Too Cute

Since sunday became a rest day instead of monday, I had to makeup the missed workout. I've been in a great mood all week, because my boss went to Texas today for a trade show where he's going to sell a ton of licenses for this software I wrote http://www.securedentalforms.com/ and come back with a fistful of contracts next week. So I can't post anything negative today. Hence, I won't be talking much about the runs this week. I figured instead I would put up cute pics of my girls. That's much more positive than monday's recovery run.

I commented something to Girl On Top that I think bears repeating (because it's funny and true, people):

Running shoes are a lot like an expensive hooker. You have to grit your teeth and pay up front, but the ride is soooo worth it. Then in 6 months you have to go back for more - but i joke!

So I am so glad I got some new stomps. I wasn't really sure if the old ones were really done or if I could get a few more miles out of them. So monday I thought it's only a 3 mile recovery run from saturday's long run. I'll see if these old shoes have any life left in them. They did not. Oldies had definitely exhausted their last mile. The tread isn't very worn, so I think Run In can add some arch support and pronation correction stuff and make them runnable again, but it's been a long time since I was in that much pain. The road I live off of has a giant hill going up to an elementary school, and I ran all the way up the hill, turned the corner and almost made it to the school before stopping to walk. Then, I limped all the way back home. I technically did the 3 miles, but wow. serious ouchie. Yesterday I did the elliptical for 30 minutes, 3.5 miles, 400 calories. I still couldn't take any impact. Today is cross training day, so I'm going to bike it to the gym and back, and lift weights while there.

Now, cute pics:

The cutest girl to ever come home from kindergarten just a adorable as she could possibly be. I love those pigtails!

They are so sweet at that age

And how quickly it turns to laughter (or is that rage?)

This looks like I am doing something dirty, but I'm really not. Bigun like to take pics with our camera, and she took this one. I'm just making faces at her. We use a Nikon D40 and love it.

BTW, that Slow Runner t-shirt http://www.slowrunnermusic.com/ is really cool. My brother Michael lives in Charleston, SC and has been a professional musician for years. Slow Runner is his band. They were even signed to a major record label for a while, and did several nationwide tours as the opening act for larger bands on the label. It's great stuff.

Wifey lounging among the Lantana

Watch out, they spit! Littlun is so adorable at this age (~16 months)

Playing among the celery. I love that celery. It's an organic, heirloom variety and is the first thing I have ever sucessfully grown from seed! I really got into organic gardening this year. And that celery got almost as tall as the girl!

The Perfect Taco

Saturday's long run was fantastic! I went 9 miles from Pelham & E. North St to tooling around the neighborhood behind Eastside High school and back. I just extended my 8 mile route from last saturday. I think this basic route might be flexible enough to float me through until the Swamp Rabbit trail is finished around the first of the year. But wait, the best part is:

It only took 1:31? I felt like I was floating more than running. No pain, nice long strides, and very little walking. This was considerably easier than the 8 mile run from last week that was basically the same route. That's a pace of 10:03 burning 1273 calories. That was amazing. the 9.5 mile run in raleigh was over a 14 min pace, then last week's 8 miles breaking in the new shoes was a 11:50ish pace, then back down to 10 mins here? are you freakin kidding me? It felt good, it was a nice cool day, there was a good breeze blowing around, and my lungs just felt right. I was over 3 miles in before the sweat even broke through my shirt. Wow. I've got the route up on Map My Run if you want to scope it out.

Then Wifey made the Perfect Taco for dinner. After I called it the Perfect Taco about a dozen times, she told me rather flatly that she knew what she was doing when making the recipe. I'm going to share it, as this is the most desirable balance of macro and micro nutrients.

The Perfect Taco:

• 1 package ground turkey (about 1lb)
• 1 can black beans
• 1 packet taco seasoning

Brown turkey, add beans & seasoning and simmer. This mix can get a little dry if you don't keep a close eye on it. Then toast hard taco shells, make some homemade guac and serve with these toppings:

• Organic salsa
• fat free sour cream
• homemade guacamole
• lowfat Mexican Blend shredded Cheese
• Baby spinach
• Cilantro

Did you know hard taco shells are better than soft? The white flour in soft taco shells ups the calorie count way to make it much worse than the fat content in hard shells. Plus the corn in hard shells adds a little more fiber. And homemade guac will use fresh Avacado (I don't know how she makes the guac but it's f'in fantastic) which has a very beneficial fat. So the only fat in these taco's is good for you. The ratio of carbs and protein is perfect runner's fuel, and the dark leafy greens and herb adds a good fiber count. Thus, the Perfect Taco. Make some after your next long run.

