Year 2, Week 27, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 184.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.0

Today's food: 2 mini lemon cakes, 2 more mini lemon cakes, tall orange juice, peanuts, roast, potatoes, carrot, con on the cob, 2 pieces angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream and ice cream, three cookies with a glass of milk

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 27, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): gone to the father/son campout

Weight (weighted moving average): n/a

Today's food: father/son campout (4 pancakes, lots of bacon pieces), costco samples, a few grapes, 6 mini lemon cakes, 2 bratwurst, french fries, tater tots, 2 more lemon cakes, tall orange juice, 2 more lemon cakes, peanuts

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 27, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 182.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.0

Today's food: pear, father/son campout (hamburger, hot dog, potato salad, baked beans, cookie, popcorn, peanuts, a toasted marshmallow, ice cream sandwich, handful of goldfish crackers)

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 27, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: pear, posole, pepper (stuffed), pasta side, pleasing pile of ice cream (cold stone chocolate cake batter/macadamia/caramel in a waffle bowl)

Today's exercise: none

I didn't realize until after buying the ice cream that everything I had eaten prior to that started with a P. Had I known that, I would have picked a different flavor of ice cream to go with the theme. Perhaps peanut butter or pineapple sherbet?

Year 2, Week 27, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 183.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: jack in the box (3 mini sirloin burgers, small fries), bow tie pasta with tomato sauce, tall orange juice, peanuts

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 27, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 182.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.4

Today's food: manuel's (chips and salsa, garlic shrimp, beans, flan, sopapilla), shrimp alfredo, 3 pieces garlic bread, grapefruit cake, peanuts

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 27, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.6

Today's food: pear, orange, big thick steak, 2 pieces grapefruit cake

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 26 Wrapup

Tuesday I did 4 miles in a pretty fast pace. Wednesday I was planning to do speedwork, but didn't feel very well after I started running. After about 2 miles I bagged it and went back home.

We went down to Rocky Point for the weekend, and I intended to run 12 miles there. I was originally planning to wake up early on Saturday for that. But, I hadn't slept much on Thursday night, and I got to bed late on Friday night. So, I made the carefully reasoned decision to sleep on Saturday. My thinking was that it had been kind of overcast and cool, so it wouldn't be a big deal to do my running in the evening instead.

I finally left for the run at about 5:30, and realized very quickly that it was a mistake. It was unbelievably hot, and humid as well (being the beach and all), and I was drenched with sweat after about 2 minutes. I hadn't put out any water, because I was just planning on stopping at the Pemex at the 5 miles mark. So, I was feeling pretty miserable pretty quickly. It wasn't any hotter that some of the runs I did last summer, but the big difference is that I was doing those runs at a pace that's a full minute and a half slower, and doing them with a camelbak of gatorade on my back.

I bought a liter of gatorade at the pemex, and headed back. I sort of ran/walked back, and downed the whole liter of gatorade in the first mile. I was completely dripping with sweat after I got back. By the time I was done with this run, I was absolutely convinced that I was going to give up running for the summer. I'll probably change my mind later, especially if I end up doing St. George, but at least as of that day, I was done for.

The only real good news for this week is that I weighed myself upon coming back from Mexico, and I actually weighed less than when I left. That's probably the first time that's happened in a long while.

Year 2, Week 26, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): n/a

Today's food: 3 pancakes, tater tots, 5 strips bacon, 1/2 butterfingers, fritos, smashed potatoes, tall orange juice, peanuts

Today's exercise: dia de descanso

in mexico

Year 2, Week 26, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): n/a

Today's food: potato chips, fritos, some sort of sandwich casserole, mixed cut up pieces of fruit, un litro de gatorade, hamburger noodle casserole, salad, chocolate cake, potato chips, ~2 dozen shrimp, fritos

Today's exercise: run 5.2 miles @ 9:15 to pemex; run/walk back to house

in mexico

Year 2, Week 26, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 185.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.7

Today's food: grapes, orange, apple, pear, tortilla chips, leftover cacciatore

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 26, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 185.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.7

Today's food: yogurt, grapes, apple, orange, roll, pork and tomato sauce with bow tie pasta, peanuts, chocolate bunny, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 26, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 185.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.6

Today's food: 2 rolls, yogurt, taco bell munchito box (taco, burrito supreme, loaded potato munchito, cinnamon twists, large baja blast), chili mac, tall orange juice, popcorn, chocolate bunny, 4 oreos

Today's exercise: a weak 2 miles (didn't feel well)

Year 2, Week 26, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 186.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.5

Today's food: mexican fruitcake, quizno's (2 flatbread sammies™, cheetos, xl mountain dew), 4 pieces pizza, tall orange juice, mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: 4 miles @ 9:10

Year 2, Week 26, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 186.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.4

Today's food: mexican fruitcake, cheez-its, apple, orange, leftover chicken cacciatore, 2 rolls, tall orange juice, nachos, popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 25 Wrapup

So, this week I did 4 on Tuesday, 6 on Wednesday, and 20 on Saturday. That's 30 for the week, which is not a whole lot, but is my highest weekly mileage since the middle of February.

I did the 20 miles with my cousins David and Jimmy, and I invited Carlos along again, too. As per usual for Carlos, he wanted to go quite a lot faster than what we could manage, and he took off after we had only gone about 5 miles. He ended up turning around a little earlier than we did, so he probably only did 18.5 miles total. But still, he probably finished a good 45 minutes ahead of us at least.

Our run was just fine, finishing in an average of 9:47/mile. We left at 5:00, so it wasn't too hot yet. We had to stop here and there for Dave to stretch out his knee, but never for more than a few seconds. We also ran into my dad on his bike on the trail, so he rode along and talked with us for a while. We also saw President Elmer from our stake presidency out on his bike as well.

Year 2, Week 25, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 184.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: mexican fruitcake, leftover cassoulet, barbeque pork chop, green beans, smashed potatoes, roll, viddy's treats (5 peanut butter/hershey's kiss cookies, chocloate cake), mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 25, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 185.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: 1/2 bagel with cream cheese, 80 oz gatorade, jelly belly sports beans™, nachos, chinese buffet, chicken cacciatore soup, garlic bread, piece of mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: 20 miles @ 9:47

Year 2, Week 25, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.1

Today's food: wendy's (double, medium fries), cookie, meatloaf, smashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, 1/2 bagel with cream cheese, microwave popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 25, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: 7 donuts, 3 cookies, leftover cassoulet, tall orange juice, 1/2 donut, 6 lemon cookies

Today's exercise: 6 miles @ 9:10

Year 2, Week 25, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: 2 donuts, 2 more donuts, leftover grilled lamb, 4 clementines, 5 donuts, orange chicken and green beans, donut, tall orange juice, 5 donuts

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 25, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 184.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.4

Today's food: yogurt, handful of cheese popcorn, manuel's (chips and salsa, chile relleno, cheese enchilada), 2 clementines, 2 whole wheat cheese crackers, london broil, green beans, leftover cassoulet, tall grapefruit slice, bits and pieces of the homemade donuts I was making totalling probably 4 donuts worth

Today's exercise: 4 miles @ 9:10

Year 2, Week 25, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 186.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.5

Today's food: yogurt, banana, 2 clementines, kettle korn, white cheddar popcorn, tall glass of grapefruit slice, 2 ham and cheese snaks

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 24 Wrapup

This week I went out for 4 miles on Tuesday, 6 miles on Thursday, then 18 on Saturday. For the Saturday run, I invited along Carlos, a guy in my ward who's way faster than I am. We were averaging about a 9 minute pace for the first 12 miles, which I knew was a little too fast for me to finish 18. So, after 12, he took off and started racing back to the car, and I finished the last 6 in something closer to a 10:30-11:00 average. The average for the run as a whole ended up being 9:59.

Year 2, Week 24, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 184.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: lemon poppyseed muffin, 2 grapefruit, bratwurst, tall lemonade, roast chicken, 3 helpings of chicken-drenched potatoes, salad, corn on the cob, rainbow sherbet, cinnamon crisp

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 24, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: lemon poppyseed muffin, 1 1/2 liters gatorade, gel, 3 pancakes, 2 strips bacon, hash browns, tall lemonade, chocolate bunny, 2 bowls cassoulet, lemon poppyseed muffin, tall lemonade

Today's exercise: 18 miles @ 9:59

* before running. 182.0 after running and gatorade and diet dr pepper and water and gel

Year 2, Week 24, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 182.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: yogurt, taco bell (quesadilla grande, crunchy taco, large baja blast), bratwurst, curly fries, 4 1/2 mini lemon poppyseed muffins

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 24, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 183.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.5

Today's food: yogurt, orange, 2 mini reese's peanut butter cups, lamb sandwich, tall orange juice, peanuts

Today's exercise: 6 miles @ 9:16

Year 2, Week 24, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 184.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.6

Today's food: yogurt, grapes, orange, 2 pieces oven-fried fish, asparagus, mashed potatoes, rainbow sherbet, popcorn, handful of mini reese's cups

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 24, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 185.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.7

Today's food: yogurt, biscuit, banana, grilled leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, asparagus, cinnamon bears, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: 4 miles @ 9:16

Year 2, Week 24, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 186.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.6

Today's food: m&ms, famous dave's leftovers (ribs, baked beans, fries), ham, mashed potatoes, biscuit, green beans, cinnamon bears, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23 Wrapup

I had a race on Saturday, so I thought I would take it kind of easy this week. Unfortunately, things conspired to turn "taking it easy" into "no running at all this week".

