the17thman

ASICS - Sink Or Sprint Test

Wednesday's Swim Report - Pre-Holiday Edition

Been too lazy to post never mind workout.  Ran 20 miles on Monday and felt so sore yesterday but standing on my feet at work for 8 hours helped that out, not.  Now I'm just relaxing waiting for Hanukkah Harry and Saint Nick to deliver my new running sneakers and my water belt.  I can't wait to running in my new sneakers!  I am in serious need of new sneakers according to shoe tracker at slowgeek.com.  I had been deciding between a few sneakers:

Mizuno Wave Inspire 6
Asics Gel Foundation 9
Brooks Addiction 9
Nike Zoom Nucleus MCT
Saucony Progrid Stabile CS

And I made a decision based on a sale and then based on what the store had at the time.  I know not the best way to decide but I had researched and tried them all out and really didn't seem to tell a difference.  But what do I know?  Tomorrow will be a swim day for me with a possible short run beforehand.  Working to midnight tonight at the hell store so who knows if I'll get up that early or not.  Now onto some swimming news that I may have missed while out running...

1.  The Downers Grove Sun reports "YMCA event gives Christmas tree unique decorating touch…He must have left his reindeer in the parking lot, as the big jolly fellow with the red hat made his appearance with a splash."  The decorated a floating tree and Santa made swam with an inner tube among other aquatic holiday treats.

2.  TMZ reports on Michael Phelps playing it up in Atlantic City with "Michael Phelps -- Pot Committed."

3.  The fine folks over at The FINIS Blog review the FINIS Swimsense in "My First Three Swims with the Swimsense Performance Monitor."  Someday maybe I'll get one of these.  Note:  My birthday is February 14th.

4.  SwimNetwork comments on the latest swimmer to swim with The Gators, "Peter Vanderkaay 's recent announcement about moving training locations from Ann Arbor to Gainesville reminds me of another midwest-based swim superstar moving to a happy, sunshiney, more competitive training atmosphere: Matt Grevers."

5.  Sticker Collecting?  Georgia Tech Swimming & Diving Blog talks about Helmet Sticker Collecting but for swimmers.  The blog writes "The Anvil 'helmet' decal.  While it's not a new idea in the world of sport (football in particular) we do believe we are the first swimming and diving team to employ the 'helmet decal' as a recognition award."

6.  NESN did some heavy investigating to find "Baby Swimming in Tub On the Way to Becoming Next Michael Phelps."

7.  Rob over at Robaquatics get's his hands or rather his feet on the FINIS new all rubber Foil Monofins in "Foil-ed".

8.  The 3rd and last FINIS post for today is "FINIS Announces Official Sponsorship of Jason Lezak, Gold Medal Olympian…Lezak will be one of the first to compete in the Hydrospeed™ Velo Swimsuit, a high performance tech swimsuit approved for competition by FINA, the governing body for competitive swim. The Velo, available for both men and women, features smart compression racing technology with minimal permeability and blended materials that provide superior friction reduction limiting resistance on the body. The panel construction allows compression and freedom where you need it most, and the suit is calendared which is a technical heating process that produces an ultra smooth and lightweight surface. Available now for $299.99 MSRP at FINISinc.com."

9.  In Boston on New Years Eve with nothing to do?  Well New England Masters Swim Club reports that the "Cambridge Masters SC hosting annual 100×100 New Year’s Eve Swim."  I'll be busy drinking 100xglasses of wine!

10.  Eric over at Kast-a-way has way too much free time this Holiday Season so he came up with this great illustration "Swim Smooth’s Swim Types Parody: Alternative Swim Types."  You'd think he'd be busy rushing out Holiday Speedo orders!