Of course, Wifey also did her 9 miles on saturday at the gym. And then she stuck with the plan and did her 3 mile recovery yesterday. I suckered myself into 4 hours of yardwork instead of a recovery run. A couple of trees fell down in the vacant lot next door and one of them came across my fence. So I had to bust out the chainsaw and have some fun. While I was at it, I did some work on the roof and ended up ripping down all of my gutters. We're about to redo the outside of the house with a fresh coat of paint, new roof, and some siding repair. Gutter removal was the first step. So I'm going to get my 3 in today instead of taking a rest day.

Back on that horse

Well, the cold has finally cleared. My voice is still gone, but I got in a run yesterday and it felt GREAT! I was at the gym, and did my 5 miles per the training plan in about 53 minutes. It burned 800 calories, and the incline was set at random level 2 and didn't get over a 2.9. But it was still amazing and fantastic just to feel like running again.

There is something going around Greenville apparently. Several other G'town bloggers are also reporting being down with colds. My answer: pomegranate juice. Get the stuff with blueberry if you can find it, there's more anti-oxidents. This stuff is like OJ times 1000 for it's effectiveness. My chiropractor got me turned on to it a couple of years ago. He actually has cured colds for me several times just with adjustments. But this time I just went with the pomegranate juice.

And I've got to give some serious props to See Bride Run. Small changes make all the difference in the world of weight. For example, my youngest daughter wasn't gaining weight fast enough to even be on those percentage charts for weight/height/head things that the pediatricians use. She was 40% in height, and 45% in head size, but her weight was at -3%. Apparently 16 month old happy babies are supposed to weigh more than 16 lbs. So we switched her from the reduced fat cheese we normally buy for ourselves to the full fat cheese. This was ok'd by the doctor first, along with a couple of other small things going from reduced fat to full fat. And after only gaining <1 lbs in 3 months, she gained 1/2 lb in 3 weeks between weigh ins. The doctor was happy. She's still not on the chart, but the doctor is happy.

Oatmeal is a staple runner's fuel. I made a small change starting tuesday. I switched my normal morning cherios or other breakfast cereal to one of Caitlin's oatmeal recipes. It cut my 400ish calorie breakfast down to about 180 calories. And yesterday at the gym I weighed in at 201!!!!!!! (insert trumpets blaring here and general fanfare) This is the kind of thing I have been waiting for! A small change can make a big difference. What kind of small changes can you make to speed up a small goal? I'm going to be under 200 lbs next week I bet just from this one small change.

I'm teaching out at Spartanburg Community College today and it's a rest day anyway. Long run coming on saturday, so have a great weekend!

BLAH

Carlin did a routine on being *sick* that was hysterical. I'm reminded of this one run into my marathon training program by getting **sick** and a bad case of the blah's. The body pain started on saturday, but I blamed that on the run. I should have been a better listener. The sinuses started on sunday. Monday night I lost my voice. Now this is particularly bad timing because I have to teach a class at Spartanburg Community College on friday. It's only a one day class, but it will still be difficult to whisper through if I have no voice. No voice on Tuesday, which meant no phone calls from the office in Atlanta. That was a nice break. They tend to leave me alone to write code anyway, but it was a nice piece of mind. And I made some serious progress on this big project due COB Thursday.

So sun, mon, tues with no workouts really. I did take a nice, lazy ride on the bike around the 'hood here last night after work. It was such a cool evening, and just a nice time to be outside enjoying the fall in Greenville. I did maybe 5 miles, about 20 minutes, and barely broke a sweat. I wasn't trying to work through anything serious.

So now it's Wednesday morning, I still have no voice, my sinuses are really stuffy, and the head is about half swimmy. It's fun writing code with about half a brain. The good part about being sick is that the body's natural response is to focus on removing the bacteria or virus matter that is causing the sickness, not focusing on satisfying addiction. So even with no exercise the nicotine demons are still at bay. I'll know I'm over the cold when I start having cravings again.

