I've started running again.

Yes, in the middle of the godawful cold of the coldest weeks of a godawfully cold winter. Ya bundle up. And don't try to set any records.

I've been running about every other day, averaging about four miles per run, since the 14th. Actually the every other day thing bounced me over the 24-below day, so I didn't have to decide whether to skip a run or not that day. The two 'abouts' a couple sentences ago I feel the need to explain: the first one is because I've actually run more than that - I ran back-to-back days twice, and the second one is because the route I've run most is 4.22 miles, according to MapMyRun. I did 2 shorter routes (3.05 and 3.88) and one slightly longer (4.29).

The longest route is the nicest, it goes the long way through a long park along Shingle Creek, but, when the temp's below 15 and there's any kind of wind, you don't want to go that way. There's no view when you've got your hood pulled tight around your face and your hat brim is blocking out everything beyond ten feet in front of you.

The passion's back, though. I was getting the urge to go out again late this afternoon. I suppressed it by sitting down to watch the Packer game. They held on to beat the Bears for the NFC Championship. They're going to the Superbowl!

Been running a lot lately.

Well, not a lot compared to what I will be doing. For those who haven't seen the other blog lately, I've signed up to run another TCM. The TC 1-mile is tomorrow. I had today scheduled as a rest day, but I didn't feel overtrained in the slightest, so I decided to go run a slow 2 miles (+ whatever - I ran for twenty five minutes; half street/half trails so it's hard to measure) tonight. I ran it all straight away from the house and then walked back in 45 minutes.

I need to keep records of all that because the company is offering fabulous prizes for people who do a crapload of that sort of thing. Speaking of which, I haven't told the form that I ran 32 minutes Saturday, and 26 each yesterday and Monday.

No adventures so far. I'm too experienced at this to screw it up. [I'm tweaking my inner gremlin. Hope he's got a sense of humor. "(Snort!) Sense of humor?! I'm THE ONE with a sense of humor around here? You'd better hope I have a sense of humor, with you callin' me a gremlin all the time." Well, let's not put the therapy session online.]

I seem to be having a flare up of

Iliotibial band syndrome. [Yes, I cut and pasted that.]

The exercise on that page has me feeling better already. Don't anybody say anything about the placebo effect.

Marathon Sunday. My plan is mostly to do that exercise and some other stretches, and rest until then; let that muscle strengthen and heal. Hopefully I can get in a seven and a two mile run in, but I'll just have to skip 'em if the leg hurts. Maybe I can do some pool running at the city swimming pool. The girls'd like that.

Hey!

Read Marginal Utility Is Not Rocket Science!

There's your economics for today.

You want to learn about running? Check out Training for your Marathon, by - and/or edited by - Jay Hendrickson. It's a 100-some page .doc ebook that the guy ought to be selling for money. His key point is: optimal stress + optimal rest = optimal progress.

The rest of the book is about what "optimal" means.

I love the quote he starts his "philosophy" article with:

"Take a primitive organism, any weak, pitiful organism. Say a freshman. Make it lift or jump or run. Let it rest. What happens? A little miracle. It gets a little better. It gets a little stronger or faster or more enduring. That's all training is. Stress. Recover. Improve. You'd think any damn fool could do it, even...

But you don't. You work too hard and rest too little and get hurt." - Bill Bowerman

[Emphasis Hendrickson's, I believe.]
There's a Runbayou blog as well. Though he hasn't said much since his kid won the 2007 UIL Division 1A Texas High School Tennis Championship in early May. Before that he writes about the Boston Marathon.

I know a guy who ran Boston in 3:45. But I haven't asked him about it. I've only talked to him once. That doesn't hardly constitute a relationship in my book.

You have to run a 3:30 to even qualify to enter Boston, but if you read Hendrickson's description of the race conditions you can see why a good runner (great runner from my viewpoint) would have trouble getting there there on that day.

The subtitle of H's book is "Information for the Obsessed Athlete." Does it seem like I'm getting there?

Oh, that crunchy knee?

