This year when I started running more seriously, I weighed 223 lbs. Two weeks ago I weighed 192. I have gained 5 lbs back in the last two weeks and can’t have it continue to creep up.

Because the sun doesn’t come up in the mornings before I go to work, I decided I would start to go on some short runs at lunch when the time permitted. I also have this goal in the back of my mind to do a mountain marathon next year so it seems like a good time to start running more on the trails that are so abundant here in Utah County.

Today I went up Battle Creek Waterfall and then continued up the path on top of the waterfall. I have never ventured much beyond the base of the falls but am excited to explore it a little more. One of the great benefits of living near the mountains is the trail system that is so accessible.

Running trails is much harder then road running. One really has to pay attention to every foot step and be on your toes. Road running allows you to put your mind in a more relaxed state and not have to pay such close attention. I like the trails… a lot.

Now is a good time to start running. I, for one, am excited to get out and enjoy the changing weather and colors.

Most goals are poorly set and therefore unattainable. Maybe they are not specific enough, maybe they are not realistic or maybe you are not inspired by the potential achievement of the goal to actually follow through.

This is a problem.

What is the point of setting goals if they are not inspiring enough to follow through with? I have noticed that when I set goals, there is usually one (or more) of four things missing. I ask myself these 4 questions to get a feel for the validity of the stated goal.

• What is the specific type of behavior I need to engage in to reach my goal?
• How often do I need to participate or follow through on this action
• At what intensity must the activity be performed?
• How long am I going to give myself to accomplish the goal?

This last week has been filled with necessary but unproductive, frustrating work.

Late last week my server got bogged down. I had to take the time to figure out what was going on and after a few back and forth discussions and emails with my hosting company, i got it all figured out and turned back on. It took a few days but ultimately got to the point where it was salvaged.

Then a few days later, the site was CRAWLING slow and it was very difficult to navigate through any of the pages making it very painful to update anything.

I found out what the problem was and got that resolved. Everything sped up again and we were back in business… until today.

I changed a line of code on the theme I was using and broke the site. I tried to re-upload that particular file with no luck and the more I messed with the code, the less likely it was that I was getting it back. Luckily I use the Thesis theme so I ultimately re-uploaded it to the site.

While the site was coming back online and I realized that all the customization to the site were lost and would have needed to been re-done I threw my hands up in the air in frustration and just said forget it. Lets get back to the basics.

I’m going minimal.

The way I see it, most websites are way too cluttered and distracting. The content is lost is a sea of pop-up banners, pop-under banners, flashing fonts, silly videos and the worst of all (IMO) – automated songs that start up when you hit the site. Everyday I see sites filled with great content only to have it lost in the clutter.

Don’t get me wrong, some of those features have their place but should be used more sparingly by over ambitious website owners who think they need to fill every square inch of of screen real estate.

It gives me a headache.

I was looking at using a new theme for the site, but that would require me either paying for or taking the time to customize a new theme and I am not in the mood right now. I kind of like the basics.

At some point I may, probably, will likely change the look of this site, but for now I am kind of partial to white, clean space.

Time again for the weekly update (#3) on the Million Dollar Blog Project (MDBP) for the week ending October 22. These reports are part of the MDBP going on at ThinkTraffic.net. These reports are designed to detail the progress of my participation in the project and my attempts to turn an old blog of mine into a profitable, helpful resource.

In addition to these reports, you can follow my progress (and other participants) by following me on twitter.

By no means do I consider myself a guru in the internet marketing field. I have more mistakes then successes and this is my little spot on the web for me to write about my experiences. Connect with me through one of the methods on the site and you can join my on this little journey.

Important Happenings This Week

Earlier this week, I have been noticing some slow downs on my site (as explained here). I have been fighting the speed on the server where a few of my websites are hosted and feel like I have been losing the war. If you are actually reading this on my site then you no doubt know what I am talking about.

Needless to say, these issues also affected my MDBP site as well. That being said, I am troubleshooting some potential culprit sites on my hosting account and figuring out where the issue lays. I think I have it narrowed down to the site that is causing the issues, now I have to go through and start figuring out if it is a particular file or the entire site.