I think today will be the day! This stuff started breaking up some early this morning. If everything goes well, I'll try to get back onto a run this afternoon and hopefully get back on the training schedule tomorrow.



But, I did get the training plan into a jpg:





email me if you want a copy in excel.

Prostitutes Welcome

So Saturday marks 20 weeks exactly until the MB Marathon http://www.mbmarathon.com/ so we started our 20 week training program. Wifey and I both did an 8 mile run on saturday, she did it in the gym on the treadmill so she could use the zero incline, and I pulled out the old road route (more on that later).



We call the kids Bigun and Littleun (southern for Little One). They are 3 and 1 years old respectively, and are some of the cutest kids you will ever see as evidenced below

That's me with the girls last month at a picnic at the park. Yes, they are adorable. Thanks!

So bigun came home from kindergarten the other day with some kind of bug. and I don't mean an insect. Something has wreaked havoc with my apparently depleted immune system. These things take 3 days to grab hold of you, and my run saturday was full of strange pains and annoyances. I did get some new running shoes from Run In http://www.runin.com/ with fresh arch supports and pronation correction. So I chalked up the new pains to that. I still covered 8 miles in about 95 minutes, or just over an 11 minute pace. So I felt pretty good about that. But then sunday I did not feel good about anything.

Supposedly, we were to run 3 miles sunday, rest today, and run 3 miles tomorrow to recover from the long run saturday. Wifey did it fine. Actually, she has to be up and going early on tuesday so she did her second 3 mile run today. I have been curled up in a blanket playing the part of a pile of mush on the couch for 2 days. I guess that's one way to recover from a long run.

I am so excited about the start of the marathon training plan it's not even funny! This. Will. Be. Awe. Some! It got Katie Approval the other night, and she sent me another spreadsheet to log bike and swim miles/times. I'll eventually get the plan into a jpg and push it up here. Being a programmer, I'll also see if I can rebuild her spreadsheet with more calculations I used to be more of an excel junkie than I am now, but there's still a few tricks up these old sleeves.

So a while back I mentioned that 90% of the street corners in Greenville contain churches? Sometimes living in the bible belt can provide some humor. That's the truth, there are like 3 churches for every woman here. And if you don't attend one regularly you are some kind of outcast leper. We don't attend a church regularly because I can't find one that isn't filled with ultra-conservative judgemental bastards. I'll go when I can find church people that don't make me want to punch them in the throat, Wifey and I are both baptized Christians. And Bigun goes to kindergarten at a church a few miles from the house.


But on my 8 mile run saturday, on only 2 roads I went past about 12 churches. One of them had a marquee with flashing text that made me laugh so hard I had to walk for a while. Somebody put way to much thought into attracting new members to make them non-lepers. Even at a running pace I couldn't read them all, but someone used alliteration to make the point that we are all sinners and everyone is welcome. Dad's Welcome, Drug addicts welcome. Mom's welcome, fat people welcome ..... and on down the line. Some of the funnier ones were alcholics, prostitutes, drug addicts, pedofiles, necropheliacs, podiatrists.... and they all started with the same letter or rhymed with something "normal". That's my kind of church. Give me your sex addicts and crackheads, they're just like us!



I'm going to throw a before and after pic of Wifey and the Girls because I just stumbled across these earlier today. The before pic is from 6/15/2007. Wifey started weight watchers 9/26/2007, so with her one year anniversary recently passed (she's a lifetime member now) I thought it would be appropriate:

















This is from last month playing with the girls out on the front porch. Pretty amazing, huh? I'm really proud of her for sticking with it for the entire year. Now our dietary approach has completely changed. She's still losing weight, and I still can't break 200 lbs.

I think I'm going to keep a dietary log this week just to see if I can figure out what I should watch for.

It's also cool to see how much the girls have grown in a year.

Hit it Hard

Wednesday we had some problems with the house, so I had to deal with an electrician instead of getting a run in. Ah, good times. So by thursday morning my nicotine threshold was reaching a dangerous level. Also, wednesday was World Vegetarian Day, so I went veg for the day. This had both caloric (fuel) and intestinal consequenses on thursday. Ah, more good times. It was actually pretty cool to eat vegetarian for the day. I'm not far from it normally, only chicken or turkey sandwich for lunch and chicken, turkey or fish for dinner. 2 of 6 meals a day with meat is a pretty low ratio anyway.

