Saturday, May 14, 2011

Anxiety

Good morning! I am currently experiencing some pre-race anxiety. As previously mentioned, the Bay to Breakers total distance is 12K, about (7.46) miles. I plan to alternate walking and jogging. I even have a "workout" loaded on my Garmin GPS watch so it will ping me at the different intervals, i.e. when to walk, when to run. The workout only had room for 20 lines, so hopefully that will carry me all the way through to the finish line. If not, the last line of the workout is "Cooldown," which goes until I hit the Lap or Stop buttons.

I bought a light running jacket a couple weeks back at Sports Authority. It's polyester, and only a size "Large," but i am shrinking to fit it. I have running socks, double-layer, synthetic, i.e. the Wright Sock that I have mentioned in the past. I have covered the distance of the B2B in the park at least once on foot, and most of it was walking, but I had no blisters from that, so I should be fine. The path I use in the park when cycling is (8.86) miles, which is less than the B2B.

I am expecting rain during the Bay to Breakers tomorrow, based solely on Weather.com, and temperatures during the the day are expected to be between (48) and (55) deg.F. [Maybe I should have checked an almanac before I signed up for this.] I believe there may have been some light drizzle from time to time during the 1984 Bay to Breakers, and I do recall there was fog in the Panhandle once I got there. At the time it was a great relief, because it had warmed up since the start of the race, and I was mighty hot from all the running and walking. I have no running rain gear, so i am hoping just adding a layer (the running jacket) and wearing a ball-cap will help some. I also have my Under Armor ninja hood, and a neck gaiter to keep the breeze off my neck. [I always get a cold, or something, if my neck is exposed when it's cold out; or when I am sweating and get too much evaporative cooling.]

And, I don't have a waterproof container for my iPod. The running jacket has a small zip pocket, though, which appears to fit my iPod nano hard-case. I have a fanny-pack I may be able to use to carry my cell-phone and sport gels, but I haven't run with it yet, so I'm not sure if i should use it, or not. I would need to snug it up a bit to minimize bouncing, and probably move it around so it bounces on my fanny and not my bits; that would be mighty uncomfortable.

Bib Number: (51572)

Corral: G (brown)

-Lancer!!

Friday, May 13, 2011

Sweat Encrusted

Thursdays workout was a tough one. I didn't want to overdo it, but I really needed to get out and just do it, anyway.

DC Bike Path: Cycling. Distance: (8.84) miles. Burned: (583) Calories. (42)min.(59.62)sec.

DC Bike Path: Walk/Jog/Walk, 4x. Distance: (5.54) miles. Burned: (621) Calories. (1)hr(37)min.(57.15)sec. Jog: (1.15) total miles; walked the rest. Forgot  iPod==no music.

Now that's out of the way I really need to stretch out completely and maybe ice my knees and take some ibuprofen. I almost turned around and came back before I got too far from the house: I left my iPod at home. Curses! I decided to persevere without it. Next time, I must not forget the iPod. My jogging training is so much better with music that I almost can't understand how I made it through today's workout sans iPod.

-Lancer!!

From: 2011-05-12 [delayed due to Blogger Maintenance issues]

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Sunburn

So, aside from the wonderfully exhausting jog/walk through the park yesterday, I picked up a sunburn, even though I used SPF (50) sunscreen on my exposed skin. Oh, well. Now I can get on with the post-burn tanning over time. I thought my new running shirt was supposed to have some sun blocking properties, but apparently not so much. The burn is just enough to notice, but not uncomfortable. Today was a slack day, otherwise. More running, i.e. walk/jog/walk, tomorrow.

Marathon: And during the course of reading other peoples blogs, I was inspired to try and pursue a marathon, or maybe just a half marathon, in October. Someone mentioned a marathon in Long Beach on 2011-10-09. I was reading about a (20) week training plan for running a marathon (26.2 miles), which also includes a half-marathon (13.1 miles) in the middle of the plan.

More later.

-Lancer!!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Tuesday Run

Recipe: (1) cup almond milk + (1) banana, peeled + (1) large dollop of honey == Tasty post-run treat. B-) Despite my slacker nature, I did get out for my training "run," which was a couple of days late:

DC Bike Path: Walk/Jog/Walk: (8.62) mi. Pace-avg: (18:03)min./mi. Speed-Max: (5.0)mph. Burned: (963) Calories. [I really hope that is correct.] Total Jog distance: (1.12) miles.

Okay, for some reason during my last training run last week I did something that put my knees back in "continuous ache" mode. Even after I stretched out, took some ibuprofen, and iced my knees, they continued to ache all the way up to my run today. After troubleshooting a bit the last couple days my conclusions are these:
1.) Due to anxiety to just get out and run, I warmed up badly by jumping straight into squats with (20) lbs. of weight on the curl-bar; I usually warm up with unweighted squats, then another set with an empty weight bar.
2.) Somehow, I completely forgot about my post-run calf-stretches for the last two (2) weeks. I always do hamstring, and quad stretches post training, especially when I use the "Fit in 30" room at the gym, after I bicycle, and after my training runs pre-San Diego trip, but I had somehow completely forgotten about the standing calf-stretches. After trying some yesterday, I immediately felt just how tight my knees (and surrounding muscles) were.

Last night (about 0200 hrs.) I did some weight-lifting at home with my empty weight-bar, my curl-bar with (30) lbs. of plates, plus a dumb-bell with (11) lbs. of plates. After several sets of squats (plus other exerises) with the different weights, then stretching out, my knees finally felt more loose, and much less achy and tight.

Today's training run was so-so. My speed was lower than it has been in the last two (2) weeks. Now that I have diagnosed my current knee issues I hope I will be able to pick up the pace again. *fingers-crossed* On the plus side, I now know it takes almost forever to walk just less than half of the B2B distance of (7.46) miles.

Garmin TC: To save time on calculations, I copied my entries from today into a new folder so the software could just do it for me. (I make too many simple arithmetic errors when I do it by hand, or even with a calculator.) To make room, I deleted the two (2) entries from 2011-04-29. That was a mistake. Even though the entries appeared to have been "duplicated" so that one set was in the month folder, and the other was in the temp folder I was using, once I deleted the entries, the originals were gone, too. *sigh* So much for working smarter. I would not have worried, except that I already deleted the entries from the FR305 watch. Dumb-ass. Now I know one more thing not to do with my Garmin watch. [The first is not to let the history get completely full, because then new entries are not recorded, obviously.] Voomaxer still has the mileage data, thankfully.

Mother's Day: On Mother's Day [2011-05-08] my brother talked Mom into finally taking her bicycle out for a spin. She bought it a couple of years ago at Wal-Mart, but had yet to use it. She says it has been about thirty (30) years since she last rode a bicycle. My brother and I had to help her adjust the seat height and angle, and he took off the front fender because it kept rubbing against the tire, no matter how tightly it was attached to the frame, then we had to take off a piece that was rubbing against the right-side crank arm. Once the adjustments were made Mom took off for a a few laps around the block. We were expecting her to just ride up and down the street, in case she fell off and hurt herself, and which she kept joking she just might do, but happily she did no such thing. We would have taken her out to breakfast, but she has been on a medical liquid diet since February, and won't be able to eat regular food for a couple more months. She is very happy with the weight she has been losing between the diet, walking around the neighborhood and working out at the gym. Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

-Lancer!!