Boston Strong

I just want to start out by saying my thoughts and prayers are with the people of Boston, the injured, and families of those that lost their lives on Monday.  This one definitely strikes a chord with me since, as you've been reading, I'm training to do a half marathon later this year.  I hear that Boston has completely shut down and told everyone to stay inside their houses as the manhunt continues for the second suspect (after the first one was shot last night.)  I have no doubt he will be found as you can't watch TV or look at the internet without seeing his picture, but I wonder if they will find him alive.  I know it's a morbid topic but I always struggle with whether I want them to find these guys dead or alive.  With the Newtown shooting you almost felt cheated that the coward shot himself and the families never got to face him in court but then, on the other hand, you get the guys like the Aurora theater shooter and the Jessica Ridgeway killer that are still alive and will use up tax-payer money to sit in jail for the next 60 years.  Oh, I just read a report that the Jessica Ridgeway killer entered a not guilty plea.  I don't understand this as he gave quite a detailed confession.  Does this just set the stage for a mental illness defense like we're going to get with the Aurora shooter?

On to happier topics, I only looked at this article because the player in the article (Todd Frazier) is on my fantasy baseball team but I'm sure glad I did.  On the bottom of the article there is a link to more background information on Teddy.  What a great story.  This is exactly what I needed after another depressing week for our country.

Well, I just wrapped up week 5 of my training and this is the week that I remember being worried about when I started.  The first two days weren't bad with a long jog interval of 5 minutes on day one and 8 minutes on day two but today was a 20 minute jog with no walk break in between.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I can't jog for 20 minutes straight but it's quite a change going from 8 minutes max to 20 minutes.  Next week starts like this week with walk/jog intervals leading up to a 25 minute jog on day 3.  It's been cold and snowy all week so all my workouts have been on a treadmill so I know things will get tougher when I have to run outside.  The weather looks bad for early next week, snow on a Tuesday? shocker!, so I'll most likely be inside for the first couple days.

Projected 1/2 marathon time (repeating day 3 of week 5 workout): 144 minutes = 2 hours 24 minutes

1/2 marathon time goal: 2 hours 30 minutes (I'm guessing this will be my time goal for awhile)

Lovely winter we're having this spring

That about summarizes the past month.  I heard on the radio today that this is the third different snow storm we've had since April 9!  I know that we need the moisture and the roads haven't been too bad but I'm ready for some decent weather.  I see that it's supposed to clear up for a couple days and then snow again on Monday.  Ugh.  I guess I should come clean and let everyone know that the weather is my fault.  You know how it always rains the day after you get your car washed?  Well, I signed up for a spring softball league.  My bad.  The league plays on Tuesday nights and we started back on March 19.  We won that first game and haven't played since.  If you want to know when it's going to snow next, Tuesday is a pretty good bet.  After four (and counting?) straight weeks of snow-outs we're scheduled to play double-headers three weeks in a row.  If our double-headers get rained out I'm not sure what they will do.  Hopefully they decide to push the playoffs back a week instead of asking us to play four games in one night.  Ugh.

The weather last Monday and Friday was actually pretty nice so I got to run outside twice.  On Monday I ran a route that forced me to run the last 5 minutes uphill which, combined with the gusty wind, made for a rough finish.  On Friday I decided to go the opposite direction so that I went uphill during my warm-up walk and the workout felt much easier.  Here is my "end of week 4 update:"

Projected 1/2 marathon time (repeating week 4 workout): 150 minutes = 2 hours 30 minutes

1/2 marathon time goal: 2 hours 45 minutes

As I mentioned earlier the weather here hasn't been ideal for outdoor training so I've done treadmill workouts so far this week.  I'll give more details on week 5 when I wrap it up on Friday afternoon but this is the week that it starts to get more difficult.

