Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Cycle, Cycle Too

Good week last week. Ran Wednesday by myself, and then Thursday with Christian. Thursday’s run was one of the best I’ve had in a long while – felt really strong, and it was an incredible day. It’d been raining all morning, but when we hit the turn-around point, the sun came out, and it was nice and warm all the way back. Chris is making great progress, and I’m soon going to be the one getting dropped by him. But till then, it’s a perfect application of the small dog theory – he drives me to keep going.

Didn’t do anything this weekend except for move 4 yards of dirt on Saturday. I was going to build on the swingset today, but we drove over to Old Saybrook for some furniture and pizza on Saturday and picked up a screw in one of Missy’s tires. So the boys and I went to get it fixed this afternoon while Missy caught up at work. My back thanked me.

But Saturday was exceptional.

Back to running – today’s tip is one I’m stealing from Galloway’s Book on Running – Christian and I were pounding up the hill on our way back into NUWC, and I noticed he was trying to keep his stride the same length while running uphill. I pointed out that he was having to do a whole lot more work with each step that way, and that it might be easier on him to take shorter steps on the uphills. It feels funny at first, but ti works. Think about it – you wouldn’t ride a bike up a hill without kicking it down into the small chainring and big cog (unless you’re a singlespeed junkie), why keep it in high gear when running uphill? So Chris downshifted, and was still going strong when we hit the top of the hill instead of crashing as soon as we crested.

Good book, Galloway’s.

Tuesday dawned wet, rainy, and cold.

So I blew off running till noon. Hmm, still raining, and still in the 60’s. I’m in a quandry now – back in Houston, running in July in the rain would have been completely and totally cathartic. In costal New England, it’s painful. So, I blow it off until close of business.

Close of business, I finally decided to hit the road. And it sucked.

First gripe: I’m still hurting from Saturday’s assault on the perimeter road. But that’s just whining. Summon up image of Staff Sergant Hyler, United States Marine Corps and scent of cigarette and coffee breath way back in Pensacola and trudge on.

Second gripe: There’s a reason sailing’s popular in Newport – there’s always great wind in the afternoon during the summer. Blowing in my face all the way out.

Last gripe – it’s raining, and with the wind and the moderate temperatures, it’s too cold to run without some sort of wind breaker. However, the windbreaker turns me into a sail. Plus, when I turn around, it’s a tad warm without the wind.

Ah well.

The small dog syndrome struck right as I hit the turn to head back with the wind (~ 2/3 of the way through the run due to having mostly quartering winds on the first two legs). As I crested a hill, I saw two guys running at a very leisurely pace about 200 yards up ahead of me. Crap, I think – I’m mostly spent, don’t waste energy chasing them.

Yeah, right.

I recover while fighting into the wind, make the turn, and suddenly, I’ve found a new reserve of energy. Very nice. I pass the guys with a “pardon”, and kick it just a little bit more. About an eighth of a mile down the road, I sneak a peek to see what’s going, and see that one of the guys suffers from small dog himself, and he’s dropped his partner and started chasing. He’s about 10 yards back. I’m aching, and for a minute consider dropping a little speed, but ultimately decide not to, as I’m almost to the end of the run.

So I kick it a little more, and finish strong. All in all, a very nice run. I was also about 5 minutes faster than the last time I ran the loop.

One last whining note: I think I’ve caught up cardiovascularly to where I was the last time I ran. I am not feeling winded any longer, which is nice. I am, however, at the point where I am stressing my muscles, so the nice nagging soreness that I’ve learned to associate with continued running is back. Sounds bad, but I’m really kind of happy with it. The only thing that needs to kick in is the accelerated weight loss.

183!

Finally down again.

Ah, another drill weekend, another assault on the perimeter road. Saturday was absolutely the perfect day upon which to run. Seventies, sunny, little to no wind. I’d been looking forward to running the perimeter for a couple of weeks.

The perimeter is a set of two-track back through the woods along a fenceline. Back in the day (all of a couple of years ago), it used to be just dirt and gravel, but some of the steeper sections have been paved to make it easier to drive on. I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse for running. On the one hand, it’s easier to keep footing while plodding up a 20% grade (I haven’t measured it, but my guess is that’s not an exaggeration in some places) on asphalt than on loose sand and rock, and it’s definitely easier than avoiding erosion ruts after it rained. On the other hand, I think it’s a lot harder on the knees.

In any case, I was able to talk a couple of the guys in the unit into doing the perimeter for afternoon PT. Two of the guys, I knew, were fit, and were going to drop me about the first chance they got. Another one of the guys was just coming back from having his knee rebuilt, so was going to turn back before we got to the actual trail. The last guy was kind of like me – used to run a lot, but was about 20 lbs up on his “fighting weight”, and struggling to knock it off.

So we set off.

Running with Christian really has been good for me speed-wise; I was up, feeling good, and got asked to slow down by the group more than once. We hit the first hill, and yep – the fast guys dropped me and Bob like yesterday’s news. Ouch.

