red neck surgery

Left shoe in the first picture, without any modification. Right shoe in the second picture with the "toe expansion" modification.

Performed emergency surgery on the pair of New Balance 1023's I bought at Athelete's House on Monday. Got the idea from a blog I'd read earlier in the week. This woman cut the whole toe box off of her shoe because of some kind of toe issue. My surgery wasn't as drastic, but it had to be precise. I have one foot that is slightly larger than the other. When I tried on a size 9.5 they were just to big and the size 9 seemed to fit better. That's my street shoe size, but most all running shoes I wear a 9.5. First run in the new pair and I knew they were to small. Made some adjustments to the lacing and tried again on track day. Still didn't work, actually developed a blister under my big toe and had to drain it for the next 2 days. This mornings surgery was simply a x cut right wear the big toe makes contact with the shoe. Worked like a charm on the run this morning. Though I was late for the workout and the guys left without me.

RunningAhead has integrated the ability to upload your run data directly from your Garmin GPS onto their server. This sounds great, but it took forever to load this morning. I didn't read the part where you have to turn on the Garmin to do the upload. Ooops. Came in pretty quick afterwards. Haven't played with it to much. It did bring 2-3 of the same workouts and some old bike stuff. That's odd, I'd deleted all of the old workouts so I should have only had a 2 months worth of runs. Didn't realize the bike stuff had to be deleted separately?

Good interview with Kara Goucher regarding mental toughness. Best quote is Salazar saying he's a wimp. Holy crap, mister duel in the sun. (great book)

10 weeks out

2nd 20 miler of the cycle this morning. Not as much energy as the last 20 miler. Easier pace for the first 15 miles and even slower slog home. The increased mileage this week must have worn me down more than I thought. The fact that I only drank water twice in the first 15 miles may have contributed to the lack of energy. Good day overall, we had a pretty big group which broke up into 2 packs for most of the first 15 miles.

Ended up with 69.6 miles for the week ending on Saturday. Really wanted to add on the additional .4 for an even 70 miles, but thought the better of it. Plus, I was a little bit tired anyway. Plenty of time left in this cycle to still get the 60-70 miles I'm targeting. Should still be able to get at least 4 more twenty milers before race day.

Dylan's basketball team won again on Saturday. This game didn't come as easily as the other games. They didn't seem to take as many shots. Dylan finally took a shot this game. He's come a long way since he started.

Lance's push, during yesterday's stage of the Tour of California. I wouldn't call it assault. Just a not so subtle shove, to get out of his face. The guy was trying to push his button and succeeded.

blue scrotums

Earlier this week someone’s pet monkey in Connecticut went ape sh*t and ripped off a woman’s face. The owner stabbed the monkey/chimpanzee repeatably and police shot the animal eventually. No laughing matter, deathly serious stuff. Yesterday, a monkey escaped from the Seattle zoo and Fox news had a news break regarding the incident. The Bob and Tom show this morning had audio of that report. Pretty funny stuff, not the news report so much but the ad lib they came up with afterwards. Look out for the monkey with the “blue scrotum”. Youtube had video earlier, but its gone now.

Cold this morning around 18 degrees but little to no wind (no blue balls) and a real big pack of runners showed up for the speed work. I overslept and forced the group to circle back to pick me up before the work started. We ended up doing a loop around the MTSU campus. This worked well, I actually prefer a closed loop for the speed work. It’s really nice not having to fight the cars and it’s also nice to have a well lit area. Only drawback to this location was the lack of any hills or change in elevation. The brothers W ran with me or should I say I tried to keep up with them. Worked really well, the younger W seemed to have more speed and the older W kept me honest and from fading in the final seconds of the intervals. Cool to watch the fast guys blast off seemingly effortlessly.

Only downside to the speed was the lack of splits. Earlier in the week we ran the same workout and I hit the lap button before each interval on my Garmin 305. I don’t know if it was the double layers of gloves, but for some reason I lost almost 2 miles of the workout and didn’t get any splits. Must have been hitting the stop button instead of the lap button. It just recorded the miles and one of them was a 6:04. That was the average pace for the workout on Tuesday, no way we ran a entire mile at that pace. Oh well, again I curse the Garmin, but I still love to have the data it gives me.

