Hope everyone is having a hoppy Easter! :) I miss the days I could be with my family on Easter, instead of stuck inside of a building, feeding cells and making figures for a paper...
It appears that Mother Nature decided to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ by locking forcing Jack Frost to call it a season away and finally letting Spring, in all its glory, flourish. It seriously seemed like winter was just not willing to call it quits this year. After coming back from DC, I actually had to pull my plants back inside, as there was snow on the ground Monday morning. But while this week started out cold, rainy and gloomy, the end of the week was much more appealing. It was actually warm enough to run without a shirt on these last couple of days! The one disadvantage of spring: the red-winged black birds have returned. While they haven't felt that they needed to dive bomb at my head just quite yet, I have a feeling that this docile nature that they are displaying is just a temporary disposition, and that they will return to their aggressive, pain-in-the-a** ways once they start laying eggs...
Training-wise, things are going okay, but not great. Since it was cold and windy last Friday, with a chance of storms, I decided to forgo running the 5k at Eastern. This is because 1) I didn't want to get to the meet and end up having driven all that way to find out that the meet was canceled due to the threat of storms, and 2) if I'm going to run a 5k on the track, I want it to be fast. I didn't feel like the forecasted conditions Friday night looked promising for a fast time. Despite these worries, I think the weather out in Ypsilanti ended up being more or less okay, as Damon and Adam ran close to their PRs... In lieu of running the race, I did a fartlek the next day. I can't really say that it was a very high quality workout; I've been feeling kind of tired lately, and haven't been sleeping the best (this has improved the last couple nights), so I was finding it kind of hard to get geared up to do a quality workout. Its frustrating not having done a workout in weeks that shows me that I'm in good shape. Outside of a couple of good hill workouts, I feel like below average workouts has been the theme of this spring. Its not all doom and gloom, however, as my normal training runs have steadily been getting faster, and, for the most part, I've been killing it on long runs. Part of me wonders if I'm working too hard on my easy days, leaving me taxed for workouts and races (although I've set a couple of PRs this spring, I don't think that those races were necessarily representative of the shape I'm in. I think I'm capable of much more). The thing is, I don't feel like I'm pushing my easy days. Heck, even some of my long runs in which I average under six-minute-mile pace, I feel like I'm just out for a jog. Today, for instance, I went out for my long run, sans Garmin, with the intention of just logging the miles. I ended up running 5:58 pace for 16.76 miles without knowing what kind of pace I was running the entire time. I did push it the last ten minutes, but for this to really make a difference, I would already have to be pretty close to six minute pace for the rest of the run... I guess if anyone has any thoughts on the matter, your advice would be appreciated. I really would like to have a decent workout this week...
Speaking of this week, its Gina Relays time! The last couple of years I've been a honorary Hillsdale alum, running a leg on their alumni 4x8 team. :) However, it appears that this year I'm going to break away from this tradition. Instead, I'm planning/hoping to crank out a solid 5k before running a leg on a Playmakers 4x8 team (currently consisting of me, Jake, Jason Bigelow, and Damon). So that's the plan...
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
BAck from DC!!! Part II (of III): A training update (Scott, this one's for you; you can ignore part III) :)
Alright, a quick recap of DC. First run: I got lost, ended up running 14.85 miles (didn't realize it was this far at the time). Second run: Met up with the Georgetown Running Company Racing Team. Great group of guys. Did a long (16 miles) run with them, over hills; the last 5-6 miles was done at a faster clip with a guy named Paul. Had breakfast with them. Again, fun to run with them.
So now that you're caught up, I'll give you a little more of an update about the rest of the trip. First off, after what was essentially two days of long runs in a row, I did one more run of about 9.5 miles. After this, my right ankle began to feel a little funky (a la last fall, when I had my stress reaction... although it was presenting a little differently; specifically, I didn't get the hollow feeling that I did before, and there was soreness in my calf/Achilles, but the pain was mostly localized to the same area). While I don't think that having two long runs in a row was exactly helpful for the condition, I don't think it was the direct cause. More likely, it was the excessive walking in crappy dress shoes. Take note: DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, book a hotel a mile away from where you need to be most of the time, especially if you have to walk back and forth from it several times one your ankle is already sore. While I could blame this situation on my roommate for EB (a guy named John, from the Medical College or Georgia, or whatever it's called now), who was responsible for booking the room (he said that the hotel looked a lot closer on the map), I also can blame EB for even suggesting a hotel that was so far away from the events... and I should take a little blame myself, because I had a chance to speak up and change the reservations well ahead of time if I so chose. But I didn't. Lesson learned, moving on.
