I kilt it!

Today, I ran a 5k (the Kilt Run), and blew away my previous personal record ... 22:27! According to my GPS watch, the race distance was a little short, but I still wound up with a 7:29 average pace. I would have never thought myself capable of holding such a pace for three whole miles.

And then I did something crazy ... I've seen other people do this, and I thought they were showing off. I would think, "really?"

What's the crazy thing? Going for a run after a race. After killing my PR on the 5k, I ran home ... ten miles. Let me repeat that: I went for a ten mile run after running a fast 5k. It was not a quick run, but I'm in training for a marathon.

According to my training schedule, I needed a 13 mile run, and I didn't want to use the 5k as an excuse for missing my longer run. If I'm going to succeed in this marathon, I need to stick to the training plan. Every mile counts.

South Bend Bound

I signed up for my first full marathon, the Sunburst Marathon in South Bend, IN. It will take place on May 31, 2014. http://www.sunburstraces.org/

I've been running with a new group of friends throughout the winter and several of them are in training for a spring marathon. Their enthusiasm was infectious, and they got me thinking about it too. So ... here we go. I'm committed to do it. It'll give me a great goal and help me to stay motivated.

I can do this.

Dreaming again

I had an odd dream last night ... I was at Spiece and finished my workout about the same time Rick finished his. We were talking a bit and left the gym together. As we got into the parking lot, a total stranger came up to us and asked about Smallest Winner. She wanted to know about how to apply, etc.

As we talked with this lady, I could see my car out of the corner of my eye, and I clearly had a flat tire. Bummer, eh? Well, as I tried to wrap up the conversation, Rick excused himself and left me to continue answering the lady's questions. Figuring that my car wasn't going anywhere, I talked with a little while longer and then said goodbye.

When I got to my car, I saw Rick cleaning his hands off as he'd just finishing changing my tire. I don't know how he got into my car to get the spare, etc. It was just a dream, so I guess some things are allowed to happen without being completely explainable, right?

When I thanked him for doing that, he patted me on the shoulder and said, "no, thank you for giving that lady your attention. I just changed a tire, but that conversation just might change a life."

I'm not one who wants to read something crazy into a dream, but I woke up thinking that was pretty cool ...

Elliptical goal

Disclaimer: I realize that using the elliptical isn't the same as running outdoors. I'm not claiming these numbers are comparable, but it's still a personal best for me, and I'm inclined to share them here ...

This morning I had a elliptical session for 60 minutes with a five minute cool down (during which I didn't really cool down, but kept hitting it pretty hard). I finished with 12,218 strides in 65 minutes and burned 1087 calories.

That's an average pace of 188 strides/minute (which supposedly equals 8.56 miles for an average pace of 7:36 minutes/mile).

I definitely worked harder the second half of the session than I did the first half. At 30 minutes, I just cleared 5100 strides (roughly 3.5 miles). Thus, my last half was an average pace of 204 strides/minute (or 6:55 minutes/mile for roughly 5 miles).

Again, I realize this isn't the same as running. I'm not claiming that I ran five consecutive sub-seven miles. I've simply had this elliptical-based goal (breaking 12,000 in 65 minutes) hanging out there for a while now, and it feels like a big deal to reach that goal. One day, I'll get to 12,000 in 60 minutes ...

Setting goals and knocking 'em down ... it's a good way to stay motivated.

Figure run

Tomorrow is my 24th wedding anniversary. I recently stumbled across a cool app and decided to use it to make my wife an anniversary card ...

http://figurerunning.com/ gives you a GPS app to track your running. So many times I've ran with other apps and thought the map of my run looked a bit like something ... you know ... in the same way you can see certain shapes in clouds. Well, this app let's you more intentionally "draw" while you run. You are the pencil! You can also "pick up" and "put down" the pencil so you can draw distinct shapes that are not connected.

Happy anniversary, sweetie! It took me 3 miles and 36 minutes to run this one out for you ...

Note: there is an iOS and an Android version the app.