Back in School

Well school started up again this week. Let's see, this will be my 16th consecutive semester of college, not counting summer classes. Too bad I'm still working on my bachelor's degree. I did get an associates degree in the middle there and I've just been going part time since then, but I think it is fair to say I haven't always been the best student.

The line from Tommy Boy is very fitting. Tommy says "You know a lot of people go to college for 7 years." To which Richard replies "I know, they're called doctors." Oh buddy, that's good stuff. If you haven't seen that movie you are missing out.

This semester will be pretty busy. I'm taking an artificial intelligence class and I will have a lot of work to do in there. For instance I get to build a robot that plays basketball. If you're at all interested, you can see all the rules and stuff here (pdf). At least I have a little more than three weeks to design a robot, figure out how to build it, figure out how to program it and then actually make it play basketball. And in case it didn't come through in plain text like this that was blatant sarcasm. I do think it will be fun though.

Because of all the work that I will have to do for school I'm a little worried that I will put my running on the back burner like I did last year. I am going to work really hard not to do that though. I think the goal I have of 1000 KM for the year will help keep me motivated to at least run once in awhile. Running does clear my mind too. Now if I can just figure out how to program while I'm running....

I don't get it

I'm kind of a stats junky, I just like numbers. I find different correlations interesting. I don't keep track of a lot of stats for my runs though, mostly because I'm too unorganized/lazy to do that. Mostly I just keep track of the distance I run, the time, and my average heart rate. I keep track of it all on RunningAhead.com, it is an excellent site. There are a lot of other fields that I don't worry about too much, but it would be interesting to see the correlation if I took the time to input that data for every run.

On Saturday afternoon I ran 2 miles on the treadmill at 6 miles per hour with an incline of 1 like I normally do. The run felt quite a bit harder than the last couple and my average heart rate was 163. I checked it a few times during the run and it was up close to 180. When I tried to find my max heart rate last year I came up with 184 so 180 was really up there.

Tonight I ran 2.25 miles, again at 6 MPH with an incline of 1. Except tonight I felt pretty good and kicked it up to 8 MPH for another quarter mile. My average heart rate this time was only 156. I didn't check it too often during the run though and I never really saw it higher than that.

So even though I ran farther and faster my heart rate was higher. I find that pretty interesting. Makes it easy to see why heart rate training is becoming more and more popular.

I'm trying to figure out what all went into the difference and I can't really think of anything special. Actually I would have bet that tonights run would have been "harder". Friday night was my Christmas party for work, but I didn't have as much "fun" as I did last year. I was home around 11 and I only had about 6 beers (party started at 6 so that's not as bad as it sounds). I didn't have anything going on Saturday and I just woke up around 9:30 and took a nap for about and hour or so after that (sometime around 11 I think). Then I went for my run around 2:30.

Last night I was up until about 3:30 playing Final Fantasy III on my DS (I have got to quit doing that). Went to work at 8 and skipped lunch. In the afternoon my stomach was hurting and I just felt kind of crappy. Actually it's kind of weird, that actually happens quite a bit when I hardly sleep and don't eat. I came home, ate and took a "nap" for about 3 hours. When I got up I still kind of felt like crap but I went for my run anyway. And then I had a real good run. I don't get it.

New Year's Resolution

Well it's that time a year again, we all make promises for the year that we will keep for a few weeks, maybe. I'm jumping on that train too.

I've been quite the slacker lately (when I say lately I mean the last few months) when it comes to running. But I'm starting up again. I'm going to keep things simple. I am going to run every other day. I want to get to a point where I run 3 miles two runs in a row then 5 miles, the two 3 mile runs again. It will be a little while before I'm to that point though. It amazes me how fast I get out of shape. Tonight I just ran 1.5 miles.

The only running goal I have set for myself this year (so far) is to run 1000 KM or 621 miles over the course of the year. There is a user group (here) on RunningAhead of people that have this same goal. It has a nice page that shows the users progress and a pace bunny that makes it easy to see if you're on pace to meet the goal.

I'm going to start posting on here again with some regularity. I'm thinking two or three times a week. Hopefully I'll stick to it better than last time I said that. My next semester will be kind of busy so we'll see how it goes.

I hope everyone has an excellent year.

A Much Needed Run

I got done with a nice 3 mile run not too long ago and I definitely needed it. Today was a pretty crappy day at work so a run was a great way to get my mind off things and put things back in perspective.

I'm also taking tomorrow off from work and I am looking forward to that. Amy and I have tickets to a volleyball tourney in Omaha to watch the Huskers play. There are 4 teams in the tournament and 3 are in the top 25, with Nebraska and UCLA ranked 1 and 5 respectfully. So there should be some real good games.