How This Relates To MDBP

When I would try and log onto my MDBP site, one of two things would happen. Either it would take several minutes to load the site then several more minutes to navigate between pages within the dashboard. It reminded me of the old dial-up days when I would click a link on a page then go off and do something else while the page loaded. Frustrating. Many times it would not even load and I would get a page load error.

So, I didn’t get the site updated like I wanted to.

This week I am focusing on getting the server back to a decent speed then I will work on the updates.

I have noticed some terrible slowness on my sites lately. Especially here on this site, it has been painfully slow the last couple weeks. I know that there are several things that need to be cleaned up and taken care of in order to have the site load quicker and perform at a higher level.

I was in a meeting today and happened to check my email to realize that I had received this from my hosting company.

Dear Brandon,

Your web hosting account for brandonhansen.com has been deactivated, as of 10/19/2011. (reason: site causing performance problems)

This deactivation was due to a Terms of Service violation associated with your account. At sign-up, all users state that they have read through, understand, and agree to our terms. These terms are legal and binding.

Although your web site has been suspended, your data may still be available for up to 15 days from the date of deactivation; if you do not contact us during that 15 day period, your account and all of its files, databases, and emails may be deleted.

If you feel this deactivation was made in error, or in order to gain access to your account, please call our customer service line as soon as possible at  _____and press 5 to speak with a member of our Terms of Service Compliance department.

After the meeting I jumped right on with them and they forwarded me some instructions that I could follow to clean up the account and get it up and running again.It went into a little more detail later in the email about possible causes and resolutions. Even though I couldn’t call them up right away I had my computer available and was able to jump onto my site. Sure enough, it was replaced with an error page from them.

A few minutes later, it was back activated and functioning.

Through this process of figuring out what was going wrong, I came to the realization of a few things.

Testing Out Your Site Performance

The first suggestion was to test out the site performance. I did this through http://gtmetrix.com. Check them out.

After running my site through that test (free) I received the following report.

Hosting

One other thing that concerns me, and ultimately was the culprit in the above email, was one particular site on my server. It is a site that is generating a lot of page views as well as several spam comments (over 215,000). When talking with the rep at my hosting company, I was told there was a pretty simple fix which I have taken care of. 

Now I have the task of actually speeding up the site and figuring out how to best optimize its performance. Sounds like a lot of fun, I know.

Welcome to my weekly update on the Million Dollar Blog Project (MDBP) for the week ending October 10, 2011.

The purpose of the report is to help me keep track of my progress as well as to update those that are following my status on Twitter, those others participating in the MDBP and anyone else who happens to stumble upon this report.

Not only will I write is some detail my successes, but I will also cover some areas that are not working for me.

In the weekly reports (at least initially) I will lay out in detail the income that is generated from the MDBP and any expenses associated. While I am not earning any money from this particular blog yet, I have a couple monetization strategies in mind that will begin to be implemented throughout the coming weeks.

I provide this report for a couple reasons. First of all it is an effort to provide transparency into what works for me and what doesn’t. I believe that this will be a huge learning experience for me and the more detailed and clear I can be,the better the experience will be for all. It will be based on honest reporting and straight talk. No BS or hype.

By no means do I consider myself a “guru” in the areas of internet marketing or online business. I am learning as I go and if I can provide you with anything that will help in your efforts to make money online, then I will consider it to be a success.

Thanks again for stopping by and I hope you enjoy the report.

Important Happenings This Week

I am still in the initial process of getting the MDBP up and running. It was important for me this week to set things up from an administrative point of view. Really exciting things like getting set up on the MDBP leaderboard, getting the right tracking plugins installed and figuring out the layout of the page.

My goals this last week were to get the home page organized how I wanted it with the opt-in page and the recent posts. I also wanted to get a “Getting Started” link at the top of the page for first time visitors to the page. I think I got it figured out how I want it and just need to go in and write the content for the page. The whole home page and design are not set in stone by any means yet though. In a couple weeks when the ThinkTraffic team gets to the topic of “Designing A Good Looking Blog On Your Own” there may be some pointers that I implement. I’ll decide upon that when the time comes.

