Running and Politics

Today is the only day this week that will work out for me to commute to work by way of running. So I did another 20+ mile run today.

There wasn't too much that is exciting to report other then my arrival time being just under 8 min/miles and my uphill run home was just over 8 min/miles.

I guess this is a sign that I'm getting in better shape even though I'm not feel 100% during these runs. Testing adding images to these postings.

Not sure I will keep them and if I do, not sure it will be showing elevation and HR. I'd like to turn one of these runs per week into a nice tempo run, but I never seem to have the energy. Now that the race is only about 2 months out, I really need to start adding some speed work to my routines. On Friday, I'm going in for V02 fitness testing. So I'm trying to save the really hard speed work until after that test. I have my normal Tuesday speed work this week, but that is 3 day before the test and hopefully will not affect anything. We are supposed to be changing our intervals from 400s to 800s so it may be a bit more intense. It may not be great for this week, but in general it is good. 400s (and I'm sure 800s as well) are not the best repeats for marathon running, but I still feel that it helps. I think I get the most benefit out of mile repeats, but there is no chance I'm convincing the rest of the group to do that with me.

I hate politics. It's just a bunch of craziness that gets everyone to yell at each other instead of having civilized conversations. So it is quite odd that I say I'm reading Barak Obama's "The Audacity of Hope". This is made even strange because I've always considered myself a republican. How can I be a republican if I hate all politics? Well, my parents were republicans so I've always called myself one. The truth of the matter is, I feel I may actually be a bit too liberal for being a republican, but at the same time, I'm a bit too conservative to be a democrat. Anywho, I've started reading his book and find it very interesting. He seems to be very well spoken and even tempered whenever I've heard him speak. I've only just begun the book, but he seems to have some good ideas. Hmm, I may have to vote democrat this election.

Today I just finished the 2nd book in "The Chronicles of Narnia". I never read these as a kid. I watched "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and found it to be pretty interesting.
So I decided to start reading the series. I decided to take the chronological order and read "The Magician's Nephew" first and now just finished "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". The books are pretty interesting. I wish I would have known these as a kid. I'm sure I would have loved them.

I love baseball. Although, my interest in watching and/or listening to games has diminished over the years, I still love the sport. I'm a die hard Cubs fan and I'm expecting great things this season. Although, we had a bit of a rough start today in the 9th and 10th innings, but hey, it's only game 1.

Hilly Trail Run Today

Today was a fun run. Since I'm not stressing about my time or the distance for this marathon coming up, I can go out and enjoy my runs. Living in San Diego, I don't get real hill work out here. Not that this would quality as real hill work for those that do real hills, but for me it was a good. I did 14 miles today and a good 8-9 of it was on hills. It was up. It was down. It was full of rocks. My heart rate got as high at 190 today, but I average right at 154. We ended with 1700+ feet of elevation gain during the run today. We went through a nature preserve that was very empty. We got to see lakes and streams along with hearing the sounds of nature as we were running. It was absolutely great. I loved every minute of it... even when my HR was a 190.

I'm keeping this one short and sweet. I'm tired and ready for bed. Maybe more of these trail runs will help encourage me to get my butt out there and do my first ultra. The plan was to do the PCT 50 coming up here in a few weeks, but decided against it recently. Before that, my first was going to be the Lake Hodges 50K, but as it was canceled this year due to the fires, I didn't have the option. Maybe I'll do that one next year for fun to see if that's something that I'd truly be interested in.

Another Week Down

I watched Die Hard 4 today on Blue Ray. I've got to tell you, Blue Ray is the bomb! The quality is amazing. However, this movie was a bit over the top, even for Die Hard. Coming into the movie, you know it will be a bi crazy and unbelievable, but hey, that's the movie. This one was almost too much. I still enjoyed it, but didn't love it as much as I thought I would. So back to Netflix with it and I'll be waiting on 300. Now that I expect to be crazy over the top. It should be interesting.

Speaking of Netflix, I've got the bottom of the barrel plan that gives me 2 rentals a month. That's plenty for me as I try not watch too much TV and movies. As I've said, I've got enough other stuff I'm interested in rather then watching movies all day. That would be more stress as I'd feel like I'd have to watch more movies a month then I'm comfortable watching just so I an feel like I'm getting my money's worth. But I digress, I'm going to try out my first online video from Netflix. It turns out I get 5 hours a month to watch some of the older, poorer quality stuff. I'm starting out with Larry The Cable Guy: Git-R-Done. Anything he does is funny. Even though I've heard this one CD before, it's worth every penny. Hilarity!

