Baker's Dozen

Unfortunately the title isn't a clever way for me to say that I ran 13 miles.  It's the number (approximately) of donuts I ate last weekend while in Minnesota.  Keep in mind, these weren't normal, full-sized donuts but they also weren't the mini powdered sugar donuts we all grew up eating.  L and I got up early last Friday morning to catch a 6:55am flight to Minneapolis.  The church that my Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle, cousins, etc. go to was hosting a missionary conference and my parents and brother + family were attending.  It was a fun-filled weekend that went too quickly.  On Saturday we went to a pumpkin patch/apple orchard/corn maze that my Dad's cousin owns and we had a blast.  My favorite part was when we took a "hay" ride through the orchard and Steve, the owner, had the driver stop so we could all walk into the orchard and pick some fresh apples.  This was special as it is not something they normally do on the ride.  There were two families, not related to us, that were also on the ride so they got to enjoy the special pit stop.  I have to say, I've never had a fresher, tastier apple in my life.  The apple was called a Winter Sweet apple and, wow, it was sweet.  It tasted like candy.

Doesn't this look delicious?

L examining her apple carefully

Even L, who doesn't like the apple skin, ate most of her apple. Steve and his wife were so generous by not letting us pay for a thing while we were there.  Anything we wanted to do, see, eat was on the house.  As I was trying to buy three donuts for the road the cashier asked "Are you an Eckdahl?"  I said that I was and he said to put my money away and that Steve would kill him if he took my money.  The lady running the donut machine, upon hearing I was an Eckdahl, gave me three additional donuts for the two hour ride home.  L ate two of them as soon as we got in the car (completely covering her face in cinnamon/sugar in the process) and then managed to sleep for the entire drive home.  The rest of the weekend was spent visiting with family and watching L play with her cousins.  My MN family are such wonderful people and every time I visit I wish I was able to see them more often. I also wish that Angie and N had been able to come with us.  Maybe we'll have to make the apple orchard an annual event.

Eckdahl family minus Angie and N

As I mentioned last week I ran 8 miles on Thursday to preemptively burn off some of the donuts.  I didn't run at all while I was in MN and am trying to make up for it now.  I ran 3 miles Tuesday, 3 miles on Wednesday, and then 4.38 miles yesterday.  For my 4.38 mile run I tried a new interval strategy.  Instead of my usual run the first mile, walk 2 minutes, run the remainder of the mile, walk 2 minutes, run remainder of mile, etc. I stretched all my runs to 1.38 miles.  Why 1.38 miles?  Because in 2 minutes of walking I go 0.12 miles so that makes each interval 1.5 miles.  Being a nerd and loving to over-analyze everything, I entered this interval method into my self created half marathon calculator and it should cut around 4 minutes off my time.  I used to feel like doing intervals was cheating and that people would look down on me because I throw walks into my "runs" and, for the most part, I've gotten over it.  I think that if I didn't do intervals I might not have the will power to get these long runs in.  I mentioned this once to one of my aunts and she told me she does the same thing and told me about a guy named Jeff Galloway who, in the late 70s or early 80s, developed a run/walk system for running to 1) make it more enjoyable, 2) reduce injuries, and 3) introduce running to people that do not consider themselves as runners.  While I didn't know anything about Jeff Galloway or his system until July, I found that the method I created for myself is very close to the one that he recommends.  I was looking at his website again yesterday and found this chart:

Run-walk-run ratio should correspond to the pace used (Runners).

8 min/mi—run 4 min/walk 35 seconds

9 min/mi— 4 min run-1 min walk

10 min/mi—-3:1

11 min/mi—2:30-1

12 min/mi—-2:1

13 min/mi—-1:1

14 min/mi—30 sec run/30 sec walk

15 min/mi—30 sec/45 sec

16 min/mi—30 sec/60 sec

My typical intervals are 7+ minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking which follow very close to his run/walk ratios.  I'm currently averaging somewhere around a 9:30 min/mile on my long runs which would put me on pace for a 2 hour 5 minute half marathon.  One of the great things about this run/walk system, not to mention the fact that I always have a walk to look forward to, is that my mile pace remains very consistent from mile 1 to mile 10.  One thing that Galloway mentions is that the first walk break is the most important, the second is the next most important, and so on.  This is to avoid getting tired right off the bat which obviously would affect you in the later miles.  I started thinking about this more and decided that, for my 10 mile run tomorrow, I'm going to try the 4 min run/1 min walk interval rather than running 7+ minutes and walking for 2 minutes.  I'm a little concerned that this much starting and stopping will wear me out faster but I'm very curious to see how my time compares to my last 10 mile run, not to mention compare how my lungs, legs, and feet feel at the end.

OK, sorry about all that running talk.  On to football!

I guess I should never watch another CSU game if this is how they respond.  CSU beat Wyoming, on the road 52 - 22!  Yes you read that right, they won by 30 points and actually "held" a team to 22 points.  Not just any team either, the nation's #10 ranked offense.  Kapri Bibbs ran for 201 yards and 3 TDs and (much maligned by me) QB Garrett Grayson had a great game completing 78% of his passes for 219 yards and 3 TDs.  As you read last week I predicted CSU would lose by 18 points so a 30 point victory came out of nowhere.  This might be one of those games that can turn a season around.  For the last few years I've been calling for a defining win and I think we finally got it.  Now we need to see how they respond on Saturday night at Hawaii.  It's gotta be hard playing a game at 8:30pm MST when you're used to playing at 2 in the afternoon.  CSU is favored by 2.5 points and while I said I wouldn't do it, I'm predicting that the Rams win their second consecutive road game 34-28.

In case you didn't believe me

Last week I predicted Denver would lose their first game of the season and I was right.  Unfortunately Denver played their worst game of the season and lost to the Colts 39 - 33 (I predicted 37 - 34!.)  They looked shaky right from the start and their 4 turnovers (OK 3 since the safety doesn't officially count as a turnover) were just too much to overcome.  I just heard that fumble prone Ronnie Hillman is going to be inactive for the game (hooray!) and undrafted rookie C.J. Anderson will see his first game action.  I'm very excited to see what Anderson can do and think the Broncos will ruin Mike Shanahan's return to the Mile High City 38 - 27.  Let's hope there are no injuries and that the team can get healed up during their bye week next week.  Oh yeah, let's also hope for a Chiefs loss against the Browns (yah right.)  

Do you throw any walks into your long runs?
Do you like apples?  What is your favorite variety of apple?