On Saturday was the "Everyone Runs Catalina State Park 5.5 & 10.75 Mile Trail Race". A couple of months ago, a few guys from my ward had made a plan to all do the 5.5. I thought it might interfere with my marathon training a bit, but figured I would do it anyway and call it a rest week or something. At the time, I had no idea of knowing that almost all of my weeks would be rest weeks.

Friday night, it started getting really cold, and by early Saturday morning, it was raining a lot. I was concerned that it was going to be too cold, the trail was going to be too muddy, and I was going to be too tired because I couldn't get to sleep at an early enough hour the night before. If I hadn't already pre-registered, I most certainly would not have actually gone.

Since I had pre-registered and was intent on getting my free (i.e. already paid for) tech shirt, I dragged my sorry butt out of bed at 5:30 and drove up to Catalina State Park, which is about a half hour away. It rained a little on the drive up, and by the time I got to the shuttle loading zone, it was raining pretty hard. I waited in my car for the shuttle bus to get there, and thought that if the rain didn't stop by the time the bus got there, I was going home. The rain did stop, but about 10 seconds later, it started hailing. Fortunately, that only lasted about a minute, and everything was clear by the time the bus got there.

When I was hanging out before the race start, I saw Adam Lebrecht and his dad, Steve. The Lebrechts were our next door neighbors growing up, and I hadn't seen either of them since Adam's wedding a few years ago. They're both serious runners, and Adam had come down from his home in Avondale to visit his folks for Easter and to run the race.

It was great catching up with them. When I was a kid, Steve and a few people in the neighborhood would go out running every morning. Every once in a while, maybe once or twice a year, my dad would decide it was time for me & him to start exercising. He'd make me get up early with him and go out and run with the running group. I could never keep up, and usually couldn't run more than about 1/4 mile before petering out. My dad's commitment would usually only last about 3 days, then it was back to my usual slovenly ways. Since I started running seriously, I always hoped I would run into one of those guys from the neighborhood so I could tell them, "Look, I'm a runner now". It's probably best that I saw Steve at an actual race, because had he not seen me actually cross the finish line, I'm not sure that he would have actually believed it.

Right before the race started, I saw Matt Rhodes from my ward. Evidently, everyone else hadn't bothered registering thinking it would be full, or else just didn't want to come on such a cold rainy day. I hadn't run with Matt before, so I didn't know if he was good or what. He's skinny enough that I thought he might be pretty fast. I still wanted to beat him for ward bragging rights, but with all of my recent non-running, I didn't know if that was in the cards.

The race started, and we took off down the trail. It really was a nice course. There were only a couple of stretches that were narrow enough to be single track, and one really steep section with a bunch of stairs. But, other than that, it was pretty gentle desert paths. The trail wasn't muddy except in a couple of spots where you had to run around some standing water in a wash. I led Matt for maybe the first mile and a half, but then we turned around into a downhill stretch and said he was going to take off to take advantage of the downhill. That was more than fine with me, because at that point I was nursing a strong side stitch and some non-specific bowel pain.

Since I didn't know how hilly the trail would be, I had decided that just finishing at under a 10:00 pace would be enough for me. I had every intention of running the whole way, but just after the halfway mark, I came to one of those "no, I don't think so" hills that everyone was walking up. After I got up the hill, I was feeling a little better, so I picked up the pace a little bit, finishing just a couple of minutes behind Matt.

I ended up with 51:52, good enough for a 9:25 pace and 84th out of 325 overall. This got me 9th out of 17th in my division. It was not a good race for me, but it was better than could be expected given my recent lack of training.

Afterwards, they had smoothies and a mexican breakfast (eggs, beans, tortillas). The line for smoothies was pretty long considering how cold it still was. The line for the breakfast was even longer, but it was totally worth it. The salsa was quite possibly the best I've ever had in my whole life.

So, overall, it's a good race, but there's some definite logistical problems to sort out. Parking's very limited at the start, plus there's a $6 entrance fee to get into the park, so they were pushing the shuttle service pretty hard. That's great, except that after the race, there was no place for the shuttle bus to turn around, so you had to walk a half mile down the road to catch it. With my luck, I walked half a mile down the road and got on the bus, only to find that the bus driver was going to try to get up to the finish line and turn around there anyway. This was a great idea, except there still wasn't a place to turn around, and we had to sit on the bus for about 15 more minutes until some booths were moved so that the bus could turn around. All this to get to my car which was really only about 2 miles down the road.

On top of all that, there was nothing to do with your belongings once you got to the race. If they really want people to shuttle away from the cars on such a cold day, they need to have a bag check to check your sweatshirt, poncho, gloves or whatever. I think the fact that it was so could made more people relucatant to leave their car, making more people try to drive in, making it more crowded at the finish, making it even less likely for the bus to be able to turn around. If I were to run this again, I wouldn't mess with the shuttle unless they fixed the way it works or did a bag check. As it was, I was lucky that I found Adam there, because I was able to throw my hoody into his car.

Year 2, Week 23, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 186.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.4

Today's food: marshmallow butterfly, grapes, easter dinner (ham, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, 2 rolls, deviled egg, apple pie), biscuit, easter candy

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 23, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 186.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.1

Today's food: smoothie, mexican breakfast (eggs with salsa, beans, tortilla), cinnamon bears, costco hot dog, samples, famous dave's (big barbeque sampler, hot fudge sundae)

Today's exercise: Everyone Runs Catalina State Park 5.5 Mile Trail Race

Year 2, Week 23, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 184.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.9

Today's food: carl's jr (western bacon cheeseburger, medium fries, medium dr. pepper), cinnamon bears, onion braised brisket, mashed potatoes, green beans, rainbow sherbet, 3 biscuits

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 184.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.8

Today's food: yogurt, burger king (2 bk burger shots™, med onion rings), spam sandwich, tall orange juice, last piece of the yellow cake, 8 oreos

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.7

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, 3 thin mints, orange, coke pot roast with potato, big piece of cake, popcorn, tall grapefruit juice, 3 oreos

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.7

Today's food: donut, doritos, tall grapefruit juice, big piece of chocolate bundt cake, piece of yellow cake

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 23, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.8

Today's food: yogurt, orange, 4 clementines, 2 cookies, 4 thin mints, 7 donuts, orange glazed chicken, brown rice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 22 Wrapup

This week was still really hard to get motivated to go running. I'm still totally not in the groove that I was in before, and it's still hard to imagine doing as much mileage as I used to. I'm especially discouraged when I think about the summer, and trying to do the long runs in the heat.

I didn't have much problem with that last year, but I think I was just too stupid to know better. I was such a new runner that I had to blindly follow my schedule, and that kept me going now matter how terrible the weather. Now, I feel like I know a little bit more, and I find myself rationalizing a bit more, telling myself it's okay to miss a little bit here and a little bit there, because I'm such a good runner that I'll be able to rely on the training base I already have. This somehow is ignoring the speed at which a good training base disappears.

I'm worrying a little about St. George, though. I thought it would be easier to train for than Park City, because St. George is later in the year. But, now that I look at it, I see September would be mostly taper, and the real big runs would be in July and August. That compares to June and July for Park City. Yeah, it's kind of strange arguing the benefits of 100 degree high in June versus a 109 degree high in July, but every little bit counts. Also to be factored in is the monsoon season, from early July to mid-August. St. George training would have me doing long runs through the entire thing, when Park City had me tapering by the time it got really bad.

I ran 7 miles on Tuesday, and again on Thursday. Then, I was planning on running 16 miles on Saturday, but I woke up late and didn't feel all that great. I was watching conference all day, and it felt like a Sunday anyway, so I briefly toyed with the idea of calling that my Sabbath and doing the run on Sunday. But, I woke up late on Sunday as well, so I was saved from my potential Sabbath-breaking. So, now, either one of two things will happen. Option 1: I'll wake up early and do my 16 miles on Monday or Tuesday. Or, Option 2: I will not run 16 miles. Anyone laying odds on what will happen?

