Know Thigh Body

This was going to be a big weekend for my half marathon training.  I was all set to run a personal best 9 miles on Saturday.  Unfortunately the weather had different plans.

We woke up to snow this morning

While the snow might be gone by tomorrow morning (they are predicting rain/snow showers throughout the night and early morning) the cold weather won't.  Looking at the forecast it should only be around 30 degrees at 7am which is the time I usually run.  It looks like I've got 3 options.  Option #1 is to suck it up, put on some warm running gear and battle the cold.  Option #2 is to wait until later in the day when the weather is in the 40s and 50s.  The last option is to bust out the long run on my nice, new treadmill.  I'm leaning toward option #3 because I'm a wimp about running in hot/cold weather, and it's tough to do it during the middle of the day because that's usually when we're out running errands.  The good thing about my treadmill is that when I run on it my Achilles feels great.  The bad thing is that it's boring and it's just not as satisfying running a long distance on a treadmill compared to completing a long run outside and looking at the course and my splits on the Garmin website.

Around 6 months ago my friend Chris (the ringleader of the guys trip to Vegas to run the half marathon) told me that at some point in my training it would stop being about my cardio shape and more about my leg strength.  He was right.  Usually at the end of my long runs my lungs feel pretty good but my thighs and feet are pretty sore.  I naively thought that running would build up my leg strength and no other exercise would be necessary.  Now knowing that that isn't the case I decided to start doing squats and lunges.  I've been running a lot so this shouldn't be a big deal right?  Wrong.  After two days of squats/lunges I was afraid my rubber legs wouldn't get me through my softball game.  I did them again on Wednesday and by that night I was hurting.  Do you know the pain I'm talking about?  It's the pain where you just have to drop the last 6" on the toilet (TMI?) because you just can't lower yourself all the way down.  Fortunately my run on Thursday morning loosened my tight muscles a bit so I'm not hurting too much right now.  I guess I should have started this about 4 months ago.  Oops.

This kid makes it look so easy

The Broncos take their 4-0 record to Jerry-World on Sunday to play the 2-2 Dallas Cowboys.  While Vegas only has Denver as 7 point favorites it sounds like the rest of the world has Denver winning by a lot more.  As for me?  I'm not so sure.  Maybe it's from watching the Broncos in the post-Elway years, but I'm nervous.  I was nervous about the Giants game and I was even nervous about the Eagles game.  I guess it depends on which Dallas team shows up.  I would love to be an arrogant fan and always believe my team is going to blow out the other teams but I'm not.  I'll sit on my couch on Sunday afternoon clutching the remote control living and dying on each "Omaha" and "hurry hurry" Peyton Manning shouts out.  What I need to do is look back at all the 12-4, 13-3, and 14-2 seasons Manning had with the Colts and realize that this Denver team is better than (IMHO) all of those Colts teams.  Anyway, this should be an exciting game (much better than next week's game against Jacksonville will be) and I'm looking forward to it.  I think Denver will win a close game (it won't be the worst thing in the world for them to have to face some adversity in a fourth quarter).  DEN 34 DAL 30.

Manning explaining to Tony Romo how to order at www.papajohns.com

CSU is off this week after their high scoring affair (and win!) last week against UTEP 59 - 42.  CSU had a nice fake FG for a TD near the end of the second quarter that increased their lead to 28 - 7.  At the time (in between fist pumps) I thought they were rubbing it in a bit but it turned out to be a good thing they got 7 because UTEP scored 21 straight points in the third quarter to tie the score at 28 - 28.  Fortunately some key plays (including a defensive saftey) helped propel the Rams to their second win of the year.

Have a great weekend and Go Broncos!

September Update: Going the Wrong Direction

I'm guessing that most half marathon training plans have you going more miles as you get closer to the event, not less.  Unfortunately I ran into some Achilles issues early in September and had to take 8 days off.  Well, I should say that I chose to take 8 days off hoping that my Achilles pain would go away and I'd be good to complete my training and run the half marathon in November.  I did an 8 mile run on 9/7 and then didn't run again until I did 3.24 miles on 9/16.  Since I started running again I've slowly been building back up and I hope to run 8 - 9 miles this weekend.  Now that the calendar has turned to October I'm realizing how little time I actually have left to train.  

