9 miles

It's funny how hard it seems to post during December. I feel like I'm slacking, but I've noticed that most other regular bloggers seem to fade off as well during this month. I guess it's just something that happens during all the holidays, extra darkness and fattening holiday parties.

Anyway, I managed to get on a boat and make it to the gym today -- Richmond is having a crazy rain day today. It's one of those rains in which you shouldn't be out unless you had to be out. Since I didn't work today, I guess I thought I had to be out. I managed to do 3 miles on the treadmill, 3 short miles on the bike and 3 more miles on the new elliptical. All in all it felt great.

I'm having a pretty good month so far with 26.9 miles on the bike, 12.2 on the elliptical and 8.2 running. I'm well on my way for having December being like I want with running actually being the lowest of my miles. I'm also well on my way to shattering my goal for the month, which was to simply do more overall miles than what I did in November. It's tough with a baby, but I'm able to manage my time well to get in a few workouts every week.

The future runner is here

As I said the other day, I won't set any goals for November since I had a baby on the way. Well, the little guy had other plans than being a Thanksgiving baby. He wanted to be a Election Eve baby. Conner James came into the world at 6 pounds 10 ounces and 19 inches long. Since this is a running blog, I thought I'd share his impressive footprints for such a little guy. Mom and baby are doing great so far and got to come home a few hours ago.

As for my November goals, it seems things may work out for the 8k in a couple of weeks, and I'll be able to do a Turkey Trot. I'm determined to stay on some kind of schedule. I even hit the gym last night for a quick workout and got in 7.5 miles on the bike. It was a nice break from the whirlwind, but great past few days.

Au revoir October

After the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in August, I was ready to just give up on running ... hell, I was ready to not do anything for a while. I documented it pretty well that I was taking September as a rest month. In the end I did a little bit here and there and finished with 24.8 running miles, 20.8 walking miles and 19.9 miles on the bike. When October got here though, I said enough is enough, and I ended up having one of the best-feeling months I've had in a long time.

Joining Gold's Gym has turned things around for me. In just a few short weeks I have figured out how to keep going without running, although running is still very important to me. In October, I still ran 53.6 miles, the fifth most this year. I walked 36.3 miles, the second most this year. And thanks to the exercise bike, I hit 49.1 biking miles. That bike is really giving me a burning sensation in my legs that I haven't felt in a long time. I also put in 6.7 miles on the elliptical machine. It's worth noting too, that I ran my first 5k in more than a year.

All told, I had 145.7 miles of exercising for the month, just shy of what I did in August (107.4 running miles, 32.8 walking and 8.2 on the bike). As I mentioned the other day, I passed 1,000 exercising miles for the year. As I head into the final two months of the year, I'm at 1,012.4 miles (not counting today) -- 576 running; 255.7 walking; 174 biking; and 6.7 on the elliptical.

Today, for the second Saturday in a row, I did a run-bike-run workout doing 2.1-5-1.1 Just like last week, the transition from the bike to running felt weird, but it didn't seem to last long. This week I have done three run-bike workouts, and I'm feeling pretty comfortable with that transition. It's the second transition that I need to start working on.

As November begins, I am not setting goals -- I do have a baby on the way you know. I'm still hoping to do the Ntelos 8k in a couple of weeks, but the commitment has to wait. I'll do as much as I can when I have the time to do it.

A double digit day

Walk: 1.7 miles; Run: 2 miles; Bike: 6.8 miles. All that on a day in which I didn't really feel like exerting energy. I managed to get a walk in with my dog before a cold rain came along, and by the time 7 p.m. got here I really didn't want to go to the gym. Since it's still not a full habit yet, I forced myself to go.

When I got on the treadmill, I didn't really want to run, so I stopped at 2 miles. My initial goal was just 3 or so anyway and then bike a few miles. I ended up doing a little more on the bike to compensate. The more run-bike routines or bike-run routines I can do, the better prepared I'll be for a duathlon next year. I'll save run-bike-run workouts for the weekends. It feels good to get that started now. Plus one point of joining a gym was to do less running, so it seems to all be working out so far.