Year 2, Week 22, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 183.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.9

Today's food: chili cheese fries, gummi worms, piece of mexican fruitcake, 2 steak snaks, 2 chicken enchiladas snaks, orange, microwave popcorn

Today's exercise: day of additional rest

Year 2, Week 22, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 182.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.9

Today's food: 2 grapefruits, piece of mexican fruitcake, homemade chips and salsa, gummi worms, small grapefruit juice, sour cream chicken enchiladas, root beer float, another piece mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: day of rest (held on a saturday this week)

Year 2, Week 22, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 181.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.0

Today's food: yogurt, pork burrito, pear, tall grapefruit juice, london broil, smashed potatoes, 2 biscuits, big piece of mexican fruit cake

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 22, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 185.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: grapes, pear, 2 clementines, orange, 1/2 spam sandwich, 2 pieces mexican fruitcake

Today's exercise: 7 miles @ 9:16

Year 2, Week 22, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.2

Today's food: grapefruit, lucky wishbone (fries, garlic toast, 4 chicken fingers, 2 shrimp, 10 steak fingers, large dr. pepper), pork chop in mustard sage sauce, green beans, gummi worms

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 22, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 184.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: yogurt, banana, clam chowder, 4 clementines, navajo taco, bowl of chili with chips, 9 oreos

Today's exercise: 7 miles @ 9:16

Year 2, Week 22, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 186.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.3

Today's food: yogurt, 4 clementines, orange, banana, honeybun, a few bites of chicken and meatloaf, clam chowder, small handful of nuts, donut

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 21 Wrapup

This is the week that I was finally going to start running again after taking three weeks off for my knee. I was going to start on Monday, but I was really busy making dinner that evening, and we've committed to having family home evening more regularly, so I didn't end up going out that day.

On Tuesday evening, I was all ready to go out, but then I burned the crap out of my hand on a pan in the oven and didn't feel like it anymore. I didn't want my hand to be throbbing from the burn while the rest of me was throbbing from running pain.

On Wednesday, I finally got out running for my first run in 3 1/2 weeks. The good news is that my knee didn't hurt, but the bad news is that everything else did. I was sore all over, especially in every joint, and it felt more difficult than it should have for being only 5 miles. But, I never felt like I couldn't finish or anything.

I did another 5 on Thursday with much the same result.

Then, on Saturday, I drove down to Sahuarita to run 16 miles with Jimmy. The 16 was a lot harder than my 16 I did 4 weeks prior, and I was really out of gas for the last 2 miles, but I finished and wasn't in too much pain afterwards, so I think I'm going to come out of this okay.

I will say this: Nothing in my life has ever tasted as good as the McDonald's breakfast deluxe (eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes) that I had in the car on the way back from the 16 miler in Sahuarita.

Year 2, Week 21, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 187.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 184.0

Today's food: donut, steak, baked potato, donut, 2 cookies, meatloaf, garlic rosemary smashed potatoes, 2 pieces cake, popcorn, tall hawaiian punch

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 21, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 186.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.6

Today's food: clif bar, fig newton, mcdonalds (breakfast deluxe - eggs, 3 pancakes, sausage patty, biscuit, hash browns, chocolate milk), 20 oz gatorade, tall lemonade, lil' smokies, baked potato, green beans, tall hawaiian punch, 6 donuts

Today's exercise: 16 miles @ 9:50

Year 2, Week 21, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.3

Today's food: 4 clementines, 1 samoa, orange, grapefruit, golden corral (crapload of crap)

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 21, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 182.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.3

Today's food: mcdonalds (quarter pounder, medium fries, medium coke), korean style short ribs with rice, tall lemonade, chips and salsa, 2 oreos

Today's exercise: 5 miles @ 9:17

Year 2, Week 21, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 184.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.5

Today's food: lasagna, garlic bread, apple, bratwurst, clam chowder, red hots

Today's exercise: 5 miles @ 9:17

Year 2, Week 21, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 185.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.3

Today's food: manuel's (chips and salsa, cheeseburger, crisscut fries), Reese's, clam chowder in bread bowl, tall lemonade, red hots

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 21, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 183.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.1

Today's food: yogurt, banana, the real last of the corned beef & cabbage, twix, 2 bratwurst, curly fries, tall lemonade, microwave popcorn, tall orange juice, 2 rolls

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 20 Wrapup

I have just finished my third straight week of not running. This is the longest I have not run since the fall of 2007. It's taken great commitment and dedication to consistently not run for so long. I've got to say, though, it's been really tough to stay motivated to not run, especially when it just seems like you have to keep not running, day in and day out, without so much as one day's rest from not running. I think it really comes down to the strong support and encouragement of my family that has really made the difference in helping my to overcome the temptation to backslide into running again. Through their kind support and my single-minded focus on my goal of getting fat again, I'm able to every day again make that decision that I will again make the effort to not run.

In actual reality, my knee was still hurting this week, although it feels almost better. I will definitely start running again next week. I've got to say, though, after not running for so long, it's very hard to imagine running the way I used to again. I don't feel like I have any extra time in my week when I'm not running, so I have a really hard time imagining dedicating another 8-10 hours per week to marathon training. It's been only three weeks, but I'm honestly having a hard time imagining how I ever did it. I have a very small window left to start running again before I'll just probably never be able to. The lesson from this is that the physical conditioning gets lost over time, but the mental conditioning appears to go away much faster.

My weight has jumped way up, of course, but I'm sad to report that this isn't solely due to the not running for three weeks. My average is up about 7 1/2 pounds since the 1st of the year, but most of that gain was before I stopped running. Looking back over my log, I have apparently been eating like a pig this year, and this will probably need to change.

An example: Adding up the information from my logs shows that I ate 73.5 donuts in calendar year 2008 (not including donut holes, donut gems, or other donut like products). Thus far in 2009, I've eaten 51.5 donuts. That's way above the 2008 pace. Also, those are both large numbers of donuts. I like donuts.

Year 2, Week 20, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 185.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 183.0

Today's food: m&ms, 3 servings german pancake with strawberries, 1/2 piece pizza, gummi bears, tall lemonade, last of the corned beef & cabbage, peanuts, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 20, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 185.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 182.7

Today's food: donut, tall pepsi, potatoes & sausage, m&ms, corned beef & cabbage, swedish fish

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 20, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 183.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 182.5

Today's food: 2 donuts, burrito, 2 1/2 slices pizza, tall root beer, tall pepsi, strawberry shortcake, a few forkfuls of corned beef, swedish fish

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 20, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 184.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 182.3

Today's food: yogurt, triple play (5 cheese sticks, gyro, medium cherry coke), 2 pieces fried chicken, potato wedges, roll, m&ms, 4 donuts, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 20, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 184.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 182.1

Today's food: yogurt, orange, 2 clementines, sausage and roasted potatoes, 5 oreos, peanut butter cookie, microwave popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 20, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 185.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 181.8

Today's food: donut, yogurt, 2 bowls corned beef & cabbage, snickers with almonds, skor, corned beef and cabbage, 1/2 donut, 5 oreos, 2 clementines, watermelon, jelly bellies

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 20, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 181.4

Today's food: yogurt, beef stew, 5 donuts, 1 slice pizza, watermelon, peanuts, donut, 32 oz tang

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 19 Wrapup

I had planned to start running again this week, but my knee was still sore, and it was just too easy not to go out. I'm counting on the fact that I'm still in good shape to make up for the fact that I've missed two weeks of running. I still shouldn't have any problems with the training for the Ogden Marathon, but it might make things tougher for me when I start up again next week.

Year 2, Week 19, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 184.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 181.2

Today's food: peanut butter cookie, chicken chow mein, peanut butter cookie, bratwurst, baked beans, 1/2 peanut butter cookie, popcorn

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 19, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.9

Today's food: 1/2 waffle, 1/2 banana, orange, chinese buffet (huge amounts of items too numerous to list), 4 peanut butter cookies, oreo

Today's exercise: none

at convention

Year 2, Week 19, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.9

Today's food: frosted flakes, apple danish, hard rock café (nachos, big bacon cheeseburger,fries), café rio (tortilla soup, medium dr. pepper)

Today's exercise: none

at convention

Year 2, Week 19, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.9

Today's food: bagel, cheese danish, china inn (happy family combo), chocolate chip cookie, large cherry pepsi, ruth's chris (calamari, filet mignon, potatoes, baked ziti, bites of crème brulee, chocolate explosion cake, and bread pudding)

Today's exercise: none

at convention

Year 2, Week 19, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 182.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.9

Today's food: yogurt, peanut butter cookie, carl's jr (western bacon combo, onion rings, large coke), gyro combo (gyro, fries, medium mr. pibb)

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 19, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 180.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: yogurt, panda house (honey shrimp, general tso's chicken, lo mein), 3 potato wedges, 2 pieces fried chicken, 1 1/2 roll, 1/2 churro, 3/4 costco berry sundae, pork chop, 5 peanut butter cookies, tall orange juice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 19, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 180.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: cinnamon bears, pork chop, 2 bowls chicken chow mein, chinnamon bears, tall orange juice, kettle korn

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 18 Wrapup

My knee was hurting from last week, so I wanted to take a few days off. Also, I was going to Legoland/Disneyland this week, so I didn't think I was going to get in a whole lot of running there. I ended up just not running at all the whole week. I did get a lot of exercise by walking approximately 42 miles per day at Disneyland, but I offset that by eating every delicious thing that Disneyland had to offer.