For the month I only ran 48.76 miles (compared to 60 miles in August) but I hope/expect the numbers in October to be closer to 70 miles.  I love that the weather has cooled off.  I now am running in 40 - 60 degree weather instead of 70 - 80 degree weather.  It is, however, harder to get up in the morning as it's still pretty dark at 6:30am but I just need to force myself to get up.  We also got a new treadmill a few weeks ago since our last one decided it wanted to try to tear our ACLs by randomly stopping.  I'm not talking about randomly turning off and coasting to a stop, I'm talking about slamyourfootonthebrakesandstoponadime stop.  I did 70 minutes on it last Saturday and I like it much better than our last one.  I do have to say that I think they are was some "gamesmanship" done at the treadmill dealer as it felt like I was running on a pillow at the store.  Don't get me wrong, I still love it but it just doesn't feel the same.

Oh, I guess I should mention that my Achilles does feel better.  It still starts out tight when I run and I notice it but it's not a sharp pain like it was before.  At this point I'm just going to have to play through the pain since I'm only 47 days from the race.  

Here's to healthy knees and feet, and to cooler (but not cold) weather!

Back at it

After 8 days off to let my Achilles recover I laced up my running shoes Monday morning for an easy run.  I went 3.24 miles in 29:58 (9:16 min/mile pace) around the neighborhood and felt pretty good.  My Achilles was a little tight, but not sore, for about half of the run but by the time I got done I didn't really notice it.  The best part is that it wasn't sore later in the day and still feels good today.  We'll see how it feels tonight in my softball game where I'll probably have to do some sprinting.  Today is September 17 which means I only have 2 months until the race!  It's hard to believe I've logged just under 300 miles since I started the couch to 5k program back in March.  I really hope that I keep it up even after the half marathon is over.

CSU got a win this weekend over Division I-AA foe Cal Poly 34 - 17.  CSU racked up 533 yards of offense led by QB Garrett Grayson.  I still would have liked to see Connor Smith get some playing time but I'm happy that Grayson had a nice game.  Things go from easy to impossible as the Rams travel to Tuscaloosa, AL to play #1 ranked Alabama.  Right now Vegas has the Crimson Tide as a 39.5 point favorite with an over/under of 51.5.  That means they expect Alabama to win by a score of 46 - 6.  If you ask me it won't be that close but maybe they are banking on Nick Saban to take it easy on his former offensive coordinator's team.  Either way it will be interesting to see how CSU competes against a national powerhouse.  I'm hoping for the Rams to give it their best shot and not get any injuries.  I'm thinking Alabama wins 56-13.

RB Donnell Alexander celebrates his first
quarter TD for the Rams

The Broncos got a huge win in New Jersey on Sunday afternoon against the New York Giants in the Manning Bowl.  Just like last week the Broncos started off slow and only scored 10 points in the first half (all in the 2nd quarter.)  They actually had a great drive to start off the game only to see rookie RB Montee Ball fumble into the end zone for a touchback.  Knowshon Moreno had a great game scoring 2 TDs on runs of 20 and 25 yards and Peyton Manning had another solid game with 300+ yards passing and 2 TDs.  The stars of the game for me, however, was the defense that only gave up 3 first half FGs and forced Eli Manning into 4 interceptions.  Some bad news did come out of this game, however, as pro-bowl, stud LT Ryan Clady may be lost for the season due to a Lisfranc sprain in his left foot.  Isn't that they way it always seems to happen?  Sign someone to a big contract in the off-season and they get hurt.  Hopefully the next man up (Chris Clark) can protect Peyton's blindside.

Eli drops to 0-3 against big brother Peyton

Thankfully the rain has stopped and temps are back in the 80s.  I get to take the day off tomorrow to golf with my Dad, cousin, and uncle at the Colorado National Golf Course.  Although I'm not super excited that the course is the official course of the CU Buffs, I have heard great things about the course and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

August Update and Broncos Opener

I had to add the word Broncos to the title so you wouldn't think this was just a running update.  I will talk about the game tonight but first, a running update.

