43 Days, 43 Workouts

Through August and September, my training has tailed off a little and I've started to get frustrated with my times. On top of that, my goal of running Boston in 2010 has been looking a little bleak. Well, I'm back on track and have a new short-term goal that is very ambitious. From now until Halloween, I have planned out my exercise and running schedule and it requires me to do something for the 43 days starting from yesterday (September 19th).

The workouts range from a day with a circuit workout or a 2 mile run to a long run of 16 miles. While doing all of this training, I'm going to keep this blog updated more frequently and possibly start doing video blogs because of the ease and lack of typing required.

Yesterday, I started this quest with a light swimming workout in the pool at the gym (1) and today I went out for a 10.3 mile run (2) (2 warmup, 10k, 2 cooldown). Tomorrow is a circuit training day after school.

Well, hopefully I will stick to this and I'll start seeing my mile times drop to where they were at the beginning of the summer and then lower still. Stay tuned for more information about school (which is going great) and everything else going on in my world.

Getting Amped for Miami

Today's Run: 4.02 miles, 29:52, 7:26/mile
Sunday's Run: 10.03 miles, 1:21:20, 8:07/mile
Thursday's Run: 4.21 miles, 33:55, 8:03/mile

Wooo!!!! I cannot wait for Miami in January now. Since I recalibrated my iPod, my times have looked great and the distances are much more accurate. Today's run was simply amazing. I checked my status at 3.1 miles just to see where I was and it turns out I set a new personal best for a 5k today (23:15). I went out early today and did not know what to expect from my body. Turns out, running early is good for me. I crushed my goal for today (which was 32:00) and got my fastest mile down to 7:15. That is the magic number for me. If I run 7:15 a mile during the Miami Marathon, I'll finish in about 3:10:00 and that will qualify me for Boston in April 2010, not 2011!! We'll see how the rest of the summer and fall go and my goal for this site might be moving up a year!

Stupid Calibration

Today's Run: 3.4 miles, 28:00, 8:14/mile (Nike+ was not accurate)

Well, it looks like I have to find a track and re-calibrate my Nike+ setup. I thought it was going fine and it looked like my times were getting better, but I was only partly right. My times have been getting better but much more so than my iPod was telling me. I had a feeling the other day that it was a little off, but today confirmed it. I went out for a run and when I was at 2 miles, the iPod was still not there yet. It wasn't until almost a quarter-mile later that it told me I had gone 2 miles. In the end, my 3.4 mile run was only counted as a 3.1 miler and that makes a huge difference.

My pace is the one thing that I really need to work on. I know that if I get out on a marathon course that I'm going to push myself the whole time but I want the time to be good as well. The time difference between what I did run and what Nike+ said I run was significant. On the iPod, it told me my pace was 9:00/mile. I did feel like I kept my pace slow, but not that slow. When figuring it out without Nike+, my pace was 8:14/mile! I have been getting much faster lately which means my workouts have been longer and at a faster pace than what I was thinking.

Tomorrow will be the day I calibrate the iPod with about a 2 mile run and hopefully from there I'll have to re-calibrate every month or so. Right now, I'm starting to get the thought that I might be able to use the Miami Marathon in January as my qualifier for Boston in 2010, not 2011. Let's keep our collective fingers crossed!!

One last thing, I ran in my brand spanking new Air Zoom Vomero+ 4s today and LOVED it. There will be more on those later. Good night all!

Running in the Rain

Today's Run: 8 miles, 1:07:00, 8:22/mile (Nike+ stopped working)

Today I went out for a run when it was already cloudy. I half-expected it to rain a little bit but did not know what I was in for. Using the Nike+ mapping feature, I was able to plan out an 8 mile run that took me to a different part of town than I normally run. The bonus part of that decision was that I know I finished my run even though it did not log correctly on my iPod. Another bit of news I was able to get from this run and my run on Thursday of last week was that I might need to recalibrate my sensor. My pace has been increasing but according to Nike+ it has been taking it longer for the iPod to register a mile.

Now that the technical stuff is out of the way, let's get to the run. First - this was probably my favorite run in a long time. It really made me feel like a kid and it was a refreshing feeling. The run started out like a normal run on an overcast day and somewhere around the 3 mile mark, it started to drizzle. By the time I hit mile 4, I was running in a torrential downpour and it felt awesome. The rain stayed heavy until I was about 2 miles from home and by then I had no music (my iPod stopped making noise at about 5 miles in) but I was in a great mindset by then.

Running in the rain is very different than any other running. Today there were 1-inch streams flowing down the road, huge puddles on the sidewalks, and my shirt weighed about 5 pounds. There were a bunch of times when I wanted to say "Screw it" and walk the rest of the way home. The turning point was around that 5 mile mark when I lost my music. As I was running down a hill, I saw a group of 3 women running towards me on the same side of the road. As we got closer, we both started whooping it up and exchanged high-fives as we passed. This moment showed me that I wasn't the only crazy person out in this weather and pushed me through those last 3 miles.

In the end, this run was great. I ended up with a great time and didn't overdo it. It sounds cliché but this run was both refreshing and cleansing. The rain felt good coming down and splashing in the puddles made me feel like I was 8 years old again. I didn't care that my shoes were soaked or that I had no music. It was just a pure run that gave me time to think and just focus on having fun. Today's run is definitely one I will remember for a long time and try to duplicate the feeling every chance I get.