My knee still hurts a lot, but I'm going to try to start up again next week and see how it goes.

Year 2, Week 18, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: 3 donuts, small strawberry cheesecake blizzard, orange, apple danish, apple, mashed potatoes, cheesy asparagus, nachos

Today's exercise: day of rest

driving back from disneyland

Year 2, Week 18, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: 2 donuts, orange, 2 mini donuts, café orleans (pomme frites appetizer, 1/2 seafood crepe, 1/2 monte cristo, 4 glasses coke), pretzel with cheese sauce, hot chocolate

Today's exercise: none

disneyland

Year 2, Week 18, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: orange, donut, pear, 1/2 cup of tang, corn dog, large coke, 3/4 bag potato chips, 3/4 bucket popcorn, blue bayou (1/2 roll, braised short ribs, potatoes, asparagus/broccoli, a few bites of crème brulee, 5 glasses of coke), hot chocolate

Today's exercise: none

disneyland

Year 2, Week 18, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): didn't take

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: breakfast buffet at country inn (scrambled eggs, oatmeal, 4 strips bacon, muffin, 1/2 bagel with neufchatel cheese, waffle, 2 cookies), pear, a few apple fries, chinese buffet (items too numerous to count), cinnamon bears

Today's exercise: none

legoland/driving to anaheim

Year 2, Week 18, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 181.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: honey bun, 2 pieces fried chicken, potato wedges, potato salad, 4 1/2 cookies, piece of chocolate, subway 6" tuna sandwich

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 18, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 181.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: 2 donuts, skillet chicken with rice and peas,tall root beer, parmesan crusted chicken breast, 1/2 chocolate bar, 1/2 honey bun

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 18, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 180.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.6

Today's food: peach, orange, 5 donuts, sausage and mashed potatoes, cheese covered asparagus, mini donut, tall root beer, peanuts

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 17 Wrapup

I was planning to race this week, so I was going to taper this week anyway. But, I ran on Monday and then got sick the next day, so Monday was the only running I did before the race.

I had been doing speedwork the last six weeks in an effort to set a new 5k PR of 22:30. With me getting sick this week, I thought it wouldn't be possible. But, on Saturday I was feeling a little better, so I drove up to Kiwanis Park in Tempe for the Care for Life 5k. It has something to do with raising money for African children.

It was a fairly small race, so when it started, I decided to take the lead for a bit, just because no one else seemed like they wanted to, and it seemed like fun, if only for 10 seconds. After about 10 seconds of easily staying in the lead, and about 20 seconds of struggling to keep it, I backed off to what should have been my normal pace.

I was maintaining a 7:15 pace, but really hating it about halfway through, and could really feel my body being drained from being sick for so long. After about 2 miles, I just thought, "No. I'm sick. I'm not going to make my goal. I shouldn't kill myself trying when I could just go home, recover, and make a better effort in a couple of weeks." And just like that I stopped and started walking. After about 10 seconds of walking, though, I saw the dude in front of me make a wrong turn. I thought I better at least get ahead of him before he figures out what happened, that way I can at least finish one place higher. And then, I took off running again.

I finally finished in 22:39, just 9 seconds short of my goal. If I hadn't started walking, I might have finished closer to my goal, or I might have finished slower since I would have been more drained. There's just no telling. I was close enough to my goal, though, to still be proud about it, especially since I was so sick. The crappy part is if I had just skipped this race and waited a couple of weeks, I maybe could have done 22:20 or something.

I was 8th out of 59. I didn't get an award, but I kind of feel cheated about it. First of all, the paper registration form said awards would be done in 5 year brackets. However, when I got there, I found out they were doing 10 year brackets. Then, they didn't pull the overall winners out of the brackets. There's no rule or anything that says they have to, but it's common enough that I would expect it. So, the first place winner was 38, and the second place winner was 31. If you pulled out the first place winner, and did five year brackets so that the second place guy was in a different bracket from me, then I would have got an award. I stuck around for the raffle afterwards and was hosed there, too.

The real bad news is that my right knee is totally hosed now. It hurt after the race Saturday and still hurts Sunday. There's a lot of pain right behind the kneecap, and it hurts especially when I go down stairs, or kneel down, or move it after it sits still for a while. I'm going to take a few days off next week and see if it gets any better.

Year 2, Week 17, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 180.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: 1/2 pop tart, peach, 3 banana nut pancakes, chips and salsa, dinner at gabbitas's (rosemary bread, banana bread, green beans, lasagna roll thing, salad, lemonade, 2 cookies, brownie, cupcake, cheesecake), 2 grapefruits

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 17, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 183.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: 2 pop tarts, 2 oranges, 2 bites of chili, medium movie popcorn, large cherry coke, small flatiron steak, cheddar broccoli noodles

Today's exercise: 1.7 mile warmup, Care for Life 5k

Year 2, Week 17, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 182.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.5

Today's food: yogurt, pluot, quizno's tuna melt, bacon wrapped meatloaf patty, mashed potatoes, tall orange juice, peanuts, birthday cake

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 17, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 181.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.2

Today's food: yogurt, 5 chocolate dipped strawberries, bowl of chili, fried shrimp, french fries, marshmallows, kettle korn, peanut bar

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 17, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 179.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.1

Today's food: yogurt, peach, quizno's small tuna melt, peach, 1 1/2 chocolate chip cookies, 4 spam and egg tacos, 13 ginger snaps, spam and egg quesadilla, cinammon crisp, marshmallows

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 17, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 180.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.1

Today's food: yogurt, manuel's (chips and salsa, chile relleno, taco), 2 jack in the box tacos, parmesan crusted chicken, green beans, smore, tall orange juice, peanuts, piece of chocolate bar, handful of marshmallows

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 17, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 181.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.0

Today's food: banana, yogurt, mixed nuts, cookie, banana, 2 pluots, 4 smores, 1 piece baked chicken, potato wedges, macaroni and cheese, peanut bar, kettle korn

Today's exercise: 1.5 mile warmup, intervals (4x400 & 4x200 @ 6:45 pace), .6 mile cooldown (total 5 miles)

Year 2, Week 16 Wrapup

I spent the second half of this week in Mexico with Becki's mom, the Clonts family, and the Gabbitas family. A Mexico trip of course means about triple what I should be eating, so I don't think it will be reversing the slowly upward weight trend of late.

I did a 16 mile long run on Saturday while I was down there. Basically, I ran 5 miles to the Pemex, bought Gatorade, ran 3 miles out towards Caborca, ran 3 miles back to Pemex, bought Gatorade again, then ran back to the house. Later that day, my right knee started hurting something fierce. It was fine during the run, but when it started hurting later, it hurt right behind the kneecap. It hurt to kneel on, and it hurt on stairs, and it hurt to flex it when getting up after sitting for a while. I'll have to see if it turns into something worse or not.

Year 2, Week 16, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): don't know

Today's food: yogurt, 3 slices fruit pizza, tamale, 3 jumbo shrimp, pork burrito, chicken salad on toast, mixed nuts, apple, 1 1/2 cheeseburgers, large fries, 1/2 ice cream cone, 2 large cherry pepsis

Today's exercise: day of rest

coming back from mexico

Year 2, Week 16, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): don't know

Today's food: pan dulce, 1.5 liters gatorade, pancake, scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, yogurt, chocolate coconut granola bar, mixed nuts, cream horn, 2 pieces chicken, 2 tortillas, steamed clams, fruit pizza, 10 grilled jumbo shrimp

Today's exercise: 16 miles @ 9:18

in mexico

Year 2, Week 16, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): don't know

Today's food: banana, mixed nuts, yogurt, chips, 2 clementines, 1/2 roll, tortilla, pork and bean burrito, pork and bean taco, fritos, cream horn, 10 rice krispie treats

Today's exercise: 5 miles @ 9:20

in mexico

Year 2, Week 16, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 180.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 179.9

Today's food: yogurt, banana, sugar cookie sandwich, 2 fish tacos, 1 can orange soda, 2 clementines

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 16, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 178.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 179.8

Today's food: yogurt, donut, cupcake, chicken cornbread bake, donut, leftover, pork roast and potatoes, donut, popcorn

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles @ 7:50, 1 mile cooldown

Year 2, Week 16, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 178.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 179.9

Today's food: 1/2 pop tart, 2 yogurts, cottage cheese with a can of peaches, 4 potato chips, 1/2 roll, donut, 3 cookies, 1 1/2 donuts, tall orange juice concoction, 4 more cookies

Today's exercise: 1.5 mile warmup, intervals (2x800, 4x400 & 4x200 @ 6:45 pace), 1 mile cooldown (total 7.5 miles)

Year 2, Week 16, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 179.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.1

Today's food: tall dr. pepper, 2 yogurts, cheese and crackers, posole, 1/2 banana, tall dr. pepper, 16 ginger snaps, caramel corn

Today's exercise: none (cold and windy)

Year 2, Week 15 Wrapup

Not much to report this week. On Tuesday, I did the same speedwork that I did last week, except this time I didn't have quite as much trouble. I thought it was going to be as bad when after the 3rd 800 I felt like I was having a heart attack, and needing to puke, and needing to poop all the same time. However, this time I was able to power through it instead of having to take the 20 minute bathroom break like last week.