5.5 Brrr.....Miles.

This week is a crap week with a 7am shift, a 6am shift and two nights I'm working to midnight so I decided to go running tonight.  The temperature has yet to hit the 30's yet so I figured run now or run tomorrow when it's in the 20's.  20's?  Umm...I don't think I've felt what 20 degrees feels like in over 10 years.  Hell, 30 is horrible enough.  So I put on my new Nike Men's Lightweight Run Glove and my Nike Livestrong Therma-Fit Running Headband and headed out.  Brrr...actually at first it wasn't so bad.  I did a loop around the neighbordhood to check out the holiday lights.  People really decorate for the holidays around here.  I've never seen so many lights in my life.  It's crazy!  I wanted to take pictures but running with the gloves on didn't work with me taking pictures.  So I just ran and ran. 
5.1 miles.  My first mile was slow as I was looking more at the lights and trying to take a few pictures.  Pace for mile one was 10:40.  Then I picked it up with 8:43/8:53/9:27/8:52.  Now I messed up pressing the button at the end wearing my gloves so it gave me a 44 minute pace for the last 1/2 mile.  So pissed about that cuz' I was sprinting home since I had to pee so bad.  I bet I would of had a good pace.  I'll figure it out later when I have a second to do math.  But 5.1 miles for tonight.  Will go swimming tomorrow morning in the cold cold cold outdoor pool.  Well the water will be warm at least.  Ugh!

Sixteen Down, Ten More To Go

Saturday means long run day with the Team In Training group.  I decided last night that I'd run to meet up with the group run the loop and then run home.  I mapped it out to be 16 miles so I figured it was a good run.  Last night I went to bed early hoping to get a good night rest so the run would be a good one.  Luckily I did sleep well so well I didn't want to wake up.  Finally I did, got myself together and took the dog out for a walk.  Brrr...I can see my breath.  Damn that's cold!  I came back in and grabbed my stuff.  Since we meet to run at 6:30 I gave myself 50 minutes to get there so I left at 5:40am.  It's way too cold and dark at that time of day.  The run was a tad shorter then 5 miles since I was able to run on some closed to traffic areas.  On the way home I had to take detours running a bit more than 5 miles to balance it out.  Part of the path was pitch black and I could hardly see my feet.  Grrr... On the way to the group I had to stop three times and pee in the bushes.  Not fun at all.  Once running I only stopped twice during the first two miles of the loop to pee in bushes again.  While running I was cold even though I was wearing layers.  Just never good warm up.  Even when the sun came out it wasn't warm at all.  I felt good for the first 10 miles.  It was a piece of cake.  I ate my Gu Energy Gingerbread at around mile 9 at one of our water stations.  Someday I'll learn to eat and drink while running.  But not yet so I stopped quickly.  I felt pretty good till the end of the loop.  I stopped for a pee break and to sign out from the group.  Then it was time to run home.  Since morning tee times were starting I had to dodge idiots in golfing carts.  I also had to take the detour home since the workers were out doing work on the cart paths.  I was so hurting during these final miles.  My legs were tired and the cold was getting to me.  I was ready to give up.  My pacing slowed up but looking back I wasn't going as slow as I thought I was. 

Mile 1 - 8:52

Mile 2 - 8:52

Mile 3 - 9:30

Mile 4 - 9:14

Mile 5 - 9:147

Mile 6 - 8:53

Mile 7 - 9:26

Mile 10 - 10:38 (i think this is when I chatted with someone from the group who was running the opposite way of the loop.)

Mile 11 - 9:55

Mile 12 - 10:37

Mile 13 - 10:32

Mile 14 - 9:26

Mile 15 - 9:56

Mile 16 - 10:39

So a 16 mile run or actaully 16.08 miles.  Only 10+ miles to go.  Gotta admit while running the last few miles I was starting to doubt if I will be able to run a marathon.  I know I can but I'm just not ready yet.  Good thing I have a month to get to the point that I feel okay to run 26.2 miles.  I'm going to miss next week's training run so I'll be doing a long run by myself.  Which sucks since I'll have to stop and buy water on my way. 

One last thing the Gu Energy Vanilla Gingerbread Gels are yummy!  Almost too yummy!  I just got to remember to bring more then just one next time I run.

13 Mile Running Towards Spanish Springs

Since the Team in Training Group didn't have a run this week I was on my own to get in my weekend miles.  So last night I mapped out a run before heading to bed.  Since most of the construction around here is slowly wrapping up I had a somewhat clear route to run.  This morning my alarms went off around 5am and I slowly got ready.  It really was putting one shoe on then motivating myself to put the other shoe on.  I ate my last Gu Energy Espresso Love and some water before heading out. 

I headed out down the street and turning on to the main road and the golf cart path.  I did map it out using gmap-pedometer but it wasn't exact.  The path doesn't show up so I used the road as a guide when mapping it out.  But the path is actually longer as it twists and turns around the golf course and developments.  Also the path has little "hills" that brings the golf cart path above the road.  On the way home these little "hills" became killers although I did get lost in the music at first and didn't realize I had climbed up a "hill" till I was on my way down.  Wahoo.

