Monday Easy Walk & Musings on Running

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:32:11 EST

Monday, a day to work in the office and a non-running day. Tomorrow evening I have a 3.5 mile race. Today, I just walked at lunch. It was 78° F (26°C), but not as humid as it might have been. I didn't push things, both because of tomorrow's race and because it was warm enough that going briskly was uncomfortable. I averaged between 15 and 16 minutes per mile, and took time at the midpoint to enjoy the view of the Genesee River on a sunny day:

Sunday's Maintenance Musings

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:15:24 EST

Today is Sunday, and Mothers' Day. Mothers' Day can be difficult for me, and I tend to do best when I treat it like any other Sunday. So . . . no more about the holiday. It's Sunday.

Last night I had the social dinner with church friends I blogged about in advance. I didn't make the best decisions I could have, but I made better decisions than I would have without thinking it through in advance. I ended the day in range, but probably underestimated the calories in the dinner. ...

Social Eating

Fri, 10 May 2013 20:52:02 EST

Even before I joined SparkPeople, I knew what my biggest food challenges were: Boredom eating, stress eating, and social eating. There are subcategories to each of these. A year and a half into the drill of recording everything, the stress and boredom eating are controlled. I still eat from stress and boredom, but it will be healthy food, it will be recorded, and I will make it fit into the daily ranges.

Social eating is another animal. I've mostly avoided it, and had mixed r...

Thursday Intervals

Thu, 9 May 2013 20:38:17 EST

It's Thursday, a work at home day and normally a day to run at noon. Well, these days "run" means run/walk intervals; but it's closer to running than to walking.

The sore leg felt almost normal this morning, and RunKeeper reported my pace on the pre-work walk at a few seconds under a 14 minute mile. Okay, I'm healthy enough for intervals. But I have conference calls around the lunch hour like bookends.

Fortunately, the morning conference call was short. I was able to...

Patience

Tue, 7 May 2013 21:57:31 EST

Life is busy right now, even with tax season over. The paid job has much to do, and there's a variety of different stuff filling up the non-work time. What with one thing and another, it's hard to get to bed early. On time can be done with discipline; early is much tougher.

Against this backdrop, there's my bad foot and sore leg. Sunday I did walk/run intervals, which felt pretty good. Monday, the leg had twinges. On my noon walk, it started telling me it might crap out on me...

Intervals, Life Happens, More Intervals

Sun, 5 May 2013 19:12:52 EST

I haven't blogged since last Tuesday. There was enough stuff going on for four blogs, from Thursday through today, complete with old fart runner's angst in the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday blogs; but with one thing and another, I didn't find time to write those blogs. So you get the condensed version, with less angst because that's history now.

It was a rough last half to the week. In 20-20 hindsight, it started Wednesday evening, when I missed my bedtime goal. I only missed ...

Bonus Blog: Food Attitudes

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:14:07 EST

I don't blog much about the eating side of things, because that mostly goes routinely for me. The tricky part is adjusting the calorie range appropriately, and I've managed to do that well enough to make the weight move sideways for the past year:

Edited to add: The graph has shrunk enough to be hard to read, but the weight scale on the left runs from 156 to 164 pounds. The actual high weight during this pe...

Back to intervals

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:50:52 EST

Today is Tuesday, a day to work at home and, when healthy, to run at noon. The sore leg's reaction to Sunday's 5K convinced me I am not yet ready to run 5K three times a week. But the leg recovered well yesterday and this morning, so it was longer running intervals today. The plan was intervals of run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute for 6 cycles. That would be 30 minutes total, with 24 minutes running. Total time is reasonable, and total running time would be 3 minutes more than the 5K on Sunda...

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Blood Donation Day

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 20:51:38 EST

Today was my scheduled blood donation. I took the day off, with the original plan being to recover from a half marathon and see if I could still manage a successful donation. That turned out to be a good plan, even though I backed down to the 5K yesterday.