Onsite Changes

The specific changes on the site included an opt-in with the offer to get 5 free interviews. One of the keys to getting people to take action is to offer them something that they want. In my case the site is geared towards helping financial planners market their business. A couple years ago when I registered the domain, I had the idea of interviewing a successful financial planner each month and selling through a continuity program. I tried to sell the audio interviews and never had much success. Now I am just going to offer them for free at signup. We’ll see how that goes once I start getting some traffic.

The other main change to the site was the removal of the sales letter on the home page. I have set it up in more of a blog format and just have recent posts showing up there now. The posts that are there are old and need to be updated but that will come with time.

Offsite Promotion

I didn’t do any offsite promotion this week. I did review a couple pdf’s that talk about promotion. I am excited to implement some of those strategies in the future.

SEO Rankings/MDBP Leaderboard Rankings

I haven’t pulled my SEO rankings in a while and am sure they are not good. I did some research on the keywords that I want to target and have an idea on 2 or 3 that I am going to focus on. I need to run with the Google Keyword Tool and make a final decision on the top 5 keywords that I am going to use.

Again, later in the MDBP course there is a topic on “Developing An Epic Content Creation Strategy”. I am sure there will be some good pointers and instruction there that I can implement.

As for the MDBP rankings, I started out on page 12 and am currently sitting at the top of page 10. I think it is #81. The biggest reason for this was getting the proper setting on the getclicky.com dashboard set. I had it installed and knew that i was getting 1 or 2 visitors but they weren’t showing up on my dashboard. I figured out that you have to enable public access on your dashboard. I am sure that most of the folks in the leaderboard have missed this part of the setup and are therefore not showing any stats.

Income Breakdown

$0.00 – There is nothing on the site that generates income. I have a couple ideas that I will talk about in the next weekly report or two.

Things I Learned

I think the biggest lesson I learned was to set a schedule and stick to the deadline. Seth Godin talks about deadlines and actually shipping your product and how nothing happens unless the product ships.

Get it out the door.

Ship it.

It does no good to sit on an idea and “ho-hum’ about it. Set yourself a deadline and stick to it. My goal is to publish these weekly updates on Saturday morning and I was up until 2:00 last night finishing the work I had to do so that I could get the update out. I have a deadline and specific goals that I am going to accomplish. If  When I mess up I will make course correction along the way, but I will always to my best to meet the deadlines that i have set.

Next Week Goals

My goals for for next week are simple. They are the following:

1. Get the first auto-responder message set up with the audio interviews
2. Get the “Getting Started” page written and posted with a clear link on the home page

Local Business Marketing

This week, Google has been in Salt Lake City hosting a conference designed to help small businesses get online. It is no secret that most small business know very little about online marketing and driving customers through their websites. However, more and more small business owners are realizing the importance of having a web presence and taking a more active role in getting found online.

There were a couple interesting take away’s from the conference I want to share, but first let me re-cap a little bit about the conference.

Re-Cap

This event was sponsored through UtahGetOnline, which according to their website is

“a Google-led program dedicated to driving economic growth by providing Utah businesses the tools and resources to get online and succeed.”

They provide this information in the form of a conference that is designed to teach small business owners about the suite of Google products. It was broken up into three sessions that you could attend along with a main gathering area with consultants that could answer any questions about Google products.

The classes were on “Running a Business Online”, “Google Adwords” and “Get A Free Website” (sponsored by Intuit). I won’t go into detail here about what was covered specifically in each class other then to say they did a fairly good job of explaining the need for small business owners to be online. They were VERY basic which was obviously intended because of their audience and the time allotment. Obviously they could have spent days on each of the subjects if they had the time.

My Take Aways

• There are a lot of small businesses that are not yet online. This presents a huge opportunity from a consultation standpoint. I felt like Google sort of primed the pump today getting small businesses interested in getting online. Then when they get online and realize it is not as easy as they thought, they will need someone to step in and help them put it all together.
• The small businesses that are online are most likely not utilizing the tools that are available to them.
• The search landscape for small, local business is huge. According to BIA/Kelsey Group (and used in the presentation today), 97% of consumers research products and services online before buying. Make sure you are showing up where the potential customer is searching.
• I am going to put more focus into building relationships with local business owners and helping them get online and get optimized. Seems like a wide open field right now.

