Discourse on running, fitness, healthy eating. May have long stories about all kinds of running gear like Garmin watches, running sleeves or just musings about what I find in the running community. Try to keep you guessing.
BowFlex
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Sometimes Running Hurts
"pressure is nothing more than the shadow of great opportunity." - Michael Johnson
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Where Have You Been?
Well I've been through the desert on a horse with no name...It has not rained in this town in about a month. Funny thing is that just last month it rained 22 days. In June it rained 23 days and in May we had 25 days of rain. Dallas is not known for this so all us runners have had to spend the month of August getting reacquainted with the dreaded humidity and pure, hellayshish (yes, made up word) heat.Over the last three weekend I had a tough 16 miler, a nonexistent 12 miler, then a painful 18 miler. Today was a little different. I ran 12 miles again but, I did pretty well. I actually had a couple more miles in me for the first time in a while.
I failed to mention that during the week I've been doing those tempo runs with my fast running buddies. A little advice...It's always good to keep a few fast friends in your line-up so they can push you to better performance. The problem this month has been that they are just too dang fast. They're doing so well these days that when they run they talk the entire time with no real problems. Oh well, I guess they talk the whole time, they run so fast that they lose me after about 15 minutes.
That's OK. I'll muster up something for this week's tempo and be sure to hear their entire conversation.
I failed to mention that during the week I've been doing those tempo runs with my fast running buddies. A little advice...It's always good to keep a few fast friends in your line-up so they can push you to better performance. The problem this month has been that they are just too dang fast. They're doing so well these days that when they run they talk the entire time with no real problems. Oh well, I guess they talk the whole time, they run so fast that they lose me after about 15 minutes.
That's OK. I'll muster up something for this week's tempo and be sure to hear their entire conversation.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Treadmills are for Hamsters but Juarez is Neither for Man or Hamster
So, on Tuesday morning I woke up in the Camino Real Hotel in Juarez, Mexico. Very nice room and the bed was soft and comfy. It was pretty early I thought when I went downstairs to run on the dreaded treadmill. Not early enough, I soon learned as I got downstairs and saw that the only two treadmills in the entire hotel, probably 200-300 rooms, were occupied by some other Americans walking at about 2 miles an hour. The unadulterated nerve. Selfish Americans. Hang-on, that's me.
Well, I decided that I was not going to blow the perfect opportunity to run simply because Plan A was a bust. There's more than one way to skin a cat, ain't no two monkeys going to stop this show. "I'll just run outside", I said cleverly to myself. How bad can it be? I've got my Garmin 305 and my Oakley Thump Pro shades fully loaded with music. So, I hit the street. I was surprised that my Garmin actually located a satellite. I'm not sure how those things work, do they fly all over the world or what? However, there are clearly more floating around over the U.S. than there are over Mexico. My Garmin lost the satellite at about 2 miles into the run. No matter though, I was choking to death by the time I hit the two mile mark anyway so I decided to only do about another two miles.
There are clearly no emissions requirements in that country. Not only was I dodging early morning people going to work staring at me because they've never seen a runner before, but the pollution, OMG the pollution. When I finally circled back to the hotel I concluded it best to stay inside at all cost the next day.
Wednesday I woke up went downstairs by 5:40 am and still there were two lofty Americans walking on the blooming treadmill again. I mean they could mall walk for crying out loud. So, I waited for a short 20 minutes when one of them finally jumped off, leaving his sweat on the HR monitor bars. I ran that dang machine hard for about 50 minutes. Sporting my Oakley shades the entire time to avoid the boredom of running in place like some poor, stupid hamster. BTW - really who's dumber, a hamster running on a wheel thinking he'll eventually get to wherever he's going, or me running in one place all the time knowing I'm going nowhere and never will but, still I run anyway?
Who am I fooling? The sensation of running is just too good, even if you have to run in one place for 50 minutes or so. I still say treadmills are for hamsters. Now I'm back home so back to the street (where I'm just running in a great big circle) I go.
Well, I decided that I was not going to blow the perfect opportunity to run simply because Plan A was a bust. There's more than one way to skin a cat, ain't no two monkeys going to stop this show. "I'll just run outside", I said cleverly to myself. How bad can it be? I've got my Garmin 305 and my Oakley Thump Pro shades fully loaded with music. So, I hit the street. I was surprised that my Garmin actually located a satellite. I'm not sure how those things work, do they fly all over the world or what? However, there are clearly more floating around over the U.S. than there are over Mexico. My Garmin lost the satellite at about 2 miles into the run. No matter though, I was choking to death by the time I hit the two mile mark anyway so I decided to only do about another two miles.
There are clearly no emissions requirements in that country. Not only was I dodging early morning people going to work staring at me because they've never seen a runner before, but the pollution, OMG the pollution. When I finally circled back to the hotel I concluded it best to stay inside at all cost the next day.
Wednesday I woke up went downstairs by 5:40 am and still there were two lofty Americans walking on the blooming treadmill again. I mean they could mall walk for crying out loud. So, I waited for a short 20 minutes when one of them finally jumped off, leaving his sweat on the HR monitor bars. I ran that dang machine hard for about 50 minutes. Sporting my Oakley shades the entire time to avoid the boredom of running in place like some poor, stupid hamster. BTW - really who's dumber, a hamster running on a wheel thinking he'll eventually get to wherever he's going, or me running in one place all the time knowing I'm going nowhere and never will but, still I run anyway?
Who am I fooling? The sensation of running is just too good, even if you have to run in one place for 50 minutes or so. I still say treadmills are for hamsters. Now I'm back home so back to the street (where I'm just running in a great big circle) I go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)