We went up to my cousin's cabin in Bailey this past weekend and my oldest daughter, L, was introduced to Star Wars.  She and her cousin watched Episodes IV and VI and they LOVED it.  In fact, L now goes by Luke Skywalker and won't answer to her real name.  Because Luke's dad is Darth Vader, I am now Darth Vader.  Or should I say, "Door Vader."  Luckily, according to L...I mean Luke, I'm nice and we only fight in the movie, not real life!  I love that she loves the movies and it's so great that the movies are OK for my 3-year old.  Sure there are some scary parts, which she doesn't seem to find scary, but there is no bad language, no "adult situations", and no blood.  Too bad PG these days doesn't mean PG like it used to.

Home Opener

Today is one of my favorite days of the year.  The home opener for the Colorado Rockies.  This year celebrates their 20th year as a MLB franchise which is hard to believe.  I remember being in ninth grade in 1993 and my junior high (yes ninth grade was still in junior high) brought a bunch of TVs into the lunch room so we could watch the Rockies play the Mets at the old Shea stadium.  The Rockies were awful that year, they finished 67-95, but it didn't matter because pro baseball was in town!  I remember going to a couple games that year as one of my friends had season tickets.  Prior to the Rockies the highest level of baseball I had seen was when the Denver Zephyrs (AAA team for the Milwaukee Brewers) played at Mile High.  It was pretty exciting to see my baseball idols in person.  20 years later I still have yet to make it to a home opener but I'll get there one of these years.  I've heard it's such a great atmosphere because everyone is full of hope and hey, this could be our year!

Today I completed week 3 of my 5k training plan.  This week wasn't much harder than last week: 5 min warm-up walk, 1.5 min jog, 1.5 min walk, 3 min jog, 3 min walk, 1.5 min jog, 1.5 min walk, 3 min jog, 3 min walk, 5 min cool-down walk.  Monday was cold (40 degrees) and windy, Wednesday was warmer (47 degrees) and windy, but today was a perfect 60 degrees with just a slight breeze.  For the week I averaged 2.31 miles in the 28 minutes which cut about 10 minutes off my projected 1/2 marathon pace.  Next week's plan doesn't look too bad but things get tougher starting week 5.  I guess I should enjoy these easy weeks while I can.

Projected 1/2 marathon time (repeating week 3 workout): 160 minutes = 2 hours 40 minutes

1/2 marathon time goal: 2 hours 45 minutes

Week 2 update

Well, it looks like I'm back to my slacking ways.  I meant to update this last week but I was in CA Monday - Thursday and then Friday I left work a bit early so I could spend some time with my two little girls.  We went to Dairy Queen, which is one of L's favorite places.  It turns out N loves it too...big surprise!  I could hardly scoop it up into N's mouth fast enough.  A bit of background: L really likes to sit on my lap on school mornings as I feed her yogurt for breakfast.  I know I should maker her feed herself but I know it won't be too long before she won't want to sit on Daddy's lap so I'm going to enjoy it while I can.  Anyway, sometimes when she's being silly she opens her mouth and says "ahhhhh ahhhhh" when she wants another bite and N has caught on to this.  I'm sure I looked like a mama bird at DQ with my one year old sitting in her chair with her mouth wide open saying "ahhhh ahhhh."

Back to my original point, I never ended up updating this blog with my week 2 progress report.  Week 2 was another easy week of alternating walking with jogging although the intervals increased in length.  My two workouts in California were done on the hotel treadmill although I'm not sure why I didn't take advantage of the weather and jog outside.  Back in CO on Friday I got in an outdoor workout so I could actually get an idea of how far I was going.  I ended up going 2.37 miles in 31 minutes which means:

Projected 1/2 marathon time (repeating week 2 workout): 171 minutes = 2 hours 51 minutes

1/2 marathon time goal: 3 hours

Moving from week 1 to week 2 of the couch-to-5k program basically cut off 6 minutes of my projected time.  Of course this assumes that I could keep up the same pace for the entire 13.1 miles which probably wouldn't happen since my legs would be burning but it at least gives me an idea of what to expect as far as time.

Just this morning I completed the second workout of week 3 but I'm going to wait and post the results after I complete the final workout on Friday.  I'm definitely not feeling like a runner yet and don't see how I could run for 3 miles straight let alone 13.1.