Welcome to August

Well, it's August and it has been almost a month since my last post. During July I spent a lot of time running and tweeting when I wasn't at school working a summer program. Overall, July was a great success for me. The summer program proved to be more effective than we originally thought and some of the kids showed real potential. On the Twitter front, I was able to tweet 1000 times from July 1st to 31st. It ended up taking on a life of its own by the end and I'm glad to finally be finished.

As for running - what a month. I ran 67.91 miles at a 8:28 pace for the month. July also saw the longest run I've ever done (8 miles), my fastest 10k (52:01) and my fastest mile (7:35). The best parts about this month was I missed no workouts, hit the gym a bunch of times and look forward to my runs. All of the running has also made me realize that there are certain socks, shorts and shirts that I can wear and others that I can't wear when I'm running. I'll spend some time going into detail about that next week.

Going into August I have some goals and a great outlook on my running. I started a new training program on the Nike+ website and it ends on January 30, 2010. Coincidentally, the ING Miami Marathon is that same day. If everything works out the way it is supposed to, I will be running my first marathon right then and there.

This blog has been neglected for a month but that ends today. August will see the return of run details and playlists and will introduce posts about shoes, clothes and hopefully technique. If you find this blog interesting, please let me know and pass it on.

later,
mike

Twitter, Running and Algebra

Today's Run: 4.02 miles, 33:45, 8:24/mile

Well, back from vacation and I'm beginning to accept it. :( Well, since I've been back, I've worked, ran and started a Twitter Adventure with Dan (aka sneaker_nerd). First, the adventure....we are going to attempt to post 1000 tweets each during the month of July. So far, I'm a little behind the pace of 32ish a day (I have 52 in two days) but I'm catching up. Dan is over 100 so it's looking good. To this point, we have one additional follower and hope to get more and make #1000tweets a Trending Topic on Twitter.com.

Next on the list....Running! Went out for my first run in a week today and it felt good. To top it off, NikePlus.com has been updated and looks great! There are more features for sharing your profile with the world and the integration between Nike+ and Twitter/Facebook is built in now. Overall, the upgrade looks good and hopefully will get better with time. For splits on runs, I still like using RunnerPlus but that may change.

As for Algebra, I'm teaching a summer program to about 18 incoming freshman and today was much better than yesterday. The kids are starting to have fun and participate and that makes it so much easier to teach. I hope they keep getting better and that they realize school can be fun and worthwhile at the same time. Too many kids are willing to sit there and do nothing instead of jumping in and making the best of the situation. Maybe a handful of them will see that by the end of July and it will change they way they view school. Only time will tell.

Planning on some fun stuff for the Twitter feed for the 4th of July. Follow me to check it out!

Interstate Run Song

Today's Run: 4.02 miles, 33:50, 8:25/mile

Tuesday's Run: 5.01 miles, 46:24, 9:14/mile

Greetings from Lake Tahoe, NV/CA. We flew in yesterday and spent today driving around the lake and seeing some amazing sites. There is so much to do around here that it gets hard to decide where to start.

We had a long day of traveling yesterday - 9:05 am (Eastern) flight out of Philly, landed in Reno at 2:30 pm (Pacific) and had to drive about an hour to Lake Tahoe. At around 5:30 pm (had to get food and got stuck in a little traffic), we pulled into The Lodge at Kingsbury Crossing and settled in for the trip. The room we were given seems to be the best one they have. Somehow we got lucky enough to get a balcony with a view (slightly obstructed) of the Lake and mountains.

Today, we got up and decided to drive around to the South Shore of the lake and ended up going the wrong way. This ended up working out great!! We followed a winding, mountain road for about an hour and saw some amazing sites. The scale of the mountains and valleys is hard to describe. There are areas that you can look down and see neighborhoods that look like SimCity towns. Once we turned around, we headed back towards the lake area and got to drive on more mountain roads that give you a view of the bluest water outside of the Caribbean (right). There are miles and miles of trails around the lake and many of them are in the Emerald Bay area. Tomorrow, we are going to rent some kayaks and head out on the water for the day. There is only one island in the entire lake, Fannette Island, and it is only accessible by boat. On the top is a 16x16 stone Tea House that was built in the 1930s. All you have to do is get out there and explore. We can't wait!!

To finish off today, I decided to go for a run and not jack up my training schedule too much while on vacation. For those who do not know, the average elevation of the city of South Lake Tahoe, CA is about 6,237 feet above sea level - 1,000 feet higher than Denver. Needless to say, running at a high elevation is not fun. The other not fun part is running downhill for a mile and not realizing it until the mile comes back about 15 minutes later. Anyways, it was a lot of fun to run in 75 degree weather with no humidity. Another part of this run that was awesome was that it took place in two states!! We are technically staying in Stateline, NV and are only 1 mile from the border. I started my run in Nevada, ran the middle half in California, and finished up in Nevada. I've never got to do something like that so it was pretty cool. Finally, at the end of it all, I found out I ran my fastest mile!

After our festivities tomorrow, I hope to put up a boatload (hehe) of pictures and hopefully they will be able to show how great this area looks!