Today marks 24

 . . . and though that run still isn't easy, I keep improving on time.  Monday was a dog of a run.  I felt like I was dragging someone else with me, it was so hard.  But as hard as it was, I was able to improve my time somewhat compared to the previous run there.  But what I think dragged me down was my shoes.  I bought a pair of Yanks.  They are supposed to help in keeping your shoes on without having to tie them all the time. They're elastic, bungee laces.  I can see how they may help other people, but I need my shoes LOOSE!

Like so:

Those are my really well worn Merrell Trail Gloves. I love the lacing system on those. Really adjustable, and I can have them loose and comfortable. As you can see, I tied knots onto the laces ends. Perfect. The only reason I don't use them on the trail is that the sole is worn enough . . . sorry that's a load of bull.  I just wanted a newer pair of shoes. I use these at work in the lab. I have a pair of Redwing boots that I bought a year ago that still look new cause I use those only when I have to.

If there is any constriction on the top of my foot, it annoys the shit outta me.  It feels as if my foot is always flexing or something. It works harder than it should and I can't relax on my run.  I really tried to get the Yanks to work, but alas . . . they were not long enough to satisfy my requirements for a comfortably loose shoe. The original laces were also not long enough to tie.  That's why I went with the Yanks. So what were my choices if the Yanks didn't work nor the original laces?

I stuck with the original laces . . . with a bit of a modification:

These are my newish Merrell Road Gloves . . . with added zip ties :D

Yesterdays run was the first relatively comfortable run where I wasn't pissed at my shoes, just the trail. I wish it had the same lacing system as the Trail Gloves, but I made do. I still tied the lace ends but they were a bit too long, hence the zip ties. Perfect.

My times on this trail are all OVER the place.  Some days are good, others not so much. I'll say the bad days are due to the shoes being too tight. The good days prior to the lace fix, were due to having been wearing my Vibram Bikilas. Those are always comfy.

I'm feeling a relaxed kind of tired today.  It shouldn't hold me back on my run. I'm looking forward to a good one.

GD

p.s.
too lazy to check. run smiley :)

22 days into 30 day running challenge

So I'm looking at my calendar this morning and I notice that Day 30 ends on July 3rd and I've been wondering what I'm going to do.

I think I'm going to continue . . . kinda. What I mean is that I miss lifting mass. I was noticing improvement when I was doing Crossfit and I'd really love to incorporate that into my running again.  Do CF one day and run the next. That could be my next 30 day challenge. Or just a lifestyle change.

I was expecting to hurt a lot more than I am.  As a matter of fact, I believe I'm hurting less than if I'd gone full out with the recommended training of one day on, one day off.  Of course, the training also recommends doing SOME cross-training on those OFF days and increasing mileage on the ON days.

My gauge of improvement is how well I'm doing on those hills at Manzanita Park.  How far up can I go before I have to stop and walk. They're bitchin', killer hills with a sand pit right before most of 'em. The hills here in Prunedale are sandy because they used to be under water eons ago.  Prunedale's at about 100 feet in elevation and Manzanita Park is about 200 feet. It's not that high up from sea level. There are certain parts here in Prunedale where you can just see the ocean between hills, so we're not that far from it. If one goes digging through around here, you can still find seashells. Pretty cool.

So . . . anyway . . . for the morning of the 4th of July, I'll be beginning Crossfit once again.  I believe the inaugural CF workout will be Fran.  I wanna see if I can improve on my time.  I don't know what it is off the top of my head but it was over 15 minutes. Hopefully I've made some improvement in stamina.

I've run a bit over 55 miles so far.  I was hoping to get near 100, but it doesn't look that way. If I continue with what I've been posting up, I'll have added another 20 miles by the end of this week. So by day 30 I could be close to 90 miles. I'd like to break 100, but that means really pushing myself and cranking up the daily miles. I'd have to average 5 miles a day . . . oof. Maybe do the 4 during the week and do longer weekend runs. We'll see.

GD

p.s.
too lazy to check. run smiley :)

Tonight should be Day 19

And along with it, I'll have broken through 50 accumulated miles since this weird endeavor began.

I still cannot explain to myself why I'm continuing with this. I've not had these kind of masochistic tendencies since I was in high school.  I start out ok and then on come the stinkin' hills! They are a BEAR!

For Manzanita Park, you start out going down hill for a while.  It's a decent warm-up, and then you gotta make it back up!  Well, by then I'm drenched and the legs are starting the feel it.  Now I've gotta climb back up the hill?!!! Ugh!

And to make me feel even better, you've got the CX team out there running up the hill . . . chatting away like it no thing. Bastards.  OH! And the cherry topper, little league soccer players right behind them laughing and chatting!  FUCKING bastards!

So whenever I come up on a walker (not Walking Dead walkers, enjoying the day walkers) I tell them they still have a LOOOOONG way to go uphill . . . to discourage them.  So they can go back to being potatoes.

Not really. But I really want to . . . sometimes.

I say the "Good job", moral support thing. I know there have been times when I'm draggin' ass and then someone comes along says that and it reminds me to keep pushing. Gotta "Pay it forward" and all that.

I'll be going for four tonight.

To the Pain!

"It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever."

GD

p.s.
to lazy to check. run smiley :)

I've gone 15 days!

The mileage for those days aren't any big deal, but for ME to say that I've gone 15 days straight of running some amount of distance greater than a mile . . . awesome.

