Month: February 2017

Post-Run Report: February 25, 2017

img_4937
Post-run on the street in Barcelona. It was cool outside, but it felt great once the blood was pumping.

Finally. It’s been a week since I last ran and I was finally able to get a run in this morning in the Plaza de Sagrada Familia. In case you’re wondering, that’s in Barcelona, Spain directly across from the back side of the Sagrada Familia Basilica. Talk about running in history! The park is beautiful with many people from around the world (which were difficult to dodge from time to time, but only at the side of the plaza near the church) and sights we rarely get to enjoy during a run. The added bonus: half of the plaza run course (which was the exterior sidewalk) is up-hill. While the run’s pace was slower than my average lately, the level of workout I received was on-par or harder than usual for a 3 mile run.

I haven’t been able to run in the past week due to the activities and weather here. Now, it looks like the rest of the trip will be more amenable to a regular run activity at least every other day, so I should have at least another 2-3 runs here in Spain before returning home.

Today’s distance: 3 miles with a 10:24 pace but an amazing view, so I’m okay with the slower pace. Besides, half of it was literally running up a hill and dodging people, so there’s that.

Post-Run Report: February 18, 2017

img_4429

I had a running partner with me this morning: Sherry! We hit the road this morning while it was still nice and cool out, and I promised to keep things slower for her. In the end, it turned out that we kept a pretty steady 9:30/mile pace through our 3.42 miles which was a third-best for Sherry and a run that I was happy with. I felt good throughout the run, and I didn’t have any pain at all. In the push ups department, I only did 70, but as long as I can hover between 70 and 80, I’m happy. One day, that number will be 100, but as long as it’s over 70, we’re good.

This was our last run before we leave for Spain. Our next run will be in a new country and in a new city. We are very much looking forward to it, and taking our running to a new continent.

The Versatile Blogger Award

Wow. I was nominated by the immensely talented Leadinglady at Mom on the Go to post seven sort of interesting things about me. If you haven’t checked out her blog, you should. It’s really good, and she’s a great photographer who captures amazing snippets of her life with beauty.

Without further adieu, here are the seven sort of interesting things about me:

  1. I enlisted into the National Guard at age 49 today. That sounds crazy, but it makes sense when you learn that I have spent 11 years on active duty in the Marines and that I only need 9 more years to complete my 20 years to a retirement.
  2. As a Marine, I was an on-air radio DJ in the Philippines as part of the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (also known as AFRTS). I was volunteering and trying to OJT into a new MOS at the time. It was a lot of fun!
  3. I play bass guitar in a band with my daughter who is the singer and my wife who plays drums. Two friends round out the band playing guitars. Our band is named Ninja Fist Class.
  4. I met Jesse Owens as a kid and sat in his lap as he told me about how he began running.
  5. My first concert was Elvis Presley when I was 10 years old. He died shortly thereafter.
  6. I massaged Courtney Love’s feet. It’s a long story. Maybe one day I’ll tell the entire tale.
  7. I met my wife because of blogging. Again, another long story, and I’ll probably post it in the future.

So there you have it! Seven sort of interesting things about me!

I’ll try to follow the spirit of this by listing some blogs here. I’m getting ready for a trip out of the country right now, so it’ll  have to wait a bit. I will do it, though!

Post-Run Report: February 15, 2017

file-2-3

Thank goodness, I was able to get out there and make it happen and nothing bad happened! I started out easy for the first mile with a 10:34/mile pace and found no pain, so with each successive half-mile, I upped my pace. In the end, I was running 8:58/mile and ended with an average pace of 9:54/mile. I stuck to 3.2 miles because I didn’t want to go too far too soon, but it seems that the three day hiatus from running was what my knee needed to get better. I will run again on Friday and then not again until I am in Spain.

Ultimately, I’m super-excited to be back to running. I was nervous all day, not because I dislike running, but because I was afraid that I would begin running and find the pain persisted. I was pleasantly surprised to not experience any pain, and even as I ran harder and harder to raise the pace, my legs felt fine. Even afterward, they felt good. This morning (I’m writing this report the morning after the run), my legs have the “You ran yesterday” feeling which is to say that they don’t hurt. They feel good and strong.

So, about yesterday’s run…

It didn’t happen. I had an appointment after work I had to go to (more on that Friday) and when I got home, I had dinner with my wife. Since my knees are still not 100%, I decided to take a third off-day. As much as I am hating it psychologically, my knees are much happier today.

