The sort of things that make you hate the country...

Yesterday's run was supposed to be longer, but I just got tired of it all. You can check it out here. I got tired of the roads without shoulders. I got tired of the unending straightness of the roads. I got tired of the dearth of scenery. I got tired of the rednecks who kept honking their horns at me. So, I called Laura to come and pick me up. By the time she arrived, I had only run about 17.6 miles (which is about 4 1/2 less than I wanted to run yesterday). I felt like (and feel like, today) that I could run more. The worst part was the people honking though - there's only so much you can take. Altogether, I think I'm progressing well. I ran a 5 miler and then an 8 last week. This week I'm going to throw in a couple of extra short runs into the mix. I've a new addition to my regiment - a Camelbak. It holds 50 oz of liquid refreshment and certainly beats stopping every hour in hopes of finding someone who will give me a glass of H2O. I've also posted a new review for the watch I've been using. I give it 3 out of 5 stars, you can check out the review on Amazon to see why. I'll have this week's schedule up tomorrow evening. Thanks for reading!

More than I've ever run...

Check out my run here. With the assumption that I will increase mileage every weekend, I guess I could really wear out the title, but I'll only use it this once. Tonight's run was so much different than last weeks. I only walked about two blocks out of the whole run...which was 15.07 miles. I burned more calories in one run than some people burn all day [that would be 2300]. There is a good and bad side to it all though... Tonight's run was the kind that makes you really love Birmingham as a city. Street lights, sidewalks, variety in architecture, planes, trains, and trolleys paint such a wonderful city scape. Conversely, I've got no love for Homewood* because Homewood's* got no love for runners [ergo, they have no love for me]. I ran up Green Springs Hwy and across Valley Ave again. The difference between running the route at night as opposed to the day is that drivers seem to find this special anonymity that causes them to actually want to veer a smidgen closer to you as a runner. One may ask, "Why are you running on the road at night anyways." To which I would respond, "Because Homewood, in these particular areas, hasn't built any sidewalks." Of course, I'm only assuming that this area is part of Homewood [though, even if I am wrong, some friends have similar complaints about running in other parts of Homewood]. Half of my time running on Valley and Green Springs was spent running on uneven terrain in the dark [as there are no lights there either]. I digress. Overall, I enjoyed the run. I'm excited about running more. I'm happy that I didn't crash like I did last week. Now, I can say that I've officially run more than a half marathon - and that's pretty cool in my book. *Homewood is, in and of itself, an actual city. I suppose it was once a "suburb" of Birmingham. They have [in the past few years] built a rather large and rather costly city hall. The cool part about this is that it's mixed use - pubilc, private [in the form of condos] and business spaces are all available. The uncool part about this is that they pretty much destroyed all the apartments where some poorer people were living to do this [the irony of "progress" if you will].

No love.

Check out my route here. My run on Saturday was supposed to be 13 miles. I was really pumped about it too; it would be a day of firsts. It would be the first time I would use gels during my training. It would be the first time I would run 13 miles [practically a half marathon]. It would be the first time that I carried a pace chart [handwritten] while running. It would be the first time I would run through 3 different cities [Birmingham, Homewood, and Mountain Brook]. In the end, it became the first run I've ever sat down on [Seriously. Twice]. It was the first time I've ever stopped in the middle of a run to pee behind a bush. It was the first time [and last] that I've ever run with a lumbar pack. It was the first time I've incorporated walking into my training [Greg swears that walking during running is a good thing - he sent me 8 articles to prove it]. We're mid way's through now; another 13 and we're talking marathon. A few lessons learned will benefit a long way. If you've kept up with the blog, you may have noticed that in place of the last 6 scheduled runs, I've actually only run 4. All the little wrong decision along the way work to break the machine altogether - I didn't build my base up enough to run in a healthy fashion this past weekend. The second lesson comes in the form of choosing routes. I usually "map my run," before I actually run them - that way I know how far I'm running and what turns to take. If you drive the route I've mapped this time around, you might notice that you're driving on some of the worst hills in Birmingham [i.e. Greensprings, Pawnee, and Cliff Rd - Cliff named because it's high...on a cliff]. My quads are still hurting worse than they do during Buda's summer league...and that's quite an astonishment. So, I'm not quitting. I'm learning. I'm hoping that tonight's run will be better. But all in all, I'd rather be running.

Run hard.

Check out my run here. My legs have felt awfully tight when I started out tonight [probably because I didn't run for 5 days]. This, undoubtedly, made my first mile hard and slow. My first mile on this route is mostly uphill - I try to make a lot of them that way these days. The middle mile, however, was smooth with only a hump in the middle. My first mile took almost 10 minutes. I ran my second in less than 8...which means that I probably ran the third in similar fashion. I was hoping to nail a consistent stride tonight. I'm satisfied with the time [it's close to a minute per mile faster than it should have been], but I'm not too happy with the inconsistency. On the plus side, it's a negative split - the first third was slow, the last 2/3's or so were fast. On the negative side, I can't run with the same parity for a long distance. In any case, if any of you have any ideas of how to run a more consistent mile during training, then shoot them my way. My last race was the exact opposite of this training run - I ran my first two miles in about 14:30, but finished the race at just 8 minutes per mile - this means I had some miles that were singly, or collectively, much slower than the 7:15 average of the first two. On a lighter note, if anyone is willing to pay my way, I will run the Antarctic Marathon next year [something I will never pay for myself as the cost is $15,000 - this is more than Laura and I paid for both our vehicles combined].

My running is more consistent than my blogging...

Check out Monday's run here. Check out Friday's run here. Running weeks go from Monday - Sunday [as Sunday, for most, is the big day - the day of Marathon], so I still have time for my last run of the week. This week was meant [by my training schedule courtest of Runnersworld.com] to be a short run week. After this week my long runs start increasing by twos rather than by ones [i.e. - my next long run will be 13 miles, that is +2 of my 11 miler last Saturday]. I'll do this for another three weeks before I have a shorty again. Friday was the coldest day I have run on...probably ever. When I got back in [after the sun had already risen], weather.com told me that it was 17F degrees outside...it also told me that it thought that it felt like 8F. I don't think our freezer gets that cold. Friday was also the slowest I've run in a long time - I clocked in at around 10 minutes per mile. But what should anyone expect? It felt like it was 8F degrees. I finish out my week with a 6 or 7 tomorrow to make up for the one that I didn't run yesterday [i.e. 4 instead of 5]. On a warmer note, we watched La's cousin-in-law run the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville, AL today. She said she was shooting for 4:20-4:30. She ran it in about 4:11 - super girl! I was really inspiring to see all these folks running out there - to see the grimaces and smiles and everything else in between. It was especially interesting to listen to the announcements - in the Rocket City, they throw out a little factoid as X person is crossing the finish line. It was amazing to hear something like, "This is so-and-so's 53rd marathon!" We had a great time at the finish line - especially with La yelling out everyone's name as they passed [at least 20 individuals, or twice that] - in the Rocket City, they also type your first name in large letters on your number. She only received one strange look. I'm sure everyone else was just happy to finish.