With the sore ankle, I was a little spooked/paranoid, because the last serious injury had presented itself in such a way. So I decided to take the next few days off. Which would have been okay had I just decided that this was what I was going to do, but it can drive you crazy going back and forth in your head about whether you should run or not. Between the indecisiveness and sore ankle, I started to get in a bad mood the last day and a half of the meeting (although, as I'll discuss in part III, the scientific/social aspect of the meeting was awesome). This added stress made me do something that I am not proud of and is not awesome: I lapsed on my Lenten sugar goal. :( This was quite a disappointment to myself, especially because the lapse wasn't for something that was a special occasion or anything like that. You see, the hotel gave me a chocolate chip cookie when I checked into the room. Instead of throwing it out, giving it away, or telling the clerk "no thanks," I held onto the cookie (I had hoped that my roommate would eat it; I also had planned to give it away to someone else if he wouldn't eat it). But the cookie sat in my room. For three days. Untouched. Finally, do mainly to the stress of worrying that something serious was wrong with my foot, I lapsed and consumed the cookie. So major fail. This lapse will not go without punishment, however. While I plan to likely indulge on Easter, the fast will continue for another week as a consequence of my actions...
Sorry Scott, that wasn't exactly about training. If you're still reading, here's the rest that is training related: after taking two days off, I have gotten back into the rhythm of things, and training has been going well. My foot, while not a 100%, is moving back in that direction. I missed a few workouts, and feel like I'm slightly behind, but nothing that a few weeks of training won't take care of. My weight was slightly elevated after DC, which was not a surprise given the cookie (just kidding; but I did eat a lot of good food in DC, which I'll probably talk about in part III), but it has steadily declined back to normal levels after a week. Finally, I will be running at the EMU twilight this Friday, hoping to set a PR in the 5k (and drop below 15, if everything goes according to plan), so wish me luck.
Note to others: Scott, my roommate, is mentioned several times in this blog. If you are wondering, he doesn't care about a lot of the "fluff" that I put into this blog, and is more interested into an insight into my training/racing/thoughts about training (maybe I'm giving myself too much credit by suggesting that Scott actually cares about my thoughts). Anyways, that is what several of the comments are about. :) Oh, and blaze on!
P.S. Sorry about any typos/writing errors in this post. I don't really feel like proofreading at this time, although I'll probably come back to fix tehm ltaer, if me gots thi chants...
So now that you're caught up, I'll give you a little more of an update about the rest of the trip. First off, after what was essentially two days of long runs in a row, I did one more run of about 9.5 miles. After this, my right ankle began to feel a little funky (a la last fall, when I had my stress reaction... although it was presenting a little differently; specifically, I didn't get the hollow feeling that I did before, and there was soreness in my calf/Achilles, but the pain was mostly localized to the same area). While I don't think that having two long runs in a row was exactly helpful for the condition, I don't think it was the direct cause. More likely, it was the excessive walking in crappy dress shoes. Take note: DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, book a hotel a mile away from where you need to be most of the time, especially if you have to walk back and forth from it several times one your ankle is already sore. While I could blame this situation on my roommate for EB (a guy named John, from the Medical College or Georgia, or whatever it's called now), who was responsible for booking the room (he said that the hotel looked a lot closer on the map), I also can blame EB for even suggesting a hotel that was so far away from the events... and I should take a little blame myself, because I had a chance to speak up and change the reservations well ahead of time if I so chose. But I didn't. Lesson learned, moving on.
