So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night

To the readership of this blog (both of you),

The Amazing Hip has graciously provided me a new home over at breaking the tape. From now on, I'll be posting at:
http://scottrundoff.breakingthetape.com/

Cheers,
SD

Week Minus 04 and Counting Down...

Yesterday I was scheduled to run 13 miles but ended up running 16.3. I initially thought it was 17 but found a more accurate total when I drove the course later. I’m a little sore today but not too back, pretty pleased really. I realize that jumping from 12 to 16 miles from one long run to the next is reckless but it is also exciting!

I almost hesitate to write this because it is the sort of thing you read right before the entry about the stress fracture, torn ligament, etc. but chugging along mile after mile yesterday I felt great and like I could have just kept going – like an astronaut or desert traveller. I’m starting to think about pushing beyond the marathon boundary. I was reading an article by Jeff Galloway in which he listed five top things you can do to improve your marathon mileage. One of them was to do a training run in the 28-30 mile range during the peak of the training cycle, both for mental reasons as well as improving endurance. Who knows, maybe after Seattle I might set my sights on training for something farther out than 26 and a bit.

This Week: Tuesday: 7.14, Wednesday: 3.57, Thursday: 3.57, Saturday: 2, Sunday: 16.8, Total: 32.58
Last Week: Tuesday: 3.57, Wednesday: 3.57, Thursday: 4.71, Saturday: 2, Sunday: 12.3, Total: 26.15

Summer Time and the Living is Easy

It is a sunny day (It’s an easy day!) and I can’t wait for my run after work. The marathon training is on track. I’ve been steadily adding mileage and haven’t missed any planned runs, or hadn’t until last week when I took most of the week off to coddle and injury that I don’t anticipate being a problem in the future. I was a little disappointed not to be able to get my runs in but looking at pretty much every plan out there, they specify down weeks. When I got out there again after work yesterday I felt good and ran well, so no worries I guess.

This week: Tuesday 3.57, Wednesday 4.46, Thursday 5.6, Saturday 2, Sunday 12

Weekly Run Down

Monday: --
Tuesday: 3.57
Wednesday: 4.46
Thursday: 3.57
Friday: --
Saturday: 2
Sunday: 10

I realize this is almost the same mileage as the week before but it was such a different week. The week before a couple of my runs were pretty crappy, I was sore a lot and my long run was a trial. I really had to push myself not to walk. This week, all the short runs were fairly effortless and I didn't hurt at all. I finished the 10 miles and could have kept going but I know enough not to do that - stick to the plan and don't get hurt. I think my body is getting used to running five times a week. This coming week I'm adding a mile on Sunday and converting one of the 3.57s to a 4.46 but other than that am doing the same workout as last week - amazing how having a plan again makes me want to blog.

Fathers Day Right Around the Corner...

Unfortunately at some point in the past couple of years I lost my Forerunner 201. I am pretty much resigned to the fact that it is gone as I haven't seen it in over a year. For now, I'm going along fine in training without it but I'm going to need (read in needy voice) one when I get to intervals and as my long runs get longer and more complicated.

Looking at the various options on the Garmin website, I fairly quickly narrowed my search to being between the 205 and the 305. The 405 looks super cool but it has less battery life in training mode and doesn't have the Courses feature that the 305 does. The wireless data transfer to your PC looks neat but, I'm not sure about the feature of being able to beam your routes to other 405 owners so they can compete against runs you have done - a little too geeky for me (never thought I'd say that).

Anyway, here is the feature comparison I came up with:

Model	Price	Wireless Transfer	Multi Sport	Heart Beat	Courses
405	$300	Y	Y		N
305	$300	N	Y	Y	Y
205	$200	N	Y	N	Y
201	$150	N	N	N	N

I also found this rubric, which I thought was good.

So, the only feature the 305 has that the 205 is lacking is the heart rate monitor, which would be nice but I'm not sure worth the extra 100 bucks. Does anyone reading this have experience with the 405, 305, or 205 that you would be willing to share? Also, have you used something besides a Garmin product that you liked better? Help me Dear Internet....

Don't Call It a Come Back

I have been in a long, well, running slumber for some time now. I’d get out and jog a few times a week.. or less, with no goal and not much enjoyment. Then a few weeks ago, on our way back from running Bloomsday in Spokane, my wife and I were talking and decided to run the Seattle marathon this coming November – her the half and me the whole. Since then, the part of my brain that thinks racing has started to fire again. I have a goal. I’m eating better, sleeping more, and I’ve lost weight. I still have eight weeks before formally starting the Higdon plan that I’ve selected. In the mean time I’m retraining my body and brain to be used to running five times a week and slowly inching my weekly mileage and long run distances up;

Week Ending: Total:
May 3 7
May 10th 7
May 17th 14
May 24th 26.5
May 31st 19.95

I should have 23.6 this week with my long run breaking 10 for the first time.
I had been thinking I’d just run the Higdon plan, but with my long runs peaking earlier and staying higher than the plan calls for but on advice from Jeff I’m now thinking I’ll working in more interval and hill work. It’s good to be back.

