I’m just coming off of a 9 mile run at an average pace of 8:55/ mile. While that isn’t burning up the road by most serious runners estimation, I’m pretty happy with it. It was fast enough to get things moving, and at the same time, my heart rate is slowly coming down from what it was at that pace.

I ran most of the country music marathon at slightly slower pace. The difference is that I was taching my heart hard for most of that run, which undoubtably contributed to my poor finishing performance. It’s darn hard to digest nutrition when you have been at a heart rate of 170 for 3 hours. In fact, it’s pretty darn impossible.

The reason I’m writing is because of my monitoring of my heart, as well as my training. I use a variety of software to analyze every run I do. Polar pro trainer, First Beat Athlete and recently, Sports Track as well.

First Beat looks at the R+R data recorded by my HRM, and analyzes each heart beat, both in duration and frequency. It gives a pretty decent overview of how hard a particular workout was for you, and it learns from your previous training to understand what you are capable of. It then puts together a plan optimize your training results, based on what you are doing. In theory.

I’ve found I don’t pay much attention to it anymore. I look at the information, and glance at the training plan, but more often than not, I’ll downplay it’s rest recommendations. For example, after this week, which frankly from a mileage standpoint, isn’t that hard, Firstbeat is telling me that I need to rest for the next 4 days.

I don’t think so. I’ll rest tomorrow, but only because I’m planning to join another runner for a 16-17 mile long run on Saturday, on a marathon course ranked in the top ten of most difficult due to it’s “hills.”

Yeah, I’m thinking it’s pretty stupid too, but I’ll still end up doing it. I’m guessing Firstbeat REALLY won’t like that.

The thing is, looking back over the past year at my data, analyzing it with a training load program (plug in for SportsTrack) and it looks to me like I’m in a relatively light load/training cycle. Maybe medium. I’m still around 30-35 miles a week.

During the first 3 months of this year, I was consistently training when my training stress was -40 and higher. 0 is breaking even between fitness and fatigue, and you want to race when you have a strong positive number (meaning fitness is high, fatigue is low).

I’m averaging 3 to -11. This seems about right, although I question it slightly, based on my historical data. I guess I’d argue that I increased my fitness more effectively when I was training while fatigued (that which does not kill you makes you stronger!)

I’m sure others would argue I’m running on a razor edge between training and injury.

I honestly don’t know.

I’ve had some minor wiggles of pain in one knee, but it’s never been intense, and it has only ached when I’m NOT running. Once I’ve gotten a mile or two behind me, my knees feel fine. Heck, it’s only when I’m past 7 miles that I get any type of discomfort at all, and that’s my feet (because I’m running exclusively in Vibram Bikilas). They don’t “hurt”, but boy I know I’ve ran a distance when I do 13+.

I’m generally happy with my progress now, as I think I’ve increased my fitness to a point that I can run the full marathon distance, at sub 9 minute/mile pace, without destroying my body to the point that it rebels at me trying to feed it and run.

I know I’m due a rest/light period again (and we have a vacation planning for Destin, FL week after next.). I had sorta figured that I’d take it easy then, although I loved running on the beach and by the ocean at Fort Morgan earlier this summer.

Suggestions? How much rest should I be building into my schedule? I know at least one triathlete who trains multiple times a day, every day, rest is for the week. He’s done more than a couple of Ironman’s, however, and so you know automatically that he’s not quite right anyways.

How much rest do You need?

There are many reasons, but there are also no excuses.

• My nutrition training didn’t work. I trained throughout the past 6 months with e-gels. I used them whenever I went more than about 10 miles, which frankly, was a lot of times, especially in 2010. But, I don’t think I have ever used them in the conditions I was in and pacing I was on.

• It was warm and muggy. Not hot, and not particularly bad, by any means, but practically all of my training was done in cold weather. I didn’t consider how much the temp difference and additional humidity would make. And that course has hills. Now, it’s not got a few HILLS, on it, it’s more like it has a few flat areas. I wouldn’t say there were any killer inclines, but they simply were everywhere.