I had started running flats for the first nine days. It's the trail by the Toro Estates. It's one of those ninja trails because it fools you into thinking you're running a level trail.  But you're not! It's a very slight rise in elevation of about 45 feet.  It doesn't sound like much, but I always thought the run back was much easier.  Now I know why.

I started running Manzanita Park Last Wednesday. I'd heard there was a trail there last year but because I was a chicken-shit and didn't want to run it solo at first, I never went.  But I'd been wanting to try another trail for a while. Toro Park is cool and all, but it's kinda out of the way for me. It takes about 20 minutes to get there because I've gotta go through town and there is no straight shot through.

Manzanita Park is on the way home from work. Because I work on a mushroom farm, it was built on an old Foster Farms poultry farm. Because it was a poultry farm, it was built in the middle of Prune-tucky (Prunedale, CA).  Nice hills and valleys to prevent chicken shit (and now mushroom compost) from annoying neighbors.

Manzanita Park is a county park that is used by youth athletic leagues.  They have baseball, softball, soccer and even BMX races there. They have batting cages on-site, too.  And one neat-o running/hiking trail.

This is what I ran last night after work:
http://j.mp/Kws2NW

 
What I did to mark the 4 miler is take my phone with me to and used the Runmeter app to log the run. As I reached the 2-mile mark I was looking for a landmark I could use. When I did get to the 2nd mile, there was a convenient lone tree off to the side to use as a landmark and headed back the way I came.  I could complete the loop for an under 3 mile run, but for this week I'm going to attempt to keep with the 4-miler.

My legs were bugging me, but I think it was because the shoes I was wearing. They're fine for the "shorter" run, but I was getting beat up and it was because I couldn't get comfortable in my shoes.  They're relatively new and on flats, they're fine. But with this more challenging trail, my feet need to be free!  I'll be using my VFF Bikilas today and from now on for Manzanita.

I'll tell you what though, after my first couple of runs there, my calves were aching! They haven't ached like that since I began running in minimalist shoes. The funny thing is that while I'm churning through the trail, I'm hating life and wondering what the hell I'm doing when I could be at home enjoying a beer. But after the run . . . SEVERAL MINUTES AFTER . . . I'm so glad I did it. It's not really about the accomplishment, it's more like the stinkin endorphins have finally kicked in!

Why the hell couldn't they kick in while running!

GD

p.s.
too pissed to check. run smiley :)

Today could be Number 10

Last week I read a post that inspired me to accept a challenge put forth by the blogger. The challenge was to run at least a mile everyday for 30 days.

Today's run could be run number ten!  And so far I've kept with running more than a mile a day.  And it hasn't been that difficult.  I'll admit some days I just didn't want to go, but after the run my mood had been lifted and felt MUCH better.  Those days have been the reason for me to continue on this challenge.  I just let go . . . and go.

The little bit of miles rack up and last week I cranked out about 18 miles. Not bad, but I'd love to do better.  I know what I've got to do to improve, but it'll be a bit before I can make some of those changes.  I hope to start this weekend, if things don't go to shit again.

So far the one major improvement I've noticed has been I've been sleeping the sleep of the dead. No more waking up several times a night, tossing and turning.  Drawback?  I can't seem to wake up the hour earlier so I can go for my run and do my crossfit workovers in the evening.  That's going to have to be one of the changes I need to make. That one's going to be difficult.

Legs have been feeling better as well. I'm still working out running form, even though I thought I was good. Nope.  I've got to learn to relax.  Every time I ask myself if I'm relaxed, I notice I'm not. It's hard to be relaxed when running, but it's doable. It's just minute changes, but they are noticeable.

I'm looking forward to tonights run. I'm thinking it's time to push for four miles . . .

GD

p.s.
too lazy to check. run smiley :)

Not dead. On hiatus.

I was on a 10 day exercise hiatus.  Crap too deep to get into, but . . . I'M BACK!

I began on Monday with my usual under 3-miler at the Toro Estates.  I NEEDED to get out there.  I'd been needing to get out and do something for the last couple of weeks and I finally went.  I felt ok.

The next day (Tuesday) I was checking out the blog-roll and Trisha Reeves of [barefoot] Monologues had this posting about a running challenge being done by a friend of hers who was first inspired by a challenge proposed by Jason Robillard of Barefoot Running University.  Sorry about all the links but I figured someone might want to know if I'm making this shit up.

ANYWAY . . .

The challenge was to run AT LEAST one mile every day for 30 days . . . or longer. Trisha's friend was just about to reach 120 days straight. She says it's helped him get strong enough to complete an Ultra with very few runs longer than 10 miles! When I read the that, I was dumbfounded.  I was like, "CRAP! That sounds reasonable! Running 30 days straight shouldn't sound reasonable!"

But if you ONLY have to run AT LEAST 1 mile a day . . . that's reasonable.  Everyone has AT LEAST 15 minutes of time to kill (p.s. I don't run 15 minute miles . . . just sayin').

So far, I've stuck with my regular trail run of 2.68 miles since Monday.  That's a tad over 8 miles over the last three days.  Tonight will be my 4th day of the challenge and I'm not hurting.  The legs have been tad stiff after Monday's run, but I think that was because of the unintended hiatus (I was a total potato).

The only problem I see is how I'm going to incorporate some Crossfit workovers into this. Right now, my plan is to run 5 to 6 miles on both Saturday and Sunday. I'm thinking run in the morning and do a good workover in the evening.  But I want to do some workovers during the week, too.

I think I may have to finally turn into one of those annoying morning people and get up at the ungodly hour of 6am for a run . . . ugh.

GD

p.s.
too lazy to check. run smiley :)