With the sore ankle, I was a little spooked/paranoid, because the last serious injury had presented itself in such a way. So I decided to take the next few days off. Which would have been okay had I just decided that this was what I was going to do, but it can drive you crazy going back and forth in your head about whether you should run or not. Between the indecisiveness and sore ankle, I started to get in a bad mood the last day and a half of the meeting (although, as I'll discuss in part III, the scientific/social aspect of the meeting was awesome). This added stress made me do something that I am not proud of and is not awesome: I lapsed on my Lenten sugar goal. :( This was quite a disappointment to myself, especially because the lapse wasn't for something that was a special occasion or anything like that. You see, the hotel gave me a chocolate chip cookie when I checked into the room. Instead of throwing it out, giving it away, or telling the clerk "no thanks," I held onto the cookie (I had hoped that my roommate would eat it; I also had planned to give it away to someone else if he wouldn't eat it). But the cookie sat in my room. For three days. Untouched. Finally, do mainly to the stress of worrying that something serious was wrong with my foot, I lapsed and consumed the cookie. So major fail. This lapse will not go without punishment, however. While I plan to likely indulge on Easter, the fast will continue for another week as a consequence of my actions...
Sorry Scott, that wasn't exactly about training. If you're still reading, here's the rest that is training related: after taking two days off, I have gotten back into the rhythm of things, and training has been going well. My foot, while not a 100%, is moving back in that direction. I missed a few workouts, and feel like I'm slightly behind, but nothing that a few weeks of training won't take care of. My weight was slightly elevated after DC, which was not a surprise given the cookie (just kidding; but I did eat a lot of good food in DC, which I'll probably talk about in part III), but it has steadily declined back to normal levels after a week. Finally, I will be running at the EMU twilight this Friday, hoping to set a PR in the 5k (and drop below 15, if everything goes according to plan), so wish me luck.
Note to others: Scott, my roommate, is mentioned several times in this blog. If you are wondering, he doesn't care about a lot of the "fluff" that I put into this blog, and is more interested into an insight into my training/racing/thoughts about training (maybe I'm giving myself too much credit by suggesting that Scott actually cares about my thoughts). Anyways, that is what several of the comments are about. :) Oh, and blaze on!
P.S. Sorry about any typos/writing errors in this post. I don't really feel like proofreading at this time, although I'll probably come back to fix tehm ltaer, if me gots thi chants...
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Back from DC!!! Lots to tell, but lets start with some shout outs...
I'm back from what was a world-wind trip to our nations capital. It was a great time, but before I get into everything that went down in DC-Town, I'd like to give a few shoutouts:
1) Thank you to the Georgetown Running Company Racing Team. While I was out in DC, these guys were nice enough to pick me up from my hotel and take me on a long trail run, with a quick excursion into the zoo, allowing me to get in a decent run and see a part of DC that I would not otherwise have seen. I ended up doing a tempo run with "Alabama/Texas/Couch" Paul, who actually finished two places behind my roommate Scott at the Twin Cities Marathon, which was kind of random. If you are ever in DC, I'd suggest checking these guys out.
2) I feel like I need to give a shout out to Belle's tires of Okemos. I went in yesterday to figure out why I had a slow leak in my front left tire, something that I should have done a long time ago (and, which I might add, had been ignored by a couple of other places who, when I was getting my oil changed, had ignored the problem even though I specifically brought it up to them). Turns out there was a medium size screw in the tire. While it wasn't surprising that they had found and removed it, I did appreciate that when I went to pay, they told me to just remember them the next time that I needed new tires. So thank you Belle's tires!
3) A few of you may recall that my phone went through the wash about a month or so ago. It was saved by the power of flour (hey, that rhymes). Since then, I have taken the opportunity to test the rice drying method (which works better than flour, due to the clean up) on a number of other gadgets. First, while in DC, my Garmin watch started to misbehave. While running, it had begun to randomly start/stop for what appeared to be no apparent reason. I initially assumed that it was a satellite issue, but in direct opposition of this hypothesis was the fact that the Garmin tells you when it loses satellite reception, and my watch was not doing this. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that there was condensation inside of the watch. This kind of pisses me off, because there is no reason I should be having this problem. A little side note: I have been very dissatisfied with my purchase of my Garmin 405. After purchasing, they came out with a dialed down version of the watch, that removed the cursed bezel function (what I really hate about the watch) and a hundred dollars or so from the total price. I am not against Garmin as a company or product maker, but, given the bezel function and the problem I am now having with the 405, I would strongly suggest that if you are GPS watch, you would consider a different product. Back to the story. Brief recap: Garmin. Start/Stop. Condensation. My solution: I put the watch in a bed of rice and, low and behold, a day later it is no longer having the problem. Condensation is still appearing on the inside of the watch, so I'm fearful that the problem will return, especially during longer runs. But for now it is working. After the success of the watch and phone trials, I decided to give the rice one more try. Some of you may be familiar with how finicky iPods can get with water. I have one that I would occasionally run with. After a while, the sweat permeated the mp3 player, and shorted the circuitry. So this is something that has been laying around for months, perhaps nearing even a year. I decided that, well, I could throw it away (which I probably should have done a long time ago, if I didn't think it had a chance of working again), or I could throw it in with rice and see what happens. Well, 24 hours after incubation, I plugged the iPod into a charger, and turned it on. And it worked! It doesn't appear to be having any issues, so, yeah, here's to you Uncle Ben, maker of the amazing broken-gadget-dewaterer-and-fixinator (a P&F reference).
