5 minute quickie
Old Pueblo T minus 3 days
On Saturday, a friend and I will be embarking on our first ultramarathon. I look forward to this race. I have not gone this far in one run before. He is an Ironman so he has gone this distance before, but never just running. The forecast is nice weather and it is in the middle of nowhere. I am excited. This will be fun. I spend the next couple of days packing my drop bags and making sure I have it all planned out. The only wrench is the possibility of rain. I really do not like wearing long sleeves much less a jacket of any kind when I run. I am not sure if the tradeoff of possibly being cold is enough motivation to wear long clothing that might get soaked. Try lugging that around for miles until you can drop it off. My friend is concerned about the combination of distance and elevation changes so we are running the whole thing together. I was hoping to do this race fast, but friends are more important that personal best times. This is our first ultra, so this one is for the experience for future races.
I will continue to go vegan for this race. I will be bringing rice balls with chia seeds, beans, and nutritional yeast for protein, calories and carbs. The will be cooked in turmeric and ginger for the anti-inflammatory effects. I will also be bringing an energy drink that has lemon, chia, and ginger to reduce swelling. I have a large bag of Heed as well as packets of Perpetuum for electrolytes and calories. I will have Hammer gels and e-Gels on me and at each drop along the way.
This should be a fun race. I will try to post more later or tomorrow.
Namaste.
2014 Goals
First, I obviously did not meet my goal of 200 total posts by last night. I have quite a few unfinished drafts though.
Second, I have decided on a distance goal for this year. 1000 miles. This comes out to 2.75 miles a day. I think this is rather conservative but it is a start. I will focus on that one goal and go from there.
Third, I will set a goal of 52 posts for the year. Once a week. If I reach this early, I will decide how to proceed from there. If I reach the goal a year from now, I will be happy with that as well.
Fourth: love, laugh, smile, give, live, BE.
Mondays 2013
No, I do not mean 2013 Mondays (I counted, roughly, and it has been more than that at my age). I mean Mondays in the year 2013. Mondays have been a lot like Fridays but I have run a lot more on Mondays. This day has been my day after a two day rest so I would be restless and want to run. The hard part in the last couple months is that, after two days with the family at home, I needed to get things done around the house that I could not do with the family around. With the holidays, I had to do a lot of cleaning and reorganizing the piles of stuff so the house would look presentable for family guests. We have not had many guests but, next month is my daughters’ birthday and we will have people over for that. Score! I look, relatively, organized. It seems that Mondays at home have mirrored Mondays when I was working. Not uber productive but far more than Fridays. We will have to explore this with other days of the week.
Namaste
Fridays 2013
What were Fridays like this year? The year started with working those days with one or two off. Starting during the summer, Fridays were spent with the kids and so not much cleaning or yard work was done. I am too lazy to go back to see if I wrote about this but trying to get anything done around this house is impossible with everyone home. Fridays were probably my least productive days of the year no matter whether I was working or not. Next year will be different. This is my second long run day. This is required because I need to train my body for the rigors of the long run while tired. If I take the lazy route with this, the race will be a massive fail. I do miss looking forward to new movie releases on Fridays but I will survive.
Namaste
Saturday snippets
So I missed posting yesterday. I should be able to make that up.
continuing the streak and also some core workout yesterday. I did not do much yesterday. Been feeling very lazy lately. Part of this is probably having no stressors and lots of time to get things done that I feel I have nothing pushing me to do work around the house. Or I am just lazy. Whatever it is, I have a lot to do especially since winter break is in 2 weeks and everyone will be home for 2 weeks straight. If I do not change my behavior now, I will not only get nothing done during that time, I will also not get in any training then either.
Arizona State lost in the PAC 12 Championship game last night. Not too surprising. Not to say I was not hopeful, but every time ASU gets in the national spotlight, they crap out and fail miserably.