I’m really looking forward to my run today although, to be honest, I’m a little nervous. This is my longest break in running since November when I got sick, and I remember it was tough to get back into it. Now, to be fair, that was nearly two weeks while this was just three days since running last, so I should be okay.

I just need to remember to  not push it and take it easy. I have a vacation starting in a few days and the last thing I need is a knee injury while in Spain.

If the weather is nice enough, I’ll run today

So far, the knee is holding up. Ironically, it’s the left knee that is giving me some pain today due to some of the limping I was doing Sunday, but I think it’ll go away after a few steps of running. If the weather isn’t stormy after work today, I will run. I’m going to push myself to go easy. I know that’s sort of an oxymoron, but it’s going to be hard to hold myself back. I want to take it easy and have a gentle 3-mile run. Sherry says it should be 2 miles, but 3 is my minimum. I’ll try to stick to a 10 minute (or slower) mile.

Well, unless there is no pain at all. If that’s the case, I’m going for it. I have made too much progress to give any of that back.

I don’t want to jinx it, but…

So far today, I have no pain in my knee. I am admittedly being careful and doing my best to not flex my knee in any weird way, but so far, there has been no pain. I’m really scared about it being injured. I want to do my run tomorrow (since I’m skipping today) and as I’m about to go on vacation to Spain which will require a lot of walking, the last thing I need is a leg injury.

Wish me luck! If I can remain pain free today and tomorrow, I will run tomorrow evening.

It was bound to happen: I hurt my right knee

It’s happened. I hurt a ligament in my right knee. The crazy part is that I didn’t hurt myself during my run on Saturday. I hurt it after the run when I took our dog, Buddy, for his walk. He decided he wanted to run while leashed, and I figured, “Why not?” I should have just held him to walking or let him run around a little without a leash, because afterward, the ligament on the left side of my right knee felt a lot of pain. Not at all the good post-run pain.

If I walk gingerly on it, or with a slight limp, I can eliminate the pain, but in the moment that I forget that it’s injured and I step normally with it, a jolt of pain shoots from the ligament up my leg. This is not good.

Today, a day later, it still hurts. It’s a little better, but still not back to normal. I think that I may skip tomorrow’s planned run and wait to see if the pain dissipates enough by Tuesday. I’ll have a light 3 mile run at a slower pace on Tuesday to see how it goes. Fortunately, I have a circuit that is very close to my home that I run for this distance that allows me to stop and get home within 1/4 mile at its farthest point. I’m unhappy about having to skip a run on Monday and that I’ll have to run light on Tuesday, but I have to let my body heal. I can’t let myself get more injured or prolong the amount of time it would take to heal by aggravating it.

I’ve had a good stretch without injury: over five months. It was bound to happen, and every runner I know deals with this from time to time. I guess it’s my turn. We’ll see how it goes over the next two days. I hope to be back to running my normal distances and pace soon. In the meantime, I am sitting on the back patio writing blog entries and enjoying the beautiful weather.

I’m going to miss my run today, and that makes me unhappy

As I’m in the process of enlisting into the National Guard, I have to take documents in to my recruiter today after work so that I can swear in next week. That means I won’t have time to run tonight after work as I had planned. This makes me unhappy because I am into a pretty good routine right now, and I enjoy my after-work runs.

I will wake up early tomorrow morning and get the run in then, instead. My wife and I have plans for the entire day, but they don’t start until around 11 am, so that give me plenty of time to run. That will make Thursday and Friday this week my “Weekend,” and I will have a four-run week coming up. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes. If it goes well, I may just go to a day-on/day-off run schedule. So, there’s some positive to it, I guess.

Post-Run Report: February 8, 2017

img_4345-edited

Well, I went and did it. I joined Strava today. Apparently, that’s a runner thing, too. I have my own profile page there as well that has all my run information there. I went and uploaded every run since I started back on September 10th, so everyone can see my progression so far. 

As for today’s run, it went very well far better, even, than I expected. As you may know from reading the previous blog entry, I was not looking forward to this run. I just wasn’t feeling it. But, I went ahead and set out for it anyway. I got my 80 push ups in, and then I did my run. Overall, I felt great and my pace was comfortably hard without pushing too much. I finished with a good time and a pace I am proud of: 9:27/mile. The best part is that I don’t have excessive muscle pain. Just a good post-workout buzz in my legs. I’ll take it.