Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Parent / Teacher Conference

Ahhh, I'm going to my daughter's conference on Thursday morning by myself (she's 8, third grade). This will be my first conference I've ever been to. (My ex-wife has gone to my 15 year old son's every time) What do I do? Do you just sit there and listen to what the teacher says? Do I come with a list of questions/concerns? Can I show up wearing my running gear so I can get in a three miler afterwards before I have to pick-up my kids at Grandma's?

Other note - I'm taking the family to a late season visit to Yosemite at the end of next week. Has anyone ever run the trails there? I'd like to squeeze in a couple of runs just so I can say I ran Yosemite.
Finally I'd like to welcome my 'new' readers - please check out their blogs. Everything I read are great follows and I love following your stories.

Keep Steppin'
Bob

Slowly I'm Progressing

It's been about ten days since my last post (really?!?) and I've been really busy with both personal stuff, family, and my running. Currently I'm on pace for a 90 mile month so I'll have to pick it up this week if I want to hit that 100 mark again. Stroller runs ARE making me stronger, and I'm not doing enough running with my partner Bogey.

Have you ever heard of a dog bonking out on a run? Well that's exactly what happened to Bogey and I last weekend. My wife took our kids out to watch their cousin's football game and that left Bogey and I with a couple hours to burn, so I decided to go out on a 'longish' run. Now when I though of the ides I was thinking of a three miler, but within 2 mins of leaving the house I knew I could go for 7-10 by just how I felt. Immediately I changed course and set out for my longer loop that I could add to as we went. The loop itself is about 6.5 miles and the add on could increase this distance by at least 4-5 miles if I wanted to. Weather wise it was kind of hot for this time of the year (82 degrees) for the late afternoon but I wasn't worried about myself - but I should have been worried for my partner. (Small note: last attempt at this particular loop I myself crashed sometime last year.) About 2 miles into the run I noticed Bogey was lagging behind me, tongue rolling out of his mouth and panting hard. At first I thought it was because we had just past the Dog Park and he wanted to play, but very quickly I realized he was completely out of gas - so for the next 10 mins we waked so he could cool down and catch his breath. After that it was a slow jog downhill straight home, no addons, shoot we didn't even complete the loop (4.5 miles only). Still it got me thinking, I guess even dogs can have bad days.

My other runs have been good though - I'm still pushing Cade in the stroller and I'm getting quicker, below is my pace chart (weekly) in regards to my stroller runs. I'm impressed with myself because I'm not trying to increase pace here - just working on getting in longer more meaningful runs.

My graph

Keep Steppin'
Bob

Sunday, October 18, 2009

A new PB in Distance.....


The picture is from Beth's Grandfather's house in Ill. He past away this past summer at the age of 90. It really doesn't have anything to do with the post, but I liked seeing his backyard again.

Well another week has already past and I wasn't thrilled with my effort in getting out the door this week. Because of this, I decided to go out and run 7 miles tonight just so I can say I put in a PB for distance.

I chose a location that I'm familiar with and easy to run - flat and fast. In fact I still have my 3 mile PB on this course from earlier this year. The course itself is a single mile loop that I decided to run 7 times. I wasn't sure if I was going to get bored running this loop over and over but I do enjoy people watching and this course does get a lot of foot traffic.......

Mile 1 split was 9:45 on the nose - a little faster than I had planned. My goal here was to run an average of a sub 11 min mile so I felt this was a little fast, but I felt really good and my breathing was coming easy. Because of this I decided to keep going at this pace to see how long I could hang on.

Mile 2 split was another 9:47. Still feeling really good. Now I NEVER bring along any water on my runs, but because I knew I was going 7 today I brought long a bottle that I was taking sips about every half mile. (It lasted until mile 6 so it worked out well.) I was worried that it would be too hard to keep pace carrying a water bottle, but it wasn't causing any problems.

Mile 3 split was unsure - I do know I was at 29:23 at the mile marker though - so I was still on pace and feeling pretty good. Right about here I started to eyeball a possible sub 10 min mile average. The first 30 mins seemed to click along rather quickly and with the sun starting to go down, my 'people watching' group was dwindling - soon I wouldn't have any distractions, would it make the final 5k difficult?

Mile 4 I really stopped watching splits - I was in around 39:40 though. Slightly slower, but I was still feeling good. Sun dipped below the ridge and the sunset was beautiful.

Mile 5 was around 49:30. Faster than mile 4, but I started hurting a little though. My bad knee (left) was a little sore under my messed up kneecap (old HS injury). By now the sun is gone and it's starting to get dark. I'm pacing myself by seeing where "Running Sucks" t-shirt guy is.....

Mile 6 I'm on the home stretch now and already know I'll be finishing under 1:10:00 - I feel that good. 59:50 at the marker and I start to pick up the pace a little.

Mile 7 - t-shirt guy is finished - couldn't hold our pace and I blow past him, now it's only the 'serious' runners out on the path and I'm starting to pick off some of the slower people. 1:09:45 at the finish, and I could have run another 5 without any difficulty. Maybe I should consider running races longer than 5k? I'll wait until my race pace is under 9 min miles though.

Overall I am very pleased with the run. All the stroller runs are making me stronger and keeping my everyday pace down that helps with my recovery. When I get out without the stroller and my 30 lbs kid I feel like I'm moving along without any difficulty. Pretty soon I'll have to start mixing in some speed work since I'm planning to keep my base around 120 mile per month. (I'm around 100 now.)

Keep Steppin'
Bob

Monday, October 12, 2009

Solid Week

Well a new week starts today and I've just finished putting in a nice solid week last week. I've pretty much kicked my head cold but I'm still feeling a little congested.

This morning Cade and I went out for a little run after we dropped the girls off at school. Just a little small run to get the blood pumping. My pace was 9:36/mile so I'm feeling stronger running with the stroller.

A couple of things to note this week.
1. Distance goal: 30 miles
2. Attempt a PB at 10k distance.
3. Last month I finally broke 100 miles for run/walk/bike distance!

I was looking at my log this morning and realized that this PB has stood since early March. I'm pretty sure I can break 1:04 maybe even a sub 60. So this Saturday I'm going to make the attempt.

Keep Steppin'
Bob

Monday, October 5, 2009

It's Been a Long Weekend.

I've had a pretty bad head cold since last Thursday. I'm not sure where it came from but I starting to feel better today. So because of the cold I didn't run either Saturday or Sunday and only did very minimal mileage on Thursday and Friday. Today I did get out this morning but the run was very difficult, I'm still having difficulty breathing through my nose, and my upper chest is a little congested still, but I'm going to try to get through the day without taking any medication.

Planning for Thanksgiving is going along well, with my PB in the mile the other day I'm leaning towards setting a PB goal for a 5k race then. I want to run a 2 miler sometime in the next week or so and see what pops up with that run then I'm going to set a time goal for the race.

My stocks last week took a pretty hard hit, but I'm working back this morning. The ISM Index report this morning was favorable so that helped us get off to a good start. FUQI is my big mover this morning up 1.46 at the time of this posting. Ten day high sits at 31 (current the stock is at 27.8) so I'm hoping for a larger jump in the next few days - I'm still being defensive overall until the Jobless Claims on Thursday come out. We really need to see this number turn - Got that Mr. President?

Keep Steppin'
Bob