Got up this morning, and developed a minor headache doing pullups. Thought about that, and similar headaches earlier. Realized that I was quite dehydrated, which sometimes happens the morning after I run. (This morning's wei...

Race Report: Wegman's Family 5K

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:34:53 EST

Set my alarm ahead an hour, to 5AM. Got out of bed about 4:50, and was more efficient (read: hurried) about breakfast and AM exercises than I normally am on a Sunday. Daughter arrived at 5:50 to put a load of laundry in before we hit the road at 6:20.

Temp when I left the house was 41°F, but the forecast was for about 50° F at race time. I compromised with a light long sleeved compression shirt under the tech shirt I got for paying for the half marathon. Running shorts and bare...

Four Days of Walking

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 19:41:16 EST

When I blogged on Tuesday, I was dithering between doing run/walk intervals on Thursday or taking Thursday off from running to give the sore leg more rest before Sunday's race.

Thursday morning I could feel the sore leg on my pre-work walk. At that point, I decided to take the day off from running. Thursday noon was perfect running weather, but I walked anyway.

I was surprised that my walking pace on Thursday was under 14 minutes a mile, for each of the splits. Mile 1...

Tuesday intervals

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:01:26 EST

Tuesday, a work at home day. Temperature at noon was 55° F, which SP thinks is the perfect running temperature. Add S wind 11 mph and sunshine, and I had to run.

I had delusions of running full time for a 5K, but I cautiously put RunKeeper on 3:1 intervals. At 3 minutes, I made the snap decision that intervals were smarter, based on the fact that I could feel my sore leg. Added a jog to the 5K route, with a small hill. The leg didn't like running downhill.

Other t...

Packet Pick Up

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:07:30 EST

Today was the first day for packet pick up. Because it was also the day that had the fewest post-work commitments, I went to pick up packets for myself and my daughter. Daughter will walk the 5K next Sunday, I was signed up for the half marathon.

Got the packets, and asked to trade down to the 5K. This year, there's a $5 fee to switch. Mr. Testosterone whispered that maybe I could do intervals on the half. I ignored him, and paid the $5 fee.

This felt like a disappoi...

Recovery, Race in a Week, and Prognosis

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:34:02 EST

The Flower City Challenge is one week from today. Packet pickup starts tomorrow. That's the big decision time, because I can trade down from the half marathon to the 5K at packet pickup.

That decision has already been made. There is no way I'll be in shape to run a half in one week. There's no way I'll be in shape to do run/walk intervals for a half in one week. And my ability to walk 13.1 miles at a brisk pace is in doubt. So for the second year in a row, I'm going to trade ...

Maintenance: Making the Weight Go Sideways

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:25:13 EST

I've weighed myself daily for a long time. I don't know when I started daily weighing, but I started recording the weights as of December 31, 2001. There's a blog worth of reminiscences in the history of how the records developed, but I don't want to go there today.

One of the pieces of information I get out of this history is a year over year change in weight. Over the years, I've had feel-good periods where the year over year change was negative, and periods where the year ove...

Sunday intervals

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:58:51 EST

47° F this afternoon, and I set out to run. After taking Thursday off from intervals, the sore leg felt pretty good today. It felt so good, I had delusions of just running for 5K or so. Those delusions disapated during warmup, when I could still feel the sore leg. So I compromise on ratcheting up the intervals a notch to walk 2, run 1.

I took a familiar route with three small hills and opportunities to cut the route short. I didn't feel the need to do that. I got back to my d...

The Value of 10K Steps

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:29:39 EST

Right now, SP tells me I have a streak of 261 days getting 10K steps. That's not a terribly impressive streak, as SparkStreaks go; but it stretches back to when I first timidly got 10K steps again after trying for low step counts to let a hurt foot get better.

Some days, I get 11K or 13K steps pretty naturally. A few days, I'll break 15K steps. On days with long runs, I have broken 20K steps. But for 261 days, I've got at least 10K steps.

The value of the 10K steps i...