I haven’t been able to make it all the way up the first climb since I started running again. Last month, I blame it mostly on the three immunization I’d gotten that day, but regardless, I was psyched up to at least make it all the way up the first hill. Add that to the “small dog” syndrome, and I was motivated somewhat fierce.

In any case, I ended up making the entire perimeter trail, or about 3 miles total of pretty tough running. I had to walk a little on the way back to the gym, but most of the walking was downhill. Good run.

(I did feel it something fierce on Sunday, though)

Chris and I skipped the hour and a half trip to the Cliff Walk and back, and instead went and did the run from NUWC up the coast along Military Highway. Very nice.

Like I’ve mentioned, running with Chris is nice, as it
(a) brings out the small dog syndrome in spades.
(b) gets me to run faster.

Chris is making great strides (pun intended), too. Today, I was afraid that he was going to last until I needed to turn around, and I was going to have to beg him to slow down a little bit. Thankfully, he pulled up just as I started to go seriously anerobic, and I was able to turn out about 2/3 of a mile at recovery pace before we made the turn to head back to the showers.

The runner’s high eluded me for a while, but in large part, I think that was due to the weekend’s manual labor really catching up to me after a week of sitting at the desk. That, and I stopped taking Motrin Tuesday night.

Ah, I remember why I loved running in Houston – the sweat drenching humidity, and the follow-on sweat that lasts for hours.

Summer has arrived in New England. Which is like saying that spring has arrived in Texas, but I’m pretty convinced that I am going to make this our home, so I’m going to whine about mild heat and humidity just like the rest of us Yankees. In truth, today was my favorite kind of day for running – somehow, I just don’t feel like I’ve actually worked without being drenched and sweat and hotter than the bejesus.

Running with Christian has been improving my pace, BTW. I kicked out about 2.7 today in about 22 minutes. Made me happy as my goal was just to squeeze in about 20 minutes of running, just long enough to push myself all the way aerobic, but still make it to work in a decent time. Not running in the mornings has made it way too easy to blow it off.

So I’ve got that going for me.

I’m still sore from too much manual labor for an information worker/engineer over the weekend, but had no problems when I was actually running. One of the benefits that’s come back from at least a couple months of concerted efforts to get back in shape has been the rapid return of the fabled “runner’s high.” My Navy buddy Steve and my leftist/skating/high school buddy Johnny Rollerfeet have both insisted that I must be on crack for claiming a runner’s high, but it works. Back when I started running again, it would take a good half hour or so of effort to get the endorphins flowing; now it’s almost instantaneous. (reference last Thursday’s run with Chris). As soon as the heart rate is up, the adrenalin kicks in, pain goes away, and my feet feel light.

Now, it’s time to start working on endurance. Which means getting to bed reliably around 10, so I can get up in time to do long runs before work.

Sigh.

As in Pictures, Pictures, who’s got the pictures?

We do, we do!

This has got to be one of my favorite sights – the bike – lubed, aired, and ready to go in early morning light. Possibly the only prettier sight in this light would be gently spreading rings of rising trout … Oh, or my lovely wife (‘cept she likes to sleep late).

These two were at a boat yard I’ve been meaning to stop at. There were a couple of modern ‘glass sailboats for sale near the side of the road, but when I stopped to check them out (still about a half-decade out from buying a hole in the water, but looking’s free), it turned out that there was an entire shipyard operation there. They had these two beautiful old wooden boats and a couple more just sitting out, and a couple in a shop being restored.

Looks like I’m buying powerball again…

184 today.

But it’s all good. We’ve been breakin’ rocks, so some of that’s water weight, and some of that’s bruises.

Heh. Le Tour kicked off today, so I went for a quick bike ride this morning. Shocked at the number of folks riding in yellow jerseys. I was in yellow, too, but it was a beer jersey, so it’s alright.

Didn’t make me any faster.

So I wake up this morning, and am getting ready to head to Newport. Got the clothes in which to run on, shower bag all ready, and I’m pumped. Go to grab my keys, etc from the drawer, and realize I’ve still got the key for the projection equipment in the Waterford conference room.

Crap.

So, it’s round ‘about 6:30 AM, no one will be at reception at the Waterford office until about 8 AM. Rats.

I head over to the office on the off chance that I can catch one of my coworkers in early on the Friday before a holiday weekend (HA!), and as I pull into the office I notice:

Hey, that’s a darn nice hill out front.

Then I remember that our web group has a shower (that they keep silent about, I guess for fear that someone would actually use it.)

Score. The day is much, much better. As best as I can figure it, I did about 3.3 miles round trip, up the huge hill, down the other side, and over a few rollers, then back to the office.

Got back, showered, and reception was in. Woo Hoo!

Then I blew everything by stopping at Tim Horton’s on my way to Newport. Stupid Canadians. They’re invading, and taking us over with delicious baked goods (whatever the heck those are, but they’re all good, so far…) and about the best cup of coffee I’ve found at a donut store.