I have had a tough time with the life balance lately. Training for the Hy-Vee Tri took a lot of planning and commitment, but it also caused me to put off a few things at work. Since the tri I have been working quite a bit more; it's a good thing I love my job and the people that I work with. The thing that I have found out about myself though, is that I have to have a fitness goal, or at least a plan of some type. I parted with my coach after the triathlon and have been taking it pretty easy for the last couple of weeks. In fact, I didn't run a single mile this last week. I have become very good friends with the snooze button on my alarm. I still think about running and enjoy running, but actually doing it hasn't really been happening.

Corrin and I went to the Chiefs vs. Vikings game today to cheer on the beloved purple!

Beautiful day at the game!

Unfortunately our cheering didn't help and the Vikings are now 0-4. We had a great time though! On the drive home, I made up my mind that I would write up a running schedule for myself. I have my eye on a couple of different runs, but nothing concrete. My goal is to simply get some time on the road, build some mileage and have fun with it. The real test will be Monday morning when the alarm goes off. I know right now that it's going to be a real battle to see who wins. I will have all of my clothes laid out and ready to go tonight. With a little luck and a lotta will power I will be back on the road tomorrow morning. This really is some of the best running weather and it would be a shame to miss out on any more of it.

Swimming Anxiety

I am not typically a worrier, in fact I generally use stress as a motivator. I am all about pushing myself and testing my limits but currently, I seem to have a real battle going on in my mind. There are less than 3 weeks until the Hy-Vee Triathlon and my swimming confidence is far from where it should be. It seemed to be getting better, I had a nice couple of swims last week then I sent a video to the coach and he  gave me some pointers to improve my technique. I am going to be honest and tell you that this really 'effed up my swim this morning. I had an extremely difficult time trying to relax, which is a huge part of swimming. When you are running or biking, you don't have to think about much, it's pretty automatic. Being a new swimmer I have to try to think about hand position, body position, arm position throughout the stroke, how and when to kick, when to breath and how to breath without sucking in a gallon of water.It's all pretty damn overwhelming, mostly because I have signed up to swim 1500 meters in a lake in less than 3 weeks.

I am not defeated! 
My plan is to battle those little negative thoughts that keep creeping into my head, you know the ones that say, "will I have to have a boat pull me out?" and "can I stay relaxed and not panic in the water?". There is extra pressure because I will have several family members there to watch and the company I work for is sponsoring the event. How's that going to look if I drown in front of my family or have to get pulled out of the water in front of coworkers? The mind can be cruel.

My plan is to watch a YouTube videos on swimming techniques daily hoping to train my mind what good technique looks like. There are some great Total Immersion videos that teach you the little intricacies of swimming easier and more relaxed. I have written some positive affirmations to help build my confidence and force out the negative thoughts, and I will continue to work on relaxation, confidence, and skills in the few training swims that I have remaining. I know that I can do this, I just have to relax in the water and take my time getting through the swim one stroke at a time.

The start of my swimming affirmations

If you are really bored, this is my swim intervals video that I sent into the coach.

This is what swimming is supposed to look like.

Frisco High Line Half Marathon Report

My training plan called for a half marathon on this particular weekend and the closest thing that I could find was the Frisco High Line Run for Scouting half marathon in Springfield Missouri. A nice little 4 and one half hour drive from home...road trip!

While checking the weather for Springfield it looked like it would be between 34 and 46 degrees with some rain in the late morning or early afternoon, a little cooler than I would like it to be, but very doable. Saturday morning, this is what I woke up to. A beautiful 36 degrees and a steady rain!

When I arrived at the race start I was able to meet up with fellow Daily Mile friends David M. and Jon W.  David just finished the Rocky Racoon 100 and Jon was there as not only part of the support crew but helped pace David for 20 miles in the event, very cool! They are a couple of great guys and some serious running machines!

Luckily before the race start we were able to hang out inside of a warm building while we hoped that the rain would stop. At one point shortly before the start, somebody announced that they would delay the race while a storm cell passed by. At this time there was a some thunder and lightening. About one minute later, the same guy came out and announced that we were going to start soon and needed to head to the start line, so much for waiting out the storm. At the start line, there was a small group of us up front and most everyone else was huddled under a tent about 100 feet behind the start line. (hello - you are running 13.1 miles, you WILL get wet!) 