October is turning out to be a very interesting month for me mileage wise. I've ran almost 50 miles so far -- twice as much as lowly September -- and I'm looking to intensify my non-running workouts this week to end the month strong. All in all, I really like where things are headed with winter quickly coming.

A mini duathlon

One of my goals for 2009 is to take part in a duathlon, preferably the National Duathlon Festival, which will be in Richmond for a second year. If you're unfamiliar with a duathlon, it's a run-bike-run race. I've gone out for a run and then biked, and I've biked and then gone for a run, but I've never done a run-bike-run workout ... until today.

I did 2 miles on the treadmill, 4 miles on the stationary bike and then another 2 on the treadmill. Everything felt pretty good, although my legs were a bit wobbly the second time I got on the treadmill. That seemed to work itself out after about a half mile. This workout is a good start to know what those transitions feel like. I like trying it out in the gym first. Eventually I'll take it outside. It was a good day to try it too since it was raining this morning.

My running on the treadmill has gotten steadily faster in these few runs I've done. It's tough to just set a speed and do it on the treadmill, so today I played around with bumping the speed up 0.1 mph every minute from 6.5 mph to 7.5 mph during the first 2 miles. On the second two miles, I worked my way up to 8 mph, bumping the speed up every tenth of a mile once I got to a half mile.

Thankfully today I remembered my iPod ... but I forgot my towel and my usual water bottle. I'll get it right eventually.

Easing into fall

There's part of me that feels like this was a disappointing week, yet there's another part of me that feels completely satisfied. In the end, I think it's what I realized this week with getting in better overall shape that has me happy.

It's been an interesting week with my mileage. All told I have 32 miles -- 10.6 running, 10.5 biking, 8.6 walking and 2.3 on the elliptical machine. I missed a run this week to get into the teens, but I did do a little more biking -- all this weekend. Adding it all up, it's more than last week and that's really all I was seeking. My desire to run still isn't very strong, but as I've mentioned this week my desire to stay in shape and get in better shape is growing.

I don't have any specific injuries, but I've had a lot of dull, aching pains this week in my feet and my knees. It's nothing major and it's nothing I haven't trained through before. Perhaps its the changing of the seasons and the cooler weather, or perhaps it's because I need the break from pavement. I'm not going to push it right now, but I'm not going to completely stop either. Getting in 10 miles or so a week right now is sufficient for me, as long as I'm doing other stuff.

This coming week, my goal is to increase my overall mileage from this week -- it's nice to be able to take a different approach to fitness with the ability to ease off the running. You may have noticed that I took my 8k counter down. It's not that I don't plan on doing it, but for personal reasons I can't commit to it until that week. I don't need it sitting there if I end up not running it. There's also a 5k next weekend that I'm considering, but I probably won't make that decision until the night before. It sure is nice to be able to do that.

Lastly, I wanted to give a shout out to my friend Vicki, who also ran the Rock 'n' Roll Half in August. Yesterday she completely the Baltimore Marathon in just under 5 hours -- congrats to her and all the other finishers out there!

Getting to the bottom ... of my feet

Last week I started experiencing some discomfort (not pain) in my feet and some pain (not discomfort) in my back. Actually, my back pain probably started two weeks ago. It was never anything that seemed out of the ordinary. I had just come off a few months of increasing my mileage and had just ran a long race -- it wasn't anything unusual ... but it wasn't going away.

Then this week it clicked -- I'm wearing nicer shoes to work that didn't have gel insoles in them. I hadn't really wore those shoes too much over the summer, so my feet really weren't used to them. So last night I bought some new insoles and today ... well, today everything felt much better. Problem solved. I guess my feet have become spoiled with using gel insoles, but man they feel good.