For the month of August I ran 60.03 miles which is actually 0.61 miles LESS than I ran last month.  A big part of this was that I caught a nasty daycare cold (N always gets a cold at daycare after being on vacation) that made it tough to run for a week or so.  I've also been suffering from some mild achilles pain which makes me nervous to go for a long run.  The longest run I did this month was only 7.11 miles (and that was back on August 5) which I'm really disappointed about.  I am going to try for a 8 - 9 mile run on Saturday morning so we'll see how that goes.  I'm trying to figure out the best way to fuel during my run (I haven't found a gel that I like) and the best way to bring water along.  There are no water fountains on the route I'm going to take on Saturday so I might be stuck carrying a water bottle.  I usually carry along a small bottle of Gatorade when I run (8 oz I think) but I'll probably need a bit more than that if I go 9 miles.  I guess I'll eventually have to break down and buy one of those awesome fanny packs that runners wear that hold two 8 - 10 oz water bottles.  Oh joy.

I mentioned last week that I got a medal for finishing the 10k and that L was in love with it.  Here is a picture of her wearing it:

Thumbs up for the "gold medal"

I don't think she's that impressed with it anymore as it's balled up on the desk right now.

I have also mentioned the Garmin Forerunner 310XT that I bought last month.  I still really like it although I keep forgetting to try out the heart rate monitor strap.  Here is a picture of it on my wrist:

GPS watch

It's a decent sized watch and I don't think I'd ever wear it as an everyday watch but it has all the options I was looking for in a GPS watch.

We ended up going up to Estes Park for Labor Day weekend with my parents and my brother and his family.  We stayed at a beautiful house/cabin that had two bedrooms with king sized beds, two rooms that each had bunk beds, 2 futons, and at least one couch that could be used as a bed.  Oh, there was also a hot tub that the girls were in love with.  One of my highlights of the weekend was going to the "rainbow slides."  If you've been to Estes you know what I'm talking about.  For those of you that haven't been there it's one of those slides where you take a piece of fabric up to the top to slide down on.  I knew that L would love it (which she did) but what I wasn't expecting was that N loved it.  N likes short slides but won't sit on a swing for more than 10 seconds.  Also, she loves to be picked up and twirled but often stiffens up like a scared cat.  After N's first ride down the slide on my lap I expected to hear her crying or screaming but was shocked by what I saw.  Beneath her pacifier was a huge smile and she was frantically making the "more" sign with her hands.  I went with L the next ride while N went with Grandpa.  As soon as they got to the bottom N made a beeline straight to the stairs to go back up for another ride.  When Grandpa said that we were all done she immediately started crying.  Sweet girl.

The girls fixated on a movie

My Dad and I were given tickets to the final preseason game for the Broncos last Thursday.  Although the last preseason games are usually (and this one was no exception) made up of a bunch of guys that are playing for only a few spots on the roster or practice squad, just being in the stadium really got me pumped up for football season.

Denver scrubs vs. Arizona scrubs

Speaking of football season, tonight is the big night!  Ravens vs. Broncos.  The game we've been waiting for for the past 8 months.  The Broncos are looking for a bit of revenge although you can't compare a regular season game to being knocked out of the playoffs.  This game might mean more to the fans than it does the players and I'd hate to see what happens to all the Broncos fans out there if the Broncos lose.  Hopefully that won't be an issue.  I'm not expecting much defense in this game although you never know.  Maybe the Denver D will be pumped up whether it's for revenge or because it's the season opener on national TV.  Whatever reason someone will need to step up for the suspended Von Miller and injured Champ Bailey.  My prediction is Denver 34 Baltimore 24.