We were started off with a train whistle in honor of the Frisco High Line Trail, the rails to trails path where we were running. 

OK - too much fluff detail going on in the post so here is the breakdown.

My goal for this race was to run even 7 minute splits or even a hair under. Like a rookie, I cruised through the first mile at 6:35, much faster than I intended. I wasn't too upset though because it felt good and I was able to slow down and relax a little while keeping a solid pace. My second mile was spot on 7:00, perfect! I felt like I was locked in at a good steady effort at this point. After mile 2 I didn't hear my watch sound off the splits and I didn't see any mile markers again until mile 6. I went through miles 3 - 6 in 6:57, 6:47 and 7:03 - things were looking good and I was just about half way through the race. Because this is an out and back course I was able to count that there were 8 or 9 people ahead of me and when I hit the turn around I noticed that there was not really anyone close enough behind me that would present a challenge. 

All through the race we could see and hear the lightening and thunder as it continued to rain. The wind and rain were at our back on the way out, so when we turned around it was right in our faces. I think it hailed a little too because at various times it had a nice sting to it as it hit my face. 

Whether it was knowing that I was really not going to gain or lose a position or that fact that we were now running into the wind my pace slowed on the back half. I ran miles 7 and 8 in 7:07 and 7:18 respectively, then by mile nine my feet were cold, soaking wet, and felt like bricks. I slogged through mile 9 in 7:23, then I think my mind drifted off in mile 10 because I dilly-dallied through it with a 7:33 pace so I had to kick it back into gear and ended up finishing with 7:14, 7:28, 7:24 and final push of 50 seconds at the end. 

Race stats copied from Training Peaks log.

I was cold, soaking wet, and my face was frozen, but I finished with a nice PR,10th overall and 3rd in my age group! In retrospect, not bad for such crappy conditions, i'll take it! I even scored an extra medal for my age group award!

Looking back at my Garmin stats, my heart rate didn't make it into zone 4 which tells me that I could have run this a little faster. I know that if I would have had a someone closer to me either in front or behind it would have helped push me to a faster finish. 

I am in no way unhappy with this race, but I am also not completely satisfied with the result. The great thing is that I know I can run it faster next time, especially if I have some competition to push me.

Finally, a quick but important plug for my motivators.

First of all, Jeff and Diane at PRS FIT have helped to keep me motivated and educated along this journey. They have helped my train smarter and harder while staying pretty much injury free the entire time. I have been working hard this year in preparation for the Fargo Marathon. My goal is to qualify for Boston there. With a lot of hard work and a little luck I will do just that. Qualifying or not, it's pretty much guaranteed that I will have a PR there. If you are serious about putting in the time and effort to improve your running, I would encourage runners at any level to contact them for assistance. 

Second, and no less important, the great Daily Mile friends who continue to inspire and and bring positive thoughts to every workout. I feel lucky knowing that it has reached the point where I can participate in almost any race across the U.S. and even internationally, and find a friendly Daily Miler. I even moved from a city of well over 100,000 people to one of 3,000 people in an entirely different state and was able to connect with local Daily Miler Sara D.  in my new town. Pretty awesome stuff in my book!

Random Update for March.

I haven't had much time to post lately, it's been tough just getting my workouts done because of the J-O-B. It's a good thing that I love what I do because I spend a lot of time doing it.

Anyway,  I wanted to drop by and update the status of my training. Things seem to be going very well, I have really been nailing my workouts. I feel like my running has recently advanced to the next level. My speed and strength have increased and I really like the results. My 1:30 tempo runs have been consistently well under an 8 minute pace on challenging terrain but the bonus is that I feel there is also still room for improvement.

It is difficult to judge how my Boston Qualifying attempt will go in Fargo. I have been running on some major hills the last 5 months that continue to challenge me on every run. They are definitely getting easier, but they are still a real bugger towards the end of my long runs.

As I write this there are about 10 weeks until Fargo. With lots of hard work and a little luck it will be a great race. Even better yet, I will be surrounded by several friends that will also be running, it will be an awesome reunion!

