I see where DR's coming from... however, I think I'd be doing the same thing as Adubb if I were in his shoes. It'd probably be different if I were in someplace like Scotland or Japan by myself... there's probably better scenary and way more people out running. However, I can't imagine Colombia provides for the best of running environments. I think Adubb's gained all the weight I've lost... at this time last year, I weighed in at 187, and am down to consistently 158-160. The cool thing is that my body fat is now consistently under 10%... some days, it's even under nine! In an ideal world, I think I'd be happy at 165 lbs and around 5% body fat. Of course, then I could probably go be a professional fighter or something.

I have a handheld device that measures body fat percentage through electronic pulses or some such nonsense. From what I've read, the caliper (sp?) method is accurate to 0.1% or so, whereas this handheld thing is only 0.5%. However, it's much more convenient. I generally only measure every two weeks or so. It's tough to remember to do that first thing in the morning, before even hoping in the shower.

The Piney Point forecast right now on weather.com only predicts one sunny day in the next week -- Sunday

Thursday, March 6, 2008 Greenside Drive / Cranbrook Road Library Hills Temperature was low to mid 40s, no rain, intermittent wind Tonight's workout was fairly cut-and-dry… four miles, followed by six speed hills by the Cockeysville Library. This will be my last hill workout until after the Saint Patrick's Day 5K. I ran for just shy of 35:00, and called that a four mile run. However, the meat of today's workout were the hills. I generally do these after a run of moderate distance as these hills are meant to be somewhere in between strides and regular hills. I think of them as more of a anaerobic workout... if these are done correctly, my quads burn for a few seconds after each interval. Six short, 10-20 second hills, followed by a five to eight minute walk home. I think walking serves as a better cool down than jogging for this workout, as my legs can be struggling a bit afterwards. -------------------------------------------- Saturday, March 8, 2008 NCR Trail Long run, 6 miles Temperature in the mid to upper 30s, winds 20 mph, drizzling rain When I was walking Molly at 3:30, the sun was shining and the wind was calm. It truly felt likes a day for running in shorts and shortsleeves. How wrong I was. By the time I had packed my gym bag and headed out the door (about an hour later) for the NCR Trail, the temperature had dropped to south of 40 degrees. The wind was whipping, and the sky threatened rain. Luckily, I had the foresight to pack a hat and longsleeves in my bag. Unfortunately, I forgot my gloves. Also, right before leaving, I discovered that my iPod was nowhere to be found! I scoured my apartment and car, and could not find it. My best guess is that I was negligent enough to drop it when I was between the car and my front door last night, and someone scooped it up and walked away. Now I'm left with a tough decision... do I want to buy a new iPod, or a Forerunner? Being that I need neither (and Val and I are saving to buy some furniture this summer), I'm probably going to keep my wallet clamped shut for the time being. As for the run... I was bitter that I lost the iPod, but running without it wasn't all bad. I'm not much for communing with nature, but it was a pleasant change of pace. Speaking of pace... being that I forgot my gloves, I was forced to do the girl thing in which I pulled my long sleeves over my hands, thus covering my watch. Rather than pulling down my sleeve to glance at my watch, I resolved to do the entire 3 miles out-and back blind! I merely pressed the Split button at every mile post thru my sleeve. The results were somewhat surprising. Last weekend, I ran the 5.5 miles averaging an 8:08 pace, and never straying far from it. As I've said before, I think overtraining like this has caused several of the common overuse injuries I've been plagued with in the past. Earlier in the week, I think I said that I would aim for 8:45 - 9:00 as a pace. Here's how I did blindly: 1. 8:47 2. 8:41 3. 8:35 4. 8:40 5. 8:39 6. 8:17 I'm very happy with the first five splits. Due to the (near?) freezing windchill, and the fact that I wore only a longsleeve tee and shorts, I didn't do a warm-up or any major stretching. I did the essential stretches, and went right into the run. It makes sense, therefore, that I got faster after the first mile. I wasn't trying to pad my time in the last mile... I explain that by saying that it was cold, damp, and windy, and I just wanted to be done. I didn't consciously pick-up the pace, but obviously I didn't object. Overall, it felt very good. As I sit here typing this on Tuesday (3/11), my legs feel refreshed. My knees don't hurt, and I only feel a dull pain in my shins (pretty good for me). -------------------------------- No extremely tough workouts this week. Tonight (3/11) I'll do a 4.5 mile run with 2.5 at an 8:00 - 8:10 tempo pace. Thursday I'll run five easy, followed by two easy on Saturday (a pre-race day tradition).

I'm feeling well. I had ice cream last night, as my big risk/celebration -- my first dairy since last Tuesday (not counting yogurt, which is allowed b/c it can help repopulate your good bacteria, apparently). I also have had meat twice now since the weekend. Next time I do a marathon -- and I do want to do it again -- I want to not do it cooccurrent with a flu, because I'd rather be able to eat more freely afterwards I ran yesterday afternoon with Crystal -- couldn't resist, so I ditched my plan to wait 5 days. Plus Vic said he ran 6 easy Monday and his legs felt better afterwards, so I wanted to see if helped me. It was painful for the first two miles, but then got easier for the last 1.5 miles. Afterwards, my toes hurt -- they feel bruised even now. But, my thighs felt better afterwards, and still do. So, it was a tradeoff.

Sat morn I ran with some guys over on Solomon's, about 7 miles, at about 8:14 pace (slower going out, faster coming back). This morning noone else from the tri group showed up, so I ran by myself, and decided to try going fast, and did about 1 mile at 9min and then 7.5 miles at 7:40 pace. That was substantially harder than yesterday. I deduce that I'm recovered from the marathon. I'm going to take tomorrow off, because that was fast running for me -- I spent the winter runner 9-10min pace all the time on purpose, to get used to long and slow. MTA: I slept for 2 hours later, so apparently that tired me out even more than I realized at the time. MTA: I want to find some hill around here to run sometimes, because getting some hill practice in sounds fun.

Training to hard after racing is what always ends up getting me into trouble with the "common overuse" injuries. I imagine that if I complete the marathon next March, I'll likely need to take at least one full week off, maybe 10-14 days. I read something interesting the other day... one of the signs of overtraining is a high resting heart rate. In high school, my RHR was commonly over 80. I just checked it prior to writting this sentence (after running a race and eating pizza), and it is 60. At least I know I'm closer to not overtraining now than I was in high school. I've always been intrigued as to how cycling would supplement running. Of course, that would require me to go buy a bike and stuff like that. Any thoughts on how that's working out for you?

I thought I took it kind of easy after the marathon. M: nothing T: 3.5mi at 9min/mi W: 5.5mi at 8:50min/mi Th: 20min stationary bike F: nothing at all Sat: 7.4mi at 8:14min/mi Sun: 9.3mi of which 7mi at 7:40min/mi My total weekly mileage was 26mi I was going to start pushing my weekly mileage back up this week, but now you guys have me concerned I'm pushing too fast, so I think I'll take today and tomorrow both off, and not try to push weekly mileage back up this week -- I've not swum in 2 weeks, I think, so I could focus on getting back in the water.