TJ

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No pain Monday

4.21 mile run yesterday…

Nothing unusual…

Except…

No PAIN…

For those of you who may not have read, I have issues with my hip/bursitis/SI Joint.  Needless to say, on a good day it can be hard to run and on a bad day…  I walk.

Yesterday was a rainy day which usually will make my bursitis act up.  It was cool out, in the low 50’s.  I wasn’t looking forward to running in cool rain.  I did anyway.

On top of everything else, I had just run a 5K on Saturday.  After my last 5K I had to take a month off because of my hip.

So I went out yesterday and got through the first mile and realized I didn’t hurt.  By the second mile I may have had a moment of discomfort.  Third mile… Nothing.  Forth mile I was worried when I felt a twinge, but still nothing.

This is the first run since my marathon on September 8th that I had no pain and it was also after a 5K that I ran at a 7:50 pace.

So I am excited.  I hope I am moving on and can actually start training again.  It may be too late for the Mercedes half marathon in February (which was my favorite race of all last year), but TJ and I will look around and come up with another one.  I would like to beat my half PR of 1:44.  That will take some training.

Just to be clear.  I know I need to be careful with my hip.  I imagine another week or two of running my 4 mile route will get me where I want to be.  Also as of yesterday, I am 1 mile behind my total mileage of December.

Now if I can lose that extra 10 lbs, I’ll be ready for anything!

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Red Shoe Run – More fun than a PR

It really was a good race.

The Red Shoe Run.

There was a 5K that I ran and a 10 miler (that was almost cancelled).  As I mentioned Saturday, we had storms and flooding all night.  Right before the race, a water main broke on the 10 mile course.  I joked with the guy who I was asking about it that they could turn it into a biathlon.

Water main break

Water main break

(Side note: Since I wrote that I don’t put pictures in my blog much, I have had one everyday.  Hmmm.)

Okay, why was my race a good race?

I ran the way I wanted.  I knew I didn’t want to hurt my hip, but I did want to do as well as I could.  So I went at it with 2 goals in mind.  The first was that I wanted to keep at least an 8:00 pace.  This is my half marathon pace and I felt that I could do that and not get hurt.  The second was that I wanted to run to feel.  I didn’t want to push so hard that I felt like I was dying, but I did want to do well.

I accomplished both goals.  I ended at a 7:50 pace and I only felt winded twice.  Once was when I had to run hard to get past a 7 year old boy. 🙂  This was about a half mile into the race.  Every time I started to catch him, he would speed up.  In the beginning I was impressed, but after a while he really kept getting in my way.  So I ran hard around him and moved on.

Actually at the 2.5 mile point, my hip started hurting me and I just made myself relax.  I have found if I consciously tell my self to relax, it usually gets better and it did.

The last time I pushed to hard was at the very end.  I had just passed a 28 year old on the last hill.  He didn’t like that very much.  As I rounded the corner to go to the finish, he went flying past me.  Not to be outdone by a young wiper snapper, I ran as hard as I could to catch up.  I got close and then…  my hip… stupid…  what was I doing!  I was running at a 6:00 pace in a race that I was so careful in not to get hurt.  So I pulled back, let him beat me and feel better about himself by beating a 51 year old man and finished at my 8:00 pace a few seconds behind him.

This was the first 5K that I actually enjoyed.  I usually feel dread hitting me because of pushing too hard on the 1st mile and push through anyway.  This time I just set my goal and kept it.

I finished in 24:17 (about 2.5 minutes slower than my PR).  I finished 1st in my age group and 2nd in the 40 and up category.  26th out of 238.

TJ finished 2nd in his age group and 9th overall!

So, it was a good race.  One that I will think back on and smile.  I honestly didn’t think I even placed, I just wanted to have fun.

I had fun.

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No pictures.. No excuses.. (and a 5K)

I don’t do pictures on my blog.

I should.  I know people would probably read it more.

I just don’t want to spend the time looking for pictures.  I want to write and have the content of my writing be what makes people interested.  I’m not sure I’ve accomplished that or not, but that is my goal.