Conclusion

Overall I thought it was a conference that was very well done. Even though it was pretty basic information and geared around getting more and more people online (and using their tools) I think they did a fine job. There was a heavy push towards signing up for Adwords accounts which is good for Google because it costs money per click and people will get burned quickly if they are not careful.

One complaint that I did have was the presenters seemed hesitant (or unable) to answer many questions from the audience. Not sure if that was a function of the presenters only knowing surface facts about the topic or a time limit issue. If they were to run the conference again I would really like to see them have the ability to actually answer the questions of the participants on the fly. It seems like if one person was asking the question, several others would have benefited from the answer as well. Most of the time their default answer was “that sounds like the perfect question to ask one of the experts in the other room”.

If anyone reading this knows of any local businesses that would like help with anything related to online marketing, I would be happy to answer any questions. Feel free to contact me, leave a comment, or @bmhansen on twitter.

Success,

Brandon

I only read a couple blogs.

One of them is a blog by Corbett Barr, who runs ThinkTraffic.net. Recently he announced a project that he is working on called the Million Dollar Blog Project. The project has two goals:

1. To create a blog that will earn over a million dollars over its lifetime (created and managed by Corbett and his team) and
2. To create over a million dollars worth of value from other blogs that participate in the project (created by anyone, myself included)

How I am Participating

What To Expect

My goals with this project is to update my status here on a weekly basis. I will update on what my successes are, where I failed and what the next steps are in the process. I also will update on a monthly basis any income that is earned from the site.

So Here Is Report #1

The URL for the blog is MarketYourPractice.net. In the past the point of the purpose of the site was to sell 5 expert interviews that I recorded with other successful financial planners. It was set up as a standard sales page, then it got switched to an email opt-in, then a micro-continuity site. Long story short, I have tried to monetize it several ways without a lot of success.

So now I am taking a completely different approach to it and starting over.

Week 1 Goals

My goal this week is to get the home page redesigned and get an email opt-in form back on the home page. I am going to offer the 5 interviews as a free offer for getting om my email list. If you know any financial planners, insurance agents or investment advisers, I would love it if you shared this with them. Maybe we can help each other out.

Thanks for reading.

Success,

Brandon

Photo by Vassilis Kokkinidis

Many people wonder how to start running. Admittedly it is not an activity that I used to enjoy. In fact I would avoid it at all costs.

I never understood why someone would go through the trouble or pain to run. I wanted nothing to do with it.

Over time though, I began to enjoy it more and started to take it a little more seriously, but only after starting and stopping several times over the years.

This year though, I have run over 750 miles to date, have completed 2 half marathons and 1 marathon. Even though my main goal for the year was the marathon, I have found myself looking at upcoming race calendars and trail maps wondering what I want to train for next. In the past after I have run a race I was satisfied and said enough and stopped with no intention of ever starting again.

What is it about this year that has me hungry for more? I think it is a combination of several key factors that worked for me. Perhaps they will work for you as well.

How to Start Running

There are several reasons people start and stop running. It can be maddening and quite annoying. Not to mention pretty boring. Maybe you start a new year with a resolution only to realize it is really cold outside, and running on a treadmill is not an option.

Maybe you set some goals and then life gets in the way and you don’t run for a day or two.

Then you feel guilty.

Then it is hard to start again.

No matter the reason, here are a few helpful tips that I think will help keep you running and moving forward.

Set a Goal & Make a Plan

I find it helps a ton when I have a goal I am working towards. When I started training for my first race I would run to the end of my street and back. It was horrible.  Even though it was a dead end and was only about a half a mile away, I was winded and sore and felt like I wanted to die. I turned around and literally walked limped back home.

Now most of my goals are based around certain races, but that doesn’t mean yours has to be. It could be a goal to run around the block in a certain amount of time. No matter what the goal is, give yourself something to work for rather then just running for running’s sake.

Find one thing about running you love and do it often

I was reading an interview once with Anton Krupika and he said to “investigate what it is you love about running and then do it — A LOT”. Ever since I read that, I have tried to think about what it is I love about running. I am still trying to pin my finger on it, but I think it changes from day to day.