When I started this post, I thought that I'd give a couple of shout outs, and then get into some updates. But I'm thinking the post is long enough as it is, so look for more DC details later in the week. Until next time: Blaze On!
1) Thank you to the Georgetown Running Company Racing Team. While I was out in DC, these guys were nice enough to pick me up from my hotel and take me on a long trail run, with a quick excursion into the zoo, allowing me to get in a decent run and see a part of DC that I would not otherwise have seen. I ended up doing a tempo run with "Alabama/Texas/Couch" Paul, who actually finished two places behind my roommate Scott at the Twin Cities Marathon, which was kind of random. If you are ever in DC, I'd suggest checking these guys out.
2) I feel like I need to give a shout out to Belle's tires of Okemos. I went in yesterday to figure out why I had a slow leak in my front left tire, something that I should have done a long time ago (and, which I might add, had been ignored by a couple of other places who, when I was getting my oil changed, had ignored the problem even though I specifically brought it up to them). Turns out there was a medium size screw in the tire. While it wasn't surprising that they had found and removed it, I did appreciate that when I went to pay, they told me to just remember them the next time that I needed new tires. So thank you Belle's tires!
3) A few of you may recall that my phone went through the wash about a month or so ago. It was saved by the power of flour (hey, that rhymes). Since then, I have taken the opportunity to test the rice drying method (which works better than flour, due to the clean up) on a number of other gadgets. First, while in DC, my Garmin watch started to misbehave. While running, it had begun to randomly start/stop for what appeared to be no apparent reason. I initially assumed that it was a satellite issue, but in direct opposition of this hypothesis was the fact that the Garmin tells you when it loses satellite reception, and my watch was not doing this. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that there was condensation inside of the watch. This kind of pisses me off, because there is no reason I should be having this problem. A little side note: I have been very dissatisfied with my purchase of my Garmin 405. After purchasing, they came out with a dialed down version of the watch, that removed the cursed bezel function (what I really hate about the watch) and a hundred dollars or so from the total price. I am not against Garmin as a company or product maker, but, given the bezel function and the problem I am now having with the 405, I would strongly suggest that if you are GPS watch, you would consider a different product. Back to the story. Brief recap: Garmin. Start/Stop. Condensation. My solution: I put the watch in a bed of rice and, low and behold, a day later it is no longer having the problem. Condensation is still appearing on the inside of the watch, so I'm fearful that the problem will return, especially during longer runs. But for now it is working. After the success of the watch and phone trials, I decided to give the rice one more try. Some of you may be familiar with how finicky iPods can get with water. I have one that I would occasionally run with. After a while, the sweat permeated the mp3 player, and shorted the circuitry. So this is something that has been laying around for months, perhaps nearing even a year. I decided that, well, I could throw it away (which I probably should have done a long time ago, if I didn't think it had a chance of working again), or I could throw it in with rice and see what happens. Well, 24 hours after incubation, I plugged the iPod into a charger, and turned it on. And it worked! It doesn't appear to be having any issues, so, yeah, here's to you Uncle Ben, maker of the amazing broken-gadget-dewaterer-and-fixinator (a P&F reference).
