HELP! JANE! STOP THIS CRAZY THING!

            The first years of my running life were largely untethered—I didn’t belong to any running community so I didn’t know how or what to do in order to get results. One thing I got right was following a build-up plan in the back of a beginner’s book on running that had like a 12-week training plan that got you up to running for 30 consecutive minutes. I’ve been a runner ever since.

            But this time in my life was in Clay Center, Kansas, population 4,500. There was a county hospital that had a very good fitness/wellness center that was about 1.5 miles away from my apartment. So I’d get home from work, run up there, crank a few miles on one of four treadmills, and run home. Each treadmill had its own overhead TV so the miles flew by as I watched a basketball game or whatever. I would always try to figure out whether I’d get done by the end of the half or game—it helped with my need to have numbers to crunch.

            I was always persnickety about running outside. Too hot? Too cold? Too windy? Time to get in the car and drive up there. Eventually I got married and lived in a neighborhood that didn’t have easy treadmill access. The more I ran outside and committed to running, the more incredulous I became as to how I did the treadmill thing.

            With that as a backdrop, meet Astro:

            Astro is our new state-of-the-art NordicTrack 1600 treadmill. It does everything except get you a beer. About a month ago Mrs. Woodrow decided a treadmill would be a good play. It does make sense, as the weather has turned cooler and she has knee problems that the more forgiving surface can help with. Many things in our home get names (in addition to the dog, Beasley). Our charcoal grill picked up the name R2D2, The blender is the Bass-O-Matic 6000, our cars are named Sparky and Scooter, and so on.

            Anyhow I’ve been running on there about three times a week since we’ve had it. I can run on the beach, in Italy, or in Austria due to our subscription to iFit. It also lets me program my run before I begin. Yesterday I ran in my neighborhood without leaving the house. I recognized everywhere I ran, it just didn’t recognize elevation so I played with it a little. It also has me running on the wrong side of the street because the Google Maps camera faces behind the car. So I’m running in one direction but the pictures it shows indicate the car/camera are going in reverse.

            There is also a 400m track for speed/tempo days. I don’t use this much since it gets a little monotonous especially with these other features. It has a 1/8” plug so I can plug my phone in and listen to podcasts safely which I don’t do on the road.

            The only concern I have at this point is that my legs don’t feel as energized after a treadmill run as they did after I ran on the road. I’ll get used to it because I’m just barely scratching the surface on this. I tinkered with the elevation on my 3.4 miler from yesterday and I ran about as fast as I have recently and my legs felt a little charged the rest of the evening. I’m not really sure when I’ll run in my neighborhood again— having a treadmill is a time saver plus we have some adjustable hand weights for me to do walking lunges and shoulder presses.

            Never thought I’d say it but I’m a treadmill guy once again.

It's Supposed to be Fun

            For some reason I got it stuck in my head a long time ago that I was a real runner if I made it to 20 miles per week. Probably something I read in one of the running magazines that said it should be easier to lose weight if you run that much or more. This sounded good to my ears, given that I was overweight as a kid and got picked on for it. I didn’t really focus on eating or my other habits—just get to that number and you’ll be fine.

            That was my mindset as I achieved my weekly goal of 20+ miles for 29 consecutive weeks in 2016-17. That’s about 689 miles over nearly seven months miles when additional miles north of 20 are included. I worked hard, ran five times most weeks, and made sure I got out there when the weather was cold (for Georgia) and when Mother Nature turned up the temperature. I ran in Houston when K-State played in the Texas Bowl, in Kansas City for my niece’s wedding, and clicked off a sub-22:00 5K on a steamy Saturday morning in March.

            So I’m very proud of my effort level.

            My mistake is that I focused too sharply on the goal and not on the fact that running is supposed to be fun. I always enjoyed stepping outside my door and taking off, but I didn’t allow myself much deviation in the routes I chose. I have a couple of four-mile courses, two that are five miles, plus various loops I can use to add a little extra distance as needed. It was good running, it just got to be monotonous. That plus some life changes ended my streak the first week in June.