I think the thing I love most about running is getting up and running in the early morning while the world is still waking up. I love being out when the sun is coming up over the mountains.

So figure out what it is about running that you love, and do it — A LOT.

Don’t be too hard on yourself

While you need to work hard to meet your goal that you set and stick to the plan in front of you, it is important to not be too hard on yourself.

If you miss a day, no big deal.

Just don’t try not to miss two in a row.

If you don’t run as fast as you want to, no big deal.

You probably pushed harder than you would have without the goal.

Just have fun with it and enjoy the fact you are out exploring your surroundings.

Reward yourself

Enjoy the small successes of running. When you reach your goal, or milestones throughout the training, reward yourself. It is a very important part of moving forward and recognizing small successes throughout life.

For the most part, I tried to stick to a pretty good diet throughout my training. About once a week though, I tried to have a day, or half a day where I didn’t watch what I ate too closely. It was a small reward and gave me something to look forward to. It also helped control my eating the rest of the week when I knew I had a free day coming up soon.

Be accountable to someone else

This is probably one of the most important aspects of training. If you are accountable to someone else for your goals, then you will be much more likely to follow through on them.

I told several people of my plans and goals and would update them on a regular basis. It will get to the point where a bunch of people are aware of your training and will ask you how its going. If you are running a race, they will wonder when it is and how the training is coming. Many times being accountable to these people pulls you through difficult days when you want to give up.

Don’t compare yourself to anyone else

Unless you are an elite runner and out there to win every race you enter, you should not compare yourself to anyone but yourself. Don’t worry if a little old lady with a walker is going faster than you. Just keep moving forward.

There is no one out there you need to compare yourself to other than yourself.

Be the best YOU you can be. That’s all you need to worry about.

Conclusion

So if you are wondering how to start running, follow these steps above. By no means is it an exhaustive list, but hopefully it is enough to get you started. No doubt that you will come up with your own lists of reasons and ways to teach others how to start running.

Any additional thoughts, please post in the comments below.

Happy running and hopefully I’ll see you on the trails.

Brandon

Even though I have not posted as much the last month of my marathon training, I have still been following my schedule  nearly every day. With our move and getting things organized here, I have definitely gotten out of the habit of regular, weekly posts.

My marathon is coming up on Saturday and I am at the point in my schedule that I have been tapering the last couple weeks. It is now Thursday night.

Typically every third week in most marathon schedules is a step back week giving your body a little time to recover. The other weeks build regularly until you ultimately run a couple 20 – 22 mile runs about 5 and 3 weeks out from the marathon date. The last two weeks are then slow tapers, which is where I am right now.

I am both looking forward to the run as well as kind of dreading it. I think a lot of people, perhaps especially first time marathoners feel this same way. I know that I am prepared. I have run a few long runs within the last month or two of 21, 20 and 18 miles. They have been enjoyable runs and, like I have said before, the hardest part of running is the act of actually getting out the front door.

We leave tomorrow right after work.

In terms of motivation, I have found a couple videos that I have watched that get me excited about the run. I watch them from time to time and want to put on my running shoes and head out. I just had them playing in the background while I have been typing this and want to get up and go out right now.

Here are the videos

Kind of makes you want to lace up your shoes and head out the door now doesn’t it?

Happy Running. Update coming sometime after the marathon.

We moved recently and have not had internet access at the new house yet. It is hooked up now but plugged into a computer that turns off after only a minute or two so I haven’t been online the last couple weeks. There is a wireless router in the mail as I write this so hopefully I will have the laptops hooked up here soon. I typically do not spend time writing blogs and working on personal things at work but had a couple minutes today before I left.

I have had a good couple weeks running. I went on a few long runs on the weekends including a 20 miler last week.

This is a step back week and I slept in Monday (on purpose) and Tuesday (on accident) and now am up against the clock to fit the runs in for the remainder of the week.