I actually was enjoying the run getting lost in music and thinking about the new sneakers I'll be getting.  I'm leaning towards the getting the Mizuno Wave Inspire 6.  It was one of the pairs that I was looking at and with the new 7 about to hit stores the 6 has been marked down.  I'm just waiting to use a "Friends & Family" discount night at one store to buy them.  My other three choices were not in stock at the store so that is why I went towards  the Mizuno.  Yeah, I'm broke and cheap.  The other shoes I was looking at are:

Mizuno Wave Inspire 6
Asics Gel Foundation 9
Brooks Addiction 9
Nike Zoom Nucleus MCT
Saucony Progrid Stabile CS

I've been hunting new shoes from some time but finally breaking down and getting them.  My Asics Gel Foundation that I've been running are getting old and the SlowGeek.com Shoe Tracker is telling me so!  Hopefully the store will have my size still left or I'll just breakdown and spend about double the price on a different pair.  Speaking of being cheap I recently purchased a long sleeve C9 running shirt at Target.  It has a zipper in front to pull over.  Well I guess it was okay but I had to unzip the shirt the full length for it to be comfortable.  Otherwise the zipper was rubbing against my neck and it was getting annoying during the first mile.  Might just wear it on shorter runs.  It was only 18 bucks on sale and I bought it when we were having record low temps.  Anyways...

While running I had to take my first pee break behind some bushes only to realize that I had just pee'd in front of one of the golf course groundkeepers.  Doh!  I continued and ran a bit over 6 miles down to Spanish Springs which is another "fake" city center.  After not finding a bathroom I continued a bit more to a shopping plaza with a Publix.  I figured they'd be open, I could pee and get some more water.  So that was a bit of a rest period for me.  Then it was time to head back. 

As for my pacing I was faster for the 2nd half of the run -

9:30 mile one

8:52 mile two

9:54 mile three

8:52 mile four

10:38 mile five

10:09 mile six

-mile 5 and 6 was down in the downtown area with some construction and traffic.

9:27 mile 7

8:51 mile 8

9:25 mile 9

9:27 mile 10

8:52 mile 11

9:24 mile 12

10:39 mile 13

which averaged to a 9:51.  I felt good on the run letting myself enjoy it.  The first mile was the worse mile but I got over the ill comforting shirt.  Since I started to run in the dark I also had my light strapped to my left arm which by mile 11 felt like it weighed 10 lbs instead of the 10 ozs.  Since I got home I took a quick power nap since I got to work today.  Work today is so going to suck!

An Easy Running Loop Here At The Villages

I am running out of creative new routes to run around so I just continued with the same loop I've been doing the last two weeks.  Since I'm running early in the morning I'm trying to keep my runs on main roads with plenty of light.  Actually the route is on a secondary road but they have golf cart lanes which I run in.  The sorta main road Buena Vista has golf cart lanes but they are pretty dark as they are off to the side of the street.  So I run a loop around some of the neighborhoods which this morning caught the attention of the neighborhood watch.  For a mile or so they were stalking me driving very slowly behind me.  I wanted to stop and tell them to fuck off but figured that might not be the best thing.  Eventually they pulled ahead of me and waited at one of the mail stations which I passed.  I was expecting them to follow me the rest of the way but guess they figured I was harmless. 

As for the run it wasn't as bad as Thursday.  No back hip pain but my left knee did feel a bit in pain for a short while.  I just shifted my weight and adjusted my gait and it was better.  I think my sneakers are really showing signs of overuse. 

Really was hoping to have at least another month till' I needed to get new sneakers.  Will have to monitor my next few runs to see how my body is doing.  Hopefully it's just my body getting back into a regular running training program and not the death of my sneakers.

I put up a poll online for people to weigh in on which sneakers I should get on zoomerang.  I'm going to leave this poll up for a few weeks and in the meantime post reviews of the various sneakers that I'm debating on.  So far I'm looking at:

Mizuno Wave Inspire 6
Asics Gel Foundation 9
Brooks Addiction 9
Nike Zoom Nucleus MCT
Saucony Progrid Stabile CS

If any of you fine readers have worn or tried any of these brands feel free to vote at zomerang. 