We are going to stay in Omaha tomorrow night after the first round games and spend Saturday at the zoo before the second round games. It will be a nice break from things before starting a new top priority project at work and classes.

I probably won't post again until Sunday when we get back into town, so I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

I'm Back

I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted and I thank those who have bugged me about not posting. I don't have any excuse really, I've just been lazy about it and did other stuff instead. Mostly played poker online (shhh, don't tell though because the leaders of our great nation have deemed my hobby illegal).

Running has been going great. I went out for a 6 mile run this last Sunday, I made a wrong turn though and only ran 5.7 miles. I may out my runs online and planned to run a loop around a neighborhood. As I go to there I noticed the road was extremely freaking hilly, steep hills too. Hills are not good for keeping my hear rate down. So I look at the road sign and it's named 'Rolling Hills Rd.' DOH! From now on I'll be sure to look at the road names when I'm mapping out the my run.

That run put me over 200 miles for the year (which didn't start until 3/31 for me). I'm pretty proud of that. Counting tonights run my total mileage for the year is 203.1 and it has taken me 31 hours and 55 minutes, or at least that is what I have in my log. Amy also broke a milestone the other day and has logged over 100 miles this year. She started running after I did and had to take some time off because of shin splints.

I have though about my blog a lot and where I want to go with it and I'm not completely sure. I figure that since classes at UNK are starting back up again I'll need another excuse to procrastinate (that's another hobby of mine, and I'm one of the best) so I'm planning on posting regularly again.

I will keep posting about my running but I want to do more than that. I have been listening to books when I run so I'll try and write up some posts about those once in awhile. A lot the thinking I do when I run is about our country and the direction I think we are headed and I'm not a fan of what I see. So I feel I have to share my thoughts and try to someway make things a little better. So once in awhile you'll probably see a post about some of those things. I'll be sure to put something in the first line of the post so you know that's what it will be about right away and can skip it if you don't want to read my rants.

Well that's all for now, I'm glad to be back and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences with you again.

Happy 4th

My run tonight was by far the coolest run I have ever done. I took off at dusk just as most people were starting to light off their fireworks. So for 35 minutes I got to see all kinds of fireworks going off and lots of people out enjoying them. So I just took things easy and enjoyed the shows. There was a big show put on by the Country Club that I got to watch for the last mile of the too.

One of the neighborhoods I run though had lots of people outside with a bunch of chairs setup. There was a light on the sidewalk near them I thought it was the glowing remains of a sparkler or something but it was actually an extension cord. Just as I was running by a guy picked up a box that was attached to it that had a bunch of switches on it. As I ran a little farther I figured out what was going on. There was little clearing that had all kinds of fireworks setup so the box must have controlled them. Sure enough, later in my run there was all kinds of neat stuff lighting up the sky from that area. I wonder what it would cost to get something like that setup and how to do it.

Because tonight run was so awesome I think I'm going to have to make it some sort of tradition to go for a run on the fourth and enjoy everyone lighting off their fireworks. I can just do that instead of buying any of my own and save a bunch of money. Of course I won't be able to go for a run when we can make to the fourth party that we usually attend.

I hope everyone else had a safe a fun fourth and that no one lost more than two fingers.

Week in Review

Since my training for the week is going to be pretty boring for the rest of the year. I think I'll just post a summary of the previous week every Sunday or Monday. So here is my summary of last week's (6/25 - 7/1) workouts. It might be worth mentioning that if for the training program my week starts on Mondays.

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 1.5 miles in 15:23 (10:16 per mile) with an average heart rate of 139.
Wednesday - 3 miles in 33:04 (10:34 per mile) average HR 141.
Thursday - Watched a bunch of crap on T.V. instead of running
Friday - should have rested but had to run since I didn't on Thursday. 2 miles in 22:10 (11:05 per mile) average HR of 144.
Saturday - 4 miles in 42:00 (10:29 per mile) average HR of 142.
Sunday - played a round of disc golf with Amy.

During my runs I listened to book the first, 'The Bad Beginning', of 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'. The book was pretty good, but it will probably be quite awhile, if ever, before I listen to another one of those books. I started listening 'Tuesdays with Morrie' on Saturdays run. So far I like that book a lot and I'll probably read it sometime, listening to it just isn't the same. All of my runs went pretty well, except I had a slight pain in my knee during Friday's run. I iced it after and it didn't bother me at all on Saturday.

