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The Pebble run and 5K prep

Yesterday’s run was hard.

No, it isn’t what you think.

I made the decision that I would run slow and easy since I ran hard on Wednesday.  In the past I would run as hard as I could, even the day after a hard run.  Well my recent 2 month off and on sabbatical from running because of my hip has made me a little wiser (I hope).  So when I started my run I told myself that I wanted to run between a 10:00 – 11:00 pace.  I decided that if I looked at my time and I was under a 10:00 pace then I would walk for a bit and then start my run again.  That way I would keep pulling my nature to run hard in and hopefully keep from getting injured.

I got a half mile into my run and had to walk.  Actually I felt a twinge from my hip and looked and I was running near a 9:00 pace.  So I walked for a few minutes and started running again.  It wasn’t long before I was walking again.

Enter Pebble watch.

The most frustrating thing about starting and stopping my run was the fact I had to keep starting and stopping my iPhone.  So one of the times that I was walking, I started pushing buttons on my Pebble and found that the middle outside button actually pauses and starts the app on my phone.  So as I started my run I would press the button and my app would announce that it was started.  When I walked, I pressed the button and my app would tell me it was paused.

So cool.

I no longer need to even interact with my phone.  I don’t need to have auto pause on (which does not work well on the iSmoothRun app).  In fact, I can put my phone in an arm band and never look at it again the whole run.

I’m FREE!

Back to my run.  I walked about a dozen times, but managed to get 3 miles in on the 4 mile route and my pace at the end was 10:39 – exactly where I wanted to be.  This is the first time I was able to pull back and not run faster than I knew I should.

Today is another run, hopefully between 8:30 – 9:00 pace and then tomorrow I’ll be walking my 4 miles.  The race starts at 9:00 Sunday morning, but evidently there is a church meeting at the building where the race starts, so we will only have limited access to the building.  It is going to be 35 degrees and we aren’t even allowed inside the lobby to keep warm before or after.  Had I known that, I wouldn’t have chosen this race, but it is too late now.  I do understand the church not wanting a lot of sweating runners hanging around with people coming in for services, but the planners of the Magic City Half Marathon and 5K should have made better plans, especially with the cold weather.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the 5K and it will be fun to run with TJ again.  We haven’t run a race since the Lehigh Valley Marathon in September. RS has to work and so he can’t make it.

Have an awesome Friday and rest of the weekend.

Tom

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A fresh start to running

I had the best run of my new running carrier yesterday.

I consider myself as restarting my running as of this week.  Of course that isn’t really the case.  I have 2000 miles behind me over the past 20 months, but with taking so much time off recovering from my marathon and then multiple injuries, I feel like I am having a fresh start.

It’s funny how the human body works.  Some days are good and some not.  Yesterday was good.  In part of my run I actually reached BQ pace for the first time in months.  Of course my shoe untied shortly after I got there.  UGH.  That was frustrating, but I just tied it and jumped right back into the run.

At the three mile mark I stopped my app.  I was at a 8:36 pace for the three miles.  I then ran a slow final mile and even that came in at 9:08.

So I am psyched for my 5K on Sunday.  I really don’t think I have a chance at a PR, but I should be able to be a little competitive if my hip an heel stay well.  It is going to be cold though… Probably in the 30’s by race time.  That is much preferable to the heat and humidity of Summer, but still COLD for Birmingham.

Enjoy your day and stay healthy!

Tom

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Magic City 5K – My next race

I had a good run yesterday.  Unfortunately I had a little hip pain as I ran, but it was the first time I’ve run 2 days in a row in a long time.  The pain was just sharp jabs – about 3 in a period of a couple of minutes.  So I kept running.  I feel fine today.  In total, I ran 4 miles.  To break it up a little, I run 3 miles, walked a bit and then the forth.  Good times.

I think TJ and I are going to run the Magic City 5K on Sunday.  Assuming I can keep healthy, I would like to run a race.  I haven’t run anything since my marathon in early September.  I really enjoy running more after a race.  I will not be looking to PR since nothing would be worse for my hip than to run as hard as I can for 3.1 miles, but I really want to go for the experience.  The race is in downtown Birmingham.  We last ran downtown was during the Mercedes half marathon last February. 

So with this race I will feel like my running is beginning to get back on track.  With the Mercedes Half Marathon next February, I’ll have to begin training soon.  I haven’t run more than 5 miles at one time in months.  Last year I ran the half in 1:44 and I’d really like to beat that this year if possible.

It is nice to have something to write about again.  Running is fun, walking is boring.  I hope I never get hurt again. 🙂

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Running again and it feels good

Yesterday was the first day of my new running life… I hope!

