drove my route and whooo doggies, it's far. I can't wait...

Week 7

Fabulous week this week.

Monday was an off day. Tuesday the wife wasn't feeling good so we went home instead of going to the gym. I was supposed to do 4 miles and that is easy to do from home. I changed as soon as we got home and went outside to stretch. As I finished stretching, I realized I had forgotten to take off my glasses so went back inside. As I came out, I took off running and grabbed my water bottle from on top of the truck as I went by. This small action seemed to catapult me forward somehow and I was off running a lot faster than I usually do. I decided to just go for it and see how I did and man alive, I was flying. 4 miles went by like nothing and it felt so good I didn't want to stop but I'm a stickler for my training plan so after running about a block extra, I broke the compulsion and shut it down. Man it felt good, I haven't run that far that fast ever.

Wednesday I took off at a pretty good pace but not like on Tuesday. About 1/2 way thru 3 miles, I started feeling a pain in my right buttock. I figured it would go away but it never did, just kept getting worse and worse. I made it thru the three miles and limped home but I could barely walk the rest of the night. Well, it wasn't all bad, I did get to walk around all night yelling, "AL, rub my tushie" at my wife. Thursday was supposed to be 5 miles but I could still feel the pain in my ass so bagged it although I really, really didn't want to. I just doesed up on the Advil and tt turned out to be a good thing I skipped Thursday.

Friday was an off day. Saturday was an easy three miles and the pain in my ass was gone.

Sunday was a momenteous day. I was signed up for this event:

http://stampede.motive.com/

Saturday night I was pretty restless. I was plenty worried about running 13 miles after hitting the wall and crashing doing 12. I have to get up early on Sundays to take my daughter in law to work so I decided to go to bed early Saturday night. I got in bed around 9 and just could not get to sleep. I finally dozed off and woke up at 3:30, once again, unable to get back to sleep. The alarm went off at 4:20 so I got up to take the in-law to work. I got back and ate a breakfast bar, a banana and drank a cup of coffee. I got to the race about 6:50 and the place was a zoo. It was also really cold. Without too much useless detail, it was finally 7:30, the horn blew and we were off. It was nice to get moving after freezing for so long. Other than a quick trip to the woods close to the start, I was feeling great, running steady and strong. The course gets really hilly at around 4 miles and continues uphill sporadically for a few miles. The first hill pulled me a bit but the rest felt good, I maintained a steady pace and when we finally topped out at around the 7 miles mark, I knew it was going to be a good run. A few weeks ago on my 12 miler, I was pretty much done when I hit 10 but today, I hit 10 feeling like I could do another 10. I even increased my pace a bit and finshed strong in 2:14:14. It was a little off my 10 minute mile pace and I could have knocked a few minutes off except for one thing. My training plan said I was supposed to do 15 miles today, not 13 so as soon as they got the chip off my shoe, I headed back out to do 2 more miles. Because of a miscalculation on my part, I actually only did another 1 2/3 mile but I could have easily done the extra 1/3 so I'm not too upset about it.

I am so jazzed about this, it's once again the farthest I have ever run in my entire life and I did it easily. That 12 miles was the longest for me too but I didn't feel good about it, it was so hard I somehow felt like it didn't count but today was a good strong effort in an acceptable time on a tough course. All I got to say to that marathon is "Bring it On."

Week 6

I took it pretty easy this week. I was supposed to run Tu, Wed, Th, Sat, Sun but Tuesday was Election night. I go to work at my normal time on Election night but usually don't get home till the wee hours of the morning. I was going to go to work late so I could get in some running but because of having such a hard time on Sunday and discovering I probably had exercise induced asthma, I decided to just skip Tuesday's run. I didn't get home till 3 AM Wednesday morning and had a Dr appt at 9:30. He gave me an inhaler which seems to work well. Long story short, I skipped Wednesday's run as well. Thursday got away from me but being off on Friday, I decided to do my normal Thursday run on Friday morning since I was off.

Friday I had an easy 6 mile run. Hitting the wall on Sunday made me rethink a few things so I decided to try taking a bottle of Gatorade with me on Friday instead of just water. That worked out really well, I had lots of energy at the end. I ran 5 miles on Saturday and another 5 this morning (Sunday). I tried just water on Saturday but I started out really stiff but it was still a pretty easy run. The 5 miles this morning was pretty smooth too.

Next week is another big test, the Motive half marathon. I'll let you know how I do.