Running With Rocks

The weather is finally getting to the comfortable stages of fall.  The humidity has gone down and the temps are down a bit.  I even felt a breeze when running this morning.  The weather is making running a hell of a lot easier.  Too bad my body is deciding to break down with new pains.

Since I knew the weather was going to be a bit better I took my time before heading out for my morning run. Spent an hour just getting myself together and reading emials and such.  Then it was time to run.  I started running on a loop that I had planned out but by following the golf car path I ended up making a wrong turn.  Not all that bad as I knew how to get back to the loop. 

When it comes to running for me the first mile is always the toughest mile.  The aches and pains of getting the body moving always wants me to stop running and go back to bed.  Although the first mile pains did go away as usual I had a new pain at about mile 2.5 to about mile 4.  My left hip was feeling some pain.  I tried to slow up and watch how my foot was impacting with the ground to try to see if I was doing something wrong.  I even took a breather and rested for a bit. The pain did subside and vanish by the end of the run but before that I had doubts of finishing my run. Since I started running a bit later the last few miles of my run I had to contend with more golf carts then usual.  Which drives me crazy as down here everyone walks/runs going towards traffic.  So every so often I'm blinded by the headlights of golf carts heading right towards me head on.  Some of the golf cart drivers are good and move all the way over to give me space and others not so much.  I had a pretty close call with one driver who must have decided that I was invisible.  I started to think that I should carry rocks with me and if they don't seem to be moving as they approach me toss a rock at them to wake them up.  Or maybe just wait a few weeks till it is cool enough to run by daylight.  Either way works but the rock throwing sounds like fun.

As for the run itself it was an okay run.  Was able to get in 6 miles this morning.  So far for the month I'm right on my goals for running.  If I keep this up by October 1st I'll have a good solid base to start my next marathon training program.  Right now I don't feel at all comfortable running anything more then 10 miles.  So I will need to stick to a training program for October, November and December if I'm going to run the Disneyworld Marathon.

I put up a poll online for people to weigh in on which sneakers I should get on zoomerang.  I'm going to leave this poll up for a few weeks and in the meantime post reviews of the various sneakers that I'm debating on.  So far I'm looking at:

Mizuno Wave Inspire 6
Asics Gel Foundation 9
Brooks Addiction 9
Nike Zoom Nucleus MCT
Saucony Progrid Stabile CS

If any of you fine readers have worn or tried any of these brands feel free to vote at zomerang.  I'll be using the results to help me decide on my next sneaker.

Running Shoe Battle Royale - Mizuno vs Asics vs Brooks vs Nike vs Saucony

Some mornings I wake up and just can't get out of bed to go running.  This morning was one of them.  After 15 minutes of debating on more sleep or running I caved into running.  So 44 minutes after my alarm first went off I was out the door.  Which means I am off and running at 5:29am.

Since I've been running in the outer edge of the streets in the "golf cart" lanes which are slanted for rain run off for drainage I've been getting some rubbing from my sneaker on the inside of my right foot around the tongue of my sneaker.  As I'm running and my flat feet are pronating in already the slant of the drainage makes it worse.  In order to protect my little rubbing blister that I already have I wore a different sock today that is a bit higher arond the ankle.  The only thing is that these socks always leave me with blisters on my low arches.  With all that in mind I was running in the street or as much as I could run in the street to avoid the slant of the road.  Fortunatly I felt pretty good to the last 2 miles.  As daylight approached and 7am tee times were coming I had to move more and more into the slant of the drainage. 

The area around here is pretty flat with a few baby "hills" which are more like bumps in the road.  On the main golf cart paths I can run up and down the tunnel access points to create more short hill runs.  I may have to make that part of my training.  Run to the tunnel access points and just go up and down a few times. 

The first part of the run seems to be mostly downhill which is okay as I pretty much run to a point and return.  Today I ran part of the detour then down the path for a bit and at 4.5 miles turned back.