Combine that with some weak fueling thursday morning (only about 500 calories) and I hit the wall during thursday's workout. I got dropped off at the gym because Wifey was going shopping in that direction anyway, so I thought I could work out a little harder in the gym. I did an hour on the elliptical (7.5 miles, 700 calories) then took the bike 4 miles back home. With less than half a mile left on the bike that wall came up and smacked me hard right across the face. wow.

They say everybody hits the wall sooner or later and you don't really know what it feels like until you definintely know what it feels like. Holy shit, they are right. I was biking it uphill on Taylors Rd towards Taylors First Baptist Church when it hit. I stopped in the church parking lot to rehydrate, catch my breath, take off the sweatshirt and regroup. I felt like I was going to vomit, pass out, and crap my pants. The street corners in Greenville are 90% churches, 5% gas stations, and 5% CVS & Walgreens drug stores. This particular church is the one that I grew up in, so it seemed like an appropriate place for someone to find me dead in the parking lot. I'm just glad I made it up that hill to the parking lot. So let's call that one a lesson learned. Fuel fuel fuel fuel fuel fuel fuel.

Having said that, I'm really getting pissed on the weight loss front. 4 or 5 days a week I burn 700 - 1200 calories each workout. Yesterday I weighed in at 203. Monday it was 205. Last week it was fairly consistent at 204. My caloric threshold is 3300 calories a day. Eat less than that and I should lose weight. Since Wifey just hit the one year mark on weight watchers she only buys low fat high fiber food, mostly all natural stuff. No HFCS, mostly organic. Organic gardening is another passion of mine, so we eat a ton of fresh veg from the garden. I have seen a loss of body fat from my arms and legs and around my waist. But that doesn't help my knees, shins, and feet when they are in impact pain. The only thing that can do that is less weight beating them up.

I got this big on purpose. Back in 2001 - 2002 I was really into bodybuilding. I took weight gainers, whey protein, creatine, and plenty of other manmade synthetics. I packed muscle onto my frame and was fairly scuplted except for some belly fat. I did no cardio because that would make me lose muscle mass. So now that I do nothing but cardio, why am I not losing muscle mass? When I stopped lifting weights, I gained a bunch of bodyfat and put on another 10 - 20 lbs. That's what got me up to 235. When Wifey went on weight watchers and changed her grocery habits, I got down to about 195. Now I would love to get back down to 190 for total smoking ripped hotness. I'm 6'1", so 180 - 190 lbs on my frame would put me in the single digit body fat % with decent muscle mass remaining. I honestly thought after 3 weeks of weight loss workouts and closely watching what I eat I would have gone below 200 lbs. So what's a runner to do to lose some lb's? Comment your advice please, it's all welcome.

I've also started reading See Bride Run for food advice. http://www.seebriderun.com/ I really like her approach and recipes.

And finally, tomorrow marks officially 20 weeks until our marathon in Myrtle Beach. So I adapted a Hal Higdon training plan from 18 to 20 weeks (his Novice2 Marathon plan) which kicks things off with an 8 mile long run tomorrow. I feel pretty good about the plan, and I've already got an 8 mile route mapped that's close to the house. Going down East North St from the Fresh Market to Eastside High School (my alma mater) and back again. I should be leaving about 9 am if anyone wants to meet me out there.

Good clean power

So Greenville is out of gas. We've joined the club. Our one family car has a mostly full tank so I'm not really worried. We're also not going anywhere. It's one of the benefits of working from home, we normally only fill up about twice a month anyway. And we only drive typically going to the grocery store or the gym. Which means the only time we have to drive is if we take the girls with us somewhere or have to carry something back.

So yesterday I wanted to go gas-free. It's 4.1 miles each way to the gym, and that was the only place I had to go. I biked it there, did 45 mins on the elliptical (5 miles, 500 calories) and biked it back home for a nice 13 mile day with no impact on the knees, feet, shins, or environment. That is what I call clean energy. The tree hugger in me was proud.