So here is another picture. 🙂

photo

My daughter showed me her favorite shirt and I took a picture.

Yesterday’s post and today’s both have pictures in them.  I guess I don’t mind putting pictures in my blog if I see them first and they inspire me.  Just not as an afterthought.

Not that I mind reading blogs with pictures.  I am Jealous of you bloggers that can put the right image in at the right place and it really sets the tone.  I just haven’t been able to accomplish that.

Not that I am making excuses!

I don’t know why I just wrote all that.  I guess it was just on my mind.

I’ll try to add pictures in the future.  No guarantees though. 🙂

Tomorrow is my 5K with TJ.  The Red Shoe Run.  Used to be called the Red Nose Run.  I understand the reason for the change of the name.  It benefits the Ronald McDonald House and I guess both red shoe and red nose go with the famous clown.  Shoes might go better with running a 5K, but red nose goes well for the winter.

Last weekend it was 12 degrees in the morning.  Tomorrow it is going to be mid 50’s and raining.  Could be worse.  Could be 12.

So don’t look for any PRs from me.  My goal is to run a slow race.  Not hurt myself.  Enjoy the atmosphere and watch TJ win another medal.

Have a great weekend and I hope to catch up with my blog reading at some point… But… No Excuses!

 

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My next 5K

Plane crashes, iPhones, running, oh my!

Life seems back to normal.  I took Wednesday off from running as I had already run 6 times in 6 days, so I figured it would be wise to let my body heal.

Yesterday I went out to run 4 miles and achieved my goal.

I must admit I am itching to get higher mileage in, but my head tells me to hold off.  I get twinges of pain in my hip about every 100 meters or so.  Once I can run 4 miles pain free, I’ll begin to up my mileage.  My plan is to concentrate on running well, pay attention to my form and run slowly.  Oh yeah, and DON’T GET HURT.

I must say one of my biggest motivations to stay healthy is not wanting to walk 3 miles a day anymore.  However every time I read everyone’s race recaps and think… I could do that… Then I think… 4 miles a day.

I love racing.  It makes running worth the pain and aggravation.  But I know I’ll never get back to racing until I get better.

Oh, did I mention I have a 5K with TJ a week from Saturday?  No, I’m not kidding.  It is the Red Shoe Run, a race TJ and I raced in last year and I really enjoyed.  My plan is to run to feel and not to place.  I know I can run 8:30 for 3 miles and be fine.  I also know that if I run 7:00 for 3 miles, I’ll be walking for another month.  I just hope my competitiveness stays away.  I think I have a good grasp on being wise and not overdoing it right now, so I think I’ll be fine.

Maybe @bigbiggeek could run it and I could pace him.  That would help.  TJ will be out in front as usual.  I can’t wait to see how he does.

Have an awesome weekend and stay healthy!!!

Tom

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On the road again – running day 5

4 for 5!

That’s right.  I’ve now run 4 out of 5 days.  I’m still not 100% and when I approach steep hills I walk up them because they cause me the most pain.  But here is the breakdown of my last 5 days.

  • Wednesday: 7 miles
  • Thursday: off
  • Friday: 3 miles
  • Saturday: 4 miles
  • Sunday: 4 miles

So adding it all up, I’m at 18 miles in 5 days.  Not much really, but I’ll take it.   I am feeling pretty well overall and the runs have been enjoyable with 2 of them with other people.

My goal is to keep in the 4 mile range and around 10:00 pace for a while until I am able to run without pain.  We have a 5K coming up in a couple of weeks that I want to run with TJ and then a half marathon in February.  I have consigned myself to not push hard in either race since I don’t want to be out hurt for another month.

So I am slowly building up my endurance and coming back to life with my running and not a day too soon.  My weight is up about 13 lbs since my marathon and at 4 miles a day I can start bringing it under control.

This injury thing has been tough, but it is nothing that almost all runners haven’t experienced.  I made some mistakes that made it worse and one day I will write my thoughts about what I did wrong and what I did right!

