Week 7 In Review

Can you believe it has been almost two months since I started this journey?  Seven week is a heck of a time frame to keep this up considering my lack of dedication to running before hand.  And to compound on that I am not even halfway through with this!  However all of this mileage is having a bit of a toll on my out of shape body.  My shin splints in my right leg is still somewhat bothersome.  Although it is bearable as I run I don't want to push myself and make it unbearable and even injure myself.

So this week as I transitioned into my new school schedule I took off Thursday and planned to run Friday and then again on Sunday.  However the calf (read shin splints) still was feeling a bit wonky so I opted to rest it instead of pushing through the pain.  My cousin John told me some of the best advice I can probably get about training: "It is better to be training at 80% effort 100% of the time, then going 100% effort only 80% of the time."  That is a paraphrase but the general idea is there.  If I want to do well with this 5k that I am running, it is better for me to be able to train consistently at a less than intense pace then training at a crazy pace and ending up hurting myself and having to take a lot of time off.

That being said the 3.75 miles that I am scheduled to do on Tuesday, probably not going to happen.  I'll end up going out and running about the first mile or so and determine how I am feeling and then determining the route that I'll run after that.  I would guess it will be in the 2-3 mile range until I get my calf under control and I feel good about it.  Because realistically the entire race I'll be running is only 3.1 miles so the five mile a day training in October probably isn't as necessary for my current needs.  However on a personal level I do want to be able to do that sort of training, so I am still aiming for those goals.  Plus you guys paid to make a fatty run so I am still working on doing that to give you guys your entertainment dollar.

I will try and give you guys a post mid week this upcoming week just to let y'all know how the new schedule is working on and my status on my calf.  As always thanks for reading and donate or hound your friends to get them to donate!

New Schedule

Due to school starting I am changing up my running schedule.  Tomorrow I am taking the day off to give my calf some rest (it has been giving me a tiny bit of trouble lately.)  But I will be running Friday, taking Saturday off, and then running Sunday.  Tuesday next week will be the first day of the new schedule.

So next Tuesday, running 3.75 miles, and the same for Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.  This will probably be the same for the foreseeable future due to school.  Hopefully my calf will hold up and I'll not have to take a break away from running to let it heal up.

Week 6 In Review

This week was extremely productive.  Having John run with me four out of my five runs and Will for one of the five really made motivating myself so much easier.  I am not a big fan of listening to music while I run mainly because I only have ear buds to listen with and they are more of a pain while running then they are worth.  So talking with amiable company is so much better.  I don't need earbuds to hear my compatriots running beside me.  Also the conversation is normally interesting enough.  At the very least it is better than listening to myself argue with myself to keep running.

In other news, last Thursday I actually managed to remember a watch while I went to Bond Park with John and Will.  I ran that course for the last time until I actually run the course November 4th.  35:26 was my time, so I have nine minutes nine seconds to drop in order to hit my goal.  Lucky for me we still have 2 and a half months to go before the race.  That time will start to drop without me even realizing it is happening.  Unfortunately that is the way it goes with running, you make small incremental gains as long as you keep at it.  So I just need to keep at it and have those seconds fall off while I am not paying attention.

I also got a belated birthday donation!  My Aunt Marcia sent in the belated but extremely appreciated donation.  Thanks to it I'll be running off donations until at least the start of September!  This week I ran a total of 15.14 miles which brings me up to a grand total of 60.42 miles.  This makes my matching donation (assuming a Krispy Kreme doughnut blow out and no more running) $69.52.

And then just one last note before I tell you to tell your friends to donate.  School starts next Monday (August 20th) for me.  Luckily I just have MWF classes at the moment.  So I may have to change my running schedule to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and then increasing the mileage to compensate for the lack of the last day.  So:

August the 3 miles 5 days a week would turn into 3.75 miles 4 days a week.
September 4 miles 5 days a week = 5 miles 4 days a week
October 5 miles 5 days a week = 6.25 miles 4 days a week

Ugh.  Looking at those numbers they look a looooooot bigger than I had planned in my head.  But it still keeps the weekly totals the same.

As always, tell your friends, beg them for me to donate to the wonderful cause of Second Chance Pet Adoptions.  And thanks for reading.

Nike Stole My Idea

Nike totally jacked my idea of making a fat kid run.  They are trying to sell shoes, I am trying to help animals.

Also on a side note, today I finished my second marathon!

Week 5 in Review (belated)

Sorry about the delay, real life got in the way of my cyber life/blog.  I spent the majority of the weekend either in a hospital waiting room or in a car driving to a house full of cats that needed to be taken care of.  But everything is good now so back to the blogging.

Last week I ended up doing roughly 12 miles since Friday I was waiting the above mentioned hospital.  I did do the three mile trips all last week with my one 5k run that I wanted to time but forgot to.  They all felt pretty good, it feels good to be training at a distance that I will be doing the race at.  It is just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other for an extended period of time.

This week so far I have been blessed with the company of John while doing my runs.  Since this is really the first full week of August I am also doing 3 mile runs this week.  I am going to try and design a 3.25 mile run for next week and hopefully my new running buddy will stick with me.  It is eternally easier to do these runs with John since it takes the fatty out of the equation.  Since I am talking most of the time there is no internal dialogue of fatty vs ex runner so generally I don't have to listen to the fatty trying to get me to stop prematurely.

My birthday was also last week and I did end up raising 20 dollars for the animals as a birthday present.  Which is good for the animals and also more importantly pushing me towards the end of August before I finish off running the money donated.  I almost feel like counting my cousin's donation a couple of weeks before my birthday as a donation for my birthday since we share the same birthday.  It doesn't seem right on your birthday to be giving other people gifts despite it being their birthday.  So at best I raised 30 dollars for my birthday.  Thank you all very much who donated, you know who you are and you rock.

Hopefully real life will cooperate and I will be able to update regularly.  Thanks for reading, and as always donate and tell your friends about this blog (and urge them to donate.)

Birthday Run

So today is my birthday, I am turning 27.  And for a present for myself I got myself a 5k run to do in the morning.  Now originally the plan was to take a timing device of some sort, watch, phone, sundial, calender etc. and measure how long it would take me to run the 5k.  Well fortunately I had some company on my run today: my cousin John.  Now if you click that link you'll see in his twitter profile that he is a decent looking guy, but more importantly in shape.  John was gracious enough to run at my pace, else my view would look something like this:

If look closely, you can see John 2 miles ahead.

However John did run with me so he can attest to my running of the 5k.  That brings my witnessed mileage up to just under 4 miles.  But I have been running despite what the fatty inside me wants.  Now the problem is that due to my excitement to have another soul trudging along beside me (waiting patiently for my ever so slow pace) is that I forgot all sorts of timing devices.  No calender, no sundial, it was cloudy so I couldn't even use the position of the sun.  So tomorrow I get to go back and do it again.  But it is good, I do need to be running the 5k since that is what I am training for.


Now if you are wishing to give me anything for my birthday all I am looking for is more donations towards my fundraising for Second Chance Pet Adoptions.  I will run a mile for every dollar donated and if you guys manage to donate more money than I can run in miles I will donate the difference.  Example you guys donate 400 dollars and I run 280 miles I will donate 120 dollars to Second Chance. So hopefully you'll help keep pushing me as I am closing in on the current donations seeing as I have about 9 or so more days before I hit it.

As always tell your friends and thanks for reading :)