New Training Plan

For the rest of the year I'm going to be training to build my aerobic base. I've posted on that before here. In order for the training to be the most effective I'm not going to be doing any anaerobic workout, with means no speed work and no races. At least that's the plan, if I start to lose motivation or get bored I'll probably have to change that plan.

I'm going to use Hal Higdon's Novice Supreme training plan. It is a 30 week plan that is designed to get someone ready for their first marathon, but I'm just using it to build up my weekly mileage slowly. I actually started on week 4 of the program because of the mileage I've done the past few weeks. If you look at the plan you'll see that there are a lot of 3 miles runs (36 of the 96 total runs). So I'm going to have to find quite a few different 3 mile runs around here to keep things interesting. So if all goes well I'll be running over 30 miles a week toward the end of the year.

For all of these runs my goal will be to keep my heart rate under 150. So far this means that I have to walk up a lot of hills during the second half of my runs. I try to run slow enough to keep my HR down, but if it doesn't work I switch to walking, usually my pace picks up at then though (but my heart rate stays down). My average for the first 8 runs where I kept my HR under 150, an average of 140, I ran a pace of 11:40 per mile. The six runs since then had an average pace of 10:30 per mile and an average HR of 143. So my time seems to be coming down pretty quickly so far. I'm anxious to see what kind of pace I'm running at the same heart rate by the end of the year.

The reason that I'm training like this is because I've decided to run the Lincoln Marathon next May. I figure I'll be 26 then so what better reason to run 26 miles? I'm planning on following an 18 week training plan so this training will take me pretty much right up to the start of that. My base should be built up enough to be able to do the tempo runs and speed work that I'll need to.

One of my coworkers said he is going to plan on running it with me. He has ran a few marathons before so it will be nice to have an experienced runner as a reference. I probably won't run with him much though, he lives in Utah and is just here in Kearney during the week. He is just a consultant too and I'm not sure how much longer he'll be working with us, but the internet makes the world a pretty small place. I like the idea of training with people, even if we don't actually run together, so anyone else want to plan on running it with us?

It's been awhile

Man, it's been over a week since I last posted (so this post is going to be a little long). Let's what kind of excuse can I make up? Well my power cord for my laptop went bad (again) so I couldn't really use it all week. So I'll go with that. (We'll ignore the fact that Amy has a laptop and I brought my work laptop home every night.) The real reason is probably that I watched T.V. all week instead of doing anything productive. But I have a new AC adapter and I'm tired of watching T.V. so everything should be back to normal.

I hate T.V. There are a few shows that I enjoy watching but the other 99% of stuff that's on is crap. I hate planning my life around some show. So instead of doing that I try to avoid watching T.V. at all, then I don't have to worry about it. It's such a waste of time watching T.V., I think it's one of the reasons there are so many things wrong with our country. I'm not going to get into that at all though. So instead of wasting time watching T.V. I read all kinds of useless stuff on the internet, but at least I feel like I'm learning something.

Amy told me that she thinks I sound "irritated" in my posts (ranting about how much T.V. sucks probably won't change that). It bothered me a little when she told me because I consider myself a pretty content guy. I have no idea why I do, because that clearly isn't the case. When I was out running yesterday I think I kind of figured it out though. I'm pretty good at ranting (and really, I enjoy it) so that's what I do. I'm not real good at talking about positive things and I have no idea why. Let's take my job for example. If you ask most people that no me, they will say that I don't like my job. And they have no reason to think otherwise I complain about it more than anything. While I do have plenty to complain about (like co-workers that are a little over sensitive to having the sugar they put in their coffee replaced with salt), I really do like my job. My co-workers are great and I like 90% of the work that I do. I work for a good company that is growing fast. While there are some growing pains, I'd rather be in that situation then the opposite. So I'm going to work on focusing more on the positive than the negative (but don't worry, I'll get my rants in, I have way too many to hold them all back).

I'll start by going back to my race from last week. In my last post I was very disappointed with how it went. But I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I did take five and a half minutes off of my previous 5k time and ran my fastest mile since I started running again. I know every race can't go perfect so I'll just have to take what I can get and 5:30 off my PR is awesome. I wasn't too happy about how I finished either, even though I don't have any exact numbers. But I was measuring that against how I've done in the Lincoln races. There is a big factor that I hadn't considered before. All the races I've done in Lincoln have had two races going on at the same time and for the most part the better runners were in the race that I wasn't doing. This race only had the 5k so everyone did it. So there were a lot of runners that would have been doing the other race that beat me in this one.

