Abbreviate to “duh.”

I spoke to a boy on the phone last night and I used this word. I think I really threw him off. He thought I was a normal human being (ha!), and then he must’ve thought – this girl uses old slang. Interesting. Throw in a “cool” and the occasional “rad”, and you have the extent of my slang.

Oh, and the occasional “word.” Another catchall word.

What can I say, I’m an efficient lady.

I wonder if it’s because it looks so intimidating as a bouquet in the supermarket.

Whenever I buy fruit at a fruitstand, I considering buying fresh. But then I think of how dirty it must be. And it would take too much effort.

I also am never really too sure how to spell it. Spell check is helping me now, but I always think that it should have one “c”. It doesn’t.

I know you are thinking – why is this about Broccoli. Well, isn’t it always?

Blame Susan.

It’s normal, I know. It starts because you’re like – maybe its me. Maybe it is. It’s me who is saying – I’m not going to settle! And then it’s me saying – I have been in this game to know what I want.

The even better thing is that I have been in this game long enough that I am an advice giver. I know enough as to how the first date should go and have a good insight into the women mind. People ask me my opinions! And I think I know the answer… sometimes.

But in these advice givings, I am starting to see better of what I want. I am learning from my friends. I am learning from the crazy people they are dating. Or from the wonderful relationships right in front of me.

I had no real point to this blog today, but I decided it was time to attempt the blogging thang again and this is what came to mind.

You may remember that this time last week, I finally had what I considered a promising run.  This set off a string of successful runs, starting with a beautiful run through Connecticut on Saturday with Megan; a one day delayed long distance run, the most successful of its type, on Monday night; an even more successful “middle distance” with hills 10 miler on Tuesday and a nice little speed run yesterday in which I pumped out a pretty decent pace in the heat.  The common thread through each of these runs: I didn’t stretch afterwards.  This tends to catch up with me.

I’ve always been fully of the belief that stretching before helps prevent tiredness/injuries for the upcoming run, and stretching after helps prevent tiredness/injuries going forward.  I know, everyone’s body is different, but this has been time tested and true for myself.  If we combine my complete disregard for after run stretching over the last week with my 4th day of running in a row on a plan that never has me run more than 3 days in a row, and two of those days were looong, hot, not exactly relaxed pace distance runs, then bad things happen.  My legs were not happy.  My hip was in a surprising amount of pain for someone who doesn’t have hip issues.  I just wasn’t that mentally into it.

If every day was a good day though, then there’d be nothing to get excited about.  Today was what keeps the other days fun.  I should add that I finally downed MP to 7:20 in my runs, and TP to 7:00.  So there was a little extra speed added this week that I didn’t deal with last week.  7:30 pace feels relaxed to me on a treadmill.  The way I was feeling today, 7:20 did not.  I focused on taking the day one mile at a time, and holding planned pace.  I was holding on for a little while, but after 3 miles, I knew I was going to have to make a decision.  I could hold 7:00 pace to mile 4, but beyond that wasn’t going to happen.  On a normal day, I would have eased up the pace and finished up my 8.  But not today.  You can call it wussing out, but I just didn’t think an easier 4 miles to finish would have the same benefit as not killing myself for the 4th day in a row and easing up before a day off and a rest day, so I could be good and fresh for my 13 miler on Sunday.

Quick entry today, as I got home late from poker (can you guess how I finished? Quick, see: the title). Also, I took out my contacts, so please excuse any typos. The assignment was a 4 mile run. Riding high off of yesterday’s good run, I decided to challenge myself a little, targeting a 7:30 pace and a 30:00 total run for the day. Having to rush to poker added an extra sense of urgency to the run.

I came out a little too hard, sitting at 7:12 after a mile. But I eased into about a 7:21 pace for the other three miles, finishing at 29:16 and an average pace of 7:19. Well within the range of time that I wanted.

The downside to the run was a lack of time. Completely. I didn’t stretch before the run. I didn’t stretch after. No wind sprints (hello Saturday!). No time. I think I was outside of the car for a good 32 minutes during my 29 minute run.

But who needs stretching.  Right?

…

………

Right?

I need stretching. I have a funny feeling I’m going to be very sore tomorrow.

If I don’t run my 3:10, I think I can send at least partial blame in the direction of the Hershey’s company. I’m not typically a big chocolate person, or a huge fan of sweets in general. But I’ve developed a bit of a sugar craving lately, probably due to under-calorizing. It’s hit especially hard lately during distance weeks, and has come in the form of a chocolate milk craving. I wolfed down two glasses when i got back. Same story yesterday. The biggest problem is that it fills me up and I can’t get in enough good calories. Thanks a lot, Hershey. What do I do??