More Running than Walking

Tue, 9 Apr 2013 21:16:02 EST

Tuesday, a work at home day. The noon weather was 56° F and cloudy with a WSW breeze. I upgraded the intervals to run 1.5, walk 1. That's more running than walking, which is a psychological milestone for me.

Lunch is still time constrained. I managed 32 minutes, which was 12 full cycles of run 1.5, walk 1 followed by running 2 minutes. That slightly longer last run was a nod to Mr. Testosterone, who wanted to get in 20 minutes of running time. It came out to 3.74 miles in 32:...

It is what it is

Sun, 7 Apr 2013 20:04:52 EST

After Thursday's intervals, the sore leg regressed. It wasn't a major regression, but it didn't feel as good on Friday as it did on Wednesday. Saturday was better than Friday, but the better part of valor was not to do more intervals; so Saturday was a walking day.

After getting almost 9 hours of sleep Saturday night, the sore leg felt better today than it has since it forced me to stop running. So, there were Sunday intervals. As planned, I did 1.5 minutes running, 2 minutes w...

Thursday's lunch intervals

Thu, 4 Apr 2013 21:43:15 EST

Tuesday I did run 1.5, walk 3 intervals and got cold while walking.

Today I set the app for run 1.5, walk 2 intervals that I felt I could have done Tuesday. The weather was better than Tuesday: Sunshine, a light west breeze, and 43° F that warmed to 47° F while I was out. I dressed for running at 10 degrees colder, and was mostly okay. I did feel a little warm later in the session, on a walking interval; but it wasn't bad.

It came out to 3.56 miles in 35 minutes, for...

Tuesday Intervals

Tue, 2 Apr 2013 20:26:30 EST

It's Tuesday, a work at home day. After the weekend's intervals, the aspiration was to do run/walk intervals on the lunch hour.

It's early spring in Rochester, NY. Temperature this morning was 25° F, not as nice as Sunday. By noon it had warmed up to 30°, but there was still that 17 mph west wind. This is decent running weather, and I know how to dress for it. It's okay walking weather, and I know how to dress to walk. It was a puzzle how to dress for run 1.5, walk 3 interval...

A Real Weekend

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:39:09 EST

For reasons that are unclear to me, the local VITA organization isn't open on Good Friday or Holy Saturday. Since Saturday is one of my regular volunteer days, that means Easter weekend is not as time crunched for me as the other weekends of tax season.

Saturday morning, my sore leg felt pretty good. I decided I could try it out on some run/walk intervals. Let's back down to run 4, walk 1 and take it from there.

Well . . . the leg complained when I started running. I...

Thursday boring update

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:22:01 EST

It's Thursday, a work at home day and a natural day for a run. It's the first full day of spring. That adds up to . . . not much, given the circumstances.

Astronomically, it's spring. In terms of weather, it's more like winter. There was a dusting of snow on the driveway this morning, I drove through snow showers to get to my volunteer job this evening, and I had to scrape my windshield after the volunteer job. This is getting a bit old.

The morning walk gave me a ...

Moderation

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 20:43:40 EST

Saturday mornings are on a tight schedule right now. I get up, do laundry, do a long walk for cardio and steps, and have lunch before heading out to my volunteer job Saturday afternoon. The laundry is what makes the schedule tight, as I need to get it all out of the drier before my daughter uses the laundry facilities while I'm off doing taxes.

This morning, I thought I'd try a short run instead of a walk. I reasoned that with the leg injury from Sunday, I wasn't going to plunge...

Non-running Thursday

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:38:56 EST

It's Thursday, a work at home day and usually a day to run at lunch. Today, my leg is better than yesterday, but not good enough to run on.

On the lunch walk, I was able to sustain a 14 minute mile. The muscle in the thigh that made me stop running on Thursday was mostly silent, but my right calf is speaking up. Either the issue with the calf was masked by the more serious issue with the thigh or (more likely) adjustments to my gait to deal with the thigh annoyed the calf. What...

