Doctor's Orders

Tuesday I had surgery. It was supposed to be minor and relatively pain free. Apparently that last sentence has different definitions for different people. I had incorrectly assumed that I would still be able to run my half marathon on Sunday. I'm considerably disappointed at this point, but I don't really have an recourse. I'm not supposed to run for a week or two. I think I will either run the Grand Rapids or Detroit half marathon. I'm bummed about all of this but I've had a couple days to process it all and I know I'll be fine.

Making Current

Ok so I haven't posted here in a long time. I have very little interest in writing blogs. Luckily I am still very interested in running. A brief overview of the summer, for those that weren't paying attention to my runningahead.com log.

June
No races. No rest days. Lots of 10 milers. I switched strategies on the indoor bike near the end of the month. Previously I was pedaling on program 1 which increased the resistance at timed intervals, the change was to keep the resistance low to increase the cadence. By keeping the resistance at 3 I can pedal around 20-23 mph for the whole 30 minutes and keep my hear rate up the whole time. I retired my first pair of dedicated running shoes at the end of the month with 585.7 miles. I got new shoes at the end of the month and I was able to get the exact same kind (New Balance 1061) as last time. If can 60% of the miles I got out of the firs pair I'll be happy.

July
Lake City Greatest Fourth in the North '10K'- I wasn't paying attention at the beginning of the race and I followed the 5K racers on a .3 mile loop so I was the very last 10Ker by the time I was back on the 10K course. Interestingly this led to a new experience. I passed more people in this race than in any other past and future. It was a lot of fun to encourage people on as I passed them. I didn't make my time goal of under an hour, but on a hot day and running an extra .3 mile I was happy with 1:02:37.

Traverse City Cherry Festival of Races 15K- In case you ever hear about Mt. McKinley in the middle of this race and think people are pulling your leg, they aren't. The evil thing is about a mile long and varies from very steep to pretty steep to holy crap how can we still be going up. Once you finally reach the top it's flat for about 100 feet and then you go all the way back down except this is the steep side you do it in about a quarter mile. Yeah... I was on a killer pace (10:15ish) when I hit that monster. I even made it up and passed quite a few people. Something happened though on the way down. I wasn't hurting I was just done for. All the people I passed came back and got me within a mile or so, including a 67 year old women who I still think was a robot. Humidity and spending a little too much energy on the hill led to just miss my time goal, but I've got a challenge for next year, cause I know I can beat 1:41:41.

This ended up being a light month in terms of running miles, 70.9. The hot temps were not friendly to me and needed 5 rest days.

August
Somewhere at the end of July or the beginning of August I made a conscious effort to stop starting my long runs so darn fast. This 'ability' helped to finally push me into the 12 mile range on a couple long runs, 12.18 miles to be exact. My work schedule changed to 4 - 10 hour days in the middle of the month so morning runs/bikes are officially a thing of the past, during the week at least. I really liked running and biking in the morning, but I am not going to get up at 4 am to do it, 5 am is an early enough time to get up. With running later in the day I've seen a decrease in my speed, but heat is part of that as well. I took 5 rest days again, but it didn't seem to affect my running mileage this time, 83.95 miles.

September
Cadillac Festival of Races 10K- This race started at 9am. I think I would have preferred it start at 7am. By 9am it was already hot enough to form a layer of sweat. The first 4 miles weren't too bad since there was good tree cover and a slight breeze. I was following a guy in a red shirt for the first 4 miles and I he was paced almost perfectly for where I wanted to be 9:20-9:30. The problem happened somewhere after 4 miles though the shade ran out and the breeze died for about 1.5 miles. It was just enough to put me off my time goal of under an hour, 1:01:20, but good enough to be a PR. As we were leaving I happened to hear my name get called over the loud speaker at the awards ceremony, I won silver in my age group. I ran up and collected my medal and in doing heard them call someone else for bronze so I know I beat at least one other person in my age group, but there weren't too many people behind me.

70% of the incredibly small field

Medal in hand, with sporting beard

Weight Loss
My eating has gotten less in control over the summer. I need to focus on consuming less. Luckily my activity level has kept up with my calorie in take and the pounds are still slowly creeping down overall. My last Monday weigh in had me at 233 lbs, but I've been fluctuating between 233 and 229 for a few weeks.

Into the Future
I am registered for the Lansing Half Marathon on September 28. Expect at least one more post cause that has been a goal for a long time.