If I do make 3:10, a lot of thanks are going to go to my friends, family, and coworkers (who I shouldn’t separate out, since they really are my friends … I work with great people). A number of people are coming up to Niagara Falls with me, many to run their own races, but certainly it is creating a great support network for me. Megan’s been extremely supportive (possibly because I have a somewhat sane workout schedule) and I know she’s going to thoroughly enjoy her first half-marathon. And it’s a huge emotional boost to know others are joining me as well (Pete, who’s blogging his first marathon experience, is blogging here).

Of course, I’m working damn hard for this, so not all the credit goes to my friends and family Today’s run was a step forward of last Tuesday’s run, with a bonus two miles thrown in for fun (or progression). I ran last week’s 8 at an 8:05 clip, I decided today I would be happy with an 8:00 pace. Of course, last week, I had a day of rest after my long run, which I screwed up this week by running it on a Monday. So, a relatively difficult 12 miles with hills hasn’t quite disappeared from my legs, and I felt it during my warm up and on the first 2 miles. I struggled on that second mile to an 8:00 pace, with my legs feeling like lead and wondering how I would keep the pace for 8 more hilly miles.

Then something wonderful happened. My splits came back down into the 7s. 7:50s, 7:40s, even 7:30s. My legs did not feel awesome, but they were moving. Even in the sun. I was chugging along. I decided to ease up for miles 8 and 9, falling back under 8:00 pace because I want to be able to move tomorrow after 2 days/22 miles. But I did manage to find a 7:19 left in my legs for that 10th mile.

All said and done, I finished with a 7:45 pace over those 10 miles. I’m pretty damn happy with that. Every day I feel that rust coming off a little more. I’m not there yet by any stretch, but I’m really starting to believe it’s possible.

Now we’ll see what happens when I try to run 4 fast tomorrow.

Always jog a little in new shoes. I retired my old shoes (Mizuno Wave Rider 12s that I loved) and moved into a pair of that shoe’s next generation (Mizuno Wave Rider 13). I didn’t relace the shoes correctly though, so at about mile 6.5 today, I had to stop to relace, or deal with a completely numb half of a foot for the rest of the run. I opted to stop for a minute.

I have a decent amount to write, but it’s midnight and I’m exhausted.  So I’ll keep it short.  Megan and I spent the weekend visiting her parents and sister sailing out in Connecticut. This provided a good opportunity for some pretty cool running. Saturday, my easy 6 miler, was spent running the surprisingly large hills of Essex, Ct, with Megan.  As luck would have it, this was extremely close to, and may have intersected the Ragnar Relay race that I did with my company back in May.  I would have liked to get some pictures of the run, but different circumstances (including using  the RunKeeper application for tracking) prevented it.  Still, it was a beautiful well-shaded run and a great way to spend an easy day.

Megan may not agree about the easy part.

Now, for the next run.  We didn’t get home from until about 10 on Sunday, at which point I decided it was too late to start a long run. So, I moved it to today, which is why I’m all thrown off.  12 miles at long distance run pace.  I would shooting for 8:00 and just about hit it, although it was a bit of a struggle.  My times were fluctuating by as many as 45 seconds per mile depending on if I was running head on into the sun at the top of the hill where it seemed more humid with the wind blowing in my face, or running away from the sun, in the shade, with humidity not getting to me quite as much and a nice tail wind.  The key sticking point was the new shoes.  Not that I hated them.  I was a little more sore than normal afterwards, but that’s easy enough to blame on the 12 miles with hills.  So I won’t toss them to the wind just yet.

The biggest problem with pushing my long run by a day is the lack of rest before my mid-week runs.  And wouldn’t you know, tomorrow’s run is 10 miles with hills.  Virtually the same run.  Goody.  But I’m definitely starting to see results on the speed days thanks to all the distance I’m getting in.  And it’s always nice to see progress.

I’ve felt okay about my running since starting this training season. It was easy to explain away my slow times as being heat related. And there’s truth in it. But at the same time, it wasn’t exactly encouraging. And more so, I never really felt like I was improving. Sure, I was backing down a little less in my distance runs and all of that, but no one run I could point to and say “Hey, I have a chance at 3:10.” That all changed today.

Let me preface by saying like last week, I gave myself a 20 second per mile bump in TP (7:10 today) and MP (7:30) today. That said, this was designed to be a fairly quick 8 miles. What’s more, I had an hour to fit in an hour run. It’s poker night after all, and I was hosting (+$47 by the way!). That meant no warm up, no cool down. Change as fast as possible, and when I’m done, grab my bag and out the door. If ever I was setting myself up for a let’s cut this short kind of day, it was today.

Well, I didn’t cut short. I felt great! My legs didn’t argue at all going without a warmup. They didn’t balk for the middle four miles at a pretty decent clip, faster than yesterday’s 5k pace. And the final 2 were relaxed, under control, no sweat (not literally, it was still a little toasty in the gym).

The feeling of I did okay and with good excuses just isn’t great after a run. The feeling of taking a big step in the right direction, and the ensuing endorphins are much much better. And it’s about time to! I feel like I’ve earned it.