The two elevation graphs above show the lack of hills on my run so that is something I will need to keep in mind for future training.  As for my sneakers I'm less then 100  miles to I'm due for new sneakers.  I put up a poll online for people to weigh in on which sneakers I should get on zoomerang.  I'm going to leave this poll up for a few weeks and in the meantime post reviews of the various sneakers that I'm debating on.  So far I'm looking at:

Mizuno Wave Inspire 6
Asics Gel Foundation 9
Brooks Addiction 9
Nike Zoom Nucleus MCT
Saucony Progrid Stabile CS

If any of you fine readers have worn or tried any of these brands feel free to vote at zomerang.  I'll be using the results to help me decide on my next sneaker. 

 

5 Mile Run / Time For New Sneakers!

Nothing different or interesting about this mornings run.  Just 5.1 miles.  I ran around the nieghborhood around one of the golf courses to a gate about 2.5 miles away then turned around. Tomorrow I will hopefully run a longer run. After the last three runs I really think it's time for new sneakers.  Grr...in the past I used a website that kept track of how much I ran in each of my sneakers via Nike+.  But I can't remember which website I was using.  Think it had "geek" in it's name but will have to look up past posts from a year or two ago.  Something to do later today.  No matter what I will get new sneakers sometime in October/November.  It'll take me a few weeks of research before I decide on which new sneaker I'll get.  Purchasing running sneakers is an ordeal for me as I'm flat footed and pronate.  If I get the wrong shoes I'll be hurting and then I've wasted a 100 bucks or more.  Any suggestions in brand/models?

UPDATE:  So after reading old posts I found the SlowGeek.com sneaker life gauge or shoe tracker.  After I reset the date of when I started running with my Asics I have about 100 more miles of life on my sneakers.  But I think I'm going to at least start the hunt for new sneakers.  I really don't like my current pair and since they are rubbing the wrong way on my right foot I should just break the bank and get new ones before the I get to 350 miles with them.

 

Running In Circles

so I woke up a bit earlier then my normal running day to attempt to beat the heat.  But even running before 6am wasn't much escape from the humidity.  At about mile 5 of the 8+ mile run my dry fit shirt was so wet it felt like I was running with weights on my back. 
I was out the door before 6am with a map routed out in my mind.  I headed out what seemed to be in the middle of the night and ran around the loop at the end of the street.  I then started on the loop I ran earlier this week but detoured towards another loop.  This loop has a "hill" which is more of a bump in the road.  As I was running up this bump I passed another runner who commented about "trying to get any hill to run on around here."  I answered back and we had a brief conversation as I continued to run past the other runner.  But since it was dark out and I had no clue to where I was I ran around the loop at least once if not more.  I was running up streets hoping to get back to the "main" street but kept on being back on the loop.  I knew I was doing circles when I ran into the same guy walking his dog.  Somehow I got out of the loop and back on to the main street.  Mind you main street around here means rural street but with golf cart lanes.  At least I could see the golf cart lanes so I knew I was heading in some direction on a main street and out of the loop.  When I figured out my location I headed home to make a quick pee pit stop.  I was already on 4 miles.  After my pit stop I was back to running doing the loop that I had ran earlier this week.  It was getting day light outside and warming up.  T

The final loop is mostly "main" roads and is currently part of a detour for the areas in which the golf car lanes are being repaved.  I figured it was safer then the random loops of side roads.  I figured wrong as I was nearly run over by some senile old man driving an big boat of a car.  The man must have been blind as he was driving his vehicle in the golf cart lane.  Also while finishing the loop it was almost tee time for the golfers so I had to dodge a old men driving golf carts who seemed to think I was invisible or target practice.  I need to get going even earlier to avoid these folks for my next run.

Overall the run was okay.  The heat and humidity was pretty bad.  Everytime I passed a storm drain I felt a wave of heat coming up from below.  I just can't get use to the humidity when running.  Hopefully in time I will but for now I need hit the shower the minute I get home to cool off and remove the layers of sweat build up.  Oh and for some reason my Asics tongue kept on rubbing my right foot the wrong way.  I have a blister.  I know that I am flatfooted and pronate so I'm thinking I was really over pronating as running in the golf cart lane meant at some points I was running on a slope.  Not good!  Not good at all.  Might be getting time for new sneakers.  I have not been happy with these sneakers at all.
The good news is that out of the 9 months of the year so far this month is already ranked 5th for most miles per month.  I'm going to make it mu goal to make September rank 4th of miles per month so far for 2010.  The first three months of the year were my LA Marathon training months and run so no need to go that crazy again in my training.  At least not yet.