Another Week of Little Running

It's already Thursday, and I only have 4 miles of running so far this week, and that might be my total for the week, the way things are looking.

But, I did get over 50 miles in on my bike on Monday and Tuesday. Monday evening Carlos and I did 33 miles or so on the roads near Mountain Home Arkansas. In that ride we climbed close to 2500 feet and averaged about 15.8 mph. Early Tuesday morning, we got up and did a "recovery ride." It was a hilly 17.5 mile ride, climbing over 1000 feet, and averaging 15.9 mph.

My legs were really sore Wednesday, but I ran 4 miles at lunch. I did it sort of as a tempo run, averaging about an 8 minute pace. The middle two miles were run at about a 7:20 pace, and the last mile was pretty slow, but by that time I was about to die anyway.

Tonight I won't be running with the group. We are in the midst of buying a new car, a Nissan Altima. I am turning in the old van in the cash for clunkers deal, and I expect to close the deal tonight. Perhaps I can manage to get in a 4 mile run at noon tomorrow. That will put me at 8 for the week. Saturday I will be putting in a lot of miles, but they will be driving miles from here to Colorado.

Next week I will be spending the entire week at 8500 feet altitude or higher. I'm sure I will get a bunch of running in, but I will have no idea what the distance will be. I will just go by time and effort.

Not Much Running This Week

Since last Saturday's run, in which I ran 3 of the 10 miles barefoot, I have cut way back on my running because of my aching feet. Monday I met with the hill sprint group, and I jogged 2 miles and then did the 8 sprints, but I didn'tdo any cool down jog.

No running at all on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday night I decided to do the bike ride with the bicycle club. I started out with Stefanie and a few others, but I only made it 8 miles. I was downshifting on a big hill, but my derailleur got into the spokes and broke off. I had to call my wife to come rescue me.

Thursday evening I was ready to run again. I did 8 x 700 meter intervals. I was shooting for 2:55 for each bout. Here are my times:

2:43, 2:54, 2:53, 2:51, 2:54, 2:57, 2:57, 2:55

I felt pretty good during the intervals, but on the jog back to the store my feet really ached.

Friday I didn't run, but Friday night I played basketball with a couple of kids at church during the Reformers Unanimous meeting.

Saturday I decided not to do the long run. Better let my feet heal. I showed up with my newly repaired bike, and I rode the route, chalking in the turns and mile markers as I went. When I got back to Veteran's Park, Kathy asked me to lead the Tulsa Run training group. So, I did get 3 miles of running in. I stayed with Hayley and Noe for the first 2 miles, and then I let them finish ahead of me, while I waited and made sure nobody missed the turn. After getting back to the park, I then got back on my bike and rode the rest of the 12 mile route. After hanging out for a while, I then rode another 15 hilly miles. Just as I was leaving, Patty, Larry, and Bill were finishing their 18 mile run.

My total running for the week = 13 miles

My total biking for the week = 35 miles

Weekly Update

Hooray! I stayed awake during the sermon. Our new pastor, Jim Johnston preached his first sermon today. He is going to go through Paul's letter to the Philippians, and today he started in Acts 16 to lay a historical framework.

One of the points of the sermon was that sometimes setbacks or adversity works for good. Before Paul headed off to Philippi, he visited Lystra to encourage believers there. On his first time there, though, he was stoned, and the crowd dragged him out of town, thinking he was dead. Paul used that episode to encourage the disciples in Lystra, saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. I guess Paul knew what he was talking about.

Okay, now for the update on running.

Saturday, July 11th, was the Poker run. I did 10 miles total for the day. For the poker run, I ended up with a pair. A couple of hundred people had better hands than I did, but I still came away with a pair of socks.

Monday I did 4 easy miles at noon and then another 4 miles plus hill sprints in the evening. It was pretty hot, so I am glad I brought the ice water and sponges to cool off with.

Tuesday was really hot, so at noon I sort of meandered through the neghborhoods near downtown, trying to run in shade whenever possible. I figure I got in a little over 3 miles.

Thursday was cooler, but humid. I took a little longer lunch and did a 5.5 mile run. That evening I did a total of close to 8 miles, including 6x1000 meter intervals. I was trying to hit 4:35 for each interval, and I ended up with 4:23, 4:38, 4:35, 4:39, 4:31, and 4:42. The last couple my legs were really heavy.