OK, enough of this. Time for bed. I have to get up in less then 6 1/2 hours to do a 15+ mile run. What an idiot. Writing this journal every day is helping me think a bit clearer and feel a bit more organized, but so far, I haven't done anything else other then do podcasts, watch TV and type. I'm falling behind on other things. I really need to get going on taxes ASAP. That will be goal #1 for the weekend.

American Idol Predictions

Here is my list of predictions for American Idol finishers for the remaining contestants in Season 7.

1. Carly Smithson
   
2. David Cook
   
3. Brooke White
   
4. David Archuleta
   
5. Michael Johns
   
6. Syesha Mercado
7. Ramiele Malubay
   
8. Kristy Lee Cook
9. Jason Castro
   

No News Today

Nothing exciting to report today. I got to sleep at a more reasonable time last night and took the day off from exercising. For that, I was a bit more awake today. I felt that I had a bit more energy, but my legs were still a bit sore and stiff in the morning. Throughout the day, my legs started feeling better. I will take another day off from running and just do the gym tomorrow so that I can be refreshed for my 18 miler on Saturday. It should be pretty flat and easy and I shouldn't need any extra recovery time this week.

I failed at my second attempt today using a slow cooker. We have West Bend Slo-Cooker. I browned the top, bottom and sides of a 1-2 lb roast before putting it in the pot. Along with the roast, I added 4 medium white potatoes (cut into quarters) along with a bag of carrots. I covered everything with water and a packet of onion soup mix nearly to the top and put it on setting #1. It cooked for about 11 hours. I measured the temperature in the center and it was around 170. The roast came out surprising dry. I thought it would be moist as it was sitting in water all day. This turned out OK as we both like our meat dry. However, both the carrots and potatoes came out extremely undercooked. I guess the temperature never got high enough. We proceeded to nuke both for a very long time only to find that they were not really cooking any more. We then took the potatoes and wrapped them in aluminum foil and baked them at 475 for about an hour. They made a little progress, but were still undercooked. WTF?!? Very disappointing. As we both work long days and often don't feel like cooking when we get home, we need to figure this thing out. We definitely need some good recipes, but may also need to invest in a real crock pot instead of this slo-cooker unit we have. At the same time, I have the thought that if we can't get this working, why spend money on something else. The one thing that does make me thing an investment may pay off is that the slo-cooker has the heating element on the bottom only. No idea. If anyone would happen to read this and have any advice, I'm open to ideas.

Other then that, we watched the American Idol results show. Even though I'm a bit disappointed in the singers this season, I love watching this show. I think that there is definitely a line that separates the good from the great this season. I think Carly, David C., David A. and Brooke are the most talented and definitely my favorites.

The one show that like even better than American Idol is The Biggest Loser. I think this is such a great show, for various reasons. It just makes me so happy to see people that struggle with weight and self confidence problems to learn and "grow" throughout the season. It's amazing how much weight these people can and have lost. All they needed was some guidance. They needed to be taught the importance of exercise and just as importantly, they needed to learn about food. After every the show is over every week, I feel good. I'm so happy for these people. Good for them.

Well, it is getting late and I need to try getting some sleep. Unfortunately, I had some coffee late in the day that is keeping me awake to late tonight. I will again pay for this tomorrow. Oh well. I'm hoping to actually catch up on some sleep this weekend. As I've now officially signed up for the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon, I'm quickly approaching 2 months until show time. I need to get my sleeping schedule back in line soon so I can start cutting back on caffeine. I'd like to be caffeine free for at least a little while before the start of that race. I also saw that registration for the lottery into St. George Marathon is May 1st. I need to get with the group so we can get our registrations in. I hope we get in again this year. That was a fun event last year.

Bad Running Week

Since running tends to be a pretty big part in my life, I also want to add comments about my running. Who knows, maybe I'll post my training in the future as a way to tell people what works for me. My experience has been that the more information I can get from other people the more options I have. As most people know, there is not a "one size fits all" program that can be applied that will guarantee results. You need to constantly try new things to improve. There may be better programs out there, but more importantly, since you body does such a great job at adapting, you need to mix things up for constant improvement.

