So it goes...

Evidently I got a date wrong. The long run was on Sunday, and Monday and today were both 30 min runs, which both ended up being 3 plus miles each. Missed the Tuesday speedwork because I ended up with a 13 hour day at work. That plus an hour drive home put me home at 11 pm. I wish I knew when my new job was going to start, but I'm trying not to hope too much because we all know things are never 100 percent certain in this economy. I'm still in their email bank and am getting regular policy and pricing updates, so that's a good sign.

On another note, I still can't get comfortable in these temperatures. Tonight was 50, and long running pants, a long sleeve shirt and light running jacket was way too much. I think shorts would have been a better choice paired with the long sleeve shirt, especially after I warmed up. Running in Atlanta and Missouri will be a different story. I'm planning on going to an actual barber for a trim, so a hat won't be necessary, but Under Armour Cold Gear, gloves and perhaps another pair of long running pants or gym pants is on the shopping list. Now I just need to find the money tree...

No spare time...

Either that or I've been lazy. Here's the info for the last few runs -

2.59 miles on 11/26
26:16 min, 10:05 min/mile pace

We were both hurting, so it was a long 2.59 miles. Almost made it all the way around, but it just wasn't happening today.  On another note, I signed up for some iMapMyRun Saucony Challenge which, if run anything like Running While Chunky's contests might be subject to a few rule changes down the road, but I don't think so.  Those contests tend to be run by people who are actual runners, not someone who takes shortcuts while still collecting the medals, but I digress.  The challenge is a name your own challenge, and I selected "Mileage".  It's all collected from the iMapMyRun app, so whatever you run and log counts towards your mileage.  I threw the number 80 into the hat, so if I hit 80 miles in one month I'm automatically entered to win a new pair of shoes, and who can't use new shoes? 80 isn't a crazy number, especially since I was in the 70's in October, but it's a big number for someone who hasn't hit it before. Maybe one day I can be one of those thin guys who run 80 miles in a week, but I like ice cream too much to let running get in the way of another bowl.  Still, the weight over Thanksgiving didn't raise a pound so that's encouraging!

6.31 miles on 11/28
60 min, 9:30 min/mile

I was suppose to run for 90 min according to the Higdon Advanced training plan, but either it was too much to do or the older woman who stopped me for directions at the 50 min mark ruined the pacing.  It took 5 min to look up the address she needed in navigation, watch the navigation time out trying to find it and let the woman go on before I could start again.  By that time my legs had stiffened up and I was toast.  Managed to run for about 10 more min until I called it a day.  I think I was heading for about a 70 or 75 min run, tops, anyway, so it wasn't heartbreaking, but 8.3 is the longest I've run so far so when the next 90 min run comes up the target will be 9 miles, but hopefully as close to 10 as I can get.

11/23 Timed Run

So the plan said to run 3 miles, but I opted for 30 min, which is slightly more so it shouldn't be a problem. As long as it wasn't less, right? I was still a little sore from last nights hills, but it was cool out and overall a nice run. I did stop in the middle of the run near the tunnel under 441 when an old coworker came out of nowhere on his bike and scared the bejeezus out of me, but I managed to get back on track after we talked for a little bit and finished the run strong, partly as punishment for taking the unexpected break. We traded contact info, so as soon as his torn ACL heals there's a chance we could meet once a week to run around campus. He's pretty fit so it'll be a challenge to keep up with him if that ever happens.

Tomorrow is either a 40 min tempo run or eating our way into oblivion. I have a feeling the run is in jeopardy, but that'll just mean eliminating the rest day on Friday in favor of getting rid of the extra calories!

11/21 Practice Range

The slight change in grip is going well, though I keep reverting back to the old grip because it's a little more comfortable. After a little time the new one will feel good too, but it'll take a few months. Most of the time my ballstriking was good, but with little distractions here or there at this time comes horrible shots. That will go away. The good points? An easier time making solid contact with the longer clubs with a noticeable jump in distances throughout the bag. Pitching wedges were approatching 150 yards with range balls, 8 irons were carrying over 170 yards with a lot less effort and the ball coming off the driver face was making a sound closer to what I uae to hear at the Tournament Players Championship, which tells me that I'm making pure contact. The ball carrying over the 280ish marker told me that too, but still.

For once the only things in my bag in desperate need of replacement are the normal suspects for everyone who plays a lot - the wedges. The sand wedge and lob wedge are a given, and the 52 degree gap is almost there. At about $110 a pop it cwn certainly add up! Also, the bag needs to be replaced, possibly with either a Missouri or Flagler golf stand bag, but we'll see. Replacing the 3 wood would be great, but I'm comfortable with it, I can shape it and it's dependable so buying another 3 wood at this point would just be wasteful. A 4 wood or strong hybrid would be a better buy if anything, but I need to focus on the wedges at this point.