A quick note on the latest installment of the Rocky Mountain Showdown.  I was really impressed with the Rams special teams (punt return for TD and 87-yard kickoff return) but not that impressed with the offense or defense.  Garrett Grayson had some issues and missed quite a few open receivers.  At times it looked like he was throwing the ball with way too much velocity on short passes.  I don't know if it was that or just dropped passes but CSU missed on quite a few opportunities.  The defense actually wasn't bad outside of two long touchdowns by Paul Richardson.  Before the game I remember telling my Dad that I was nervous about Richardson because he is fast and torched CSU two years ago.  Right on cue Richardon scored an 82-yard touchdown on the Buffs second play from scrimmage.  There were no CSU players within 20 yards of Richardson (he would go on to score a 75-yard touchdown at the end of the game.)  I understand that stuff like this happens in the first game of the season but something better change soon.  CSU travels to Tulsa next week before going back home to host Cal Poly before heading on the road to Tuscaloosa to play the defending national champion Alabama Crimson Tide.  I hate to say it but it's looking like a 1-3 start to the season.  Oofta.  Prediction: CSU 17 Tulsa 31

10k you very much

(Note: if you're only interested in Broncos talk skip to the bottom!)

Sorry for not posting last week but the week seemed to sneak by.  I guess most of my attention was on the 10k race that was on Saturday morning.  There was actually a half marathon walk, half marathon run, and 10k race and, fortunately, the event was in Erie about a mile from my house.  I briefly considered signing up for either the half marathon walk or run and doing it slow to get an idea of what 13.1 miles feels like but finally decided not to burn myself out and stick with the 10k.  Before I get into the race let me back up.

On Thursday night (8/22) I stopped by a local pharmacy in Erie to pick up my race packet (shirt, bib, and other goodies.)  As I was walking toward the pharmacy I noticed there were quite a few people inside the Papa John's next door.  One of the ladies in Papa John's was knocking frantically on the window and I assumed she was trying to get the attention of someone outside.  I continued on my way to the pharmacy.  When I walked into the store I immediately heard someone crying hysterically and talking to someone.  Initially I thought it was a customer talking to an employee of the pharmacy but soon found out it was the employee talking on the phone.  I had a few guesses as to what was going on (fight with spouse, child in trouble, child missing, etc.) but never would have guessed what was really going on.  I stood in the store for about 30 seconds unsure what to do when the employee told the person on the phone to hold on and asked what I wanted.  I said I was there to pick up my race packet but could come back later and she told me she had just been held up at gunpoint and she was talking to the police!  I hurriedly left the store and by now the people in Papa John's were actually telling people not to go into the pharmacy.  (If they were trying to warn me earlier I still don't know why they wouldn't have opened the door to tell me instead of knocking on the window expecting me to know what they were trying to say.)  Anyway, I looked it up on Google that night and found out that some 27 year-old man had held up the store at gunpoint looking for drugs.  He was caught not long after the robbery not too far from our house.  Thank goodness I didn't show up 5-10 minutes earlier.  I can't even begin to imagine what I would have done in that situation.  There isn't much information on the robbery...this is all I have been able to find: http://www.dailycamera.com/erie-news/ci_23920780/dispatchers-suspect-arrested-at-gunpoint-following-pharmacy-robbery

Somehow everything was back to normal on Friday and I stopped by the pharmacy again and picked up my packet.  I give the employees a lot of credit for showing up for work the day after an armed robbery.  I didn't sleep great Friday night, big shock there, as I was thinking and dreaming about the race all night.  At some point in the night I decided that I was going to abandon the interval program I've been following (run the first mile, walk 2 minutes, run the remainder of the mile, walk 2 minutes, run the remainder of the mile, and so on) and either shorten the length of my walk breaks, eliminate some of the walk breaks, or some combination of the two.  I ended up doing a combination of the two.  I ran to the water station (just before mile 2), walked for about a minute while I drank some Gatorade, ran until I passed the turn around point at 3.1 miles, walked for about a minute and a half, ran back to the water station (just after mile 4), walked for a minute while I drank my Gatorade, ran until the big hill that was after mile 5, walked up the hill which took almost 2 minutes, and then ran the rest of the way.  I ended up walking for about 5 and a half minutes and running for 47 minutes which put my time at 52:37 and an average pace of 8:33 min/mile.  My initial goal was 56 minutes so I was very happy to come in under 53 minutes.  I finished 4th overall (out of 29) for the 10k and first in my age group (out of 5.)  It turns out that most men in the 30 - 39 age group ran the half marathon but it's still fun to win your age group.  The best part is that I got a medal for finishing (although I thought they only gave medals to the half marathoners) and my 4 year old L was SO excited about the medal.  In fact, she wore it most of the morning and said things like "I'm so glad WE won the gold medal!"  Sweet girl.