The other thing about Tuesday is that the same clockwise-walking jackhole that I saw a few months ago was there. He bothers me anyway, but especially so when I'm trying to run fast.

Year 2, Week 15, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 178.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.2

Today's food: banana, 1 1/2 slices of pizza, tall dr. pepper, caramel corn, pork roast, green beans, smashed potatoes, caramel corn, 4 ginger snaps

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 15, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 179.0*

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.4

Today's food: bowl of crispix, 40 oz gatorade, caramel corn, BJs (mozarella stick, 1/2 southwestern eggroll, bowl clam chowder, 1 piece pizza, 1/2 pizookie, 4 glasses pepsi)

Today's exercise: 14 miles @ 9:18

* 175.6 after running, cereal, 40 oz gatorade

Year 2, Week 15, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 179.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.5

Today's food: yogurt, snickers, valentine lollipop, 1 biscuit with gravy, cupcake, cookie, candy hearts, coca-cola pot roast with potatoes and asparagus, huge fistfuls of caramel corn

Today's exercise:

Year 2, Week 15, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 180.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: yogurt, pluot, orange, tortilla chips, 2 servings of enchitaco, tall orange juice, can of cherry coke

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 6 times up the hill, 1.5 mile cooldown (total 5 miles in 9:25 average)

Year 2, Week 15, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 181.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.8

Today's food: yogurt, leftover beans from el pollo feliz, cincinnati chili, dum dum pop, 2 grapefruits, tall orange juice, peanuts, pluot

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles @ 7:50, 1 mile cooldown

Year 2, Week 15, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.7

Today's food: quizno's (roast beef and cheddar sandwich, snickerdoodle, medium mountain dew), posole, tortilla chips, pluot, tall grapefruit juice, peanuts

Today's exercise: 1.5 mile warmup, intervals (2x800 @ 7:15 pace, 1x800, 2x400, 2x200 @ 6:45 pace), 1.25 mile cooldown (total 6.5 miles)

Year 2, Week 15, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 184.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.4

Today's food: 2 ginger snaps, yogurt, pluot, orange, 1 1/2 hamburgers, french fries, blueberry cobbler, tall grapefruit juice, peanuts

Today's exercise: none (cold and windy today)

Year 2, Week 14 Wrapup

We were driving back from Utah on Monday, so I did Monday's speedwork on Tuesday. I'm at a level now with the speedwork where I'm going fast enough that I really feel it in my bowels. When I first started running, I never really identified with the people who were so adamant about not running right after eating. At the speeds I was going, it didn't matter what I had in my stomach. Now, though, I'm getting fast enough with the speedwork that I really notice it if my bowels are not empty.

Ideally, I would do a speed workout like that after not eating for at least 6 hours before, and eating especially light for the 18 hours before that to let other things clear out. I'm not yet at the point where I'd be advocating enemas before a big race, but I can now understand how people at that level of competition would need to worry about things like that.

So, on Tuesday's workout, I did two 800s at a 7:15 pace, then one at a 6:45 pace. That 6:45 killed me, and right afterwards I had to either poop or puke. I opted for poop, but when I went over to the bathroom, I saw the custodian walking away after having just locked it. The track didn't close for another half hour, but I get the feeling that he wanted to get home earlier to finish his beer or something. I yelled after him, explaining my urgent need, and how it shouldn't even be closed yet. He just said "close-ed". He was clearly not a native English speaker, or was at least pretending not to be. I explained in a most fervent manner that my need was great, and if I didn't find a suitable environment in which to meet that need, I would be forced to evacuate my bowels onto the sidewalk below. I'm pretty sure he got the gist of what I was saying, but still replied, "close-ed". I kept following him pleading my case until he finally took pity on me and let me into a nearby building that he hadn't finished cleaning yet so I could use the bathroom there. I repaid this kindness by completely devastating that bathroom over the course of the next 20 minutes.

Unrelated to my running this week, I came across the following video, which provides a pretty clear visual explanation of why I'm not planning on graduating to ultra-marathons any time soon.

Year 2, Week 14, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 183.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 180.0

Today's food: pluot, half a cookie, hot ham and cheese sandwich, biscuit and gravy, lil smokies, blueberry cobbler, crapload of cream puffs, tall lemonade, some nachos, chips and salsa

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 14, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 183.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 179.6

Today's food: biscuit, 32 oz gatorade, costco (samples, polish dog, medium coke), pluot, 1 1/2 pieces german pancake, home fries, popcorn, tall lemonade, reese's whip bar

Today's exercise: 12 miles @ 9:09

Year 2, Week 14, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 181.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 179.1

Today's food: yogurt, peanut brittle, orange, apple, meatballs and noodles, 2 biscuits, peanuts, 2 tall lemonades, kettle corn

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 14, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 179.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.9

Today's food: 3 pieces peach pie with whipped cream, sunflower seeds, 1 piece fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, roll, tall grapefruit juice, lemonade, peanut brittle

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 5 times up the hill, 1.25 mile cooldown (total 4 miles in 9:25 average); later, with Jimmy: 4 miles @ 9:06

Year 2, Week 14, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 178.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.8

Today's food: yogurt, croissant, sunflower seeds, 1 1/2 tortillas, beans, 1 piece pollo asado, pear, 2 pieces peach pie with whipped cream

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles @ 7:55, 1 mile cooldown

Year 2, Week 14, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 183.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.8

Today's food: yogurt, casino buffet (tamale, enchilada, roast beef, mashed potatoes, ceviche, beef picadillo, 2 ice cream cones), 1 1/2 pieces garlic toast, 4 ginger snaps, 2 grapefruits, peanuts

Today's exercise: 1.5 mile warmup, intervals (2x800 @ 7:15 pace, 1x800, 2x400, 2x200 @ 6:45 pace), 1 mile cooldown (total 6 miles)

Year 2, Week 14, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): don't now

Weight (weighted moving average): don't know

Today's food: sonic (breakfast burrito, 1/2 corn dog, 1/4 banana), sunflower seeds, ikea (chicken fingers, fries, 1/2 almond cake, 32 oz sierra mist with lingonberry juice), 8 ginger snaps, swedish meatballs in cream sauce over noodles with broccoli, 8 ginger snaps

Today's exercise: none

driving back from Utah

Year 2, Week 13 Wrapup

I went up to Utah on Wednesday, so did most of my running up there this week.

On Thursday, I ran outside. My phone said it was 30 degrees out; a bank sign I passed said 35. It was the coldest weather I've ever run in, but I'm sure it was downright balmy for those of my friends used to colder weather. I had originally planned to do 5 miles at tempo pace, but after the first mile, I gave up on that idea really quick. I was running on the Provo River trail, so I was unfamiliar with the terrain, it was icy in patches, there were uneven spots in the trail from roots, the altitude is higher than I'm used to, etc. Also, I had had a huge lunch, so I had to poo, and I had to pee. All of this combined to make me think the tempo pace was a bad idea. About halfway through the run, I got to Will's Pit Stop where I decided to take a pit stop of my own. I ended up in the bathroom for twenty minutes, completely laying waste to that bathroom (which was kind of appropriate, since I had gone in to literally lay waste in that bathroom).

After Will's, I had to warm up again, which sucked, but I felt much better, so I did another mile at tempo pace. There were lots of people out running when I was, and it was really easy to tell the good ones from the neophytes. The neophytes were bundled up head to toe in their heaviest winter clothes, while the very best runners were in just shorts and a singlet. I had shorts and a short sleeve shirt, but I did have gloves and ear warmers, so I fell somewhere in between.

Here's one thing I noticed about running in Provo: When I run in Tucson and pass another runner, about 1/3 of the time, they'll actually wave or grunt or something to acknowledge me. If I wave or say something first, the other runner will return the greeting nearly 100% of the time. Of all the people that I passed in Provo, not a single one greeted me in any way. Most of the time, I would attempt to wave and say hi first, and not a single runner returned my greeting. In fact, the only person who greeted me at all was a homeless dude camping by the river who shouted "Morning!" at me as I ran past at 3:00 in the afternoon.

I thought this was really weird. Now, understand that I'm usually not a big fan of social interaction. I would prefer to walk through life under no obligation to acknowledge or communicate with anyone that might cross my path. However, I do try to acknowledge fellow runners the same way I always wave to another motorcylist when I'm on my motorcycle. It's a show of solidarity and fellowship. So, I think it's strange that Utahns, who love to make a show of their superiority in matters of morals and friendliness, would be so consistently inconsiderate.