So, When combined with the next reason below, my body simply didn’t have enough experience to deal with the gel load and stress load I was putting on it. So I’ve got to try harder to use my nutrition in a race setting and get something that works better for me.

•   My expected finish time. I’ve been pushing myself harder and harder over the last year. That’s the easy way to describe it. About this time last year, I started running. 2 miles in 30 minutes was pushing it, and there was some walking involved. I’ve done a 10k (my first race ever), a few 5k’s and two half marathons. Reasonable people tell me that even doing a marathon now is pushing it a bit. Frankly, my expectations were too high. I was pushing for the sub 4 hour marathon on my first go.

I told everyone that I would be happy with a finish, but that wasn’t quite true. As I trained, and ran, and put those miles behind me, I kept speeding up. Starting out, 10 min miles were pushing it, especially over distance. But I kept at it, did speed work, and low and behold, my times came down. I consistently was running at a sub 9 min mile. But the kicker was the distance… Most of my speed came after I had done my really long runs, and had started into the taper down phase. Plus, in something I disagree on, most advice tells you that your long runs should be ran slower to minimize injury.

So yes, I went out with a sub 7:30 pace. Yes, I slowed back down pretty quick. But I held a 9 minute average for the first 19 miles. Mile 20 is when it all fell apart for me. I took my fourth egel, walking up the hill into Nashville and it just came right back.

Which leads to the final, real reason… The weather.

• Tornado warnings, and the course being shut down. I crossed the bridge in downtown Nashville after gel 4 issue, pretty much at a fast walk. I hurt. I knew I was going to be be slow at this point. Looking at the sky, and knowing that they were planning on closing the course, I knew my race was done. I don’t mind running in rain, but walking in hail, lightning, and tornados seemed to be too much. I took the turn at 20 miles onto the half course. I didn’t think that I had the time to recover enough to finish the race. I knew I could finish, but I knew I was going to have to slow down a bit, and probably alternate some walks into the mix. I didn’t know what the plan for getting people off the course was going to be, in the case of really bad weather.

What I didn’t know is that they were pushing everyone off the course right around the bend anyways.

Does that make a difference? I don’t know. I guess I know I wasn’t going to make it, regardless. Could I have made it?

YES. I know that. I wouldn’t have been sub 4 hours, but I ran the mile and a half to the half finish line at a 9:15 pace. I could have finished. It probably would have been sub 4:30, although maybe not by much.

It wasn’t my day (nor the day for many others on the full course.)

Elite offered many discounts on the next race, and opened additional slots for San Diego. I didn’t receive such an offer. I don’t mind the race fee… You take your luck. I do wish the slot offer had been extended, as there wasn’t any availability, and I DO want to get this marathon behind me.

So that’s it, in a nut shell. Now I have to keep training (harder) and move on to the next race.

Everyone has seen the weight loss ads with the fine print underneath “Results not Typical”. This is my beginning story of my results, without the weight loss products.

My wife mentioned to me recently of a report saying that obesity in America had recently risen. I’m not going to go into all of the causes, fixes, etc. There are FAR better areas to discuss that. But I do want to write a little bit about something that did happen with me.

First, some pictures. I’m only going to show face shots.

This was me about 3 years ago.

This is me, a week ago.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way, immediately. I still don’t have hair. Strangely enough, I might have a BIT more hair now, but that’s also probably an illusion based on the fact that there isn’t as much face as there used to be. I don’t even want to think how much I weighed then. I know that my waistline was a generous 36, IOW a realistic 38, but I wasn’t going to wear 38s. I’m currently wearing a pair of 30s, loosely. And frankly, 28s would probably be a better fit now.

What I do know is that I had already started to loose some weight in May 2008. That’s when my wife bought us a Wii fit. And no, it didn’t cause me to loose weight, but it did allow me an easy way of tracking my weight. 209 pounds. I’m 6′ tall. I was not obese. But yeah, that’s heavy.