But I digress. The title of this blog indicates poor running and not running suggestions. Let's gewt to the point. I have been runing 4-5 days a week totaling 40-60 miles a week for the past few months. I have made a point at giving myself rest days (lesson learned very well a few years ago). So I'm pretty used to the miles and don't think I'm overtrained. About the time I bumped up my mileage, I started running to/from work 1-2 days a week. This totals 20-25 daily. Since I began doing this, my weekend 20 milers have become, well, for a lack of a better term, easy. I've been smoking them with plenty in the tank to do a pickup for the last 5K. However, on Saturday this past weekend, I ran 22 relatively hilly miles. I was wiped after this run. It was a bit warmer then it had been doing lately and there were definitely more hills then we have done lately. I guess that took a lot out of me. Monday I did an easy 5.5 miles and was lethargic and my legs felt dead. Tuesday's I do speed work. I felt the same way during that session. And now today I did a commute to work. I'm sure most of you are saying, "what an idiot". I know, "hard weekend needs recovery", "day after speed sessions need recovery", and "it doesn't sound like you give yourself much rest/recovery time". All true and this is probably the answer. Anyway, the run into work was pretty good. I felt better then I had in days. But the run home today was BRUTAL. I was going to do about 12.5, but had to change the route 1/3 of the way home to cut about 2 miles off it. I ended up walking about 4-5 times. I don't walk! As I sit here typing, my legs are tired. My hips are tired. I'm beat. I guess it's time for a day off. I'm already over 50 for the week and if I run on Friday like I was planning I'll hit 60 (with the week ending on Friday). I guess tomorrow is a day off and Friday will be a gym day. No sense working my way to overtraining.

Let's see, what else can be the cause. In general, my diet is not perfect. I eat plenty of things that I shouldn't. However, that is one of the reasons that I run. I love pizza and eat it every chance I get. But today I had bagels, yogurt and a chicken breast sandwhich on wheat. I don't think I can blame my diet today. In general, my diet is a possible cause, but I don't think it was the problem today.

Next cause... sleep. Hmm, I couldn't get to sleep last night and ended with about 5 hours of sleep. The night before I got about 4.5. The three days prior I probably averaged about 7. So that is about 6 hours a night for the past 5 nights and during that time I've run over 50 miles. Hmmm, we may have a winner. I know what I need to do, but I would just rather do stuff then sleep. See my first post and stay tuned for my next entry to see the things I do or want to do that keep me from sleeping. I love to get sleep; I just hate to go to sleep.

With that said, I think it's time to retire for the night and hopefully put an end to this vicious sleep cycle that I've gotten myself into. I'm at such a deficit for the past month that I'm dragging big time.

Here goes nothing...

I've tossed around the idea for awhile of staring my own blog. I've always shot down the idea because I don't feel that I have anything to say that is very exciting or interesting. On top of that, I'm shy and I like to keep to myself. And if anyone actually reads this, you will quickly find that I'm a poor writer. So why have I decided to take the plunge and begin this blog? Well, I'm still not 100% committed to the idea, but I think it's more of a change in mindset. In reading other blogs and listening to podcasts over the past few years, I have had the assumption that people do this to tell people things. They may want to inform, teach or just keep family and friends up to date on what's going on in their life. Today as I was revisiting the idea of starting a blog again during my commute to work, I quickly shot down the idea for the same reasons as before. Well, my commute was being done on foot as I was running to work. Since I had plenty of time to explore the idea further, I started thinking about how busy and cluttered my life is. There is so much that I want to do in my daily life that many things are neglected. I started to think that maybe a blog could help organize my life and clutter. I can use this as a journal. I hope to be better organized as I outline things going on in my life. The big two issues still remain. Who would want to read this and why do I want people knowing things about my personal life. Well, at least initially, I'm writing this for me. I'm hoping that by adding yet one more thing to do in my daily life, it will help me to become more organized and better at communicating in my daily life.

There are many things that I give a thought or two in my daily life and then they quickly leave my mind with no additional thoughts. I'm hoping that I can use this blog as a way to explore these ideas more thoroughly.

So I think the main idea is that, at least initially, I hope this help clear my mind and my life. If I actually stick to this (I have an addictive personality, but quickly move on to new things) we'll have to see how this blog mutates. As I do a lot of running in my life, this will likely include a lot of running related information in addition to what I mentioned earlier.

This isn't much of a start, but at least, it is a start.