Here are the runs in order of completion:

Monday, August 1 – 5.58 Miles -  http://j.mp/nTMutp
Tuesday, August 2 – 5.52 Miles - http://j.mp/p0KMPR
Wednesday, August 3 – 4.49  Miles -  http://j.mp/nMYCdB
Thursday, August 4 – 8.04 Miles - http://j.mp/oGhS1W
Saturday, August 6 – 8.35 Miles -  http://j.mp/oWeBGk
Monday, August 8 – 5.58 Miles - http://j.mp/pJACSB
Tuesday, August 9 – 8.05 Miles -  http://j.mp/oxjOTH
Thursday, August 11 – 6.05 Miles - http://j.mp/qDKSQM
Saturday, August 13 – 20.04 Miles - http://j.mp/mXR0rB

I felt like garbage most of the two weeks. There were spurts of good running without much difficulty, but most of the time I felt slow and heavy. On the 20 miler though, everything felt great and it went really well. Overall the training is going well and I am enjoying the experience.

Overview

This was a very busy week for me outside of my running and marathon training schedule. I was scheduled to run on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday (with an 18 miler scheduled). I knew from the start that it would be adjusted later in the week because there was a lot going on that weekend. We actually bought a house on Wednesday and had it all planned out to move on Friday and Saturday. We signed the papers on Wednesday, got the loan funded on Thursday and had help planned to arrive Friday night and Saturday morning.

Because of the move, I knew that I had to do my long run on Friday. I thought I would run again Saturday but after loading the truck Friday afternoon and having people showing up Saturday it just didn’t happen.

Schedules change and life sometimes gets in the way. I just have to do the best that I can and hope for success.

Weekly Miles

Sunday: 0 Miles
Monday: 5.22 Miles - http://j.mp/oXgUNO - Went up the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. Have never been there but wish that I had run it before as I think I missed out on a lot of great runs before I moved from that neighborhood.
Tuesday: 8.33 Miles - http://j.mp/oJBRfm - Standard 8 miles around Orem. Down 800 W to Center Street then over to 400 E. Then back to 2000 N. Flat for most of the run then a 260 foot climb between mole 6 and 7.
Wednesday: 5.58 Miles - http://j.mp/oP2A1t - Another standard 5 mile run.
Thursday: 0 Miles – Rest day
Friday: 12.05 Miles -http://j.mp/oWoRsH - Last run up Provo Canyon in a while. Felt like I went slower than normal and really enjoyed it. I will have to drive out there from time to time to run it again.
Saturday:  Loaded a truck and moved a bunch of stuff across town – and closer to the mountains!

Weekly Miles: 31
Monthly Miles: 152

Weigh In

Last Week: 196.3
This Week: 194.8

A bit of an adjustment with the schedule, but I am not too worried about it. I will make up the long run this weekend.

Overview

This week was another step forward in my marathon training. I was still feeling a little sore on my ankle so I still skipped one of the shorter days of running and adjusted my schedule accordingly. I did increase my mileage a little though throughout the daily runs. I am still holding off somewhat on the hills and the trails, but in the next week or so I will begin adding a little of both of those again slowly.

Weeks Miles

Sunday: 0 Miles
Monday: 8.17 Miles - http://j.mp/qwcBK0 - Pretty slow miles today. Averaged 9:22 minute miles. Ankle felt fine after about half a mile but pretty sore until it stretched itself out.
Tuesday: 4.05 Miles (Intervals) - http://j.mp/nN21De - I was tired today and wanted to go up the canyon to Bridal Veil Falls. The plan was to run from the falls 2 miles up to Vivian Park and then turn around and head back. Then I was going to sit in the river and soak my ankle/legs. I woke up a little later than I wanted because I set my alarm for 5:45 PM instead of AM. I woke up at about 6:15 and had to improvise a bit around here.
Wednesday: 0 Miles
Thursday: 0 Miles – I was supposed to run another 8 Miles today but woke up late again (6:30) so I had to put it off another day.
Friday: 8.4 Miles – http://j.mp/oYCBtl -I went the same route as on Monday except I ran it backwards. I started by going up 2000 North to 400 East instead of the other way through the route. I actually like to reverse my routes from time to time just to have a change of scenery.
Saturday: 17.04 Miles - http://j.mp/nQmH5d - This was my long run of the week and it felt good. I had to be back by 7:30 so I had to leave around 4:30 AM just to be sure. I got up at 4:00 and woke up some. Grabbed a piece of toast and a banana before I left then headed out. It was completely dark for over an hour which was a unique experience – running in complete darkness. It was a lot of fun though. I went down to the mouth of the canyon and then south on the river trail and into Provo. 8.5 miles there then I turned around and headed back.