More or Less Rest Day

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:24:35 EST

Tuesday, a work at home day. The leg was stiff this morning. Running was out of the question. But walking wasn't as hard as yesterday. The pre-work walk was slow, about a 16 minute per mile pace; but I was able to sustain a 14 minute mile on the lunch walk.

Other that those two walks, plus the usual pullups and pushups in the morning, I didn't do anything for exercise. The stiff leg got better while walking, and didn't stiffen up sitting as much as it did yesterday. Progress ...

Recovery Monday

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:16:13 EST

It's been a tough day. I woke up this morning with a sore leg from yesterday's run, and could barely walk. My morning routine usually includes some light jogging up and down the hallway while I wait for the microwave; that was out of the question today. My streak of 10K steps per day looked doubtful.

My morning chinups were not affected by the sore leg, and I could do pushups if I was careful about how to get into and out of the plank position. After warming up with my usual pu...

Goals, Priorities, and Scheduling

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 21:22:30 EST

Today was supposed to be a long slow run. I had planned to run 10.5 miles, with the option to cut it down to 9.5 or bump it up to 11 with adjustment late in the route. It didn't work out as planned.

I got beautiful running weather today. 3 PM found me with sunny skies, 63° F temperature, and S wind 13 mph gusting to 24 mph. The nice thing about that is that it was warm enough that wind chill wasn't a problem. I wore shorts and the tech shirt that I got from the 2012 half marat...

Spring Forward Musings.

Fri, 8 Mar 2013 20:33:03 EST

It's Friday of Daylight Savings Weekend, and a strange bright object appeared in the skies over Rochester. It's so bright I can't look directly at it, and it caused all sorts of glare as I drove home from work.

The sun is back, a sure sign that spring can't be far away. And just like the daylight I really need in the evening was taken away last fall when it became really necessary, it will be given back now that it's no longer critical. Sigh. I really would like to have dayligh...

Thursday Return to Running

Thu, 7 Mar 2013 21:58:06 EST

It's Thursday, a work at home day with an evening of volunteer work. If I'm going to run, it has to happen on the lunch hour. Fortunately, the legs felt good after taking Tuesday off and I got very good running weather.

39°F, cloudy, and N wind 10 mph had me wearing gloves and a midlayer jacket, but only a lightweight compression shirt for a base layer. And it was warm enough for my summer running cap. Got a bad jump on the time, so didn't have much of a warmup. Started slow, ...

Broken Streak

Tue, 5 Mar 2013 20:53:13 EST

Today is Tuesday, a work at home day. It was a beautiful day for a lunch run, 30° F and partly sunny with N wind 6 mph.

I didn't run.

This morning the bad foot ached a bit, but not enough to keep me from running. My right calf had a training twinge, but not bad enough to keep me from running. When I went out for my pre-work walk, I noticed my right hamstring was a bit weak and was chattering at me as I walked. I contemplated keeping the lunch run shorter than usual. ...

10 miles

Sun, 3 Mar 2013 20:48:02 EST

Today I was blessed with winter weather just good enough to preserve running conditions. I shoveled an inch of light fluffy snow off my driveway, and headed off to church. By the time I got home, the shoulders were mostly clear thanks to daylight and waste heat from traffic.

When I set out to run, it was 26° F with W wind 12-15 mph. With decent footing to run on, this is weather I understand. I dress for it, I warm up, I set off to run slowly. I actually managed to hold the fi...

Test Results

Fri, 1 Mar 2013 21:25:50 EST

Monday I had a physical exam. The doctor described the results as a "solid A" before seeing the lab test results. Those test results were delivered today. I don't understand all of them, but I kinda sorta understand the lipid panel. In conjunction with the results from two years ago, it tells a success story that is largely driven by weight control and exercise.

2/1/2011
Weight: 196.8
Total Cholesterol: 181 (under 200 is good)
HDL: 61 (over 60 is good)
...

Good weather for a run

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:32:23 EST

Winter weather is a big time suck. During tax season, I do 8 hours a week of volunteer work. And my paid job has plenty of work to be done. This adds up to the weather potentially disrupting some of my weekly runs.

