Sometimes it's the simple things

Work has been a bit intense and I haven't run since last Saturday. Normally things like this would get me a bit down and probably a bit cranky. But not today, yesterday we celebrated my wife's birthday by eating at El Tequila our favorite Mexican eatery down in Northfield with our daughters and my oldest's boyfriend, my wife opened presents from our girls as one of them had to work tonight (today is her official B'day), we had some cake and then later I figured out how to copy a ringtone to the latest phone I bought off of Ebay.

I like to buy used phones to avoid the contracts with Verizon and well, because it's cheaper too. The one thing I don't like are the canned ringtones on most phones and now I have solved it for my current phone. Now I can listen for my distinctive ring from Marshall Tucker. Just listen to the first 30 seconds and it should start to mellow you out, at least it does for me and guess what, no one else has a ring tone like this.

The other songs I have converted that I have on my phone are Marshall Tucker - Long Hard Ride, Martina McBride - Ride, Shania Twain - Up! (my final morning alarm song), Caedmon's Call - Lead of Love, Doobie Brothers - Long Train Runnin, Eagles - How Long, Bad Company - Bad Company. It's awfully nice to be able to convert any song I like to a ringtone (the power of the internet and Google will tell you how, even though Verizon tries to make it hard) and move them to my phone. Another nice benefit is that since my musical tastes are different than most folks, I can always hear my phone although sometimes I do like to just listen to it ring and I might miss a call.

For the moment, I will enjoy my simple victory over my phone and the joy of being with the family. Tomorrow I will run.

Happy Birthday Karyn......................

Medical update, RRT & Turtle Trot 2010

Medical Update

Good news, went to the Chiropractor/Physical Trainer and he proclaimed me almost healed up. I am flexible again, ok, that might be an exaggeration but he was at least able to bend me in ways I couldn't bend before. I have a lot of work yet ahead to get the core fixed but I have exercises to do which I now know how to do correctly.

On the running front, I was pleased to get in an 18 mile run over the weekend. Wasn't pretty nor fast but the back didn't cause me pain. It stiffened a little bit but was manageable. So now I just need to get in a boat load of runs before Superior, only problem is that work has become a bit unmanageable but I am participating in a flexible work pilot which theoretically means I should be able to get runs in. Two days in, it just means I no longer have an office and need to cram 16 hours of work into 12 hours or so. So my hope is I can get things back in some level of alignment and figure out how to get the runs in. Tomorrow, I will see if I can start the process of managing all of my priorities.

RRT

I am going to host the Runners Round Table tomorrow. The subject is "Compete or Complete?", should be a fun topic. I like to think I do both even though I wouldn't qualify at any distance of being competitive. My competition is with myself and against the course with an eye on the cutoffs.

Turtle Trot 2010

Since I have been remiss to get out my Turtle Trot report, I figured I would add it to this post.

Yup, we went and did it again, Karyn and I took in Ben and Kirsten's hospitality and ran, swim and biked our way through the Turtle Trot Triathlon.

This year it lived up to it's 3rd week of July reputation, it was hot, actually it was an absolutely beautiful day, just a bit too hot for running. I love this event as they do it in the right order, not the right order for a triathlon but the right order for me, for the 5th year in a row, we started with a 5k run, followed by a 1/2 mile swim and then a 10 mile bike ride. I will probably never do a normal tri as this one has me spoiled. I love doing the run first, as I ran on this hot day, I kept thinking go hard, a nice cool Minnesota lake is ahead. I have to admit when I hit the water I was totally content to just kind of taking my time.

Back to the run, I pushed it a bit but since I have done Zero speed workouts, I really didn't have a clue. My goal was to run somewhat hard and if it felt easy to go faster each mile, the pace was fine but the heat didn't relent so I basically just held pace. Not a TT pr for a 5k but it ended up being my 3rd fastest TT run. The swim as I said earlier I just kind of swam, walked, floated my way through the 1/2 mile. I almost stayed in longer to enjoy the cool water but alas it was a race so I departed the water. My swim was my second fastest, not sure why as I had all of one training swim ahead of the race.