So let’s bring out the graph. Click on it for a larger, more readable version.

This capture is current as of 5/18/2010. So, it’s about 2 years of weight data. It’s also about 1 year since I started running.

What happened to me? I’ve lost over 60 pounds of weight. My average weight seems to be stabilizing around 162, although I’ve said that before. I’ve recently been hitting 158 as a low, and as my training continues, who knows? Body fat keeps falling, based on the scale. The scales I have (Withings Scale) aren’t exact on body fat accuracy compared to calipers or water weighing, but they certainly are good enough, and very useful in terms of showing a trend.

Exactly zero of the clothes that I had fit anymore (including, distressingly, my tailored suit and shirts from Hong Kong). I have 2 pairs of jeans that fit, and I don’t buy clothes unless absolutely needed, because it seems that if it’s in my closet for more than a month, it probably won’t fit anymore. That is the downside, that no one tells you about.

It’s expensive buying new clothes just to replace your previous clothes every month. It’s really cool the first time. Slightly less so the next. And it gets OLD real quick.

So what happened?

I started eating smaller portions.
Healthier foods, although I wasn’t eating HORRIBLE.
I eliminated Soda. Period. Diet or otherwise.
Lots of water replaced it.

Oh, and I ran. A lot.

Last year, I spent the majority of the year in Denver, on the weekdays. As part of the contract I was on, we worked all the time. I couldn’t sleep very well out there for a significant time. So, it quickly because a situation where I would wake up early, and could either get started working again, or run. Easy access to running trails helped. Living with a guy who does Ironman Tris regularly helped tons.

I couldn’t run 2 miles. Heck, I couldn’t run 1 mile without including walking. But I kept going. I entered my first race (a 10k after the aforementioned Ironman convinced me to do it instead of the 5k) on Labor day.

I’m also going farther. After the 10k, running 5k distances just didn’t challenge me. Nor did the 10k to be honest. So, I started training for the Half Marathon. I ran the Nashville irunfortheparty.com Half Marathon in November 2009. I then ran the Memphis St. Jude Half Marathon in December 2009. I dropped about 4 minutes off my time in the month between.

I trained for the Country Music Marathon in April 2010. What happened there will be another post. During that training, I was regularly running longer than those half marathons, and wasn’t even thinking about it.

So, now, 3 years after that first picture, I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m loving running, and I’m actually happy about my body. I wouldn’t say I was unhappy before, but I know I wasn’t happy. I did it gradually, and I don’t regret or miss a thing, except perhaps, that I didn’t start earlier. I focus on the running, but in regards to my weight loss, it was really only part of the equation. I changed my lifestyle. I didn’t diet. I ate well and moderately (although in fact, I NEED to eat more now). I firmly believe that eliminating Soda made a huge difference.

I’m not setting any speed records. I’m ok with that. I read tons of blogs of very competitive racers, and I’m just not there. Yet. I enjoy running, I enjoy racing, even though I KNOW I’m not going to win against Ryan Hall. But against myself, that’s another story completely. I’m still early enough in my training that I continue to improve my Personal Record regularly.

Anyone still reading?

It’s been slightly more than a year since the last update to this site. A lot has happened since then.

I’ve spent more than half of that year in Denver, on a contract job.

Mary Victoria is now in School.

William is now NOT in school (His daycare closed)

I’ve lost my Father to a tragic accident.

The puppy… Is still a puppy, but he’s huge.

I’ve lost almost as much weight as he has gained.

I’m running. More than I ever have. 2 Half marathons are done, as well as a couple of 5k’s and 10ks. Now I’m training for my first full marathon in April.

I don’t know what to do with this space. I’m seriously considering making it a running blog – updates on what I’m doing, a place to publish results, graphs, thoughts, etc.

Part of me really wants to do that, part of me wants to make sure that it’s maintainable. I keep a ton of data in Polar, but getting that information here easily might be another story. I could always link to my RunKeeper pages and update from that… I don’t know.