11/22 Hill Work

6 x hill run

I'm not sure how long Higdon wanted the hill workout to last, but as hard as running up the largest hill on the UF campus was, it still seemed to not be very much. We ran the first rep as a warm up and the remaining 5 at progressively faster speeds. Both of us nailed every rep in a faster time, which we had to push through a little pain to do, but if it was easy any chunky person could go running. No pain, no gain.

11/21 Run

3.17 miles
27:58 min, 8:49 min/mile

So I picked the Hal Higdon 12 week training plan and am going to mix the intermediate and advanced workouts. No particular reason why him over another trainer, but the Rock n' Roll 1/2 Marathon is 12 weeks away so I needed to go with something! Today was an easy run, though I still found myself pushing just a bit to keep it under 9 min per mile. If the race was tomorrow there would be no way I could crack 2 hours, and most likely I may not on race day, but I damn sure want to try. Since this is my first half marathon DW is letting me go and try to see what kind of time I can get. She thinks she's slower, and if we were just running a 5k I might be, but I'm a lot heavier than she is and a lot worse at keeping a constant pace, so she may catch up to me over the course of 13.1 miles. I'll still try to break 2 hours, but I'm already looking forward to future races. We agreed that the second half we do together we're going to run together. I'm thinking something Disney or something in a cool location. We'll see. Either way we should have a blast in every race we both enter!

Privet Russia!

So I'm taking time out to say hello to anyone in Russia who's reading this blog. I was looking at the view counter tonight and I noticed that around a third of my hits are coming from somewhere in Russia! That's great, but I'd love to hear from whoever you are. Comment all you want, offer suggestions, let me know if you have a blog and I'd gladly follow it. Who is this mystery person who found Fairways and Pavement?

Mid-November Running

4.05 miles
37:28 min, 9:15 min/mile

27.39 miles so far this month. I feel like I'm a little, or a lot, behind. Add to that the fact that the weight has only dropped a pound, possibly two, and its been a slower month so far than anticipated. I heard on the radio that the average American gaines 10 lbs during the holiday seasons. That's basically 5 lbs a month! If I did that it would almost put me back where I started.

I also heard that when comparing people of exactly the same size, a 200 lb man who has never been significantly above that can eat more calories and stay the same weight than can someone, like myself, who was once a lot heavier. Damn. I was so looking forward to pie...

11/14 Run

3.17 miles
27:16 min, 8:36 min/mile

Not a bad run for me. Another pound off on the scale, good time on the run and a short day at work. I could get use to this. My first appointment isn't until noon tomorrow, but I do have some work to get done for both of the Lowes I currently work at so I can't go in too late. The UF/Furman game this Saturday probably means at least one day where I work late so I have an excuse to take off on Saturday. From now until the holidays my schedule might be all over the place, but hopefully a new job is on the horizon and I won't have to put up with a weird schedule too long. Working a lot of hours isn't bad, but not knowing ahead of time takes its toll.

11/13 Run

3.24 Miles
32:19 min, 9:58 min/mile

I'm not sure if it's the cold or what, but the first half mile always seems to drag during the morning runs. It's necessary in order to warm up since the trail is only about 500 feet from the front door, but still.  Somehow we managed to get through the first mile in around 10:30 and kept speeding up after that. As long as the morning runs don't creep up too deep into the 10's it'll be productive. 

Long day ahead between laundry, home repair and cleaning, putting an owl in a tree to keep birds from decorating my car, washing or rinsing the cars, work at the driving range, etc etc.  She Who Must Be Obeyed is antsy so I'm off! More to come later.

11/12 Run

3.17 miles
27:49 min, 8:46 min/mile

I honestly had no motivation to go for a run tonight, but I've been slow to get going this month and need to pick it up quite a bit. More 4 and 5 mile runs to come. I started with a slower pace to warm up, but for some reason I started thinking about work instead of running with a blank mind and before I knew it I was going a lot faster than normal. I slowed down briefly before the final uphill push and through the Village and ended strong, but if I had to run while thinking about work all the time I'd rather walk.

No clue when or if the run tomorrow will happen, especially if it's in the low to mid 30's in the morning again, but if that doesn't happen I plan to get in more work at the driving range. Last time I went, less than a week ago, there were certainly a lot of good things I took away from it, but I also know what needs to be worked on over the Winter. As a side note, some new courses were added to the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament, otherwise known as Q-School. Some are close enough to be able to go play on a day off, most within a 2 hour drive, so I'll have to look into what I want to scout before the cooler weather gets here. Score isn't as important as mapping yardages, but it's still a round of golf and I don't want to waste money!