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

My new Runner's World magazine has a stretching exercise that seems to have made that go away. Instead of stretching your quads by pulling your heel to your butt, just stand with your hands on your thighs, use one hand to help brace yourself bend your knees and lean forward slightly and raise one heel behind you as high as you think you should. Hold for a second or two, then do the other leg. 10 times/leg.

I also learned a foot stretch a while back that has significantly reduced a budding case of plantar fasciitis: sit down and cross one leg over the other knee, grab your toes with the hand of the same side and pull them back. Don't overstrain, but make sure you feel the stretch. 20-30 seconds each side, three times a day.

I bring these up because the improvements from each have been almost instantaneous.

Now for some sleep.

Ah, heck, as long as I'm here, I'll talk about how my running is going

I'm still working on making a habit of running at least 2 miles a day. I missed Thursday (but I would have anyway - it was raining cats and dogs), but otherwise I've been kicking butt on that goal. The goal of running every day is a rule meant to be broken. Weather, health and other plans and issues are always going to get in the way, but if you've run two out of the last four days, who cares, eh?

Here's a quickie mileage log, that'll be useful to me if nobody else cares:
Starting a week ago last Friday: 2, 7, 0, 0, 2.5, 5, 0, 2, 7, 3.

I have numbers before that written somewhere else, but I'm not overly concerned about them. I have a tendency to always average 10 minute miles, though, of course, I've done eights and nines.

I'm going to get up early and run a slow 2 in the morning, and then go out looking for Rosie's flowers. And the missing parts for my trailer. So, off to bed I go.

Oh, I'm going to run a 15K next Saturday. That strikes me as the sort of oddball distance that will only draw serious runners, so don't be surprised if I come in dead last.

I'm down into the 100 KG weight class!

218 Today!

All you have to do to dump five pounds fast is run 20+ miles in 3 days.

Oop! Family duties call.

I took a jog today.

150 Minutes worth. That's two hours and 30 minutes. I doubt that I maintained a pace of 10 minutes/mile, but it's the best estimate that can make. That is, 15 miles.

I kicked butt for the first hour; I ran a full mile farther than I did the last time I jogged in that direction. Everything went fine for the next hour, during which I reached my goal - a beautiful park in Maple Grove with several terraced ponds - and headed back. I returned almost exactly to my one hour mark at two hours so I was still kickin' butt.

My mind gave the tune, "One Shower! One nap! And one beer!" as a mantra.

I left the house with a 20 oz. bottle of water mixed with an ounce of liquid minerals. I sipped my third to last swig at the two hour mark. It was my intention at that point to continue running for one more hour. Oddly enough, at the ultimate [by that, I mean last] sip of my mineral-infuse water my will to continue died.

I lasted about another 200 yards. Then I started walking.

I was carrying a fiver in my pocket so I stopped at the first convenience store I found and bought a "Sports Shake". It was cold. It tasted fabulous.

It damn near made me barf.

Here, I had an odd experience once I stopped running. I was still 4 miles from the house and I was walking along when I saw a plastic bag billowing in the wind on the sidewalk. There was a bunch of rubbish in the woods next to it, so I grabbed the bag and started filling it with the rubbish. Then I saw, under a low branch, a dollar bill, and said to myself, "I guess I get paid for this good deed!" It was like God said, "Here's a dollar bill. If you clean up this mess, you'll find it and it's yours."

So, naturally I bought some fruit juice at the next convenience store and it gave me the energy to run some sprints as I continued on my way home. The spiritual energy gained from the idea that God rewards simple, good deeds was not a miniscule contribution.

In the end, I kept my body in motion for a full four hours. It gives me confidence that I actually can do a marathon. I think I can at least do a 25K race in two and a half. [A marathon's 42.something.]

I see that the belly's a bit flatter this evening.

The Calves are lookin' good after two weeks of running.

Of course, I'm not showing you pix of my belly or my bald head--and I cut off my ugly toes--but the legs are lookin' good.

Just ignore that Kimball Organ in the background.