So… I know this blog is here. It’s called back enough to have this post. I suppose I’ll start writing again, but I doubt it will be as voluminous as I used to be (and that wasn’t much)

I’ve marched in one parade in New Orleans, but had never been on the spectator/tourist side of the fence. The really nice thing about where we stayed for this one, is that we got to see the parade up close and personal, and then could go back to the room, and watch it again from up above. It was REAL nice.

We have the pictures for the Pharoh’s parade on the Saturday after. I’ve got to push them up, and then start getting ready for the next set of Parades! We’re heading back down to Mobile for the culmination of Mardi Gras – Saturday through Fat Tuesday. Mary Vic has been told there are Fire Breathing Dragons on Saturday at the Mystic’s of Time (I think that’s the parade). I hope so, as she has locked down HARD on that idea.

Our kids had a blast. They banded together with some of Jim’s Nephews, as well as Christian, and made their own entertainment, all while actually being quite good. Running laps around a prayer garden seemed to be the greatest attraction, although the baptismal pool held great interest. Sean, being the star, didn’t enjoy the festivities nearly as much. That water seemed quite cold.

Enough talk. Here are the Pictures that I pulled. I didn’t know the etiquette for the ceremony, so I mainly stayed in the back, and just shot with the long lens, but I think I got a few good ones.

When we did the initial sort, I noticed this one. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites. Click through to see the larger version (or click above, it’s the last image in the gallery).

Of course, there were pictures:

These include the shots of Aunt Janie before the Conde Ball. I thought they came out quite well given the five minutes we had to actually take the shots, and the fact that the best backdrop available was a dark window.
I’m going to have to change how I’m posting pictures… It seems that the aspect ratio gets screwed up a little when I upload them directly here. And I’ll probably start posting the pictures to Facebook as well. It seems that they will end up there, regardless on if I post them or not.
Hopefully, I’ll get the Parade pictures and the Baptism photos up tomorrow or Friday.

Jeffie was able to get Friday off from work, I was able to find cheapish hotel tickets, and the Puppy dog had all of his shots up to date. It was the perfect storm coming together.

It’s Friday morning, 7 am. Jeffie’s Uncle Greg was in Mobile, AL prepping, and would be wearing his arm out in 12 hours for Mardi Gras. We intended to see that.

(warning… Don’t read anymore if you don’t have high speed. More pictures than any post prior….)

So… Kids up, get dressed, and kindly be civilized about getting into your car seats! Jack, out of the Kennel, into the van! Throw the last bits of packing around the camera and computer gear already loaded into the van, and we are on the way! Oh yeah, sorry Jack, but your trip is considerably shorter than ours. 7:30am, Jack was introduced to the several young ladies that would be his escort for the weekend at the Franklin Kennels.

It’s about 6.5 hours to Mobile from Franklin. We didn’t make it in that. About Cullman, AL, we realized that the dresses for Mommy and Mary were still in the Kitchen. Outside of Montgomery, we did the Lunch stop as well as a bit of shopping to replace the articles that we weren’t going back for. But we did make it down in plenty of time.

I managed to get reservations at the Holiday Inn on Government street. It’s DIRECTLY on the parade route. The parades start on it’s back property, loop past the front of the hotel about half way through the route, and then runs along the side of the property at the end. It’s hard to find a better stop. Additionally, we were on the tenth floor, almost directly looking down on Government street.

Evidence A:

Our aunt Janie was planning on using room to get changed after the Parade, so that she could attend the Ball. We’ll have to do that one year, but this time was a bit rushed, and kids would need attending to. She brought a bag of Mardi Gras beads and treats from Uncle Greg for the Kids – Just in case. I can’t describe how much we appreciated it. It set the mood of the Kids absolutely perfectly, and really energized them for the Parade to come.

William was so excited he was going to crawl straight through the window. Some more of the Family started to appear, including the second newest arrival – Colin. (The newest arrival – Sean, was the second reason we made this trip. His Baptism was on Saturday – That will probably be the next post.)