11/11/11 Run

3.24 miles
32:17 min, 9:57 min/mile

The weather is finally getting down to where I'm comfortable, but it'll keep fluctuating from highs in the 60's to low 80's for at least a few more weeks. Today started in the mid 40's and the first mile was a little slower than normal just to get warmed up. By the time we hit mile 3 we had a pretty decent pace going, but I had a 9 am appointment and didn't have the time to go much farther. I was thinking about an 11 mile day on 11/11/11, but I didn't get done with work in time. I guess it's that time of year where I'll have to run on the side of roads. That's not fun.

Newfangled Whatchamacallits

We currently have an IBM laptop and a Compaq laptop, neither were the most expensive models on the market when each of us bought them, but the newest out of the two of them was purchased a few months before we met in June of 2008. In human years that seems to me pretty new, but in computer years I'm basically scratching on a cave wall, and the other laptop isn't far from that either. The problem is that the old one is slow and too old to upgrade while the new one has so many bugs from the first release of Vista and other issues related to me trying to set it up to our network using online advice from blogs that it'll be expensive to have the Geek Squad fix it. Plus, I don't want nerds laughing at me.

We do however have an iPad that I'm allowed to play on from time to time. This arrangements works out well because I don't want to carry around something that cool and fragile because I know myself too well, but the way technology is going would it be smarter for us to buy the new iPad when it comes out and not look at a computer? The iPad and a desktop computer? The price for desktops is attractive to me, as is the options, hard drive sizes, speed, etc. Of course there are always docking stations that laptops can plug into so that you can use a regular monitor and keyboard at home on your desk. Wait... Apple or IBM? Apples better with graphic design, photo and video editing, etc that she'd probably do if we bought an Apple, but IBM compatibles are cheaper! Too many choices!

And as for the cartoon yes, I was an English major. Business too, but I still don't know spit about computers.

11/8 AM Run

3.17 miles
29:11 min, 9:12 min/mile pace

The first mile went by in 8:40, which is good for the morning start, but the soreness from last nights run came back in the second mile, causing me to slow down and let it work itself out. Part of the problem went away immediately when I tried shifting my weight to my weaker leg, but it still took several minutes for the soreness to go away. The last mile went by in around 9 min, so all in all not a bad start to the day.

Aside from work I think I'll swing by a few parks to see if there are any good areas close by for sprints on grass. I don't want to risk pounding pavement and making things worse during training. God forbid I get swept at a half marathon. Oh the huge manatee... Oops... I mean humanity.

Home on the Range

The time has changed, days are getting shorter and practice is being limited to the weekends and any day I happen to get off early, so here's the plan -

After my last range session a few things are apparent, flexibility and swing plane. They go hand in hand. Since my job now entails driving around and sitting most of the day, flexibility is suffering, but I'm back on my old stretching program in the mornings and evenings to combat this. It's a simple program, only takes a few min and should produce results I can feel shortly. Keeping that up indefinitely shouldn't be a problem. With that should come an easier way to get the club on plane at the top and during the transition.

Buying a net and frame to hit balls into on the back patio, as well as a square pad often seen at driving ranges to stand on and hit balls off of. Between the patio door, a cheap mirror from wal-mart and my smartphones video camera, this winter should actually be pretty productive at a minimal cost. A hundred bucks or so will pay for itself. Every 90 balls into the net is another 9 dollars saved. Of course, that won't eliminate the range because I'll still need to go to check ball flights, distances and my progress, but it'll definitely save us money.

Weekends will definitely have time devoted to finding a course with a decent short game area and spending most of my time there instead of the majority of time pounding drivers to the back of the range.

More goals to come, but my end of the year stats seeing as how with the holidays approaching there won't be much change happening until the beginning of the year -

Distances (average carry, not including roll)

Driver - 285 yds
3 Wood - 260 yds
Hybrid - 225 yds
4 iron - 215 yds
5 iron - 205 yds
6 iron - 192 yds
7 iron - 180 yds
8 iron - 168 yds
9 iron - 155 yds
Pitching Wedge - 140 yds
56* wedge - 120 yards
60* wedge - 100 yards

To be replaced, aside from the bag - 56*, 60* wedges are the top priority, and the 13* 3 wood needs to be replaced by a 15* 3 wood or 16* 4 wood for more carry, distance and accuracy. Adding an 18* hybrid would be a great idea too, but it might produce too large of a gap between it and my 4 iron. Still, my current hybrid is hard to keep down in the wind, which hurts its performance into the wind or in any kind of crosswind.