Hanukkah is over and the presents are all given out. That is nice not having to search for presents and stand in obscenely long lines. Well, not feeling the stress of those lines anyway. I went to Costco Friday to return some Craisins I bought that went on sale the day after I bought them. I went inside to get some snack items for Y’ school snacks. As I went to check out, it looked like I was approaching an airport terminal on Thanksgiving weekend. A 15 minute shopping trip turned into an hour of waiting in line to get some apple mashups and graham crackers.
Goals for this next week.
1. 15 miles of running each day. I will divide this into 2 workouts each day with the tempo in the morning and the intervals at night. The intervals will be running intervals speeding up for each interval.
2. Hourly planks. I will do a 3 minute plank each hour at the top of the hour (yes, even while I am running).
3. One room a day. At minimum, I will clean up and do everything I need to get done in one room of the house each day. (The garage does not count :P)
The yard and the garage are for the following week.
200 posts
This is my 174th post. I am aiming for 200 posts before the end of the calendar year. Given my past record, this will be a task. If I get a job I might have a tougher time of it but I will give it a go.
I found myself doing nothing today. I ran and got my mile in today. I got in some core exercises too. I then found myself reading a triathlon magazine and I realize I have a lot more to do and a long way to go. I also realize I am not doing nearly enough to make myself stronger for the upcoming marathon or the ultra, much less the run for an Ironman in a couple years. A whole lot of my lack of training is mental. I know this. I need to get past my past behaviors. I need to move my mind into the present. I notice I am becoming more mindful of my thoughts and as a result, I am becoming increasingly mindful of my behaviors and my physcal state at any given point in the day.
There is nothing other than now.
There is nothing other than now.
Now.
Infinite patience yields immediate results.
Namaste.
Thursday Quickie
I spent yesterday working in my spare bathroom. The toilet broke over the weekend. I discovered a large crack that went through the tank from top to bottom. Apparently the previous owners ran into the same problem but just applied porcelain paint rather than actually fixing it. The patch lasted for more than eight years but I would rather have it fixed for goodso we replaced the toilet. in the process of replacing it, I realized I needed to paint behind the tank so I had to stop and do that. I made 2 trips to the store for paint and supplies then I had to go back again because the wax ring for the toilet was too small to fit the toilet into the pipe on the floor. I know this is all real interesting but this is what you get when I am just writing to write (sorry).
I have lost 8 pounds since November 12th. 12 more to go.
I got in core working out yesterday and a mile of running. I have cut down on my food intake but I have not recorded how much exactly. That will be a task for next week.
I hope to get a lot done today so I can go for a 23 mile run (10:00 pace) tomorrow. My workout goal for next week is two workouts each day alternating tempo and intervals.
Hope you all have a better than great Thursday!
Namaste
Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and running….oh my!
Thanksgiving was last week. It was nice. We actually had Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving this year. I use the empirical ‘we’ because I was out getting a laptop at a good price for my wife so she can work from home. I did not miss much other than my wife trying to get the kids to sit still and eat in the midst of the kids’ cousins being rambunctious and doing things the little ones cannot do yet. So when I say ‘miss’ I mean in the same spirit as I ‘miss’ diarrhea or I ‘miss’ the chance of getting a venereal disease from an ex-girlfriend (i.e. not so much). I got back in time to play with them and watch them open presents (then start to melt down because it was 9:00 and their bedtime is 6:30).
Thanksgiving was also the second night of Hanukkah (thus the reference to opening presents). Hanukkah has been fun this year. The kids have been able to get a lot of things they want plus some gift cards will allow them to get a few more things that pop up. No latkes but they have been able to have Thanksgiving dinner on Hanukkah which will not happen again until the sun burns out or something like that.
I am continuing the streak of running at least a mile a day. I even ran a mile while we were at a friend’s child’s birthday party and the kids ran it with me (we were at a park with a couple of soccer fields).
I am going to try increasing my posts by doing at least one 5 minute quickie post each day. I will only write for 5 minutes and if I am motivated to write later I will (particularly if I do not finish my post).
That is all for now.
Namaste
Genext13 