This may be my first post of many as I take this training blog out of deep freeze or there may be a link here soon to a new blog. Stay tuned.

Smoky Hills

Went for a run today out of our valley and back and out on a short loop in the flat land. On the way out I was moving along, thud, thud, pant, bounce, thinking, "What is this strange feeling? I have no right to be this happy. It is ridiculous!" BOUNCE! BOUNCE! BOUNCE!

On the way back it was more, "Pant, pant, still, pant, happy..."

I'm Baaack!

Today was my first real run since the whole hernia and surgery and it felt great. The ex-girlfriend and I dropped the kids off with my folks and ran down out of our valley and for a short 3 mile loop in the falling snow. We only saw one other person on the route and had some good together-with-no-kids time. I had nothing I'd qualify as pain, didn't get too tired, and felt my body continuing to wake up.

I've been thinking off and on lately about why I have a (mostly now defunct) running blog. It isn't that I think a diary of my training is all that interesting for other people ( I went running.... I got some new socks and then I went running again....). I think the point is that often when I run, especially when alone, I think of other runners I know. This helps me keep going. I think of them on their paths and I think, "I can do this. Its just a little farther." So, for any of you out there.. I'm here and I'm running again.

RBF Meet Up

blogher 110
Originally uploaded by gene_poole

Recently we spent three days at a blogging conference and several times I heard someone say something like, “Ooh, I’m going to use that!” I discovered that I miss that about blogging – people squirreling away little tidbits to share with the people who read their blogs and the sense of anticipation, waiting for my favorite people to post to theirs. I may be back. We’ll see.

In the meantime I have a tri story that has been knocking around in my skull since I heard it, pinging back and forth, looking for an exit. Maybe if I share it with the inkernet it will shoot out my ear and leave me be. Take that as your final warning.

This past May we were in Spokane to run Bloomsday (it rocked). I got to talking to a group of guys and running came up. One of them is the manager of a nearby grocery and told us that his store sponsors an aid station every year at the regional triathlon event. They have big galvanized tubs of water and grapefruit sized natural sponges so the competitors can wipe their faces and necks.

It seems, he told us, that due to the extreme exertion, it is not unusual for the athletes to lose control of their bowels. The aid station is at mile seven of the run and it was obvious that a runner coming in had lost control of his somewhere around mile three. He grabbed a sponge, went down the back, down and around the front a couple of times and thoroughly cleaned himself before throwing the sponge down and running off. One of the kids working the aid station had gloves on and ran over to pick it up. He was holding it out at arm’s length with just the tips of his fingers and had to rotate at the waist and bend a little to turn around to his boss to ask, “What do I do with it?”

You know what is coming… you just don’t want to admit it to yourself yet. The next guy ran in, and seeing the outstretched arm with the sponge, grabbed it up before anyone knew what was happening.


…and squeezed it into his mouth…..

The man telling the store said it was like they were all frozen in time, yelling, “Nooooooooo!” and then it was like the air in everybody’s chest froze up as well and nobody moved as runner number two threw the sponge down and ran on, apparently unaware.

After he was gone, the manager said, it was like a bomb went off and everybody just dropped to the ground. “Oh!!! That didn’t just happen!”

So there it is. I’ve passed it on. Now the image can be burned into your mind as well.

Warning Sports Nuts!

WarningGodsJudgement
Originally uploaded by pederson_erik

Sometimes I think this guy might have a point.

Ran my last long run last night before the half marathon next weekend. I know you aren't supposed to run training runs longer than your actual event but that is what I did last night. Turned out to be not so bright a move as I hadn't run since last Friday and my body wasn't ready for it. Oh well, I guess I'll be a little soar two Saturdays in a row.

Weight In

cool running weight chart
Originally uploaded by gene_poole

Long time, no blogging... but target weight has been achieved, held more or less steady, and training continues.

There have been a lot of miles put on the running shoes since I last visited blog land. I’m glad to learn that everybody is still running strong. Pam and Jon continue to trade barbs and funny status titles on gmail. Jeff is rocking fatherhood. DREW isn’t hitting all the goals he sets for himself but he is still setting them. I don’t have to go anywhere near the Internet to know that a strong group of women are on track for the annual Turtledash Half. Like Scrubs but in real life, Danny is working a lot and still finding time to run like a gazelle, turning is sub-eight splits. Josh has a marathon in a couple of months and it sounds like he is currently leading an interesting life.

As for me; I dropped off the Hood to Coast team I was on for several reasons. Since then, though, I’ve actually been running and training more that before. Probably Pints to Pasta in Portland will be the next organized race I participate in. For now I’m just running for me and generally enjoying myself.

weigh_in

weigh_in
Originally uploaded by gene_poole

Checking in with the blog I never post to anymore....

My running life is actually pretty good right now. I'm not following a plan or obsessing about miles or anything like that but I'm getting out there pretty regularly. I usually don't decide how many to do until my feet are actually in contact with the pavement. A long run these days is a nine. I hardly ever do less that five. This is exactly where I want to be - running reasonably strong but not obsessing about a plan.

