Chicago Distance Classic half-marathon. Done.

Chicago Distance Classic half-marathon. Done.
Originally uploaded by automatic_man2

Wow. Amazing. Wonderful. And to top it all off...

My unofficial GPS time is 01:56:15. A sub-two hour half!

More soon.

Now where are those legs of mine?...

----->
Jesse.
Http://www.treonybbles.com

Sent with a Sprint Palm Centro Smartphone

Nappy, nappy, sleepy time

Action shot: Somewhere near mile 7 of a 9 mile run waiting for a light at Lake Shore Drive near Millennium Park, Chicago. Taking a water break.

See more action shots on my Flickr.

I'm tired today.

So, my Chicago marathon training is in full swing this week. I did 9 miles in the city last Saturday, 6 miles this past Monday, and I'm due for speed training today covering 5 miles.

Saturday I'm due to run 10 miles in the city again.

That would make a total of 30 miles run since last Saturday, and heading into this coming weekend.

On top of that, I started working out at my new gym this past Sunday, and was there yesterday, and will be there again during my rest days on Thursday and Friday.

I think it's the sleep that's the problem.

Somehow, somewhere, and probably starting in the winter of 2006-2007, I got into the bad habit of getting to bed very close to midnight and then getting up at 5 a.m. to go to work. Let's see, that's five hours of sleep. This was before I started consistently working out, and I got along just fine. I think I was having trouble sleeping through the night, and I read somewhere that If you stay up late until you're at the point of dozing off, you'll sleep better. Sure, it worked, but even now five hours isn't long enough anymore.

Perhaps it's better time management, or actually using my DVR to record whatever TV I'm watching at the time (which isn't much), or just read before going to bed so I'm not so wound up to have to stay awake so late.

Something has to happen soon so that it doesn't impact my training. I'm only a week into my 16 week schedule, and rest is super, super vital.

Right now I'm nursing a light pain along the left side of my right foot. It doesn't bother me much, and I'm pretty sure it's because I'm tying my shoes too tight. I've been having a heck of a hard time with that lately. I just know I'm due for new shoes soon, but I'd rather not deal with breaking in new shoes- I'll see how it works out in the coming days.

I can feel it now, sleepy time is near... oh wait... I'm at work. Maybe later.

So now I rest

See more photos of my run on my Flickr.

Since May 2nd of this month, here is the breakdown of my training so far for Rockford:

May 2: 2.5 miles
May 3: 10 miles
May 7: 8 miles
May 8: 2.5 miles
May 10: 11 miles
Total: 34 miles

I'm tired.

My legs have been constantly sore this past week leading up to today. My mileage has increased from running 12 to 16 miles a week to over 25 in preparation for the half-marathon. Still, I'm happy with my accomplishments. It wasn't until my last 11 mile training run that I started to feel a painful twinge in my left knee, but I think it had to do with me being all tensed up and not pacing myself correctly. Once I relaxed near mile 5, the rest of my run was pain free- for the most part anyway.

Running with sore leg muscles is insanely difficult, especially when the runs are on consecutive days. I don't think I'm hydrating properly, or stretching enough on my rest days to counter the soreness. The tiredness goes away once I'm 2 to 3 miles into my run, but it's the start that is freakin' painful. I can't imagine how the road to 26.2 miles and the Chicago Marathon is going to be. I better stop whining about it while I'm ahead, I guess.

So now I rest. Next week I only run a total of seven miles to stay loose, and to keep fresh for Sunday. I'm traveling to Rockford the day before, and staying at a local hotel since the start time is 7 a.m.

On a side note: My trip to Rockford may be in jeopardy since finding out I will have to work on Saturday to install this beast - part of a major system upgrade my company is doing. Even if I don't make it on Sunday, I'll be OK with it. My journey to running Chicago will be long, and I have a lot of time left until October. I'll just keep going.

See you soon, my friends.

His and Hers Centro's

Lidia has finally arrived in Geekdom, as she jumps from a plain jane cell phone to her first snazzy smartphone which is none other than the Palm Centro.

Red for her; Black for me.

Palm introduced the Centro to the smartphone market specifically targeted to first-time smartphone buyers like her. For long time Treo users like myself, coming from a Treo 755P, it's not a major upgrade, but the phone didn't fail to get quite a few ooh's and ahh's out of her as she discovered everything it can do.

So the Palm OS is almost 10 years old, blah, blah, blah... but there's no denying that it's easy to use, and with one of the biggest mobile software markets behind it, the phone really shines when it's loaded with useful third party apps. Her favorite so far? The music streaming abilities of Pocket Tunes and products by Splash Data including SplashID and SplashMoney.

As many of you know by reading my blog, I'm training to run the Chicago Marathon this year. And with that comes a lot of travel to Chicago to train with my running group, and to take advantage of the wonderful lakefront path. I'll be taking trains to the city almost every weekend, and I'll need a small, compact phone to take along with me on my runs for safety purposes.

My 755P is just too bulky to take along on a run when I need to tuck it in my jacket or strap it to my hydration belt (runners talk for a strap on belt with water bottles on it). The Centro seems like the perfect size and weight to accomplish this, and I have it filled up with all of the same software I've used on my 755P including Google Maps Mobile, my training schedule, PDF's of my running routes using Documents to Go, links to Metra schedules, important (and secured) personal info, and on and on.

Even with a great free software application like Where Am I, coupled with a portable bluetooth GPS receiver, and Google Maps on the Centro, I can find where I am if I get turned around at the push of a button.

I'll be training with it for the first time on my 8 mile run in the city tomorrow, and I'll post a little feedback soon!