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7 mile Christmas day run!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, as I did.  It was wonderful to spend time with my family and see my youngest child finally get his license.  He is a cautious driver and I’m glad to have a new chauffeur in the house. 🙂

Running

I had  a great run yesterday with TJ.  We ran last Christmas in the cold and rain, but yesterday was sunny and 48 degrees.  Not a bad day for a run.

So after all the food of the morning, we headed out at lunchtime for a 3 mile run. Two days earlier I had to stop a run after 2 miles because my hip was hurting me too much.  It was also very cold and windy and I knew I was tensing up.  So I took Christmas Eve off and then headed out with TJ for a slow easy run.

We decided to run the route of a 5K we ran in our neighborhood last spring. It isn’t normally a run we can do since part of the run is on a busy, narrow 2 lane road, but being Christmas day, we thought it would be safe.

It was a good run and we talked quite a bit about my hip and how I could run more and not get hurt.  As we ran, we walked up steep hills since they are painful to me.  We also ran at a good pace for recovery.  We averaged about 10:50 pace which is about 2 minutes slower than my normal winter pace.

After the three miles were up we decided to run a short trail behind our house.  This is a flat, easy trail.  More like a managed mile long park then a trail.  Anyway, we finished that two mile trail and headed home.  Nope.  By the time we got home, TJ mentioned that just one more mile and we would be at the mileage we ran last Christmas (7 miles), so we headed out for one more.  We finished at 7 miles in 1:13:50.

Okay, here is the significance of this run.

I haven’t run 7 miles or over 70 minutes since my marathon in September.  On top of that I really felt great.  Very little hip pain and only a moment of pain from my heel spur.  I felt so great after this run.  Christmas day, beautiful weather, a fun time with my second oldest son and the longest run in nearly 4 months.

Today I’m sore, but not doing badly.  I have twinges from my hip, but overall feel great.  I may walk this afternoon rather than run, just to play it safe. I’ll see after I get home from work.

So thank TJ for a fun run and a confidence booster.  Oh – and for Christmas TJ said he’d pay for my next marathon.  Although I don’t know when that will be, it was such a great gift.

Life is good and I’m definitely feeling better about things.

Slow and steady.

I will be back.

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A great day – and a slow run!!!

Yesterday was a good day.

By the way, I  forgot to mention that my last post was #300 for me.  Pretty cool.  Next month will be one year of blogging.  I never thought I’d do that – and never thought I’d run a marathon.  Pretty big year.

Back to yesterday.

To begin with, I ran… a little.  I went out for my walk and decided to mix in some slow running to see how my hip was doing.  It did pretty well.  I didn’t time myself, but that old man with the walker passed me on my run so I know I wasn’t setting a PR. 🙂  Anyway, I walked a little and ran a little and then repeated that about 5 times.  3 miles.  So, I am beginning to feel confident that my time off of running after my 5K injury has helped and now I can begin to slowly get back into a routine.  (@BigBigGeek, I think we can do a slow run tomorrow at the park.  I’m not sure I can run the whole time though, so you may have to go on and meet me on your way back).

So running will begin again.  TJ still wants me to run the Shamrock marathon in Va. Beach in March.   Hmmm.  I’ve been thinking that might not happen, but I’m open.  I’ll see how December goes and how our half goes in February and decide from there.  Frankly that was not an option to me until he brought it up.  Although I never thought of running Boston until he brought it up.  What would I do without him!

Finally two great things happened at work yesterday.  First, my work has agreed to purchase my Google Glass option for the company.  I love that I am in IT and at a company who lets me be on the cutting edge.  Thanks Work!  Second, I was notified that our organization and the program I’ve created will be featured in major media markets in an advertising type of campaign.  The software company is impressed with our organization’s story and how I’ve programmed their software.

All in all it was a good day.

Today will be even better!

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Run/walk/Boston/Hip/Mercedes post

Well this is the longest pause I’ve taken from my blog since last January.  I guess since the running hasn’t been happening and the holiday weekend was very busy and I only walked once…  I just had little to say.