On Friday and Saturday, I went to the Smith Fieldhouse with Tyler to run laps there. It was pretty boring, but a lot less cold than running outside. I noticed while I was there that BYU has really seemed to relax their admission standards, admitting many more students who never learned how to read. Or at least I assume that's the problem, because even though the track has about 100 giant signs posted saying "Walkers to the right, runners to the left", every lap is like an obstacle course weaving in and out of fat coeds with blaring iPods, aged faculty who are shuffling, and packs of young moms with baby strollers.

Year 2, Week 13, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): don't know

Today's food: 4 donuts, super bowl party (chips and dip, 4 wings, shrimp, 2 crab puffs, 8 cookies, bread pudding, ~24 oz mountain dew, probably other things I forgot), sunflower seeds

Today's exercise: day of rest

in utah

Year 2, Week 13, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): don't know

Today's food: english muffin, funeral luncheon (ham, 2 servings funeral potatoes, 3 pieces cake), large cherry coke, piece of cake, 1/2 cookie, 8 inch sensuous sandwich succulent seafood delight, 5 donuts, jr. frosty

Today's exercise: ~9 miles @ ~9:00

in utah

Year 2, Week 13, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): don't know

Today's food: apple, china isle (triple treat lunch special, egg drop soup, spring roll), 2 slices pizza, 8 cookies, 3 slices orange cake, brownie, medium dr. pepper

Today's exercise: ~3.6 miles in 37:32 (~10:25/mile)

in utah

Year 2, Week 13, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): don't know

Today's food: wing shak (4 garlic pepper wings, 4 pineapple bbq wings, a few fries, half basket tots, medium dr. pepper), grapes, burgers supreme (clam chowder, a few fries, a bit of burger, two chicken nuggets, 6 spree), pear

Today's exercise: 7 miles (miles 2 & 6 @ 7:55, rest of the run at 9:20-9:25)

in utah

Year 2, Week 13, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 180.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.3

Today's food: 2 tangerines, 2 suckers, 1/2 banana nut muffin, broccoli chicken penne, biscuit, 2 slices lemon cake, sunflower seeds, fish burrito, becki's leftover chips and beans

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 13, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 178.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.1

Today's food: denny's (flapjack skillet), banana nut muffin, dinner (flatiron steak, red beans and rice, 2 crescent rolls), grapes, peanuts

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 13, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 178.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.0

Today's food: cookie, yogurt, medium cherry coke, apple, orange, spaghetti with 3 meatballs, garlic cheese bread, bowl of peanuts, tall orange juice, 4 cookies

Today's exercise: 1.5 mile warmup, intervals (2x800 @ 7:15 pace, 2x400 & 4x200 @ 6:45 pace), 1.1 mile cooldown (total 6 miles)

Year 2, Week 12 Wrapup

Still eating a ton this week, but my weight has almost plateaued at 178. I ran about 27.5 miles this week, so I'm back up to speed there.

On Thursday, I met up with a local workout group. They call themselves The Workout Group. They're a running group who train twice a week to get faster. On that particular day, there had been heavy rains, so they scrapped the drills they had been planning on the field, and just did 1/4 mile intervals on the running path around Reid Park. There were people of all levels there, but the main pack was keeping about a 6:45 pace in the intervals. That was just a little too fast for me, but I averaged between 7:00 and 7:15 on the intervals and caught up with them on the recovery. There were a couple of dozen people there, and it seemed like a fun group. I think going regularly would definitely help me get faster. I just don't know if I want to commit to having to be there at a regular time or anything.

I've done a lot of thinking this week about my goals for running, and I'm at a bit of a crossroads. On the one hand, I don't really want to be a runner anymore. It takes a lot of time (8-10 hours per week) that I could really be using for other things. On the other hand, if I quit running now, I would probably never get back into it, and then I would get mad at myself later in my life for not doing more with my good running ability when I had the chance.

On top of all that is the realization that I need some form of exercise, and there's no other form of exercise that I would want to do or be able to do more than running. If I gave up on competitive running entirely and just ran 4 hours per week for fitness, I would have a hard time going out to run at all. Training for specific goals is what actually forces me out the door, and not having those goals would make it next to impossible to motivate me to actually do it. Try as I might, I just can't envision myself as one of those guys that just gets up and jogs the same few miles every morning.

So, I'm thinking I can't quit now, because I haven't done everything I might want to have done. It's not like I have a bunch more that I want to do; it's more like I'm afriad of quitting, and then identifying something I wanted to have done. I think that I'll have to identify all the goals I might ever have, then preemptively beat them so that I can feel free to quit sometime.

I'm coming to the realization that I'm going to have to go to Boston. If I don't, I'll regret it. If I do, I'll probably feel like I have done enough and could safely quit. So, it's all coming down to that. The 2010 race is already full, of course, and the 2011 race would fill up by December 2010. So, if I could somehow qualify by December 2010, that would give me 22 months to work up to the right speed. Seems doable, but still really hard, since that's less than 2 years away, and would require me to maintain a 7:27 pace for 26.2 miles (when the longest I've ever gone at that pace was the 5k a couple weeks ago.

So Boston's probably going to have to be the big goal, but there may be a couple of others that I feel like I might have to beat. For one, I'd really like to do a sub-20 minute 5k. I'd also like to win a race at some point. That one's more of an issue of planning than of training, though. If I really search around and find the right combination of small race and weak field, even a 20 minute time can be a winning one.

Year 2, Week 12, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 177.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.0

Today's food: 1/4 pop tart, 2 cookie, 2 grapefruit, small bowl chicken broccoli penne, 1 1/2 bratwurst, scalloped potatoes, green beans, 3 blueberry streusel bars, 3 cookies, tall orange juice, kettle corn

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 12, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 178.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.0

Today's food: 2 quesadillas, 20 oz gatorade, tall orange juice, baked potato with gravy, 5 cookies, sucker, mixed nuts

Today's exercise: 10 miles @ 9:27

Year 2, Week 12, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 177.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.0

Today's food: 1 slice fruit pizza, chicken and dumplings, 2 tangerines, dinner (2 little yoshida-marinated flatiron steaks, scalloped potatoes, green beans, grilled peppers), tall orange juice, popcorn, grapefruit, chocolate covered pretzels

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 12, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 177.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.0

Today's food: pear, chicken and dumplings, chocolate/caramel bar, ribeye steak, sliced roasted potatoes, 3 slices fruit pizza, cookie

Today's exercise: 1.36 miles warmup, intervals (.25 mile X8 @ ~7:15 with .25 mile recovery), 2.45 mile cooldown (total 7.55 miles)

Year 2, Week 12, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 179.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 178.0

Today's food: about 10 inches of sub sandwich, potato chips, 4 cups lemonade, 2 chocolate chip cookies, leftover penne rustica thing

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles @ 7:55, 1 mile cooldown

Year 2, Week 12, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 177.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.8

Today's food: yogurt, apple, orange, ascolese's (1/2 calamari appetizer, 1/2 penne rustica thing, 1/2 tiramisu), movie theater (medium pocorn, medium cherry coke, large sprite), cold stone (medium strawberry pie crust waffle cone thing)

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 12, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 177.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.8

Today's food: yogurt, apple, orange, dinner (tamale, refried beans, tortilla), porterhouse steak, roasted sliced potatoes, ice cream

Today's exercise: 1.5 mile warmup, intervals (2x800, 2x400, 2x200 @ 7:15 pace), .9 mile cooldown (total 5 miles)

Year 2, Week 11 Wrapup

I still ate a lot this week, but the graph of my weight gain looks slightly better this week. The slope of the line isn't quite as steep. Maybe next week I can plateau, and then the following week start heading down. If I graphed weight gain and miles ran for this month, I think you'd find a not-so-surprising correlation.

Only 14 miles this week. More than last week, but not yet back up to my desired training routine of 25-30/week. The running went okay this week, but my legs and joints have been a little sore. I was planning to do a long run on Saturday, but skipped it to provide a little more rest.

I added up the miles on my shoes, and I'm about at 350 now. So, I could be nearing the end on those. I decided to just stick with what I have (Mizuno Wave Alchemy 8), so I went ahead and ordered two more pairs of them. I don't know if I should just alternate pairs and wear them evenly. Or, maybe I should keep one just for races and speedwork, and put most of the miles on the other pair, demoting the good pair once the heavy-use pair wears out. Ideas?

