Using My iPhone for Proper Nutrition

It was a great morning to run Rancho San Antonio, even if nobody else showed up. It's early in the season yet, and anyone who wants a good workout will soon get a clue that 7am Tuesdays are where it's at. Weekly hill work for long distance runners. Being on my own, I ran the Upper Wildcat loop as fast as I wanted, 0:55, a big improvement over the last year's standard 1:05. Feeling good in cool weather. We'll see how Dave is when he gets back from Ironman, much slower for at least the next few weeks I bet. Donna, the constant runner, was there. It's good to see a friendly face, even moving at a good clip in the other direction.

Fast forward to the grocery store after work and I'm prowling the aisles, hungry but unsure. With iPhone in hand, I googled around until I found what turned out to be a very good vegetable lasagna recipe. There's my shopping list. Some of these web sites even list the nutritional values, so I have no excuse for anything less than an optimal running diet. The Internet can do that for us.

I'm in much better shape than I was a week ago.

Who Needs Sleep, Anyway?

Grumble grumble run.

Goodbye Travis Wallace

I was on the spring 2007 mid-pen run team with Travis and Amy. We ran the San Diego Rock-n-Roll Marathon and had an absolute blast. Travis was always good cheer, whether we were running for the finish line or the airport security line. We went through a lot of lines on that trip. Right now I just want to go on one more long run together. Someone far more qualified to speak than me already said it better. Travis would not want us to be sad, he would want us to celebrate however much life we're given, and treasure friends and loved ones for however long we have them. If anything, the unfairness of it all is why we do whatever we can to find a cure. So in the spirit of Travis having fun on a run...

Old TNT friends are still running together! A few of us from last year's mid-pen team did the Sawyer Camp trail this morning with the Palo Alto Run Club. Those training for the San Jose and Nike half ran 8 miles. I continued up the hill for 12. My first 12 mile run in a while! The 7am Tuesday Rancho run is shaping up to be a real workout, 60 minutes of hills with the fast runners. This means I must keep up the cross-training and do core exercises every other day.

I'm in much better shape than I was two weeks ago.

Through the Beginning

Fully in training now. Got through the initial stiff-and-sore-all-over feeling, during which I found the areas I want to concentrate on. First, toe and heel walks. I can feel it doing good things in a critical area. I have new improved stretches (especially IT band and hamstrings), core every other day with balance exercises. My distance plan is gelling, the final series of weekends looks like this: half marathon, 18 miles, half marathon, 20 miles, then only 12 miles, taper, marathon. If all goes well, the first half marathon and the marathon will be PRs. That's the goal.

So far, so good. I've been hurting in all the right places, much better now.

All The Things That Get In The Way (really don't)

It's shaping up to be a busy week. By mid Monday morning my to-do list at work took up half a page. Then it was off to a talk by the inventor of a popular application framework, and in between I got in 20 minutes of cardio and half an hour of weights, plus core, plus I got everything ready for my 7am run the next morning, not to mention regular blog posts (something I never got around to doing the first time). I'm watching my DVR fill up with more Olympics coverage than I could ever possibly watch. I have two computers running, I have three books to read, a hundred programming exercises to complete, and that other thing which may or may not amount to anything at all, it really could. I've completed two pages of diagrams and two pages of written specifications so far tonight. I still have to decide when and what my next hour of cross-training will be. All in all, things are right on schedule. Two half marathons in October, a full marathon in November.

Most running books talk about the psychological component of such undertakings. When I step back and look at a mountain, it's big. Sometimes when I'm thinking about the goals I set, and everything it takes to get there, it seems impossible. Yet as soon as I dive in, concentrating on whatever small part I'm doing right now, a lot of things go pretty quick. Maybe that's something I can learn from a 26.2 mile perspective on things. On a map it looks impossible, but wherever I find myself on the course, the next few steps are right there in front of me.

Hey, I got this far, right?

Groggy, but Motivated

Coffee, peanut butter toast, and Joey Ramone singing What a Wonderful World. But what really gets me up and out the door this early? Responsibility. Run buddies are counting on me.

The sunrise with the full moon and fog rolling over the ridge is beautiful.

Running with a Purpose

This morning was my very first course marking run and it's a different kind of workout, like intervals where I'm constantly running to the next corner, stopping, and drawing arrows every few hundred meters (with the occasional exploratory detour to check my bearings against the map). It doesn't hurt to have a compass on the wrist, either. This was an 8 mile out-and-back in the Mountain View Baylands which means only 4 miles of marking. On the way back I ran a relaxed, steady cadence which soon became a conversation pace. Coach Dan gave lots of great advice to a new runner. I may have to try that run/walk thing myself.

For this first one I had a nice, easy course to mark and I didn't do it alone, but now I feel confident I can take on something more challenging. I'll mark a course through those twisty Portola Valley trails before this is all done.

Go Team!

Time to Mark the Trails

Our first trail run and I have to be at Baylands at 7:30am to place the markers before the runners start. Grrrr. What gets me going this early on a Saturday morning? Coffee, peanut butter toast, the promise of a new sunrise, and Joey Ramone's version of What a Wonderful World.

Life Happens, Apparently

Maybe Shakespeare was right about all that sound and fury. The current state of disarray in my house could be the metaphor of a not so dissimilar life. I look at things placed in various spaces and see some inspired, some stupid, all enjoyable, but not really amounting to much.

Speaking of running...

A week into my commitment as a Team in Training captain and I haven't set up my fundraising web site yet, I was almost late to the first track workout in spite of the fact that I drove faster than a easy-going person like myself should. I haven't done a long run in weeks. Lots of reasons, but no more excuses.

This time I stick with the program. I do the core, I do it all, I do it early. I'm setting a PR. The whole schedule goes in my calendar tonight. The letters go out this week, the money is raised this month, the races are run this year. I already have my first donation. Thanks Carol! It's happening in spite of all the things that have and always will come up in the meantime. This weekend it starts. Right now.

In fact, right now is the only time I do anything.