About running.  I tried yesterday and my hip didn’t cooperate.  I got about 3/4 of a mile in before I had to walk.  As I ran I knew I felt stiff and pushing it wouldn’t be good, especially since it didn’t loosen up as I ran.  I blame myself for this.  I was just too busy to stretch and do the things I needed to do to recover from the 5K I ran a week ago.  I really wasn’t at 100% to run the 5K, but I wouldn’t have done it any different.  It was so much fun to see TJ win and me do well also.  Now I’m still paying for it.  That is fine though.  I am not complaining.  I’m thankful I can do what I can at this point.

It seems the Boston dream drifts further and further away.  I guess that is why I put that in my blog’s title, so that I would keep that as a goal.  I have to keep reminding myself that I have only been running for 20 months and have come a long way.  It is amazing what the human body can do when it is pushed.

Anyway, sorry to ramble.  I have started taking my meds for my hip again and doing my exercises.  Hopefully I’ll be back running my 3 -4 mile route soon.  I really want to run the Mercedes 1/2 marathon in February.  I ran it with TJ and RS last year and it was my favorite race of any I have run.  Lots of fun and finishing at 1:44 was a thrill.  I want to get better soon so that I can make it again this year.

I do know I’ll get better in time.  I learned a lot from my last time out for injury.  I just need to be patient and not push myself and hurt myself more.  That is hard, but easier this time than last.  I guess we learn wisdom with our experiences sometimes!

Today will more than likely be another walk as my hip hurts even as I write this.  Hopefully I’ll be better by the end of the week.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving / weekend / life!

Tom

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It was an excellent race

The Magic City 5K will be memorable a memorable race for me!

The temperature was 30 degrees at race time with 10 – 20 mile an hour winds.  My app said the windchill was 17 degrees.  We froze.

TJ and me running warmup laps - reflection of us in the window of a building.

TJ and me running warmup laps – reflection of us in the window of a building.

TJ and I ran some warmup laps and then waited at the starting line.  The race started and he was gone.  After the first turn I never saw him again until the end.

For me, I enjoyed it a lot.  The first mile went great.  I managed a 7:05 pace which is good for me when I am training, let alone recovering from an injury.  After that mile I slowed down a bit.  My hip started hurting again right around the beginning of mile two (I know – I started to quickly).  It never got bad enough to make me stop, but I was wondering at one point if I might have to get a ride back to the finish.  Luckily that never happened.

As I entered my final mile, I could see only two people in front of me.  One was a 10 year old boy and one an older man.  We stayed about 30 yards a part the whole mile.  As we were on the last leg, the kid took off and passed the man.  I just watched from a distance.  I thought I might have a good chance of winning my age group since I didn’t see too many people in front of me and didn’t hear anyone behind me.

As I came up to the finish, I misread the clock.  My PR is 21:48 and the clock read 23:15.  I got confused and thought my PR was 23:48, so I pushed really hard the last tenth of a mile (I paid for that decision).  I finished at 23:53, which is a 7:41 pace.  I was thrilled to learn I finished 11th out of 379 which, even if it isn’t a PR, I’ll take it!

As I finished TJ met me with the news that he won the race!!!  Wow, he has come in second in a couple of races, but never won.  In fact he had to run behind the lead cop car for most of the race which meant he couldn’t run tangents.  Still he came in 1st out of 379 people – very cool.

We hung around for the awards ceremony which had already started.  TJ went up to get his metal – I was so proud of him.  When they got to the age group awards, I didn’t get one.  I did notice that we must have missed the mens masters.  Could I have placed in the masters?  When the awards were all given out I went to the guy with the results.  I asked about the masters and he look on his paper.  There I was, 2nd in the masters category.  Not bad for a gimpy old man.

All in all it was an awesome day.  We got to meet Ruben Studdard since this is a race he put on for his charity.

We finally got to head home and enjoy our memories.

Tom

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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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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. 🙂