Year 2, Week 11, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 179.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.9

Today's food: piece of bread, another piece of bread, 2 suckers, orange garlic country-style pork ribs over rice, oreo pie, cheese and crackers, cookie bar

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 11, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 178.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.7

Today's food: roast chicken breast, mashed potatoes, 10 sugar cookies, pork chop, 2 ferrero rocher, popcorn, ice cream

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 11, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 177.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.6

Today's food: yogurt, 5 cookies, orange, 2 bowls chicken and dumplings, cinammon roll, 2 mini butterfingers, chocolate covered pretzels, pretzels

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 11, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 178.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.6

Today's food: yogurt, orange, wheat thins, apple, 3 pieces pizza, 13 sugar cookies, handful of chocolates, dum dum pop

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 5 times up the hill, 1 mile cooldown (total 4 miles)

Year 2, Week 11, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 179.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.5

Today's food: carl's jr (steak sandwich, crisscut fries, large dr. pepper), heath bar blizzard, bowl of wheat thins, 1 piece roast chicken, bowl of ice cream

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 3 miles @ 7:58, 1 mile cooldown

Year 2, Week 11, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 176.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.3

Today's food: piece of chocolate, chocolate covered pretzels, apple, orange, three cookies, chocolate caramel bar, shake and bake pork chop, mashed potatoes, pretzels, dum dum pop, 1 dozen mini cookies

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 11, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 177.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.4

Today's food: yogurt, apple, orange, 5 mini cookies, tall grapefruit juice, 1 piece grilled chicken, potato salad, doritos, chocolate covered pretzels

Today's exercise: 1.5 mile warmup, intervals (6x400 @ 7:15 pace), 1.5 mile cooldown (total 5 miles); 24 pushups

Year 2, Week 10 Wrapup

I ate a crapload this week. Looking back at the reasons for that, I can pin it down to three factors: 1. It seems like there's a bit of a psychological thing going on where I felt deprived of my favorite things for so long, and I felt like I should be rewarded for doing the marathon. This kind of justified in my mind everything I was stuffing into my mouth. 2. We had a lot of candy and snacks left over from Christmas, and I don't like keeping a lot of stuff like that around the house. I determined the best way to remove that temptation was by eating it. All of it. 3. I was just plain hungry all week. Could be my body rebuilding after the marathon training. Or, it could be just that the trip to Vegas completely reset my body's perception of hungry and full. Either way, I felt pretty hungry.

The combination of ridiculous eating habits and only running 10 miles total means my moving average is up almost 2 pounds for the week. I'm sure that will settle back down next week, but it's alarming nonetheless.

I felt really good after the marathon, and was ready to run again by Tuesday. However, I had dinner really late that day, and had too much food in my stomach to really want to go out that night. So, Wednesday was my first day out running, and I did an easy three miles. Everything felt great, and I didn't feel sore or anything. Thursday, I did another 3 miles, with a couple of fast sections in the middle.

Great Expectations Academy Feeling Fit 5K

I had seen this race coming up on the schedule, and also heard from someone in my ward that they were probably going. I wasn't really considering going because it was only a week after the marathon. But, the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to go. It's a small race, but with age divisions every 5 years. Looking at the results from last year made me think I had a real shot of at least placing in my division or possibly even winning the division. The drawbacks were that it was a half hour away in the town where I grew up. So, there's a little drive, and I ran the risk of seeing someone I know. There was also the big unknown of how well I could really do so soon after the marathon. But, I was feeling really good, so I decided to go for it.

On the way down, I suddenly began to feel really nauseous, and a bit ill overall. I thought that if it didn't pass, I'd just forget about the race, and go to my work (which is right down the street from the race) and puke and lie down for a while. But, it did pass, and I was feeling well enough to sign up and pay my money. Approximately 20 seconds after the money left my hand, I started feeling sick again. It was too late to get my money back, but not too late to write it off and head back home. Again, though, it shortly passed.

I warmed up a little, and waited at the start, and the nausea still never came back. However, I had all sorts of visions of having to pull over and puke in the bushes, so I made a conscious decision not to push myself too hard so that I wouldn't embarrass myself like that. It's one thing to turn in a winning performance and have to puke after. It's something entirely different to be running at sort of a middle of the pack pace and then have to puke halfway through.

Despite this conscious decision to rein it in, I still started off too fast. I maintained the too fast pace for long enough to do 7:11 for the first mile, but I definitely slowed down a little from there. In the second mile, even though I was slowing down, I passed a few of the people who had passed me previously. These were people who evidently had even more of a problem of starting out too fast than I did. One of the guys I passed looked about my age, so I was especially motivated to stay ahead of him once I had passed him. In the third mile, my shoe came untied. Since I've started running, that's only the second time that's happened, and only the first time in a race. I wasn't going to stop for it, so I just let my laces flop around for a half mile. I'll probably start having to remember to double-knot them in races, now.

There was a little out and back section right before the end, and once I started heading back, I could see that I was about a minute ahead of the other dude my age. So, I eased up just a little. But, once I rounded the last turn and could see the clock, I was really surprised by how good my time was. So, I turned it up at the very end to try to take another second or two off. My final result was 23:11. That was good for 12th place overall (out of 100) and 1st in the M 35-39 division.

I'm tickled pink about this. It's over a minute and a half off my PR, and it's my first real award (I'm not counting the "award" at the stake 5K since it's not really clear that I actually placed what I thought I did there). I did it 1 week after a marathon and on the verge of puking, too. Looking at that time, I feel like if the race was a few weeks after the marathon, and I wasn't sick, I could have pulled out 22:30 easily.

The only drawback to winning something is having to wait around until afterwards to get your award. This race took forever to hand them out, because they had to wait for everyone to finish the 5K, then they ran a 1 mile fun run. After that, they gave out like 1000 raffle prizes (yet still not drawing me for some reason). Then and only then did they do awards. I got a big ol' medal. I'm more proud of it than I am my marathon finisher medals. The finisher medals just don't have as much meaning anymore. I mean, they'll give those things out to just anyone who runs 26.2 miles.

The great 5K finish reaffirms my commitment to work on speed between marathons. So, starting next week I'll do another 6 week cycle of some speed workouts. My intent is to break 22:30 in the 5K by the end of February. I'll still be doing long runs on Saturday to start building back up for Ogden, but I won't switch in to structured marathon training until I get this speed goal out of the way.

I think it's a little bit crazy to jump right into the speedwork right after the last marathon. But, on the other hand, my body still feels really good, and adding it up, I only did about 10 miles this week. So, even starting the speedwork, I'll plan on only doing 15-20 next week, then get up closer to 25-30 the week after that. So, with any luck, my body will take advantage of what little rest interval I'm giving it. If I pull or tear or break something in the next few weeks, though, I'll definitely go back and reread this post and wonder just what in the world I was thinking.

Training paces for this round of speedwork:

Race goal pace: 7:15
800 - 3:37
400 - 1:48
200 - 0:54

Speed pace: 6:45
800 - 3:22
400 - 1:41
200 - 0:50

Tempo pace: 7:55
Long run pace: 9:30

Year 2, Week 10, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): 179.0

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.3

Today's food: yogurt, handful of chocolates, 5 mini cookies, roast chicken, potatoes, steamed spring vegetables, 6 turtle brownies

Today's exercise: day of rest

Year 2, Week 10, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): 179.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 177.1

Today's food: yogurt, donut, banana, piece of danish, slice of big sub, 1 chocolate, german pancakes, old chicago (pizza roll, italian nachos, cheese bread, italian sausage rigatoni)

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup; 5k

Year 2, Week 10, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): 179.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 176.9

Today's food: apple, chicken and rice, dinner (grilled chicken, pasta salad, potato salad), 6 chocolates, candy bats, gummi brains, tall grapefruit juice

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 10, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 178.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 176.6

Today's food: handful of chocolates, mixed nuts, hot dog estilo sonora, slice banana cream pie, 2 brownie cookies, dinner (2 rolls, 2 pieces fried chicken, potato salad, pasta salad, potato log), piece of toast, 5 almond roca, popcorn, tall grapefruit juice, handful of chocolates, 3 mini cookies

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 800m @ 7:15, 400m recovery, 400m @ 7:15, 1 mile cooldown

Year 2, Week 10, Day 3

Weight (today's reading): 179.6

Weight (weighted moving average): 176.4

Today's food: 2 almond roca, manuel's (chips and salsa, chili relleno, beef taco, beans), mixed nuts, 4 almond roca, 1/2 cup chex mix, ferrero rocher, m&ms, gummi bears

Today's exercise: easy 3 miles (@9:43)

Year 2, Week 10, Day 2

Weight (today's reading): 178.8

Weight (weighted moving average): 176.1

Today's food: 2 slices zucchini bread, triple play (bacon cheeseburger, 2 onion rings, fries, cheese stick, jalapeño popper, 2 medium cherry cokes), baggie of caramel corn, dinner (grilled chicken, rice, corn, roll), mini butterfinger, 2 dum dum pops, mixed nuts, 5 almond roca, 3 ferrero rocher, m & ms, swedish fish

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 10, Day 1

Weight (today's reading): 178.2

Weight (weighted moving average): 175.7

Today's food: 3 clementines, apple, 12 celery sticks with peanut butter, small slice roast, ham soup, 2 chocolate star cookies, popcorn, 12 more star cookies, 3 almond roca

Today's exercise: none

Year 2, Week 9 Wrapup

I started the week deliberately eating less than normal, because I knew I would be doing the opposite once I got to Vegas. Also, Becki and I had a bit of a contest going on the last couple of months. We challenged each other to see who could get the moving average of their body weight to drop by 5% first. We traded off the lead for a while, but I had a healthy lead at the end and wanted to finish the contest before going to Vegas. I knew that if I didn't finish before Vegas, there was a chance my overeating could set me way back and let Becki sneak in for the win. But, my weigh-in on Tuesday clinched a victory for me. We could never settle on appropriate wagers or prizes, so this was just for pride. Still, though, I do like having me some pride.