Today I lucked out. Yesterday, on a non-running day, we had wet slushy snow. I only cleared an inch off the driveway in the morning and another inch in the evening, but I abandoned a strip of driveway on the north side as a place to shove the snow. It was too heavy...

Tuesday run

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:02:30 EST

Sunday was the long run. Monday, I went and got a routine physical exam. The doctor was happy with my blood pressure and heart rate. She wasn't really keen on the idea of a half marathon, but wasn't against it either. She was happy with the idea that running three days a week is a more important goal than running a half marathon.

Today is Tuesday, a work at home day. The morning was disrupted by a drive to have blood drawn for fasting blood tests. Fortunately, one of the lab ...

Sunday 9.5 mile run

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:08:32 EST

Saturday was a full day of household chores in the morning and volunteer work in the afternoon, with a bit of grocery shopping after the volunteer gig. I got in a 5K walk in the morning, and still barely got my 10K steps in. This is a new experience for Saturdays, which used to be easy days to get the 10K steps. There's no mystery as to the change; this happened because I made Saturday a non-running day before the long run on Sunday.

In contrast, Sunday is turning into a slam du...

Thursday Lunch Run

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:55:11 EST

It's Thursday, a work at home day with volunteer work in the evening. That makes time short for a blog, but since Thursday is a running day I want to record the lunch run.

Overnight I got a fluffy inch of lake effect snow in my driveway. I shoveled it in sections, while waiting for the steel cut oats to simmer and after breakfast. The plow came by before I finished, and I was glad to see it. Snow underfoot worries me a bit for running.

By noon, the temperature was u...

Tuesday recovery run

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:27:15 EST

Sunday I had my long run, a new PR distance and elapsed running time for me. My right hamstring got stiff, so it was hard to walk around Sunday evening.

Monday, the legs felt better, I felt a bit beat up, but not as bad as the previous Monday after a long run on Sunday. I was thinking, this training thing is going real well.

Today is Tuesday, a work at home day and a day to run on the lunch break. I got splendid running weather for February, 42° F with SSW wind 15 mp...

Cold Sunday Run

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 19:57:56 EST

Saturday morning I had beautiful running weather. It was 28° F, sunny, with light wind. Saturday was also a scheduled non-running day, so the long slow run could be on Sunday when I would have more time for a leisurely post-run routine.

Saturday night the lake effect snow started up. I got a couple of inches of light fluffy snow in my driveway overnight, which I shoveled before church. And Sunday was colder than Saturday. By the time I got home from church, it was up (yes, "up...

Saturday walks, GPS fixed

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 20:41:55 EST

Saturdays are busy during tax season. I get up, get breakfast while starting laundry, hustle the laundry through in the morning so the washer and dryer will be free for my daughter in the afternoon, and go off to my volunteer job doing taxes in the afternoon. Some time in the morning, I need to get a long walk or I won't get my 10K steps for the day in.

Today the GPS was worse than before on the long walk. The app thought I covered over 8 miles in 50 minutes, for an average pace...

Squeezing the run in

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:53:26 EST

This noon I had beautiful February weather. It was 38°F when I set out, and 41°F when I got back. There was bright sunshine, a rare treat for winter in Rochester, NY. There was a SSW wind at 10-12 mph, a little brisk but quite livable. I was able to run without a jacket, just a short sleeved compression shirt under a long sleeved heavier compression shirt and my lighter weight running tights.

Distance was 3.21 miles in 22:02 for an average pace of 6:52 per mile. You might ask,...

Musings on Obesity and Netflix

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:01:24 EST

When I'm in good shape for sleep, I wake up before the alarm. Today I needed all my sleep, so I woke to the radio. When I'm that late, I listen to the traffic report and the weather while doing my morning bathroom routine. In between, the radio personalities chatter.

Today they were talking about the TV series Living Dead. The morning people on the radio hadn't seen it, and the woman mentioned that she was going to take her next day off to get the series from Netflix and watch ...

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Race Report: JP Morgan Corporate Challenge