hopeful

3 miles of run/walking this morning, 1 with doggie and 2 solo.  First 100 mile month since last November.  Pretty excited about that.  Still working with a nagging plantar and tingly feet but I'm persevering.  Still very hopeful about finishing my 40th ultra at the end of September and some long events this winter. 

2 months down, 10 to go in my quest for 20 for 20!!

morning

17 miles at Townlake this morning in 3:43.  My original plan was 20 miles but I pushed a bit harder than I should have on the first 10.  That's okay.  I was at 12:30 mile pace for the first 16.5 and then walked the last half mile.  Very good morning of running considering the time of year we're in!!

not too shabby

7 miles in the hood this morning in 1:22.  Not too shabby....

fucking hurting

I can't take anymore of these Thursday morning runs in this humidity.  It's become too much of a suffer fest for me.  It takes me so long to get warmed up lately.  I enjoy seeing my pals but I can't even join in any conversation.  I'm trudging along just barely keeping up and fucking hurting doing it.  When we finish I can't even talk, I'm totally spent.  Starting next week I'm just going to keep up as long as I can and then mix in some walking, I don't know what else to do.  My life is stressful enough already.  I need my running to be fun, enjoyable and something to look forward to.

lovie

Up at 4 for a 1 mile run/walk with doggie and then an easy 4 with Lovie!!

20 for 20 and beyond....

How a person defines themselves is an interesting thing.  What do we think of when a person comes to mind.  Who are they?  What do they do that's interesting or different from the herd?  Running is how I've come to define myself.  As a young teen I can remember thinking that that was how I wanted to be remembered.  I've put together a crazy streak of running the last 19 plus years.  How does a person do that?  2.86 miles a day for 6984 days straight?  How does that happen? It seems impossible!  A big chunk of life and living have passed by during those years.  I really haven't taken particularly good care of myself.  I've eaten a ton of fast food, drank an unbelievable amount of beer.  Surgeries, my parents getting sick and then the long grieving process afterwards.  Lots and lots of little niggling injuries along the way that needed to be figured out without missing too many miles.  Lots and lots of water and very little soda have been a big positive.  But my running diary (now blog) has been my conscience and a voice of reason.  I've always had that to answer to.  That voice saying, "you've got to get out there and get some miles logged down".

When I started running I can remember thinking that "this thing could get out of hand".  With the way my mind works I knew that if I began writing it down in a running diary that I'd be tied closely to it.  Sure enough that's exactly what's happened.  There was never a particular time or long term mileage goal in the early years.  It was just getting each run documented.  It was a simple way to track the mileage on my shoes and have a reference to look back at.  The early years were the high mileage years.  I'm glad I had those in the bank because until last year I'd only made the "minimum" 20 mile weeks in 3 of the previous 10 years.  4 of those years were really close so they didn't hurt the overall average too badly.  I must  have been 6-7 years in when I took the time to see what my average weekly miles were.  It was at that time that I thought maintaining 20 mile weeks for a long time would be a cool number.  Now that I've made it to the 20,000 mile point it's time to look ahead to the next goal.  I'm 10 months and some days shy of 20 consecutive years of 20 mile weeks.

Having a very supportive and understanding wife has been hugely helpful.  If I'd had a wife that made a big deal of my getting up super early on Saturday mornings to head out in the woods for hours on end there's no way I'd be where I am with this streak.  She realized right away how happy it made me and has never given me any grief at all about how high I prioritize my running.  Along the way I've made some excellent running friends too.  There are a particular few that I'm close with that have achieved some astounding things.  I've had those friends to look up to and to try to emulate.

I have to give some credit to the city we live in too.  Austin has a very active feel to it not to mention plenty of places to get your run on.  Townlake downtown, Barton Creek and Bull Creek.   All wonderful places to run with lots of options for long mileage or whatever suits you that day.

For years all things seemed possible.  Nowadays that doesn't always seem to be the case.  Sometimes now I feel like I'm just holding on.  I've got some physical issues I can't seem to get past that are holding me back from going very long anymore.  I haven't given up hope though.  I have a few ultra races on my radar.  I do wonder though, if I'm at the point where I need to forget about doing anymore long races and risk injury, or just focus on maintaining 90 mile months and making sure I get my 20 for 20 and beyond.....

10th Annual Rick Memorial Run

Last Saturday was quite the big day.  Misty, Shan, Sam, Mark and  and I ran the Toughest 10k in Texas in Lampasas.  It was a morning filled with heat, humidity and camarderie.  The race date coincided pretty closely with the 10th anniversary of us losing our good friend Rick Gastelum.   I think we've only missed one year doing some sort of special run for him.  Through the years we've done varying distances but this year was the first time we haven't done at least an out and back (15 miles) on the Barton Creek Greenbelt.  Several weeks ago during a Thursday morning run it occurred to me that the 10k we'd all signed up for might be a fun and different way to remember Rick.  Everyone agreed.

An interesting twist had Shan pushing 8 month old Sydney in her baby jogger AND Mark pushing 10 year old Lily in her baby jogger!  I think we pretty much knew Sam was gonna lead the way.  I sort of thought I might be able to keep up with Mark and possibly Shan but it was not to be.

For the record here's how we finished;

Sam       56:59    19th overall 1st in his age group

Shan      58:32    27th overall 1st in her age group

Mark     59:49     34th overall 1st in his age group

Jeff        1:02:19  38th overall 2nd in my age group

Misty    1:12:17  56th overall of 73 finishers

I guess we're all pretty critical of ourselves but I feel like I was the low performer.  Oh well, I did give it everything I had for that particular race and day.  

The most important take away from Saturday is through all these years we are all sticking close together as friends and that's the best way for us to keep Rick's memory alive.  

rough

For whatever reason I think the heat and humidity is affecting more profoundly this year than in past years.  Our Thursday morning runs are fucking rough these days.  I've already requested we cut the run short by 2 miles and I still needed to walk this morning.  Oh well, it is what it is I suppose.  I'll hang in till it's not fun anymore then I'll walk....