I'm still easing off the mileage with running while putting a little more emphasis on the bike. It's a whole lot of little things adding up to some fun workouts. September will eventually go down as a good recovery month for me. It really has helped my mind a lot with not worrying about racing.

Hello bike, remember me?

There's no question that my tail bone injury in July really screwed some things up for me in several ways. Missed runs, missed sleep, missed job interviews, no biking, no driving, lots of bitching about my tail bone hurting ... most of these things have worked themselves out, except for biking. I tried getting back on my bike a couple of times in August, BUT my butt still hurt too much for a smaller seat and bumps on the road. Instead of trying to bike at least once a week, I just ran. And eventually, my bike seat gathered a lot of dust and dog hair on the spokes.

For the past month or so, I've thought a lot about going out and biking. I then had some good excuses going on in my mind -- first was the race and I didn't want to start over close to a race; then my job came along and until this week I've had a rough time adjusting to a new schedule after two whirlwind weekends out of town. Then this weekend came and went; then I was in D.C. for the day this past Monday for work; then I ran yesterday ... and damn, I can't think of a reason to not bike today. So this evening after a walk with my wife and dog, I busted out the two-wheeler and went out for a few miles.

It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. It was better than thinking about doing it. Now comes the fun part of making it a regular thing, all while combating the fact that daylight is getting less and less every day. I cannot get up earlier to get my full workout in, so I'm in a gradual shift of become a person who works out in the evenings. So far it hasn't been too bad. I'm pretty much staying very open minded about when I can get a workout in. I feel, though, that a gym membership may be coming this winter.

New, but familiar, kicks

It's funny how shoes will just all of a sudden be out of miles. Everything was going just fine with my Brooks Adrenaline shoes, until I looked at them last week. Where did the tread go? Then I did the math and realized that I've put 200-plus running miles on these shoes, plus several dozen walking miles. Then all of a sudden my last few runs have felt like a bigger-than-usual struggle. For me, I can't get that 300-500 miles that Runner's World claims is average for a pair of shoes. But also for me, 200-plus miles is a success. Besides a pair of Brooks last summer, I've pretty much been wearing Asics the past few years, but I'm always disappointed in how quickly my overpronating self wears them out -- sometimes it's been the insides of the shoes, not the tread, that wears out first.

So in March, I decided it was time for a change and went back to Brooks. These have been the best pairs of shoes I've owned, despite the fact that I ran no races in them. These shoes helped me get over injuries from the winter and early spring; they've helped me get back to double digit runs; they've been on trails; they've been to the beach; they've seen my dog slowly increase his miles; they've gotten weird reactions because they're black ... this list could go on and on, but most importantly, I've had no issues with running while having these shoes.

While it would've been nice to get black shoes again, my size seems to be missing in Richmond, so I settled on the green/silver model. I once again had a great experience at the Roadrunner Store in Richmond's Carytown -- for whatever reason, one of the local stores here that's closer to my house continues to lack in friendliness and good customer service despite being fairly small. After today, I've given up hope on them and will only visit that store if that's where race packets are.

As far as my running this week, I did some quarter-mile intervals yesterday (details below) and once again hit the bike for a short ride today. Four miles seems to be all my tail bone can handle right now, but it's good to be out there. I cut back on my run today because there's a 4-mile race tomorrow night that I plan to participate in. It's really my only chance to have a race tune-up before the Rock 'n' Roll Half. I think 4 miles will be a good distance to push myself a bit. It'll be my first 4-mile race since 2005.


Workouts since last post
Aug. 11 - Walk - 1 (p.m.)
Aug. 12 - Walk - 1; Run - 4.9 (quarter-mile intervals: 1:47, 1:48: 1:49, 1:46)
Aug. 13 - Walk - 0.7; Run - 1.7; Bike - 4.1

The little-bit-of-everything day

It certainly wasn't as ceremonious as Friday's events in Beijing, but today marked a big day for me -- I returned to riding my bike. It wasn't much -- just a little more than 4 miles -- but I'll take anything considering it's been just a month since I hurt my tail bone. I still am having some issues with sitting, but it's not anything too terribly bad. It seems to bother me more at night when I get in the bed, and it still bugs me to sit in a car for very long. It's more of a major discomfort than actual pain.