On Thursday, we got up early and drove to Vegas. The whole famdamnily went, just about. We checked into 3 rooms at the Riviera, ate at Cafe Rio, ate again at Raising Cane's, then rendezvoused with Scott. The next morning, Scott and I ran about 2.5-3 miles. I don't know exactly how much, because neither of our watches were getting a good satellite lock since we were running under roofs and things. So, too bad for us. It was pretty cold, and I had the additional difficulty of having somehow failed to pack my underwear and socks. After running, we went to the running store where Scott got shorts, and I got socks. The lady promised me that the socks that I bought were the best that have ever been made and that I would get absolutely no trouble from them. She also told me that since they were new, I should use a little Body Glide on my toes before the race. In hindsight, I believe that might have been useful information to remember. After the running store, we went to Kmart to get gloves and underwear.

On the way to the running store, I noticed that the Vegas McDonalds were selling McRibs, which dashed my hopes of having a proper pre-race nutrition routine. There are a lot of schools of thought on what the proper nutrition regimen is on the day before a race, but none of them recommend a McRib. (Note: if proper pre-race nutrition is important to you, don't run a marathon in Vegas). Lunch was at Togoshi Ramen, which I guess does count as a traditional carbo-loading. After Togoshi, Scott went off on his own, and Becki and I and the kids drove down to Boulder City to do packet pickup and meet up with Cathi and Gordon and their kids.

I hadn't seen Cathi in somewhere between 10-15 years, but all those kids and marathons have evidently been good to her, because she looks great. You can tell from looking at him that Gordon is a great athlete, too. We talked briefly during the evening about how frustrating it is that we haven't seen each other in so long, and we all looked good before, so the best we can hope for now is just to look as good as the others remember us. People who've seen me in the past few years can look at me now and say "Wow, you lost so much weight! You look great!". But, if you haven't seen me in 15 years, about the best compliment I can hope for is, "You look just like you used to, except a little more wrinkled and hairier and grayer". I guess the lesson that I need to learn from this is that I really need to stay in touch with people better, mainly so that they can see me more when I get fat and be in a better position to be surprised when I get skinny again.

We went into the actual city of Boulder City for dinner. I've driven past Boulder City about 100 times, but never been into the quaint little city center. It's kind of nice. We had pizza while our combined 9 children did their best to get the other restaurant patrons to rethink their decision to come there.

Running From An Angel Marathon 2009

In the morning, we drove down in plenty of time for the start, but saw that it was very cold and very windy once we got there. So, we camped out in the car, getting out in just enough time to get to the start with about a minute to spare.

It was really cold and windy, and I kept wearing the throwaway jacket I brought for about the first four miles before ditching it. I kept my gloves on until about mile 15. The gloves I got are great. They're super cheap women's knit gloves that were on clearance for 2 pairs/dollar. I got them as throwaways, but they block the wind and cold way better than my other gloves, and I don't sweat in them at all. Now, I wish I had got a few more pairs, because I'm not going to want to throw these ones away.

Cathi and Scott and I ran for a while, talking and catching up, then met up with Arizona Kathy (from Goodyear) a few miles in. We all ran together the rest of the way to the turnaround. After the turnaround, I took off down a really long hill. I knew I would go slower on the following uphill, so I wanted to get as far ahead as I could. Sure enough, once I got to the top of the following hill, Scott and Arizona Kathy had caught up with me. Cathi had started struggling at that point, so the turnaround was the last I saw of her until the finish. Scott, AK, and I ran together a couple of more miles, then Arizona Kathy and I inched ahead. Arizona Kathy and I were together until about mile 25, when she started to kick, and I started to slow down a bit. Somewhere during the last mile, I was passed by someone else in my division, so that bugged me, but I couldn't really muster up any more energy to keep up with him.

I finished in 4:16:31, 34th out of 80 overall, and 5th out of 9 in my division (after taking out the overall winner). This was almost 40 minutes faster than Park City. Scott came in about a minute later. (It was important to me to beat Scott, because this was such a small marathon that I was worried we might be the only ones in our division. In that case, I would have a chance to win the division. Turns out we were both way behind the actual winner). This course was way harder than Park City, too. None of the hills by themselves was too steep, but they were relentless, with not a single flat spot on the course anywhere. It was absolutely beautiful out there, though, but it seems that natural beauty always comes hand in hand with extreme difficulty.

The wind was another major factor to contend with. It wasn't always a headwind, but seemed to be always against me on the uphills for some reason. The aid stations came frequently, but they had this nasty swill called "Heed" as the electrolyte drink. I took a sip at the first aid station by mistake and almost spat it out. It's seriously nasty stuff, like if gatorade and horchata had a baby. Because I hated it so much, I stayed away from it the whole rest of the race. To get my electrolytes replenished, I tried to get the salty pretzels whenever I they had them at the aid stations. At the turnaround, they also had electrolyte capsules that I took one of. I was also hoping that the couple of gels I took had some electrolytes in them. Either way, it was difficult to tell if I was getting enough electrolytes. At about the 20 mile mark, my left quadriceps started cramping up, and then both of them cramped up on every other hill thereafter. I can't say for sure that my aversion to Heed directly led to the cramping, but it's possible. I will say this: If there's any way the race director could find something else than Heed next year, it would make for a much better race.

Speaking of the race director... Joyce from Calico Racing puts together a mighty fine race. If I complain about this race and never run it again, it's because of the hills and the wind, not because of the way the race is run. The race was done fantastically. It's a small race, but it was chip timed, everything was well marked, and the aid stations were fabulous. The food afterwards was just stellar. I can't imagine ever seeing a race with better food than this. There was a big pot of soup simmering, hot chocolate, a toaster for bagels and toast and english muffins, pop tarts, yogurt, fruits, really good fruit preserves, etc.. It all really hit the spot after such a long run. So, major kudos to Joyce.

Also, I want to point out that I beat Bart Yasso, a veritable running legend who happened to be running this race. If you ask him, he'll probably come up with some lame excuse like that he wasn't really running for competition, or that he was planning all along to finish with his wife since it was her hundredth marathon. I'm not buying any of it. I beat him fair and square and don't let him tell you any different.

Three of my brothers, Tyler, Carson, and Steven, all did the 5k part of the same race. Steven won, as might have been expected, and then Carson and Tyler finished a minute or two apart behind him. Tyler, while finishing third, had a really good time of 31:15, which is way better than the first 5k I did.

After the race, we went to the Paris Buffet, because I felt the need to replace in one meal every single one of the 3700 calories that I burned during the race.

So, overall, I'm very pleased with the race. I was really happy to see Cathi again. It was fun to have half my family running and the other half there in Vegas. I'm pleased with my time. And, I'm feeling really good physically. I've got a couple of really nasty blisters on my right toes, and I'm just a little bit sore in my quads now, but not anywhere else, and nowhere near as sore as I've been after some previous training runs. I'm actually feeling really good overall, and will probably not take the next week off like I originally planned.

Year 2, Week 9, Day 7

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): 175.5

Today's food: main st. station breakfast buffet (don't remember exactly what, although I'm sure it was a ridiculous amount), red laces, in-n-out (cheeseburger, a few fries, small coke), runts, nuts, swedish fish, 8 chocolate covered star cookies

Today's exercise: day of rest

coming back from vegas

Year 2, Week 9, Day 6

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): 175.5

Today's food: banana, mcdonalds fruit and yogurt parfait, race food (1 dozen pretzels, gummi bears), post-race food (soup, bagel with cream cheese, hot chocolate, 1/2 banana, 1/2 english muffin, 1/2 pop tart, strawberries with yogurt), paris buffet (too much to list), in-n-out (a few bites of fries animal style, medium sprite

Today's exercise: Running From an Angel marathon

in vegas

Year 2, Week 9, Day 5

Weight (today's reading): don't know

Weight (weighted moving average): 175.5

Today's food: wild wild west breakfast special (2 eggs over medium, hash browns, bacon, toast), mcdonalds (mcrib, large coke), togoshi ramen (champon ramen, 1 each of several appetizers like gyoza or fried baby octopus), several pockys, 2 slices pizza, cheese stick, 2 poppers, 12 hershey kisses

Today's exercise: ~2.7 miles

in vegas

Year 2, Week 9, Day 4

Weight (today's reading): 174.4

Weight (weighted moving average): 175.5*

Today's food: pop tart, tall orange juice, sausage mcmuffin with egg, piece of cheese, café rio (2 pork tamale special, small dr pepper) doritos, raising cane's (3 chicken fingers, toast, fries, large sprite)

Today's exercise: none

* new low. traveling to vegas.