There is no way (at least right now) I could keep that pace up for a half marathon but if I did Runners World calculates that I would finish a half marathon in 1:58:18.  While I'd love to run a sub-2 hour half marathon I'm still of the mindset that I will be happy to finish it without the help of an ambulance and still have a goal of 2 hours 15 minutes.

10k pace and elevation

I have developed a very mild case of Achilles tendinitis and am going to take a couple days off before I get geared up to get up to 8 or 9 miles.  I'll feel really good about my chances to run a half marathon once I can get up to 10 miles.  Hopefully that will be sometime in September or early October.  Yikes, I just checked the website for my half marathon and there are only 83 days, 3 hours, and 30 minutes until the race!  I'd better get back out there soon!

I figure I should write a little something about the reason I started this blog: the Broncos.  Through 3 preseason games the Broncos have looked pretty average.  The offense (when not turning the ball over) looks great and the defense looks sloppy.  I won't even mention the special teams.  This is preseason so I'm not really that concerned about the sloppy play (because they won't waste sophisticated plays in the preseason) but the turnovers worry me.  Denver finished 17th in turnover margin last year (-1 for the season) and that's just not going to work this season with the tough schedule.  Ronnie Hillman has already fumbled twice this year and I hope it doesn't turn into a thing for him.  My Dad and I are going to the final preseason game on Thursday, which will probably be a bore as most final preseason games are, but I'm guessing there will be a chance that Von Miller will play.  I'm also interested to see how Brock Osweiler looks.

Might want to hold on to that Ronnie

Have a great week and please feel free to leave your comments! :)

Say hello to my little friend

My goal of running 8.5 - 9 miles on Monday morning hit a snag this week.  I woke up Sunday morning with a stomach bug and spent the entire day in bed.  I felt a bit better on Monday morning (well enough to go to work) but I didn't even attempt a run.  I ended up running just over 3 miles on Tuesday morning and again on Wednesday morning but couldn't go any further because I still wasn't feeling great.  I took today off and hope to get in at least 6 miles tomorrow morning.  The reason I pushed through the pain Tuesday morning is because I was excited to try out my new friend: the Garmin Forerunner 310XT GPS watch!

I left it at home this morning so I don't have a picture with it on my wrist (so you can see how big it is) but I'll try to add one next week.  Let me just say that I love this watch already.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be wearing it out on the town but it's not too ugly.  I love being able to see my average pace for the current lap.  Right now the lap length is set to 1 mile but I can change it to as low as 0.25 miles if I want.  One of the reasons I bought this watch is so I can see my current pace in order to try to sustain a constant pace throughout my long run.  Usually when I run I have no idea how fast, or slow, I'm going and sometimes start out too fast and then wear down later in the run.  Now I can monitor and adjust my pace as needed and it's much easier than trying to power on my phone, unlock it, and try to read the pace on the running app as my arm is swinging back and forth.

I have also found it to be more accurate.  I ran a 3.1 miles Tuesday morning with my 310XT along with my phone running the Map My Run app, and here were the results:

Time: 26:32 (Garmin) 26:32 (MMR)
Distance: 3.11 miles (Garmin) 3.16 miles (MMR)
Avg. Pace: 8:33 min/mile (Garmin) 8:23 (MMR)

When I mapped out my course on the USATF Map It website my route came to 3.11 miles; the same as reported by the Garmin.  I wanted to see why the Map My Run app showed me running an extra .05 miles so I opened up the maps on the Map My Run website as well as the Garmin Connect website.  These pictures (from one of the turns) show the difference:

Garmin Forerunner 310XT

Map My Run app

As you can see the Map My Run app really has me swinging out wide on the turns (which I was not doing) while the 310XT has it much closer to the route I actually followed.  Granted, this is not a huge difference but I like that the watch matched up exactly with the calculations on the USATF website.  I also like that the Garmin beeps/vibrates every lap (mile in my case) so I know I've reached a mile without having to look at my watch.  Of course I looked at my watch 56 times before that so I know I was at 2.98 miles 5 seconds before but it's still nice.