Easy day for me today, I only went to work for a couple of hours. Paula had her wisdom teeth extracted this morning, so I went with her to the oral surgeons office. Before I left the office, I was “forced” to fill my growler with some Dos Perros beer which was left over from a sales function the previous evening. Forgot how good beer tastes straight from the keg.

winter, it's back

Windy morning. Gusts around 20 mph with temperatures around 36-39 degrees made for a cold morning. Forecast calls for the temps to drop a couple more degrees for the lows this weekend. Yuck, another 20 miler with tights. Did 8 super slow miles by myself on the golf course this morning. Nice to run my own pace every once and awhile. I enjoy running with a group, but it's good to mix it up.

Read the best advice I've seen on the Internet in quite some time the other day. Coach to one of his students, "stay off the Internet and don't read any of the running forums". Wow, that's some great advice. Check any of the running forums, LetsRun, RunningAhead, Running2Win, Runners World or our local Nashville Striders. Lots of good advice, bad advice, gibberish and mostly static. It makes for interesting reading. Some see more traffic than others. Locally ours will start picking up in the coming months as everyone gears up to run the Country Music Marathon or half. Lots of first timers with loads of questions and the list checkers.

to early for spring

The warm weather last week fooled everyone. Noticed some of the trees have already starting budding. Birds are out singing. But, spring is at least another couple of weeks away. (March 20th) Did get my bike out for a ride last weekend. This weekend was all about catching up on my sleep and trying to get over this cold. It forced a cut back on the long run on Sunday. Today I overslept and missed my run altogether.

Watched stage 1 of the Tour of California last night. Well, really just watched the last 20k. It rained the entire time and they only had pictures for a that much of the race. Cool to see Lance out pulling the chasers of the breakaway. Lance as a domestique to get Levi to his 3rd Tour of California, the naysayers said it wouldn't happen. What a miserable ride, 4 plus hours in the driving rain and temperatures around 47 degrees. Bleaah. Even Floyd was back racing. I missed all of the Tour down Under. Great to see all of the riders again.

Some idiot stole Lances time trial bike and some of the other Astana bikes, yesterday. His bike is a one off, only one in the world. Pretty hard to sell, even the other 3 bikes stolen have the riders names on the frames. Pretty dumb crooks, but that's why they're crooks.

If you are lucky enough to have today off (Presidents Day). The racing starts around noon live for stage 2 of the Tour of California. Hope they have some clear sky. I'd kinda like to see more than just the puddles in today's race.

Growing the herd

Couple of weeks ago, Speedy ? started calling our little morning running group the herd. Well, we've had two additions in the last week, a speedster for the fast guys and S, more about my speed. Today we did some more hill repeats on Saddle, but this time the wind was in our face going up the hill. Wow. Some of the gusts just about pushed us backwards.

Yesterday, I started feeling a chest cold coming on. But, I almost think its more asthma related. Could go to the doctor, but I'd prefer to self medicate. I drank about 6 cups of coffee yesterday. That really helps with the fatigue and the expectorant cough syrup, helped to rid most of the congestion from my chest. Whatever was left this morning was hacked up on the hill repeats.



Picture on top is the elevation profile for the entire 10 mile workout this morning from SportsTracks. The bottom picture is from RunningAhead showing the elevation profile for Saddle Drive as a piece of a two mile loop from the gas station on the corner.

Sunshine

Nice day today. Ran 7.2 miles on the gravel. They've respread gravel from one end to the other on the new Old Fort / Barfield connector trail. It's soft enough to see the deer tracks and super smooth. Looks like they're getting ready to put the ashpalt down. I'll miss the gravel. On the other side of the New Salem Highway its just a dirt path, they haven't really done any site work yet.