I am going to try to get back into some type of training.  I don’t have a race picked out yet, but I need to get my base back up so that I don’t get injured again.  I feel that if I take it easy, listen to my body and do the things I know I need to do, I’ll be back in the saddle soon.

My run yesterday will be my staple for a while.  I am going to run 3 miles and then walk the forth.  Yesterday I ran my 3 miles in under 28 minutes and walked for a minute and then ran my forth mile in 10:28.  Just a slow mile home.

All in all I feel pretty good.  My hip is a little sore today, but nothing big.  I really feel I need to get back to a daily run, even if isn’t long or fast.

Boston… Here I come… Well maybe in a few years!!!

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As the Pebble turns

No running this weekend.  My Lovely Wife and I went to Chattanooga for the weekend.  Just to get away and rest.

It was a good time and I really enjoyed myself.  I think she had fun too.  Sometimes you just have to get away for a bit to renew your mind.

I do have news on the Pebble watch.  I have really come to like it a lot.  However on Friday morning it got into a loop trying to install the newest update and I couldn’t get it out.  So I exchanged it at Best Buy and took my new watch home to charge before our trip.  Well this watch did the same thing.  Being a bit frustrated at this point I went to the Geek Squad counter at Best Buy to see what they could do.  After an hour, they gave up.  Hmmm.  They gave me another new watch and told me not to update it!  That wasn’t really a solution, but I figured I had two weeks to take it back and I really like the watch, so I set it up and cancelled the update.  Since I hadn’t charged it yet, I turned it off and charged it in the car on the way to Chattanooga.  When I figured it was charged I turned it back on and it automatically started updating!!  I couldn’t stop it so I just let it continue.  This time it worked.  It updated and came back to the screen that showed it was successful and it has worked great ever since.  Even my Lovely Wife says it is nice that I am not having to look at my phone every time there is a notification.

Okay… The bad part of the weekend is I gained 5 lbs.  It was fun to eat out and enjoy ourselves so I am not that upset.  On top of all I eat this weekend, today is our Thanksgiving luncheon at work.  So starting today, I am going back to running again.  My goal is to run at least 5 days this week, 3 miles a day.  I really like to get to 4 miles as that is when my weight starts going down, but I don’t want to overdue it.

To be totally honest, I am lacking in my desire to run at the moment.  I think I need a goal or something to work towards.

I will get back – I just need to make running my habit again.

All in all I cannot complain.  I wouldn’t change this weekend for anything.  It was fun and nice to get away… Now if I could just fit my work clothes, all would be great!

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Another run, great shoes, a good watch; life is good!

3 runs in 4 days!

I think I’m getting back slowly.

I ran 3 miles yesterday and walked another.  My hip felt really good.  Almost no pain!  My heel spur, well that was a bit painful.  Funny that while I walked it was more painful than while running.

Anyway, I think my Brooks PureFlow’s are really a good shoe for me.  TJ helped me pick them and they seem to give me the right balance between support and lightness.  I did notice while I was walking that my left heel with the spur was striking the inside of the shoe rather than the middle.  I might have had them too loose.

On to my Pebble watch I got for my birthday.  It is awesome.  Of course now that I spent $150 on the watch Apple will probably release the long awaited iWatch, but until then, this is a great substitute.  It really complements my iPhone.  Not only does it show all the notifications from my iPhone, including texts and calls (so I don’t need to keep taking my phone out of my pocket just to see what that last beep was for), but it also works great with my iSmoothRun app.  As I run I can see the time of my run, the miles and the pace just by looking at my watch.  For me, this is great as I always run with my iPhone.  Finally the watch vibrates when there is a notification.  I can’t always feel my iPhone vibrate so I have to keep the volume up.  I hate to have my phone go off at work.  So this allows me to always know when there is an alert.

So life goes on.  I’m taking tomorrow off to get my son his license.  Sad to have to get up at 6:00 on my day off, but that is about 2.5 hours longer sleep then I normally get during the week, so I’m happy.

If I don’t write tomorrow, have an awesome weekend.

Tom

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Running blog spam

It was a cold and windy day…

Sounds like the beginning of a novel…

It was cold – for the South.  50 degrees and 20mph winds.  I made the choice to walk rather than run.  My lower back was a bit sore all day and I had to get up at 2:30AM, so I thought being that I haven’t run much lately, I wouldn’t take the chance of hurting myself again.

My walk went well.  3 miles and then home.  Other than being cold, there wasn’t much to it.  No dogs in strollers.  Just a nice walk.

On a totally unrelated note, I’ve been found by the spambots.  My comments have been getting spammed and rather than trying to keep up with marking them as spam, I decided to have to approve all comments.  Rather annoying, but I had no choice.

Have a good day.

Tom

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2 days – 2 runs

Another successful run yesterday.  I decided to stop after 3 miles since I was a bit sore from Sunday and my heel spur was acting up.