Elevation profile from my March 6th run.

Here are some random pictures from some of my recent runs.

Sometimes running through the countryside can be confusing!

View from the top of a long hill

Some runs have started out like this.

While others have ended like this.

Training Update

I have not posted since the Fargo Marathon back in May, mostly because there hasn't been anything too exciting to post and I have been super busy. Since finishing Fargo I have enlisted a coach to help me with my training. Not because I have any hopes of becoming an elite athlete but because I was feeling overwhelmed with my summer training. As I have mentioned before, I am signed up to do a century ride as a fundraiser for JDRF and have plans to run the Mankato Marathon in October. I am a runner at heart but was talked into doing the ride because it is for a great cause, it is for one of the major charities that my company supports, and of course....I love a challenge. I did not even own a road bike until May so I had not clue as to how to train for a 100 mile ride while also maintain my marathon training.

The Coach
I found Coach Jeff from PRS Fit through my running buddy Jenn. Jeff trains his athletes mainly through heart rate training. I am just over one month into my training with Jeff and I can tell you that it has been a positive experience so far. He gives me enough workouts to keep me busy but not so much to cause injury. Jeff provides me with running, cycling, and strength training work outs. An interesting fact is that in the five weeks that I have been training with Jeff, I have had two complete rest days, one was during week one which was more of an evaluation week, and the second rest day was because I just could not fit a strength training workout into my day due to job responsibilities. This busy schedule fits right in with my restless personality, but it is also tempered with enough variety through the week to keep me injury free.

The Ride

Currently most of my weeks consist of 3 days running, 2 days cycling, and 2 days of strength training. Although it's not my favorite thing to do, I am enjoying the cycling. What a great way to cover much more ground than running, and it presents a unique set of challenges. My rides so far have been 1-3 hours in duration with my farthest ride being right at 40 miles and my average pace is typically about 15.5 mph. I still have a long way to go though because I am anticipating my century ride to take about 9 hours. Luckily I will have some other people to share it with. By the way, I have now raised just over $1,000 for the ride. I still have at least $2,000 to go. Thank you so much if you are one of the people that have helped donate towards my ride. If you have not yet but would like to, it is super easy, quick, safe, tax deductible, and can even be anonymous if you prefer. Just go here to donate to my ride, thank you so much for your generosity!

The Run
It has been difficult to figure out where my running performance had progressed. At this point in my training it is mostly building and maintaining a strong base. It has been a little different because the coach has us mostly run in prescribed heart rate zones for a certain duration of time. This means that you don't always know exactly how far your run will take you. Terrain, weather, and general overall well being can cause some fluctuation in distance. This is the first time in all of my years running that I really have not paid any attention and up until today, could not tell you how many miles I ran this week or last.

Last week was my first performance test since employing a coach. I ran the "Salute the Troops" 10K race. I can only remember running one other 10K, so I was a little worried about race strategy. How fast to go out, and what kind of pace that I could maintain. I was fairly confident that I could hold 7:30 for the 6.2 miles and if things were really clicking along, I might even be able to run it a bit faster. Unfortunately 80 degrees and 90% humidity do not make for ideal race conditions. I won't get into too many details other than I went out way to fast which is a common mistake. I just had a tough time judging my speed for the first mile or so. My splits were 6:55(whoa hoss!), 7:25, 7:23, 7:46, 7:53, 8:05, 1:10. Yep, that's pretty much what you would call a regressive run.

 Despite the fact that I didn't run the smartest race, I did finish in 46:36 (goal time was 46 or faster), which was good enough to be the overall winner of the race! It pays to pick the right race I guess, but it was particularly sweet because my father was there to see it. There may have only been 20 people in this race, but you know what, it still counts!!

In summary, my training seems to be going well so far. Next week will be interesting because we start to step up the mileage. As always it will be challenging trying to fit my training in while working 11-12 hour days, but, I am not sure that I would have it any other way either!

Special thank you to my wife and daughter for putting up with and supporting my passion / hobby and listening to me talk about all sorts of weird running things. And to my running / fitness friends for being just as crazy about running or working out as I can be at times.