As to the bike, I just kind of got out of the water and told myself, let's get it done. I kind of thought that maybe I would come back to the lake for a little longer soak. I came in with no bike rides, so I was trained well. I actually ended up with my second fastest bike time of the 5 years. So much for training, oh yeah, I have never trained in the past either.

Karyn had a PR kind of day, I know she PR'd in her run which helped her get an overall PR, she may have PR'd in the other events too but I can't remember, yes I could ask but I have been sitting on this post for a week already, anyway, regardless of the event PR's she had a great effort. I should add a note here that I did catch some grief as I was the only husband who chose not to run, swim and bike with their wife. What can I say, oops.

Another great event as always, Ben and Kirsten make us feel welcome every year and do a great job keeping this event focused on participating, finishing and competing against yourself and if you chose not too, that is fine as the event is all about enjoying each others company.

Where does the time go?

Some days I get things done when I should and some days I don't. This post is about the posts I have yet to get out and I have more than a few to do. So in order to feel less guilty here are my short versions.

1. Book Review on Running Dark by Jamie Freveletti another Emma adventure, very enjoyable.
2. Turtle Trot Triathlon 2010 race report - 5th year in a row, finished, Karyn PR'd.
3. Runners Round Table - tomorrow July 20th - Albert, Lesley and I are chatting with Dick Beardsley about his running camp.
4. Summer doldrums - Injury update, motivation, shoes, etc.........
5. Summer/Fall race decisions - Superior 50 or Moose Mt. Marathon? Surf the Murph 50M or 50k?

Now I need to get back to work on the long reports but first I think I will go for a run.

Update - scratch that last thought, I think I will watch the Twins instead.....

Bad day or poor fueling?

I decided to run in Lebanon Hills on my way home from work today and I had possibly my worse run of the year. Zero energy, legs felt dead, nothing in the tank. Although it could have been the heat and humidity, I think I can point to a few other factors that may have set me up for this day.

Let's start with dinner last night, we went to the Ole Piper Inn to celebrate my daughter's new job (congrats to her for officially entering the working world :-) and they had a 2 for 1 pizza special . So my wife and I ordered a black and green olive and 1/2 cheese pizza and my daughter and her boyfriend went for a pepperoni and sausage one. Then you add in a couple of Newcastle's (Smooth, easy Northern English style ale) and I was quite content. Two of my vices when it comes to food, pizza and beer. I love any pizza except for ones with fish and/or pineapples and pretty much any beer but I do favor the ales and stouts the most. About the only other food vice I have is nuts, pretty much any type which means I also love peanut butter as it is derived from nuts, right?. Since I am older and sometimes wiser, I do try to limit the intake of all of these items to special occasions such as celebrating the completion of an event, vacations, family get togethers, participating in an event, hey maybe this is why I weigh what I do? No when I think about it, the weight is probably just related to not running enough.

Back to the food issue. So after the evening celebration, I thought about what I wanted for breakfast this morning and I decided on pop tarts, another vice when I think about it. We normally don't buy these but my daughter had picked them up for her breakfast or to take to work as a quick snack and of course I eat them. About a couple hours later I could feel the blood sugar crash from these and solved that with another cup of coffee. Of course that didn't work so I ate some grapes which seemed to end the crash.

For lunch, I had leftover pizza (pepperoni and sausage), cold pizza that is, nothing better in the world than cold pizza. I added in some baked potato chips (another food from my daughter's shopping) and I was set up for the afternoon run. So as I drove to Lebanon, I drank a 1/2 liter of water and ate an apple that should fix it right? Well, based on the run today, I guess not. So for dinner tonight what else but peanut butter and jelly. So I think I am set for a better run tomorrow.

As to today, lesson learned, what I eat might matter, then again maybe it was just a bad day :-).