Fitness Test

June 18, 2012

So as you can see this is just a one mile run in 8:37.  The reason for this run was as a benchmark for a class I signed up for at the Y.  I wanted to do something to complement the running in order to tone up the upper body and this ten-week class started at the Y.  So with this class on Mondays we will be doing kettle bells and TRX.  Tuesdays are half spinning and half running steps (which is exactly as fun as it sounds).  Wednesdays are "cardio challenge" Thursdays are strength training and Fridays are "Expect the unexpected."  Yikes.  So I'm going to be doing this on top of my 3.5 mile runs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

So we started on Monday with a fitness assessment.  We did one-minute sit-ups, one-minute push-ups, plank, wall sits and the aforementioned one mile run.  We also used a body composition scale which differs from a regular scale because it not only tells you your weight, but it tells you what percentage of your body weight is fat vs bone vs  muscle etc.  I was actually very pleasantly surprised to see my results in this regard.  I've lost 12 pounds since I started this little running adventure nigh on three months ago.  More importantly, however, my metabolic rate is up, my visceral (trunk) fat is in a good range and my muscle is well above average.  The scale also gives a "physique rating"  I expect to receive "lard-ass" or "tubby" or "sweats while I eat" but instead I got "standard muscular."  As Borat would say, very nice.

So here's to a summer of busting my butt in the gym while putting the miles on the road.

10K

June 16, 2012

So today I completed my first 10K!  It was the Clive Running Festival which is a fundraiser for the trails in Clive.  Here's the route and statistics:

I'm really happy with the 11:00 min/mile pace.  My friend Paul (who is an endurance sport ninja with multiple marathons and open-water swims to prove it) has been doing my long runs with me and was gracious enough to sign up for this with me.  We ran the whole course except when we walked through the water stations.  This was a nice course with some rolling hills, and paths on the trails and through some neighborhoods.  This seemed to be a really well-organized event as well.  It was sponsored by Fitness Sports (the local running/swimming/tri specialty store).  They had volunteers along the course directing traffic and giving you your time every other mile marker.  They also had the aforementioned water stations and the Clive fire department had opened a hydrant at one point along the race to help cool down although it wasn't really that hot yet at this time of day.

Probably my favorite part of this race was having people along the course cheering for us and also they had an announcer at the finish line who called out our names when we finished.  (because we finished *near* the end, he had plenty of time and no distraction from other people finishing and was able to call our our names to our adoring fans).

As you can hopefully tell from the map, the 10k for this race was actually two circuits of the 5k course. Which made for probably the most interesting thing to happen during this race.  We got lapped.  That's right, the guy who ended up winning the 10k lapped us just before we finished the 5k and he was finishing the 10k.  It was definitely humbling but cool to see some pretty fast dudes.

This was definitely a fun race.  I felt really good throughout the whole thing and felt like I could have run further at the end.  One note about nutrition here in case anyone is looking for that sort of thing, I always have a hard time deciding what, if anything, to eat before an early-morning run or race like this. I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not but it worked for me this time.  Late on Friday night, I ate one slice of whole wheat toast with some peanut butter on it.  Then I woke up about an hour and a half before the race started, ate another slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and drank a container of flavored coconut water.  I felt really pretty hydrated throughout the whole race.  The water stations were nice, but I think I probably would've been able to finish without them.

Looking forward to my next race which will either be a 5K this weekend or a 10K next weekend.

Here's some pics:

At the finish line.  Paul's in there too but he's being obstructed by the person in the green shirt.

Me and Paul straight killin' it with our post-race swag.  (I know it's Paul and I, but I always get the Willie Nelson song in my head and I can't say anything but me and Paul)

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June 13, 2012

This was another 3 mile run with Ben.  This one we were definitely off our game for.  Protip: don't eat a hamburger or some spicy chicken chinese dish before you decide to run three miles. (Bonus Protip:  Using the word 'protip' makes you sound like an internet badass).  Ugh.  I think we both felt like we were running with bowling balls in our stomachs during this one.  We stuck it out and survived, however, even it was was waaay slower than what we'd normally like to do.