            Giving myself permission to not run took a little getting used to. I felt like I had to get out there or I would get fat and out of shape. Like I was chasing something that shouldn’t be chased. That I would become the 11-year old kid on the playground that I used to be.

            But I’m relaxing now as I work back into things, just with less structure and intensity. I am making a greater effort to run socially—I ran with our Fleet Feet group at 7 AM on the Fourth of July, and I met the group at a local pizza shop for a three-miler that has a free beer at the end. Plus I’m giving myself the OK to not run if I feel like it. I feel like my fitness level hasn’t really dropped off—my paces and splits are about the same.

            I’m still setting goals though, just lowering the bar to between 15-20 miles a week and creating less stress and more fun in my life.

Big Recycling Box in the Sky

I had to retire another pair of shoes a few weeks ago. I wanted to have a Viking funeral or a bonfire or something but then the fire department would show up followed by the police, so I chose to not do those things.

So I just took my old Nike Pegasus 30 to the recycling box at my running shop, letting them end at the place where it began. Before I started working at Fleet Feet I would show up at the weekly Monday Night Group Run event and one day the Nike rep had Pegs for us to try and a pair to give away via drawing. I so rarely win things like this so I didn't get my hopes up but I heard my name called and a few days later I went home with these dudes:

Nike Pegasus 30, men's 9 1/2 with elastic laces

These were even a favorite at my old running store in Tuscaloosa. Our Chief Running Officer always loved them because they were so soft and comfortable. Store manager Voldemort liked them because they were the shoe Nick Saban wore on the sidelines at Alabama football games, meaning Tide football fans gobbled them up when we got them in. Ol' Voldemort couldn't even pronounce Pegasus but that didn't matter as long as the cash register kept up. It's still a running joke for the First Lady and me-- we call them what he did-- Nike 'Paygus.'

My first run for them was a nine-miler on a Saturday in September, 2013. Probably a little long for their debut, but I wrote AWESOME in my running log that day, after I'd scrawled OMG! in the space for Monday's demo run. So I guess I was a fan right from the get go. They'd been making this shoe for a long time and it seemed as though they were on to something.

The Pegasus took me through the streets of Atlanta in March, 2014 for the Publix Marathon. That was the time my wife actually had to help me down off the curb so I could cross the street on our way back to the hotel.

Last ride for these old friends was a four-miler a few weeks ago on a sticky Georgia morning. 533 miles for these old foot soldiers.

Twilight 2017

The last Saturday in April got me up early to run the Twilight 5K. If I run a race the previous year, then I'm more likely to pay a visit the following year as a way to see how I've been doing. I PR'd this race last year at 21:40 and I was hopeful of having a good run.

Race conditions were sunny with temps near 70 degrees Fahrenheit-- warm and sticky for the 8:30 AM start. I wore my red Athens Road Runners short-sleeved top and Brooks two-in-one shorts, along with my Adidas Supernova Sequence 8 stability shoes. I'm still a really big fan of these shoes. They're very soft and comfortable, and I ran well in them during the Give Thanks 8K last Thanksgiving.

There was a course change for 2017 and it began with a downhill start. I did try to get toward the front for the start so as to avoid other traffic, and flew out of the gate. 3:11 for my first half-mile split. I should have been alarmed, but I felt pretty good at the start. What I didn't remember is my fastest splits were very close to 3:30, and that was when I'd go to the track for 800 repeats.

But I kept on going. Maybe I felt like my training was going to get me there. I just remember not feeling as cautious as I should have.

I know a running friend locally who is much faster than I am. Seeing him out ahead of me a little bit, I decided to keep him within sight and let him be a rabbit. Yeah, that didn't last long. My next two splits were closer to the norm at 3:24 and 3:22. My friend had scooted away and I hadn't even made it to the hills on the back side yet. I even pulled over for about 10 seconds to catch my breath because I just couldn't go anymore at that point. I always try to keep going no matter how bad it must look, but my heart rate was way up there, I'd gone out too fast and now it was time to pay for my mistake.