Lowest score this year - 65 at Pine Oaks in Ocala.
Highest score this year - 77 at Candler Hills the first time I played it.
Longest drive - 335 yards to the front edge of a short par 4. Measured by laser from ball in fairway back to a tree directly beside the tee box.

Current equipment -

Driver - Taylor Made R-11 TP
3 Wood - Titleist (To be Taylor Made)
Hybrid - Titleist (To be Taylor Made)
Irons - Mizuno
Wedges - Cleveland (To be Mizuno or Cleveland)
Putter - Ping
Ball - Taylor Made

Unwritten Rules

2 Miles
17:30 minutes, 8:45 min/mile

Started off fast, too fast, with the intention of running miles 1 and 3 quick while jogging 2 at a 10ish pace, but instpead of hitting an 8 pace I managed to get through the first half mile closer to 7:30 and burned out too quickly. Stupid idea anyway after barely stretching and just getting off work. My first appointment isn't until 11 tomorrow, so getting through a nice 3 or 4 mile run at a manageable pace shouldn't be too bad. My right shin gave me trouble too, which ordinarily I'd be more concerned about, but the mix of going too fast and working on a more efficient stride caused that so I'm not worried.

On a side note, a friend and She Who Must Be Obeyed have both told me that intervals are the way to go to burn calories. I must look into this more. Until I rejoin Gainesville Health and Fitness, an awesome health club here in town, I'll have to find a place to run sprints that isn't too on display. Something about a not too thin guy on a track being seen by traffic frightens me.

Also, recently the author of the Running While Chunky blog held a contest to guess her time at the recent Rock n' Roll Half Marathon in Savannah, GA. My wife and I have been following her entries for a few months now, my wife longer than I, when we read that she was having a giveaway to anyone who could correctly guess her finishing time. Since the website for the race stated a 4 hour time limit and, after reading her blog and noting her average pace, factoring in her consistency in coming up with excuse after excuse to avoid quality runs, etc, I knew there was zero chance for her to meet that limit. For that reason I entered a time of DNF for my guess. The pony tail holder thingy was as good as my wifes!

The day of the race comes, we cross referenced some statements in her blogs to Disney race results and easily found her real name, and we tracked her progress on the race website. After my wife texted me her first time check she was already over pace. A few hours later we checked again and her finishing time showed up as 3:02. I chalked this up to her 19+ min per mile pace for most of the course then the speed of the cars picking up all the stragglers. This wasn't far from the truth. As it turned out, she was shuttled forward at one point when she fell behind. Near the end of the race a shortcut appeared and she either took it or it was suggested that she take it to get to the finish line. Fine. No problem with that. If you're physically unable to complete a half marathon in the stated time limit, a very generous 4 hours, then by all means bow out, quit or make a graceful exit. Whatever you call it, have some consideration for the volunteers who have to wait until everyone finishes, their faces in agony at faking a smile and clapping for the last few smiling, barely sweating yet heavily accessorized walkers meandering their way to the finish. Am I bitter that she chose to not call the race a DNF and give the accessory to someone else who actually thought she could finish? No. Annoyed? Yes. Technically yes, she did cross the finish line, but she did not complete the 13.1 miles. Not even close. This was the contest, though not at all official, but an implied rule that entrants were to guess her time for the entire race, which she did not complete. My contest entry next time will not be nearly so considerate, but it will be detailed.

Running While Chunky - (race name) - 8.7 miles, mainly walking, .4 miles down a side street, 500 feet over a corner lot with a beautiful gazebo, 750 feet through a YMCA to the finish line to pick up a medal for paying the entry fee - 3:24. Hopefully its detailed enough. Some contests obviously require a mix of timing, thinking outside the box and a severe case of denial.

11/3 Run

3.24 miles
32:55 min, 10:10 min/mile

We picked the pace up considerably during the last half of the run, probably because it came at the end of a long, stressful day. Friday's not looking much better, but I have no appointments so I should be able to get a lot done.

11/2 Late Run

5.35 miles
51:27 min, 9:35 min/mile

Pretty uneventful aside from feeling a little exposed while running down sections of Archer Rd. Went from the UF stadium parking lot to University, down past the law school to 34th, down 34th to Archer then all the way down to Gale Lemrand and the stadium. It would have been a lot easier run if I didn't have a day full of driving around and crawling all over three peoples roofs. What a pain. Hopefully I won't be there too much longer, but there's no need to get the hopes up yet.