June 12,2012 and June 14, 2012

So here's a new topic for this blog: run commuting.  These two runs were also my morning commutes to work these days.  I've been wanting to do this for a while but it took quite a bit of planning to make it happen.  So, obviously in order to do it, I have to be able to shower and get dressed at the end of the run.  Unfortunately, my employer does not provide any locker room or shower facilities. Fortunately, I have a YMCA membership and the Y is right across the river from my office.  However, the Y does not have place to store all of my gear.  They do, however have a "fitness center" (read: country club) where, for an extra fee, you can get a locker (with your name emblazoned on it no less!) to keep your stuff in.  So, despite the vaguely elitist feeling I get from having such a locker, I signed up for it in order to enable my run commute.  

So to make this work, I drive in on Monday, taking in my suits and some non-running, non-work clothes.  I stash the suits at my office and the other clothes in my snooty locker.  Then I take the bus home and run in the next day to the Y.  I shower up and put on the casual clothes there, walk over to the office and put on the old lawyer costume and I'm golden.  I've gotten my workout in before I even eat breakfast and I don't have to get road rage during my commute.

I also decided to try out a different playlist for these runs.  Instead of some pumping music, I got a fantasy baseball podcast.  That way, it feels like I'm running with someone, but I also get to listen to something that I wouldn't otherwise have time for.  It worked really well.  

I really like this route because it takes me through some neighborhoods that I wouldn't otherwise see on foot.  The only bad part about this route is once I get into downtown, I'm stopping and starting every block it seems like.  

The plan is to keep this commute most of the summer because most of my mid-week training runs call for three miles.  This route is pretty much 3.5 miles so it will work well for this training.  I can go different ways in order to increase the mileage to adapt it to the training schedule.

June 9, 2012

Another good run with Ben.  This time a little earlier in the morning.  It felt like we had a really good pace for us this time.  Looking at the results, it looks like we were able to get it in under 10 min/miles which always feels good.  I never would have thought I could say that a 3.17 mile run felt "routine" but that's starting to be the way it is around these parts.

June 7, 2012

June 7, 2012

How it Felt:  Pretty cool.  So this is a path on one of the many wonderful trails in Des Moines that I'm pretty familiar with.  This time as I approached the single-track trail, I thought "two roads diverged in an open wood, etc, etc." and decided to take the single-track.  This was my first time on this, or any other unpaved trail and it was pretty cool.  This was a very different experience than running on the paved trails.  A lot more quick ups and downs with hills, trees whooshing (well not really "whooshing" at my pace, but you get the idea) by (in my mind I felt like the speed bike scenes in the forests of Endor), and my mind was much more engaged looking out for the terrain...except for the few seconds when I wasn't watching the terrain and caught my left toes on a root going downhill.  I did an awesome barrel roll and came up with nothing damaged but a pretty cool scrape on my knee (you thought I was going to say that my pride was damaged.  You obviously haven't been reading long enough to know that I have no pride left.  Gotcha!)  So I did a mile on the single-track and then two more miles on the paved trail.  Good run overall, although I think I'll probably be staying more on the pavement for now.

June 6, 2012

Running Partner: Ben

How it Felt:  Great!  It was nice to have a good-feeling run after a couple of rough ones in a row.  Running with someone really helps me to get motivated and to keep running when I'd maybe otherwise want to quit.  Good conversation is better motivation than pumped-up music.  That may change if my goal changes from just getting the run done to trying to be fast.  I honestly don't know if I'll ever have trying to go faster as a goal.  Right now I really enjoy running and I don't want to lose that.  I fear it will be like when I decided to major in music in college.  Playing went from something that was my favorite thing in the world to do to drudgery because it was so intense all the time.  Of course, I didn't really start to love playing my horn until I got really good at it, so if I get really good at running, I might enjoy it even more.  For now, I'm just going to keep getting out there and putting the miles in.

June 5, 2012

Route:

Playlist:  You Make My Dreams Hall & Oates
              Revolution                         The Beatles
              Communication Breakdown Led Zeppelin
              Immigrant Song                 Led Zeppelin
              Rock And Roll                 Led Zeppelin
              The Song Remains The Same Led Zeppelin
              Long Train Runnin'        The Doobie Brothers
             Any Way You Want It Journey
             You Make Loving Fun Fleetwood Mac
             Don't Stop                         Fleetwood Mac

No way to really explain where this playlist came from.  I should mention that I signed up for iTunes match and I'm really enjoying using it.  If you haven't used it before, basically if you have an iPhone or iPod or other Apple device, for $25 bucks a year, you get all of your media pushed to all of your devices from the cloud.  This means that I can have all of my music (about 50 gigs right now) available on my phone all the time without taking up memory space on my phone.  So I'm going through a lot of stuff making playlists.