(Sorry, no gross pictures of my bloody arm pits today.)

It must have been on the news or something. I heard several people say today that it’s the hottest summer on record around here. This is after I did some math a couple of days ago and found that both June and July this year have been 4 degrees hotter than the average year. Ugh.

Today was no better, of course.  Which was outstanding *sarcasm* for my race today.  Every year I try to get down to one of the Freehold Area Running Club Summer Series races.  It’s a little bit of nostalgia.  The FARC Summer Series was the first race I ran outside of my high school cross country / track team affiliations.  Additionally, it takes place at Monmouth Battlefield, the location of my first ever race.

Welcome to Monmouth Battlefield!

Nostalgia wasn’t enough to make it a fun race though.  The air was stagnant.  The sun was shining.  Humidity was 58531870315%.  I took the first mile out just slower than 6:40, probably a little too fast considering my goal of sub 22 (what a lame goal considering, but ah well).  When the second mile went off the road, a change from previous years, I knew my chance at even splits was shot.  We went out into the woods for some trail running, still mostly flat but with very sandy dirt.  Not good for the ole’ splits . Second mile clocked in at 7:30.  The third wasn’t much better, although, everyone else seemed to be affected too, as I picked up a couple of positions coming in.  The final 1.1 was also right around 7:30 pace, for a total time of 22:28.  Slowest time since last summer in similar conditions.

The nice thing about the weather affecting everyone is that the lousy time doesn’t necessarily make for lousy position.  My time carried an age group award.  And the nice thing about FARC is that they treat their top 3s in the age group pretty well in terms of prizes.

My age group spoils

Pretty nice, huh?

The other way I was going to start my post today was as follows:

I got no sleep last night.  Want to know why?  Well, apparently when it’s hot out, and you run too many miles, your shirt can start rubbing against your arm, and give you a burn mark, or a rub mark, or something like that.  Want to see?

Ouch!

I bet you didn’t want to see.  Oh well.

That was taken this morning.  If you look closely, you can see where the burn mark rubbed against my shirt constantly all night, leaving behind a bit of blood.  Every time my arm touched my shirt, it woke me up.  Not a pleasant way to spend the night.  Let that be a warning to all you potential beginner runners out there: this can happen to you!

I don’t know if today’s run was a success or not. But let me start from the beginning. I had to call an audible. On a day such as today, with temperatures in the low 90s and an important Tuesday workout on the docket, I would usually head to the gym so that I could get in my workout at the pace I needed to. I had today pretty well planned out: the plan was non-specific so I decided I would to these Tuesday distance days at 7:30 pace, with 1 minute out of every 10 spent at a steep incline. 8 miles, 60 minutes, 6 minutes of incline. Sounded perfect. Until I realized that I forgot my mp3 player. No way in hell am I spending an hour on the treadmill without music or podcast.

Easy enough, I live 10 minutes from the gym, 15 minutes from where I work. The gym is right in between. So I go home, get my mp3 player, and I get to the gym about 20 minutes late. Until I hit a ton of traffic going home. What’s worse, when I get close to my house, I realize the traffic is caused by rubbernecking at an accident on the other side of the road, with a much worse traffic jam backed up well past where I live. So much for the 20 minutes later I had planned.

So I ate. 6 PM is awfully early for dinner for me, but it was a nice little change of pace. By the time I got out of the house at about 7:30, traffic had subsided and the air had cooled quite a bit. So, change of plan. Time to go to the park. I have a 7 mile loop that I like to run that involves a decent amount of hills. Starting near the half mile steep section of the run, I was able to incorporate that in twice and get probably way more than 6 minutes of hills.

Here’s where I’m not sure if I was successful. I figured I would drop a little in time, being as I had moved outdoors. It wasn’t hot, but it certainly wasn’t cool either (as evidenced by my singlet which needed to be rung out of sweat after I finished … and I’m typically not a big sweater). Humidity, of course, was high. I kept pretty steady at 7:50 pace for each of the first 5 miles, which is pretty great for me outdoors this training cycle. Then things started falling apart, and I ended up at about 8:30 pace for my last 3. But no resting at 6 miles or any of that non-sense that came with Sunday’s run. And 8 miles, while it may not seem like a lot, is my second longest run of the training cycle.

When I justify it, it sounds like a half way decent run. But is it the type of run that’s going to get me down to 7:10 for 26.2? It gets a little easier to get down on the run if I think of it like that. Especially the way I fell apart on the last 3 miles.

Maybe I’m not there yet. There’s a little more spring in my step that hadn’t been there the last couple of weeks. The plan is not physically or mentally tiring me out yet, I’m still rather excited, even about workouts. Tomorrow’s a 5K for me, the Freehold Area Running Club Summer Series Week 5. I guess I’m a glass half full kind of guy.