Anyway, today was one of those days in which I didn't really feel like running. After my walk/jog with my dog, I decided to dust off the bike seat since I didn't want to force a run. After my ride, I got out my dumbbells and did a few reps with my upper body. Lifting weights was putting odd pressure on my tail bone before, so I've stayed away from them.

Meanwhile, the weather is looking great this week. It's been an odd summer with these cool spells. It's also been very dry. While some parts of Richmond have gotten several storms in the past couple of weeks, my neighborhood keeps missing them. My backyard looks like late September with dried up leaves falling off the trees. It's really bad. I've mowed my yard just twice since early June. Even neighbors who waste water trying to have green lawns look like they're giving up hope.


Workouts since Aug. 7:
Aug. 7: Walk - 2.1
Aug. 8: Walk - 1; Run - 10.1
Aug. 9: Walk - 1.6; Run - 4.2
Aug. 10: Attended Watermelon Festival in Richmond
Week totals: Walk - 8.8; Run - 23.5
Aug. 11: Walk - 1.1; Run - 1.3; Bike - 4.1; Weights

Take It and Run Thursday: Cross Training

Today's "Take It and Run" theme over at the Runners Lounge is cross training. It's an interesting theme for me considering that I really only recently discovered the benefits of cross training. For four-plus years I've thought running was just the thing to do to get or stay in shape. For a brief time in '04 I lifted weights, but I thought it only made my arms look better. I didn't realize that it could help my running.

If you've followed my blog, you know that in the past month or so I've taken up bike riding and weight lifting after back-to-back injuries this past winter. Now that I'm pain-free again, I am feeling the best I have felt in a long time when running, and I have cross training to thank for that. By mixing in a little bit of weight lifting and a little bit of bike riding, it's taken my focus off running a little bit. My running is feeling more care free these days, and that's a good thing. Running feels more natural than it ever has before -- I always felt I was thinking about it too much.

I know I have a long way to go to get back to the shape I was in, but I can guarantee that cross training will be a big part of my training this summer for Virginia Beach's Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon. I hope in three months I can revisit this subject and actually offer some advice on what to do. I'm already considering taking part in 2009's National Duathlon Festival, so getting in better biking shape will be key to me later this year.

Oh, and if you're wondering why I haven't mentioned swimming ... well, to put it simply, I don't swim. I'm not totally ruling it out -- I did do a marathon after once saying I never would -- but I highly doubt it'll happen anytime soon. In addition to needing lessons, I also would need to join a gym or join my neighborhood pool this summer, both impossible considering things going on in my professional life.

Back to Basics

After being sick last week and having a totally worthless week, this week has been all about getting back on my feet and having small accomplishments. I finally got back to running after more than a week off following the 10k. It hasn't been much, but the key thing right now is making sure my foot is OK. I've ridden my bike once and hope to get a few miles in tomorrow if it's not raining. I've also gotten two solid weight-lifting days in, with a third coming tomorrow if it is raining. On top of all that, I've gotten some good walks in totaling about 10 miles so far for the week.

Coming off an injury and then being sick, my plan this week was to take it slow and see what happens. I was one run away from going to a doctor about my foot, but after more than 2 miles this morning, plus a mile walk and some yard mowing, all feels fine. I expect that I will very slowly build my mileage up over the next few weeks before I even think about another race. There are so many races in Richmond, so there's nothing to rush into right now.

My upper body is a bit sore from weight lifting, but nothing unexpected or too bad to prevent me from actually liking it. On the second day this week, I felt very focused when working out -- it was a feeling I hadn't had in quite a long time. Continuing the consistency into weeks two and three is what is key now. After that, it'll be a habit.