How it felt:   Not good.  Kind of disappointed to have two really tough runs in a row.  Yesterday I tried Pilates for the first time in an effort to do some cross-training-type stuff and work on my core a little bit. Yikes, that was painful.  All day today my abs hurt every time I sneezed or moved at all really.  Needless to say, I felt those sore core muscles throughout the whole run.  In fact, I had to walk three times during the three miles.  I felt like last Saturday was by far the best, easiest run I've had and since then I've had two really tough runs.  I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better.  See you then.

Update

Sooo, it's been over a month since I posted.  I could make several excuses for why it's taken me so long, but that would not be interesting to either of us, so let's just summarize what has happened since I last posted.

First of all, I have still been running.  At least four days a week every week, increasing the weekly mileage little by little.  In fact, probably the biggest development in my training is that I started following a big boy training program.  For six weeks now, I've been following the Hal Higdon Novice Supreme Training Program in order to prepare for the Des Moines Marathon in October.  At this point, I haven't actually signed up for the marathon.  I keep telling myself I'm just going to keep following the training program and see how it feels.  I think in the back of my mind, I assume that there will be a point where it will be too hard and I won't be able to do it anymore and then I'll quit.  I picked this particular program because it gave me enough time to build a base and not add too much too quickly in order to prepare.  I should clarify that even though I've only been following the plan for six weeks, I'm actually on week 10 of the plan because that's where I need to be in order to get ready for the Des Moines marathon.  The mileage for week 4 when I started was actually right at what I was doing at the time, so I thought "If I'm running these distances anyway, why not train for something?"  So here we are.  I'm one third of the way done and just finished my hardest run to date.  Here's the route and statistics

I'm not gonna lie, this one hurt.  I think the biggest reason for the pain was because I didn't follow the training plan this week like I'm supposed to.  The plan calls for runs Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with a long run on Saturday.  There was rain on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, however, so I moved those runs to Friday and Saturday respectively then did the long run on Sunday with no day off in between like the plan calls for.  The worst part of this run was a tightness in my left shin.  It's now about four hours after finishing and the pain is all but gone, however.

I've had a lot of encouragement and running with my friends during the time I've been gone.  I've had runs with Aaron and Ben who I think I've mentioned before as well as some runs with friends Melanie, Paul and Ana.  I also had several group runs with folks from the YMCA.  Unfortunately, my training schedule does not align well with the group from the Y, so my running with them has been infrequent.  I have found that I really enjoy running with someone better than running alone.  Even though I enjoy my music, I find that I can lose track of time better during a conversation, so I've been very thankful for friends who want to run with me and talk the whole time.

As you guys know, I really dig running gear.  Yes, I have acquired some new gear since we last spoke.  For one thing, I got another pair of my Brooks PureFlow shoes that I absolutely love.  They are a different color but I got them in order to alternate between the two and keep them fresher and more cushiony for my feet.  I really did research and try on a bunch of different shoes but in the end, none worked better for me than the Brooks.  I'm very happy that I've found a pair that works for me.  I'm even more happy to learn that they are coming out with the PureFlow 2 sometime later which means they're going to keep making them for a while.  If I ever find out they're going to quit making these, I will be in the store like Elaine stocking up on Today's Sponges.  I've also gotten several pairs of shorts, a few shirts, some socks, a hydration belt, and a hat.  I have found all of these items to be worth it in the way they help when I'm running and how they motivate me to get out there just to use them.

Finally, and most importantly, my wife has started running too.  I'm very proud of her for getting out there even when she's tired from taking care of kids all day or when she's sore or whatever and she is still getting out there.  I'm really looking forward to a time when we can run together in a race.  With the two kids, it's difficult/impossible to get out there at the same time now so we have to take turns.

Thanks for reading all the way through this, I'll try to keep posting more frequently.  I've been sharing my runs on Facebook/Twitter through Mapmyrun or Runkeeper so I haven't been posting them here.  I'll keep trying to work on a good balance.