Now I no longer have to run with my phone and can use a smaller, lighter MP3 player like one of my iPods.  Oh, the watch also came with a heart rate monitor which I haven't tried using yet.  There are a lot more bells and whistles on the watch that I probably won't use or don't know about yet but I really like it so far.  Here's hoping for nice weather, and a non-queasy stomach for my run tomorrow morning.

Have a great Thursday!

Eight is Enough

Sorry for the lack of updates but I didn't spend much time in front of a computer while in Montana.    Our vacation was great although we got off to a rough start.  Our flight from Denver to Great Falls turned into flights from Denver to Billings, and Billings to Great Falls.  There was a huge thunderstorm in Great Falls that caused us to divert to Billings for over an hour to wait for the weather to clear up.  This wouldn't have been a big deal other than the fact that baby N can't sit still for more than 2 minutes.  I'll just put it this way; nobody told us how great our kids were once we finally deplaned in Great Falls.

L excited to take-off

Once we arrived in Great Falls and got loaded up in Grandma Valerie's minivan, we drove to Helena (avoiding a deer by about 6") and spent the night at Jeanne (Angie's sister) and Chad's house.  We drove to Flathead Lake the next day and stayed there until Monday morning.  The weather was perfect, the water wasn't too cold, and we had a great time (other than when I sucked up some rocks in the jet ski and dinged the impeller...oops!)  Fortunately Angie's family and extended family love to fix things so they took the jet ski apart, banged the impeller back into shape, and it was back in the water in a few hours.

Monday we said our goodbyes and started the 7+ hour drive to Angie's hometown of Turner.  I was riding with Papa Donnie in the motor home with L, Angie's grandma, aunt, and cousin.  Halfway into the drive I got a call from Angie saying that we needed to switch vehicles.  Why?  Because N was being a terror.  Donnie and I swapped vehicles with Angie and her mom and we drove the rest of the way home.

The rest of the week was spent eating, visiting, napping, and watching movies.  Donnie and I took L out to the shop on the farm one day and L loved it.  She got to feed the kitties, sit on a tractor, sit in a semi and honk the horn, and get dirty.  We drove back to Great Falls Saturday morning and flew back to Denver.  N was still crazy but better than the flight out.  We got to see our new (and first) nephew on Sunday which was very exciting!  I'm so glad there is finally a baby Eckdahl boy on my Dad's side!

Dinner after seeing the baby boy

I managed to only skip 1 of my scheduled runs while on vacation and I think that's pretty good.  Running along Flathead Lake was nice because you've got to love this view:

Flathead Lake

I ran on the highway in Turner one day and, although it was only in the low 70s, it felt like 100 degrees.

I woke up this Monday morning to a rarity.  An overcast, misty, cool (temps in the 60s all day) morning in July.  I decided I had to take advantage of this weather and try for a long run even though I was fresh off of vacation.  I had planned on going 7 miles but as I was nearing the end of my run I decided I should push myself to go a bit further.  I ended up going 8.12 miles in 1 hour 17 minutes for an average pace of 9:29 min/mile (the time and distance were both personal highs!)  As with my 7 mile run my left ankle was killing me for the last 2 miles.  I'm not sure if this is due to my shoes, running style, or just the fact that I've never fun that far before.  I guess I'll find out as I continue to run longer distances but I'm thinking I should go to a running store and get fitted for a shoe that fits my running style.  I am currently running in Brooks Pure Flow 2s.

For the month of July I ended up running 60.64 miles in just under 9 hours and 16 minutes.  I'm still running just 3 days/week although all the half marathon training plans call for running 5 days/week.  I guess I need to try to add another day soon.  Maybe I can find some time on Saturdays or Sundays.

8-mile run

I just signed up for a 10k on 8/24 which will be my longest official run.  Fortunately it's in Erie and I don't have to travel far to get to the start line.  They are also doing a half marathon but I just don't think I'm ready for that distance yet.