Of course at the end of next month I'll be saying, "WHY WASN'T I ON A PLAN!" I have a feeling that the third run of the Hood 2 Coast is going to suck this much as it did last - suckage in that eery I haven't slept or eaten much in the past 36 hours and now I'm running up a hill in the 80 degree heat which is unpleasant at the time but makes for pretty good memories.

The graph associated with this post is good news I think. At my heaviest this past year, I got up to 220. The top end of optimal for me BMI-wise is 205. I've worked my way down to that and now, on the advice of my mother at dinner last night, have decided to try working down another five pounds. Like she says, its good to have a little in the bank, so to speak. This coming from a woman who has pretty much stopped adult onset diabetes with diet and lifestyle to the point where she is off medication.

Anyway, I hope where-ever you are, you're running healthy.

SD

Still Ticking

It has been a long while since I posted but my running life has actually been pretty good lately. I'm running home from work a few times a week and have gotten to do my favorite lake run pretty regularly too. There are those things that drive you to get out there and then there is that first step. There is that old proverb that "A journey of a 1000 miles begins with the first step" which is why the thought crept into my mind tonight at 4:57 as I was standing in my running garb in the reception area with two coworkers; "I could just ask one of them for a ride home..."

Bad whiny voice, bad! Don't you have voices? I do. Anyway, once I got ten or so steps under me, I started to get all happy, running happy. I felt like Steve Martin in LA Story when he comes out of the house after finally breaking up with his bitchy girlfriend (yes, sometimes work is my bitchy girlfriend).

Anyway, the things currently driving me are probably three-fold. First, I have more time as I'm currently between semesters for my night classes (masters program how I curse thee). Hood to Coast is fast approaching. For me this is The Event of the year in which I will simultaneously want to prove myself to strangers who are also my team members and whom I won't want to let down 'cause we're a team. Lastly, I decided recently to lose some weight. Two years ago I ran Vegas at 207 and recently topped the scales at 220. I'm not super fat but when I realized recently that I've been walking around with a gut ache rather than losing a notch on the belt that De Nile is not only a river in Egypt but something I needed to do something about. Now it is the first thing I think about when I wake up and head to the scale. This morning; 213.

So, still here, feeling like a stranger to my own blog. I hope you are well and that as Steve Runner says, may you run long and taper.

SD

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Checking In...

I'm getting to the gym regularly and to the trails semi-regularly. In general I'm feeling pretty good and enjoying myself. Today I did 45 minutes on the elliptical and ran the lake after work.

Hump day report:

WEEK TOTALS	Running: 3.6 miles Time: 33m 00s Avg. Pace: 9:10/mile
	Gym - Cardio: Time: 1h 30m 00s

The calories go in.....

The other morning at work a coworker who is on a diet but still loves to cook brought in a Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookies for the office. Nobody tell my mom, but his may be the best chocolate chip cookies ever. There must be double the lard or unholy deals with Satan or something involved. I briefly thought about not have one (a cookie at 8 AM??), thinking to myself, “What’s the use? I could skip my run tonight and not eat this cookie and be in about the same place.” These are the weird thoughts you have early in the morning when you aren’t quite all there yet, like one is a positive and the other a negative that cancel each other out. It is only after you have done the run at the end of a long stressful day that you remember to good brain juices and general pleasure at being in shape.

I had a great run tonight and then came home and enjoyed my wife’s totally yummy baked pasta and cougar cheese – life is good.

Running with a Goal Again

Now that I'm officially in training for an actual event (Hood to Coast '07) it seems easier to get out on the trail regularly. I find myself mentally fitting running goals in around the few murky mileposts I can see up ahead in the coming months. I'll probably do a few fun runs between now and then but the main goal has been identified. I hope to get the same legs as last year. Not only were they some of the least brutal but I would like to try competing with myself against last year's times. I know I can do a lot better this year.

Check out this cool site that DREW posted about - great for those of us who like something beside music to run to and are getting tired of an all podcast diet.

Where's LJ?

Target Acquired

I am stoked. Check out this quote from an email sent by a classmate today;

"So, I did not realize that you are a runner... Are you in training for something or just trying to get out there. What are you doing the last weekend in August 2007? Interested in spending 36 hours with some people you don't know who smell and taking cold showers in nasty high school gym class gang showers? It is a lot of fun. Let me know if you want to join our hood to coast team. We already have a name "10 is enough" - don't ask - but the team has a bunch of MPA students, past, current and future and it is a lot of fun."

Now I have raison de running (or something like that).

pooooossssseeeerrrrrrrrr

DSCN2504
Originally uploaded by gene_poole.

Yesterday we took the boys and went for a run on the dikes. Brisk, invigorating and all that healthy crap.

Scott Ran...

10 minutes on the paddle stepper today, followed by 30 on the eliptical, and then five more on the paddle steppers. Yeah for me. According to the machines I burned enough calories to equal a Whopper with cheese, or 10 shots of vodka, or probably about two of the huge steins I have for my home brew. Currently feeling the comfortable glow...