The Kearney Community Olympics where a great time and I'm looking forward to next year. I want to talk about how I did pretty bad at everything I did, but I won't since I'm being positive and stuff. I'll give a quick summary of how each of the things I did went. Ti Chi was a little different, it wasn't nearly as intense as I expected it to be (but I just pulled that expectation out of thin air). Next we played Pickle-Ball. That was pretty fun, it's kind of like badminton except with oversized ping-pong paddles and a whiffle ball. We won our first game, but then we played a team that had a guy that knew what he was doing and they crushed us 11-0.

We had the 5k Saturday morning (I think I've talked about that enough). I also played some inner-tube water polo. That was a good time, and I'm sure it was plenty entertaining for those watching. I had a little trouble getting onto the inner-tube, but not as much as one of the girls on our team. I think she tried seven or eight times before giving up. It sure was a different group of muscles that I used, and I felt it for a couple days. We got beat pretty bad, 6-0 I think. But it was fun and that's all that matters. Then I shot 25 free throws. That didn't go good at all, I couldn't even make half of them. But that's the first time I've touched a ball since March (and that was the first time in a year) so I didn't expect it to be much different. I used to play on a team with the guy that won, he made 23 out of the 25. So congrats Mucklo. Then we played softball. We won our first game, actually we mercy ruled them. Our second game didn't go quite as well though. The other team pretty much got a base hit every time. Since you pitch to your own team there really wasn't anything we could do about it.

Amy played volleyball Sunday, she had fun but they only got to play one game because they got beat. I played a round of disc golf and that was a lot of fun. I'm going to start playing it more often, I played today in fact. There where a lot of other events that neither of us took part in that sounded like people had lots of fun with. Things like dancing, an Iron Chef cook off and kayaking. There was also tug-o-war and an obstacle course and it looked like everyone had fun with those. After all the events were done there was a BBQ and award ceremony. The top three finishers in each event got little medals which was pretty cool. Our team got 12 out of the 29 teams, but we were third out of the workplace teams. So we got a little plaque for that.

Since this post is so long already I'll post about my running in another post because I have a lot to write about for that too.

Race Report

This morning I ran a 5k for the Kearney Community Olympics. I was hoping to finish in a decent place to get my teams some points, but wasn't really counting on it. Only the top three finishers in each age group get extra points, I'm in the 0-29 age group. But more than caring about my place my goal was to finish the race in under 21 minutes.

I'll sum up my run quickly in just one word, shitty.

Before the race my stomach felt weird, I'm sure it was just nevers though. I guess the thought of trying to finish in the top three got to me, I've never really felt nervous before a race that I can remember.

I started up way to far in the pack apparently because everyone took off, including me. I felt like I was holding back a little but still running at a pretty good pace. As we got close to the first mile I checked my watch and DOH!!. I was on the wrong mode so I start the timer. So I had no idea what kind of pace I'd been running other than how it felt, which was a little fast but not too bad. I went ahead and started it a little after mile 1 so I could figure out my first split later.

That feeling of not too bad quickly changed to am I done yet? The thoughts that were running through my head were why am I so damn tired? I can run 3 miles without much trouble and my heart rate wasn't up too high, around 177 or so. I didn't sleep great last night, I woke up off and on. I did however go to bed early, it was before midnight even (ok early for me). I figured it was just one of those days.

I walked through the water break, which was at about the halfway point, so I could get a little water in me (but mostly because I was dead). I felt a little better after that, but that feeling passed quickly as well. I ran the second mile in 7:21, which was too slow for my goal pace. I was getting passed by all kinds of people too, which is always pretty discouraging. I really wanted to go with people when they passed me but my body said "ain't happening dude."

I can handle getting passed by girls, that doesn't bother me at all. But I got passed by a baby, that's right a baby. The kid couldn't even walk, his dad was pushing him in a stroller. Here I am completely dead and pissed because I'm running bad and a BABY passes me. We where just a few blocks from the finish and I said there is no way I'm going to let a baby beat me. Then I thought, but that's not fair, how do I out kick a baby that can't even walk on it's own? I wouldn't have been able to live with myself, so I eased up and let the baby win. (Really that's what happened, I wasn't 100% drained). My watch said 17:22 at the finish which means I ran 10:01 for the last mile (I ran two miles faster than that Wednesday night while keeping my heart rate low at under 150). Very disappointing to say the least. However the race clock said 23:32. Hoohah, that means I ran the first mile in 6:10. That is 9 seconds faster than my fastest mile time trial, no wonder I was so dead the rest of the race.

Anyway I'm really disappointed how I did and now I'm going to just build my base for the rest of the year and hope to crush that time next year. I have to go partake in the rest of the Olympics now (that means no time to proof read, so sorry about the typos). I'm not real sure what I'm going to be doing though. I'll give a report how those go later, so far it's been a really good time.