Testing Posterous. #hipstamatic #canocafenol #watts

I just gotta write about this one

I am signed up to run a 10K tomorrow but I'm not going to do it. We're taking both kids to Auburn for Homecoming and the game is too early to do the run first. Regardless, I wanted to know that I COULD run the race if I wanted to, so I've been working on increasing distances over the past two or three weeks. This morning, I wanted to try a 5-6 mile course and decided to venture off the usual trail and try a route that includes the trail but circles through neighborhoods so I didn't have to go out and back and out and back to get in the distance I wanted.

The last couple of runs I've found I arrive at the trail before the sun is up. So, today I used that time to drive the route someone showed me to make sure I knew where I was going. I took one turn coming back to park that was not the same as on the map, but I was pretty sure that the run would still be between 5 and 6 miles, so I was happy with that.

I should have stayed that way. When I got to that turn as I was running (and I was a good 45 minutes in), I decided I would try to wing it and find the "right" turn and get back that way. It would put me right back at the van, not at the street ahead of that and I wouldn't have to repeat any of my usual run that way.

Stupid.

I got so lost I had to stop and use the map on the phone to find my way back to where I needed to be. By the time I got back to my usual trail, I had been running (and some frantic walking) for 1:10. Back at the van in 1:15. And now, late for work and I wasn't even ready to go there yet!

I pulled into the parking deck and some jerk decided he had to have the spot next to where I parked...on the driver's side. In my haste to get out of his way, I left my pants hanging in the van. Discovered that as I was at the fitness center. Had to go back out to the van to get the pants only to discover I had picked up the wrong ones at home. These are fine for work...but they are too tight. Back at the locker room finally, I feel that the air is still out there and it is about 97 degrees. (The air was out yesterday morning as well.)

I was 9 a.m. getting to my desk. Thank goodness my boss is out of town today.

The one good thing: I actually have over 12,000 on my new pedometer today. I had to get a new one for our Virgin HealthMiles program because my old one wouldn't clear and I never could tell how many steps I had for a day. When you get different levels of points for a day based on clearing milestones (7K, 12K and 20K), it's nice to be able to take an extra jog in the bathroom to get the last 100 steps to get you there. After several days with just under 7,000 steps (including one with 6,998), I had to get a new one. However, this stupid pedometer regularly measures about 2-3K fewer steps than my old one. I don't think I've registered over 7K on a single day without a run other than the day we were at the Auburn/LSU game. On that day, I had about 9K and usually game day gets me 13K.

I hate this new pedometer.

Reworking

On Thursday last week, I walked outside and felt like I was swimming it was so humid. I thought about going to the fitness center and doing strength training in hopes of a better day Friday. I'm glad I didn't. It was rainy on Friday. I finished the run in 33:34 and was glad for it even though it was slower than recent runs. Along the way, I saw a sign on the trail that said "Warning! Nesting owls can be agressive." Turns out, someone was running on the trail and got attacked by the owl. Yikes.

Today I met with Clarence around lunch time to start a rework of my strength training. It was about time for me to make sure that I was pushing it enough and see if there were tweaks to the exercises. He started with abs and he did make some tweaks there to up the intensity of a few of those. Then, we moved on to chest exercises. He didn't up the weights (in fact a few were less than I had been doing) until he got to the chest press. I had been at 40 pounds on that since I started. I tried to up them once a long time ago and he stopped me and said to just increase the reps. So, today when he put it at 50 pounds, I was wasted for the rest of the exercises. But, that is ok. We did some legs today, too. I'll go back on Wednesday and see what else he adds or changes. So far, so good, though.

That makes more sense

Last week I was talking with a coworker about the trail and he told me that the part of the trail I was running was more than a 5K. It's probably closer to 3.2 or 3.3 miles. That makes the finish in the race last Saturday a lot easier to wrap my mind around. I mean, I always do better in races, but that was really out of left field based on thinking that the trail was the same distance.

I did run on Friday on the trail and finished in 31:57. Today I ran it in  32:25

It started out OK

Today I got up and headed out the door quickly (especially since we have not had internet since Saturday so I had nothing there to distract me) and hit the trail for my run. I felt pretty empowered still from my race Saturday and finished in 32:08. I had parked up the trail a bit from where I started my run, so I had a leisurely walk back to the van. I sat in the van for a while to cool down. I drove to the office. I sat in the van for a while more to cool down. I go to get out and realize...

no clothes.

Ack.

At this point it was already about 7:30 and driving home to get dressed was pretty much going to kill the day. So, Walmart here I come.

It took me forever to find something there and it isn't exactly at all what I would choose in any circumstance. But, there you have it.

It was after 8 before I got to the locker room, so I was 8:45 getting to my desk today.

Good news: Steve told me that the internet is back on at the house.