When I started this post, I thought that I'd give a couple of shout outs, and then get into some updates. But I'm thinking the post is long enough as it is, so look for more DC details later in the week. Until next time: Blaze On!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Living it up in DC
Well, after saying that I was going to start posting twice per week, it looks like it'll be a full week. Getting ready for the Experimental Biology meeting took up a little more time than what I thought. But now I'm hanging out in our nation's capital, living it up and geeking it out listening to scientific lectures, giving poster presentations, and the like...
I'll have a lot more to say in my next post, but a brief update: went for a run in DC today, saw a lot more of the city than I planned on seeing (because I, of course, got lost; no surprise there for those of you who know me). But the run was a blast! :) I was dropping 6 minute miles like they were hot potatoes (idk).
Alright, that's all I got for now.
I'll have a lot more to say in my next post, but a brief update: went for a run in DC today, saw a lot more of the city than I planned on seeing (because I, of course, got lost; no surprise there for those of you who know me). But the run was a blast! :) I was dropping 6 minute miles like they were hot potatoes (idk).
Alright, that's all I got for now.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Martian Meteor Race Recap – Brought to you by Dole Bananas, Cause they’re awesome
Note: This post is not sponsored by or condoned in any way by Dole* (despite the title). I just really like bananas. Not only do they taste awesome, they’re a great way to refuel after a run. One large banana will provide you with 31.1 g of carbohydrate, 14 % of your DV for potassium, a slew of other electrolytes, and a sense of happiness given by few other foods**. Plus, they’re Omega 6:3 ratio is approximately 1.7:1, close to the recommended 1:1 ratio and significantly better than the estimated 10-20:1 ratio that the typical American consumes***. So yeah, bananas are awesome…
* If someone from Dole does happen to be reading this, and would like to sponsor me, that would be awesome!
** My personal results. Individual results may vary. “…Or We Can Blaze” does not guarantee that all individuals will receive the same degree of happiness. Also, if you wouldn’t mind, please vote on your favorite fruit on the poll to the right. Your favorite not shown? Leave a comment down below.
*** I should have a reference here, but am not willing to put one in right now. The ratio was determined by looking up the values at www.nutritiondata.com.
Alright, time to get serious. Yesterday I made my 10k debut, and first serious attempt in any race over 5 miles (I did run the Detroit half-marathon in 2008, but was in pretty ugly shape at the time). As far as my actual review of the race, I thought that it was very well run, and would recommend this race to anyone considering it. As far as my personal race performance, the worries going into the race about being race ready we alleviated during the warm-up, as my legs felt pretty good (my calves were a little sore, but nothing I hadn't raced well with before), and so the race went pretty well. I ran a 31:55, thus succeeding in breaking 32 minutes. I got out well the first mile (5:02). My splits began to lag behind from there, but I averaged 5:10/mile for the rest of the run, so it wasn’t too bad. During the second half of the race I ended up in no man’s land, having no one coming up behind me (within hearing distance, anyway) and no chance of catching the people in front of me by mile four. Going into the last 320 meters (0.2 miles), I looked at my watch and saw 31:02, and realized that sub-32 was totally doable, but I would have to get going. I dropped the equivalent of a 70 second 400 meters (4:40 min/mile pace for a quarter mile), so it wasn’t anything blazing fast, but still decent for having no one coming up on me and no one to catch.
Overall, the results for Playmakers Racing were kind of all over the place. Nick Katsafaras had a solid performance, finishing 7th overall in a PR (I believe) in what was really a rust buster race for him. Scott was pretty disappointed with his performance. He finished near his “worst case scenario” time, but he’s coming back from a long injury lay off, and is putting in some major miles, so he’ll come around. Jerome had a decent race, finishing in a road PR. In the female race, Lanni Marchant of the girls’ Playmakers team finished 2nd, and my former teammate at Concordia, Angela Matthews, finished 5th, both in the money, so congrats to them!
Last week I put in 76 miles, so after two down weeks, my mileage is back up to where it should be for this time of year. I don’t have any races planned for a while (until EMU twilight), which makes the next two or so weeks ideal putting in some miles, which is the plan. Plan to hear updates on how training is going (for those of you that are wondering, I’m planning on settling in to a 2 posts per week post frequency, at least for a while).
One last thing: a picture of the grotesque, unawesome look that was goatee Kyle:
Until next time, blaze on!
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