Making it back onto the course and around the last two corners, I saw my boss from Fleet Feet, who gave me some good encouragement in the home stretch when I thought I didn't have anything left. My watch had 21:43 when I crossed the finish line, which differed from the actual finish time of 21:55. Took me the rest of the day to figure out why. I'd stopped my Garmin when I stopped running, which is a bad habit I've formed even out on my training runs.

The amazing part was still to come-- I placed second in my age group despite running about 15 seconds slower than in 2016, when I finished off the podium. Here is the proof:

It still qualifies as a Shiny Metal Object. 

Strange thing is that I didn't want the free beer and breakfast after the race. My tune changed after swallowing two bottles of water. I drank a yummy Terrapin Sound Czech (a light pilsner) but still skipped the free food. Just wasn't hungry.

No real changes to the training-- 25 miles this week after an eight-miler on a cool Saturday morning.

Not Running

We runners see lots of inspiration. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, even a simple search on Google Images will turn up a wide array of tips on getting out the door and fighting inertia.

It’s a battle I fight every day, as well. But today I’m up against something different. I’m telling myself not to run.

I did 5x800 Saturday and then rested Sunday as is my custom. After church Sunday I seem to have eaten some food that did not agree with me and I spent a couple days with a stomachache, then feeling that all-around soreness you feel when you’re on the back end of being sick. I prudently skipped my Monday run, knowing I wasn’t too far off of making my weekly and monthly goals.

Then Tuesday morning I woke up at 4:45 with a stomach that felt like it was bowling a perfect game. Made it a rough morning. I probably could’ve made it through a four-miler, but it’s everybody’s nightmare to be caught out there with no place to go. So I scratched today’s run as well.

Part of it is that while I love to run, I don’t want it to take up too much time in my life. I don’t want to become subservient to my running habits—I want to give myself permission to skip a day or two as the situation dictates.

The challenge here is that skipping Monday and Tuesday make it harder to meet my weekly (20) and monthly (95) mileage goals. So while I can be OK with skipping a few days due to illness, it seems I’m not fully able to let go of my weekly goal streak (24 weeks) or my monthly streak that sits at four.

I have to admit that the best thing out of all this was the sleep. I stayed home from work Monday and slept an extra three hours, which is better than staying home from school and watching game shows like Press Your Luck when I was a kid. Kind of felt like I was playing hooky from school.

It turns out running is easy. Not running is hard.

519

          So here in Georgia we had one last cold snap last week when low temps fell into the mid-20s. Balmy for some, pretty chilly for us.

  

         What it meant for me is that I got out my Smartwool socks for the first (any probably only) time this season. There’s a fair amount of yellow color to these socks and it showed through so that when I bent down to begin my prerun stretch I noticed something:

I managed to blow a hole in the forefoot of the right shoe.

          These were my Saucony Ride 3 shoes that I got in June of 2013 when we lived in Tuscaloosa. The wife and I went to one of the outdoorsy-type stores to get her some sandals, and I my eyes lit up when I found the Rides on sale for about $30 in a size 9. That is a deal you just can’t pass up.

            This was the end of an era when many shoes were larger and foamier, and as a result bulkier. The Ride 3 had EVA foam in the midsole and progrid cushioning. The Runner’s World write up shows them being pretty stiff and having a 15-millimeter heel-to-toe differential. That feels about right. Of course now their shoes have a drop of 8 mm, the shelf isn’t as high, and they’ve got the supersoft Everun foam in there so that you feel like you’ve got a pillow on each foot.

           

forefoot treads are pretty well done for

            My first run with the new kicks was on June 26, 2013 when I headed out for a sweaty seven-miler and did five miles at 8:15 pace. The last ride (see what I did there?) was a neighborhood four-miler on a cool January morning a few months ago. They got some desert work when I went to see my folks in El Paso last summer, giving me my first real taste of summer running in the southwest.

the sockliners are out, as I used Green Superfeet
inserts in these neutral shoes

            I ran in them for almost four years and 519 pain-free miles overall. Then they just start to come apart. Pffft. If you can’t judge a football recruiting class until three or four years down the road, maybe it’s OK to wait a similar length of time to review a shoe.     

            They did right by me. Great shoes. Seriously.