Murfreesboro's finest generating a little revenue on Old Fort Parkway

Dirt path on the other side of New Salem Highway

Dylan had his second basketball game this morning. They won, 22-11. Everyone's game is picking up. Dylan was worn out afterwards and is chillin' on the couch.

Darrell and the "pork chops"

12 weeks out

Little over 12 weeks to go until the Flying Pig Marathon. Training has been going well. Down week in mileage, but did do my first streak with no days off. Ended up with 19 days straight. Took yesterday off. The increased mileage is really seeming to make a difference in being able to hang with the fast guys, at least on their slow days. Real test will be the effect on marathon day.

Never did receive my Striders calendar. I didn't think my membership expired until March. Oh, well. Don't think I'll actively pursue pacing again at the Country Music Half Marathon. It's a blast doing it, but I've done it 2 years in a row. Time to let someone else have a shot if they're interested. I'd do it if no one else steps up. It's the closest I ever get to the elites and the elite treatment is really nice.

Easy 7.2 miles tomorrow in the gravel will give me 64 miles for the week. I'd like to average 64 miles or better through this training cycle. The training cycle for my Boston qualifying run at the Rocket City Marathon was a 45-55 mile per week average. The biggest difference, besides a decrease in average pace is the hydration and nutrition needed on my runs. My typical mid week run was between 4 and 8 miles. Now its closer to a 10 miler. This really seems to make a difference on how much water I need during a run and how much nutrition (IE: powergel) is needed and how often.

curse of the Garmin

I love my Garmin 405, I've had it a little over a year. But, lots' of times I just try to ignore it. Like sunday morning. I wanted to go 18 miles. The fast guys were going 20 miles. I figured on just starting out with them and then doing the rest of my run solo. But, I really needed to go 20 and decided to go with them. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with them for 20 miles. But, somehow after I'd committed to running with them, I forgot to restart the Garmin after a stop and lost a mile and 3/4. SHEEEZ.

Most days, I can really tell where I'm at pace wise just by my breathing. When we've got a pack of four of us running, pace can sometimes get hectic. Each of us has a Garmin and no one has the same pace. Most days I'll just try to hang and ignore the pace. For example, Friday's easy run turned into a progression run. The fast guys went out nice and easy. Gradually the pace quickened until about my marathon pace and the just as quickly the guys are picking it up another notch. Yikes. Finished that run by myself, but with a solid progression workout. Cool thing about the Garmin is the ability to look at the mile splits after the run.

Saturday was a solo effort on the gravel. Somehow I thought I needed .2 miles instead of .4 miles to even out the mileage for the week. Ooops. Old days, I always would just round up or down and estimate mileage for routes where I didn't know the mileage. I've almost become a slave to the Garmin, but about the only time I leave it at home is on race day. Nothing like the old Timex, just to get the mile splits. Still can't look at the watch during the race, because I have the tendency to either slow down or speed up to much based on the reading. Almost better just to go by breathing and perceived effort. Nothing left when I cross the line or that's the plan anyway.

Sunday was a great day weather wise. Warmed up rapidly, and really wished I'd gotten out on my bike. Moved the basketball goal, so Dylan could practice. His first game was on Saturday. The won it in overtime. Really telling the kids who've played basketball before versus those who haven't. Thus the need for a some practice on defending.

Flipped on the TV at noon and the Superbowl pregame crap had already started. Paula cooked up a batch of snack foods for the game. Watched the game, 5 hours later and actually it was one of the better superbowls. The Boss put on a great show. Radio this morning the Cardinals fans are whining about the calls. Jeez, I thought most of the calls seemed to be pretty fair.

Mileage is really adding up without taking a day off. This Friday will be 21 days straight without a day off. So, I'll either take Thursday or Friday off. Need a down week in mileage anyway. This is the week to cycle down in mileage. I've gone 54 miles, 67 miles and then 72 miles in the last 3 weeks. Target mileage this week is 63 miles. Actually feel strong, not really fast though. May try and race the Tom King half marathon but at this point my PR still seems like a long shot.