Long Run Bliss

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! I can't believe how fast it's going by. It seems I haven't fit in all I've wanted to do just yet. Hopefully August will allow me some time to do that! Things at the work place are slowing down somewhat which is nice, but there are still projects that need to get done.

As for training for the Chicago Marathon: My runs are still a bit scattered here and there due to a crazy schedule. I've been putting most of my focus on my weekend long runs, even though my weekday runs have suffered somewhat. I'm typically 4 to 6 miles off of where my weekly mileage should be. Making the long runs count has been pretty important to me.

Last weekend I enjoyed my longest run since the 2009 Chicago Marathon at 12 miles along Milwaukee's lakefront. I'm keeping a watchful eye on some slight pain in my right knee that's persisted for a couple of weeks now. It hasn't kept me from running those big miles, and on a pain scale of 1 to 10 it's about a 2. Still, it's enough to have me back off on my miles just a bit and having to ice it for a couple of days after.

This past Saturday (8/7) I finished a run of 14 miles doing an out and back on Milwaukee's lakefront again. It was a bit tougher than I expected and I suspect it's because I haven't been putting in those runs in the middle of the week. I can't begin to tell you how good it feels to be pulling double digits now, though. Now all I have to do is get into a rhythm with these dang training runs. We're close to nine weeks away from 10/10/10!

This coming week is a step back week with a total of 20 miles to clock in. I'll be running in the Gurnee Day's 10K race on Saturday, 8/14, which will be nice doing something so close to home. My personal best in the 10K is 00:54 which I did at the Kenosha Turkey Trot last November. This will be my 2nd race this year and can't wait to get my race on!

Until next time my friends!

Little time for fun

This week has been tough for getting runs in. I'm on a project at the office that will be wrapping up in August, but I'll have easy weeks and I'll have long, stressful ones. There are days when I end up so exhausted all I want to do is sit and relax- this past week has been one of those.

My last run was an eight mile run last Saturday that was supposed to be ten miles, but I felt dehydrated and sucked of energy from the week before that I couldn't make myself run those last two miles. At times I get so busy that my eating schedule gets thrown off far enough that it affects my running. I was expecting this through this summer, and I can only hope I can make it through some decent training for Chicago come October.

Fortunately, this week has been a step down week, so my mileage was to be low, but I still didn't get any runs in at all. Next week my total mileage will be 21 miles, with my long run for next Saturday at 12 miles. I'm looking forward to a little reunion party for our MC200 group next Saturday, so it will be nice to see everyone again and relive some memories of that wonderful weekend of running.

I ran my first 5K of the year on July 4 in Antioch (Run for Freedom 5K) and my goal was to hit ANYTHING below 25 minutes. My 5K personal best was 00:26:01 a couple of years ago, and I really wanted to give it a good run this time around. The day was to be in the high 80's, and it was really warm for the 8 a.m. start. I booked it as hard as I could and kept a pace just over 8 minutes a mile and ended up with a 00:25:01 finish- missed a sub-25 by 2 seconds! Oh well, it was still a personal best. Good times.

And so I trudge forward. I'm hoping after this weekend it will be quiet enough to get some good runs in. After all of the stress I've been under I could really use a good sweat.

Seriously.

Catching up, MC200, and more

Wow. So much has happened since my last post. As you can see, I had a few opportunities to put up a few posts during MC200 last month. Needless to say, it's the most fun I've had running. Ever.

I met eleven of the nicest people you will ever meet- and they were runners to boot. Van one consisted of Dave, Amy, Tonya, Becca, Nicole, and Catheryn. My team included Matt, Jordan, Jeremy, Dalby, and our only girl- Jamie. Two vans, twelve people, lots of bags, and very smelly clothes. We had a mix of triathletes, track stars, runners who hadn't run in over a year, moms, dads, non-competitive runners, competitive runners, and even a few who are training to run the 2010 Chicago Marathon.

There are so many memories floating around in my head about that particular trip I could probably write a book about it. I was going to write a full race report, but I'll let some of my pictures and posts tell the story. The decision to run a race that covered 200 miles between Madison, Wi. and Chicago was made on a cold winter day and cheered on by a couple of my runner friends on Twitter. My friend Lindsay introduced us to the captain of the team I eventually joined and the rest was history.

It was a scary thought. All twelve of us had three legs to run, scattered through various parts of the course ranging from 3 to 9 miles each. We would run all day Friday, through the night, and most of the day Saturday to end up at Montrose Harbor for the finish. Everything eventually fell into place and we ended up surprising ourselves with finish times and paces below what we had figured at the start:

Overall Place: 69 out of 203
Mixed Open Place: 40 out of 99
Run time: 29:57:12
Pace: 8:51

It was just an amazing time. If you're an avid runner and have the opportunity to do something like this- do it. Do not hesitate. There were many a "let's do this again next year" in our group and I'm sure none of us will hesitate to do so. I wish you could see many of the Facebook photos that were posted, but hopefully you'll enjoy a few of my own.

In other news:

I've been brought on as a paid contributor for a mobile technology website that focuses on Palm and webOS devices named webOSroundup.com. My focus is primarily reviews of various applications (productivity, games, etc) that can be downloaded to the Palm Pre, Palm Pre Plus, and Pixi smartphones currently available on major carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Writing about mobile technology has been a hobby of mine for a long time now, and its nice to show it off on what's quickly becoming a popular destination for users of Palm devices. This has been made even more exciting with the purchase of Palm by Hewlett Packard. It's not anything I can live on, but it helps to feed my geeky obsession with tech :)

Don't worry, my friends, I'll keep posting here, and as guest blogger for the Lake County Convention & Visitors Bureau website.

Coming soon? An update on my Chicago Marathon training. Stay tuned!

Project 365/032: Sun Pillar

I got this interesting shot on the way home from work today of a sun pillar at sunset. It looks as though the light post in the parking lot is actually shooting a ray of light into the sky.

According to this article, sun pillars are usually caused by falling ice crystals form thin, high clouds. Intresting, eh?

In other news, I registered for my 3rd Chicago Marathon today! I'm super excited to run this incredible race- it's such an overwhelming experience and I've yet to tire of it. I'm going back for more! I'm hoping to 4 hrs or a sub 4 hrs. this time around. We'll see.

I'll have a bit more on my running progress so far in a later post. I've been working hard, and am excited to start training in a week or two for marathon #1.

Well, I've made it one month into Project 365. It hasn't been too bad so far, but I'm just getting started.

Thanks so much for following along. It's been fun!