Weekly Miles: 38
Monthly Miles: 135

Weigh In

Last Week: 195.3
This Week: 196.3

The boys were all in Colorado this week with my parents. We went out to dinner a few times and I didn’t really worry about what I ate. Will get back on track next week.

Overview

This week is a recovery week on the schedule. I need a good recovery week as I was pretty tired from the run on Saturday. It took a little toll on my legs and I needed to take it easy a bit. I also had been through some session with a Physical Therapist and was in need of a little less running this week to allow some time to heal. Overall the ankle is feeling better everyday. Most of the time it feels fine throughout the day and I don’t notice it. In the mornings it is still a little stiff but not nearly as bad as a couple weeks ago.

We are in the process of moving across town to a house we are buying (rather than renting) and have been busy at night with packing. Last Saturday we spent most of the day on our feet in the garage cleaning and getting it ready to begin filling with boxes. That didn’t do much in terms of recovery. Its for a great cause though so I am not complaining.

Weekly Miles

Sunday: 0 Miles
Monday: 5.13 Miles – http://j.mp/qL1CSz - I felt extremely tired and sore from the run on Saturday. My legs were tired and not flowing smoothly or comfortably. I was around 1 – 2 Minutes slower than normal but didn’t care too much. It felt fine being out but it was very difficult to keep moving at a normal pace.
Tuesday: 4.17 Miles - http://j.mp/nt4jZI – What started out as a slow jog down State Street turned into a race against myself. I made it to the turn around spot (what I thought originally anyways) and it showed I was about 3/10′s or a mile short of 2 miles. Seemed odd because I have mapped out this route before and am sure that it was right. Oh well, I just went a little further until the GPS said it was time to turn back. Then I wanted to get back in the same or less time as it took me to get to the original turning point. What started as 10:13 and 10:00 per mile pace turned into 9:11 and 8:08 per mile back. Turned out alright. Also I went for my third appointment with John, my Physical Therapist. The plantar is feeling much better.
Wednesday: none – did get me ankle taped for the long runs this weekend.
Thursday: 7.03 Miles – http://j.mp/oWfy2I – I went up to the Murdock Canal and just decided to run and not look at my clock until it felt like 25 – 30 minutes. Turns out it was about 2.6 miles by the time I looked. I went a ways more until the GPS told me it was 3.5 miles. Then I turned around and headed back. It is a recovery week so I took it fairly easy. Didn’t push too hard partly because my legs were unusually tired but also because it was on a choppy trail that had been dug up a lot because of recent rain. Didn’t want to sprain an ankle or anything. It was a fun run.
Friday: 11.64 Miles – http://j.mp/oJe4y0 – Average: 9:24 /mile – Fastest Pace: 6:25 /mile – Ascent: 1060 feet. I decided that I would run my long run today because I am driving half way across Wyoming tomorrow to take the boys out to meet my mom to spend the week in Colorado. I am excited for them as they have so much fun out there with everyone. I felt great on most of the run except for a slight delay I had about 3 miles into the run.I felt my nose running and wiped it with my finger and looked down and realized I had a bloody nose that had already dripped in several places on my shirt. I was wearing a white running shirt and looked like I was punched in the face.  I was nearing the Nunns Park Campground so I stopped at the bathroom and took off my shirt and ran it through the water  to clean it off, grabbed a tissue and then took off again. It was a little cold because my shirt was now completely wet, but it felt refreshing. 
Saturday: 0 miles – driving across Wyoming and packing for the move.

Weekly Total: 28
Monthly Total: 84

Weigh In

Last Week: 197.3
This Week: 195.3

It was a fun week and I am feeling good about taking another step forward next week.

Enjoy your run and see you on the trail.

Brandon