Everyone was gearing up. It was a great temp outside, but down on the street, the wind knocked that temp right out of the park, so jackets and bundling were the order for the night.

Christian ready to grab anything coming his way!

Mary Vic… Not sure what’s really going on yet, but having a blast none the less.

Jim and the newest member… bundled and ready to go. Kid was undoubtably the warmest person on the street!

Great Grandma, Mary and Jeff – Great grandma was quite displeased that she didn’t know we were coming… telling everyone she did not like that she was ‘always the last one to know’. We responded simply by stating that it was hard for it to be a surprise when you knew what was going on. I don’t think she appreciated that.

No one knows what’s going on…. But we’re waiting and ready for what ever it might be! It’s out first Mardi Gras, first Parade, everything. I marched in a New Orleans Mardi Gras Parade, but had never been on the other side of the barriers, so it was a great night of firsts for our entire family.

We had a bit of an issue during the parade – Mary did her best to get the treats in the only way she knew how. Holding the bag open for them to put the stuff in. Needless to say, that simply didn’t work. There were tears, there was crying. Then, around the 3rd float, some stuff came back her way, Daddy was able to scoop up two roses for her, and the mood improved significantly.

Shortly afterwards, Mommy and Mary worked as a team to get (Mommy gesturing frantically and catching) the prize of the night! One BIG stuffed Dora the Explorer doll. The Conde who threw that doll made my daughters night and our trip was a fantastic success. See below.

We had a few more issues… One VERY large bag of beads (as in the original shipping bag… probably about 5-10 lbs) was hurled at us… And by us, I mean William and Great Grandma. Thankfully, I was able to snag it right before impact, but man that was scary. Brian took a few beads directly in the face, and Aunt Susan has a black eye from a bag of hershey kisses. I had things bouncing off my head, but I’m guessing some were aiming directly at the camera.  You have to be on your toes, and even that isn’t enough sometimes.

Now, there were a large number of great floats, and this post is long enough as it is. I’ll put up a gallery, or another post just about some of that. But, I would be remiss without this:

Uncle Greg’s Pirate Float! It was the last float of the parade, and frankly, that just made it the highlight of parade in our opinion!

Here’s the man himself. The Stuffed animal in front of him was especially for Christian, and it was delivered in style.

Success!

Unfortunately, the Rose for his wife was NOT delivered quite as well…. But we have proof that it was intended to be!

Collecting the aftermath. Uncle Robert grabbed William and they had a great time (William especially) collecting Doubloons that we had scooped to the area, but couldn’t grab until the barriers were removed. MV and Mommy grabbed half a billion Moon pies.

Mary and her loot! Her getting the Dora was absolutely awesome, even though William has attached onto it very much at this point.

I’ll post more, even if they are just captioned photos… We’ll see how well that goes. I took over 2000 pictures and it’s taking quite a time to work through them. There is the story of the after parade Photo shoot – Aunt Janie had the audacity to tell me that she wasn’t Photogenic. Oh, I have soo much proof otherwise. Plus we have the Baptism, and the parades Saturday Night. I sense a series of posts!

You know that William has followed into the art… With Vigor.

What you DON’T know… is that the newest member of the Family aspires to greatness! Anne Carroll hasn’t seen him yet, but I expect that the application will be processed quickly and accepted. Click the pictures to get more detail.

Here, we have the initial greeting and setup:

Dominance is tested, and we begin the Ballet.

The leap, executed although the stretch doesn’t fully extend… 1 point deduction.

Check your partner’s position, and prepare for the grand finale.

It’s the Flying dog duo! 8 paws, 7 airborne.

Perhaps the dance should be left to the children. I hear the flying squirrels have some openings.

But they have some winters, and they knew how to keep from freezing to death.

Fashionable… well, maybe not. However, you fold the flaps down, and it’ll keep you warm. ….ish. 8 degrees out there, and puppy had to go for his walk.

I’ll spare you the photo of me wearing it. I didn’t want to break the new camera.