It's election day

Constituional amendment elections are usually real snoozers but Prop 2 looks like it might get a little attention. Here is the amendment text:

"The constitutional amendment providing that marriage in this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman and prohibiting this state or a political subdivision of this state from creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Before I get started with my usual rant, take a look at this little gem. This is not from some wacko like that letter I got the other day, this is from the web site of the Republican Party of Texas and is authored by no other than the Chairman. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that means that it is endorsed by the entire Republican Party. Here it is:

SAY “I DO” TO PROPOSITION 2

How do you respond to logic like this:

But does this really matter to you? Absolutely. Consider the following:

Do you want schools to teach your children and grandchildren that homosexual marriage is normal? Do you want to undergo “sensitivity training” at the workplace to ensure that you don’t favor heterosexuality over homosexuality? Will your employer be able to continue offering health insurance once rates skyrocket as some analysts predict if homosexual marriage is sanctioned? Do you want to continue collecting or be able to collect benefits from Social Security, a system already on the verge of bankruptcy? Do you want to jeopardize your right to religious freedom? Do you want your church or synagogue to be forced to hire people even if they are openly homosexual? These are not rhetorical questions - these are issues that we will face if we fail to defend and protect marriage.

The Social Security thing is a new one. I didn't realize that gay people getting married was going to wreck social security as well as destroy traditional marriage and take away our religious freedom. Man, gay marriage is some really dangerous shit!!

You know for me it all comes back to two simple principles. The first being that any person of legal age should be able to marry any other person of legal age and the second being that any two people getting married has no effect whatsoever on any other two people. If you take away all the stuff that is the real issue with gay marriage (which is going to happen, married or not), two men or two women or one man and one woman getting married comes out exactly the same from a fiscal standpoint.

I'm really pretty tired of this issue to be honest. We all know how it's going to turn out in the end because we've already been here so many times it's not even funny anymore.

It should be interesting to see how Texans vote. I just hope most of them are as sick of the whole thing as I am.

Just so you know, I'm not stupid enough to think we've come that far yet.

I forgot to mention something I found incredibly humorous. The Ku Klux Klan had a rally here a few days ago in SUPPORT of Proposition 2. I just have to say it right out plain and simple, ANYTHING that the KKK endorses is WWW (Wrong, Wrong, Wrong). I just haven't found the right person to ask how they feel about this yet.

Week 5

Not a particularly bad week, not a particularly good week.

Tuesday had a good 4 miles with Fartlek. I was supposed to run 4 - 5 miles with hills but my long runs are all hills and there just aren't any to speak of where I run during the week so I just did Fartlek instead.

Wednesday and Thursday were 3 and 4 miles, nothing to speak of although they were both tougher than I would have expected. I've been eating a lot of left over Halloween candy and I've felt for a long time that an over abundance of sugar weighs me down somehow. Maybe I'm just in a slump.

Short 3 miles on Saturday, once again feeling rather pooped. We went out to my sister's house on Saturday afternoon and had a very nice time. My other sister and her husband were down from Washington so that was nice.

Today, Sunday, was supposed to be 12 miles. I found an excellent course, out to Cele, make a right and go in a big loop. I got up around 7 and ate, sat around for a while then took off around 9:45. My wife went along on her bicycle to carry some extra water.

November in Texas is like box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. The past few weekends the weather had been perfect, nice and cool. It has been warming up for the past few days and when I stepped outside this morning, it was probably already in the high 70s and humid as hell. It wasn't too bad when I started because the sun was behind the clouds but about half way thru, the clouds cleared off and the sun started doing it's thing. I started really feeling it about 7 - 8 miles along, I was really struggling. I have to say that this is a pretty rough course with lots of hills. I had carried along three Clif Shot Bloks and ate those. I had to really slow my pace down to rest for a while but the Bloks kicked in and I was feeling pretty good for a bit. That didn't last long and by mile 10, I was going on sheer willpower alone. I felt like I was barely moving and the road stretched out forever. It doesn't help that the last two miles is mostly up hill either.

Somehow I persevered. I just plodded along and finally, it was over. I had actually run 12 miles, the longest of my life. When I stopped running, I had to lean against a tree for a few minues just to get some energy back, I was completely done in. I always stop about a half mile from the house and walk back to cool down. By the time I got home, I was feeling a little better so the wife brought me some fresh water and I walked on a bit. The muscles between my shoulder blades were really tight and I bent over to try and stretch them out. When I did a wave of dizziness crashed over me. I was on the sidewalk so just fell over into the neighbors grass and rolled over on my back instead of eating sidewalk. My wife was with me and almost freaked out when I collapsed. I ended up making it back to the house but then laid on the floor for about 15 minutes till I had enough energy to get up and walk around.

I should be excited about the 12 mile run but I'm still too washed out and exhausted. I did it so that's something, hopefully it will be a little cooler next week.

Pictures

Here is a link to my pictures from the Pervasive Power 10 miler.

http://www.kreutzphotography.com/default.asp?LOC=%2FKPhoto%2FPhoto%5FViewPic%2Easp%3FDID%3D16%26FID%3D2266%26GID%3D708%26IMG%3D1%26SRCH%3D48%26TYP%3DPUB

You know, I don't know why I post these things, I was feeling great but I still look like death warmed over. Couple that with the fact that since I've slimmed down a bit, I look like Lurch in a tshirt. BTW, that last two aren't me.

This is where you all say how great I look for being older than dirt...