So now that I feel like my health is back, I finally feel appreciative that it's spring. It's a good time to kind of start over and get refocused on life and training.

Progress, one-tenth at a time

How happy should I be that in the past two days I have ran a whole 0.4 miles each day without any problems? I think my mind is starting to play games with me ... it's happened every time something hurts. It's like I'm thinking about it so much that it hurts. But it doesn't, actually.

This weekend I am participating in the annual Ukrop's Monument Avenue 10k here in Richmond. From a numbers standpoint, in just nine short years this has become one of the largest road races in the U.S. This year there are 31,000 registered runners and it is host of the USA 10k Championship. So whether I run it all, walk/run it or just walk it, I'll be a part of something huge. Before you lecture me, I will not do anything stupid. If anything, I've never done anything stupid when I've gotten injured. I know several people taking part in this race -- some who would go at a pace like I'd normally shoot for, others faster, others slower and a couple of walkers -- so I hope to have some choices on what to do Saturday morning.

Anyway, back to my injury, or hopefully, the lack thereof. I felt this urge today to go out for a few miles, but something held me back. There's no need to rush it ... if it started hurting, yes, I'd stop, but would it be a setback? With my next "big" race not until the end of August, I'm still very content with riding my bike and not running too much in the next few weeks. Speaking of the bike, it's very interesting to me the differences in how winded I feel during and after riding vs. running. Once I get used to riding more and increase my distances a bit, I'm curious how my body will handle everything. I'm looking forward to mixing biking into my routine this summer. These next couple of months are great for building a good base for the rest of the summer. And like I said a few posts ago, my health is much more important than setting new PRs. They'll be nice, but it's still far from my mind right now.

So two days into the second quarter of 2008, things seem to be looking up. I may have to take it one-tenth of a mile at a time, but I have no problem with that approach right now.

Staying on two wheels, for now

To sum up my left foot injury in one word, I must say that it's annoying more than anything else. It's like a silent injury. It came from nowhere in the race and now it's playing mind games. In the past few days, it hasn't hurt when I get up in the mornings and it doesn't bother me during the day. When I take my dog on a walk it doesn't hurt, but as soon as I make an attempt at running it hurts.

On Thursday, I ran a half mile and it didn't really bother me. But on Friday, it did. And today it did. So, instead of forcing myself to run, I'll just continue to not run for a couple of more days before I try it again. It's not really an intense pain like it was when it first started -- it's just dull and annoying. It sort of feels like a bad bruise that's almost gone.

In the meantime, I'm amazed at how quickly I've gotten used to riding a bike. If this is what I have to do every day for a little while to stay in shape, then I'm OK with that. I'm approaching April as a month to get healed. If I can get to May without being hurt, then I'll have plenty of time to be in tip-top shape for the Rock and Roll Half. All these goals of setting PRs in other distances will take a back seat until I'm 100 percent.

4.5 miles on two wheels

So I finally bought a decent bike and got in 4.5 miles this morning. Not much, but it was the first time in at least five years that I've gone more than a few miles on a bike. Boy do I have a lot to relearn. Of course I didn't forget how to ride -- who does once you learn -- but the whole shifting gears thing and getting my butt used to the bumps will take some adjusting. Either way, I'm happy to get an aerobic workout in. My foot is still bothering me slightly, so I haven't done any running since the race.

Anyway, I'll have more details soon about my bike and the experiences I'll get on it this week ...

The search for a bike

Note to self: Never buy an $80 bike. It only causes issues 5 minutes after riding it. And never buy a bike from Target. Despite loving everything else in this store, including buying 99 percent of my running gear from there, when it comes to bikes, the staff isn't so helpful. Perhaps Target's PR department has Google alerts set up and they'll read about this and get back to me.

I'll be headed to another store very soon to complete my cross-training purchases and buy a bike that might have tires that last longer than a half-mile trip down the street and have a staff that might be willing to get another bike for me if I return it ...