A ten mile run was scheduled for Saturday, but I thought I might add on a few miles and do 12 to 14. I started the run in my brand new pair of Mizuno Alchemies. My heel started hurting early in the run, and by mile 7 I had a blister that hurt so bad that I couldn't stand wearing shoes anymore. So I carried the shoes and did the next 3 miles barefoot and then stopped for the day. I ended up with blisters under most of my toes. The one under my right big toe was the worst. I still had to cut the grass, so I popped the blister and wrapped my toe with athletic tape. It felt okay while I was cutting the grass, but then when I took the tape off, it ripped all remaining skin off the bottom of my big toe. I woke up this morning, and the bottoms of my feet were hurting, so I took a look, and I have bruised on the bottoms of both feet. After church I came home and put my feet on ice. That felt so good.

Total mileage for the week was about 39.

Today I am trying to stay off my feet, and I will probably skip my noon run tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to do the hill run tomorrow evening.

Sleeping During the Sermon

Our church is getting a new pastor. Next Sunday is his first time to preach at our church. But, he and his family were at church last Sunday. One of the Sunday school classes had a meal at the church and my wife and I stayed to eat. Yummm!

So anyway, Saturday night my wife was snoring pretty badly. I have a cell phone that has a bunch of songs on it that I have downloaded from my daughter's computer. It also has a bunch of sermons from our new pastor that I got from the website of his old church. I thought it would be a good idea to put in the earbuds and listen to this mix of songs and sermons to try to drown out the snoring. It worked pretty well. I did sleep.

Okay, so we are eating after church, and the new pastor's wife, Lisa, sits down and starts chatting with my wife, Marilyn. I'm not sure how it came up, but the next thing I know, Marilyn is telling Lisa that to get to sleep at night I listen to her husbands sermons on my phone. She then tells Lisa that she thinks I'm practicing for Sunday mornings.

Great. Now the pastor will have his eye out for me. I won't be able to sleep during a sermon for at least a couple of months.

Intervals

The plan for Thursday was to do the following: 2x800 meter, 2x1000 meter, 2x800 meter. I wimped out on the 1000 meter because it was so stinking hot and humid, and also because I just didn't feel real strong to begin with. Patty and Larry were the only ones to join me, and they did 6x800 meters. Here is what I did:

2 mile warm up

800m: 3:19

2 minute active rest

800m: 3:21

2 minute active rest

900m: 3:50

3 minute active rest

900m: 3:53

4 minute active rest

900m: 3:54

3 minute active rest

800m: 3:24

long untimed rest, walked down the trail until I met up with Patty and Larry

400m: 1:53

2 mile cool down

I felt horrible during the workout. It felt good to get back to 41st and Riverside and play in the fountains. With the warm up, cool down, and jogging/walking between intervals, I figure I did a total of about 8 miles.

Training in July

My first run in July was an easy 4 miles at lunch on Thursday, July 2. That evening some of us did intervals on the River Parks trail just south of I44. Most people did 6x800 meters, and we did it at about 5k pace or a little faster, with about two and a half minute recoveries. Andy and I extended the 5th one to 1000 meters. Here are my times (Andy was a little faster on each one.):

3:11

3:21

3:17

3:24

4:14 (1000 meters)

3:15

On July 4th I was in Ozawkie, KS. I got up and ran by myself at 7 in the morning. It had rained hard for a good part of the night and was exceptionally humid. Temperature of about 80 and humidity of more than 80 percent made conditions a little rough for me. I did a 2 mile loop 4 times. Each time around I wanted to quit, and I even gave thought to giving up running altogether. But on the fourth lap a dog - a retreiver - kept me company most of the way, until he found a huge pool of water to play in. Having the company helped a lot. I had planned on running 9 minute per mile pace for the first three laps and finishing at around 8:15 per mile, and things went pretty close to plan. Here are my lap times:

17:52

17:51

18:07

16:50

On Monday I did a 4 mile tempo run at lunch at a 7:30 per mile pace. That evening I did the hill sprints with the group.

Tuesday I didn't have time to run, and I was a little tired anyway. I did enjoy a nice walk with my wife in the evening.

Running mileage for the first seven days of July was about 28. Not a great amount, but it included quite a bit of high intensity running.

Gospel Haiku

I was reading some blogs and came across this haiku that I like.

Pure God, sinful man.
Jesus took the penalty.
Trust him or face wrath.

From: blog.9marks.org/2009/05/how-would-you-present-this-gospel-on-twitter.html