During my run I came up on 3 women out power walking.  They were taking up the left half of the road, so I had to go around on the right.  As I approached them I noticed that the one in the middle had a jogging stroller.  They were talking and having a good time.  I went around them and they commented about me running so fast (which was a pleasantry as I wasn’t running fast at all).  I looked back after I got around them to look at the baby and there was a dog in the stroller!  Ha.  They called out, “bet you thought it was a baby in there!”  That made my run a bit more enjoyable.

So I ran my route and headed home.

All in all it is nice that I got two runs in a row in.  I am not hurting at all today and feel like I might have turned the corner.  Of course I have 10 extra lbs now I have to work on losing, but it could be worse.

Finally, I have had several blog nominations lately.  Thank you to everyone.  I plan on working on them as I get my life in some sense of order.  I really appreciate you all!

Tom

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Random stuff and a 4.7 mile run

Things have been a little tough for me lately.  I don’t really know why.  Maybe it is post marathon depression or just the fact I haven’t been able to run.  Either way, I feel as if I am slowly falling into a hole that is slowly getting deeper.  I could climb out if I want, but I am beginning not to want to, and that is a problem.

Okay, that is more about me then I wanted to share.

Yesterday I took matters into my own hands, feet, legs, etc.  After messing up on the time for church and getting there 45 minutes early, I went to get gas and coffee while I waited. I filled my tank and it overflowed.  Nice.  Now I get to go to church smelling like gas.  I went to the store where I got the gas to wash my hands, but it was closed.  So I went out to find another convenience store.  In that store I got a bottled iced coffee and as I went to throw away the plastic that was over the lid, I poured half the coffee on the floor.  Hmmm.  Not going to be a good day.

I finally made it to church and then headed home.  By this time I was done.  Over my limit.  I didn’t care about my hip, my achilles, my heel spur!  I was going to run.

I got into my running clothes and went out the door.  I think it was the best run I’ve had in a very long time.  I didn’t push it.  I just ran.  I ran my 3 mile route and still felt good so decided to head onto another 2 mile section.  Frankly I felt like I could have gone further, but decided to end at my house which actually got me to 4.7 miles.  All in all it was just pleasant.  The weather was nice, it was quite and I could just be alone with no one needing me for anything.  

Did I say it was my birthday?  I got a Pebble watch.  Pretty cool as it gives notifications from my iPhone directly on the watch.  No more having to pull my phone out of my pocket each time there is a bleep.  Also it shows my running stats from my phone during my run, so I could just look down and see how I was doing rather than having to turn on my iPhone.

Life goes on.  Nothing changes.  I am thankful I could run yesterday.  I hope I’ll run again today.  

Maybe that hole isn’t as big as I thought.

If you can’t run…

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My life at mile 20

I was pretty sore after my run on Monday.  Actually I had pain shooting down the back of my hip all day Tuesday.  Probably not a good thing.

I went to the PT yesterday all ready for a good word on getting back to running.  My website address, 278toboston.com may need to be changed soon if I can’t move past this problem.  My hip problem actually stems back about 12 years ago.  I had such a bad problem, that I needed a handicap sticker to park my car.  I had to have my kids push me in a wheelchair through Walmart.  Not good.  I still don’t think I’d be this bad off now if I hadn’t run trails a month ago.  I had just run 9 days in a row and chose to run trails with TJ.  I just couldn’t pass up the offer.  I pounded those trails and haven’t been the same since.

Back to my PT appointment.  It never happened.  I got there and as soon as I walked in the door they said that with insurance it would cost me $200.  Okay. I exaggerate.  They said it would cost $187.87.  They were nice and said I didn’t need to pay it right then; I could wait until my next appointment.  I did appreciate that, but I don’t do debt or credit.  If I don’t have the money, I don’t spend the money.  Funny, but if they had called me to tell me the cost a week or so ago, I could have figured something out.  They will call me in a couple of weeks to reschedule.

So I walked out, got into my car and headed home.  I decided to walk my 3 mile route.  It was a nice walk.  My hip hurt through the first half and then felt better.

Where do I go from here.  I don’t know.  I imagine if I just stopped running for a few months or a year I would get back to the place where I could take it up again.  Knowing me though, after a year, I would be laying on the bed and eating my Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and weighing 280 lbs.

So the conundrum.  What should I do?

I guess I’ll keep running and walking and stretching and heating and icing.  Heck, YouTube is cheaper than $187.87 and I can find plenty of good stretches on there.

I guess this will be another chapter in my future book.  Maybe next year during NaNoWriMo.  I think I’ll start out comparing mile 20 of my last marathon to my life at this moment.  Sometimes all you can do is tell yourself to keep putting on foot in front of the other and not look back.

Hmmm. Might be an idea…