Summertime

Today I ran for Tommy. It was a short run but Tommy is a short guy.

I used to love the summer. Lazy days at the pool. Something changed when I got married and had a kid. I just can't lay at the pool all day anymore. The problem is that my son loves to swim and begs me to take him so I think I'll talk my wife in to packing a cooler and heading down for a couple of hours this weekend. I'm kinda even feeling a little excited about it.

Have a great weekend and if you know of any good family fun things to do please let me know.

Because I Can

I think I have found a good reason to start training again. A fire inside. I am going to do because others can’t.

I have so many people in my life that cannot run, swim, or bike any distance. I have family members that are in wheelchairs, a brother with an artificial leg, and a few battling cancer. But today it hit me like a ton of bricks as I sat looking at my running shoes. I have an x-sister-in law that has Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Even though she is no longer married to my brother I consider her a sister. She was married to him for at least 20 years (much more I’m sure) and I cannot think back to a time that I did not know her. I’m sad to say that I don’t see her much anymore but made the trip out to see her a few weeks back because she is not doing well. This disease has taken away all ability to move and she struggled to speak any words. To say even one word would take a great effort and she had to repeat herself because I could not understand. I’ve thought about her often since my visit, I wish I could do something.

I heard from my niece last night that they think she will pass soon and I thank God for that as does she. I know she is headed to a better place. As the thought of her raced through my mind today I realized that so many people would give anything to run, heck even walk. So many people would love to be able to stand up out of that wheel chair, or get out of that hospital bed and move under their own power. I can run! I’m healthy and I can run (sound like Forest Gump).

Do I (we) not owe it to the people who can’t to not waste the simple things in life? I have seen a lot of challenges out on the blog so here is another: Get up and run for someone who can't. Today I ran for Kim.

Sorry to be so gloomy.

Life goes on

OK. My mind is starting to get right. I just going to come out and say it: “I have Will Smith on the MP3 and I don’t care who knows it!” His songs make me run happy. In the last couple of days I have tested the waters to see just how far I’ve slipped in my fitness. I went for a short bike ride this weekend and swam last night. The bike seemed almost like starting over and the swim was just weak. But, I’m back!

The biggest job I have in life is being a good father to my son. When he was young it was easy, just keep him safe and healthy. As he has grown I have tried to be a good role model for him and I fear he has become too much like me in the wrong areas. How do you teach good habits without the bad? They watch so close and you don’t get to choose what they remember. Don’t get me wrong, this boy is great and very well adjusted. He just has some lazy habits and he got them from me. I have a habit of procrastinating before I start a chore and then I go all out until the job is done. When I work I work hard but it sometime takes a little bit to get going. My son takes a while to get going and then drags the job out forever. He’ll find any reason to stop and a 1 hour job takes all day for him to complete. We’ll be working on changing these habits this summer.

I just signed Sammy up for a kid’s tri that is next weekend. I struggled with the decision because I don’t want to force a sport on him and I sometimes feel like he would do anything to make me happy. I asked him if he wanted to race and had to feel him out to see if he was doing it for me. He did this race last year with a fever (just to make me happy) and told me he wanted to do it again to see how much better he could do this time. I was kind of hoping he would say that he didn’t want to do the race so that I could sign up for something.

Slowly coming back around

I wish I was a kid again. Summer is almost here for my boy and it takes me back to when I was 12 years old. Do you remember how excited you felt the last week of school? I loved the summer as a kid. I never wore shoes and lived at the pool. Life was good and easy.

Lately I’ve been in a funk and life seems to be dragging me down. I continue to run but have not biked in a while and have swam even less. Our neighborhood pool just opened and it’s right in my back yard so I have high hopes to start swimming again real soon. Biking is going to be hard because I don’t want to take too much time away from my family. I may have a guy that I met a few weeks back that will ride with me. I just like to get out and back early so that I can spend the day with the family and most bike groups start late and go long. It’s a hard balance to train and have a family. How do others do it?

I want to fit a few triathlons in but I just don’t see it happening. The close events fall on bad days and the others are just too far away. I’ll keep looking for the right tri event but have decided that I’m going to start training for a marathon. I thought about a half but that just doesn’t do it for me. So – what advice would you give me? Where do I start?

Blah!

I’m tired. My neck and back hurt. I have to cut the grass. I need to help my kid study for a test. Any excuse will do and I have used them ALL this week. I have done very little this week that is good for me and I feel like crap.

If I can’t get out of this funk soon I’m afraid that I will be back on the couch and back to my old life. HELP! What do you do when you just don’t want to exercise? What gets you pumped up and out the door?

10k on the 10th Virtual Club Run Race Report

10K on the 10th

This race rocks! I began the day by getting up in plenty of time to make it to the starting line; I ate my usual race breakfast of a bagel with peanut butter downed some Gatorade and hit the road. I drove to the park that my race was to be held and to my surprise it was empty. I thought for this big of a race that the parking lot would be crammed. I grabbed the tunes and hit the trail.

The park that I run at on the weekends is nice, real nice. It has a 2.2 mile paved route around a lake and through woods. You get just enough sun and shade and the hills are small. It also has each tenth of a mile marked in both directions. I also love to run here because you get to see the ducks, geese, and other wildlife. I never get tired of seeing a duck in the water with his butt in the air (always makes my laugh) and think it is real cool to see them fly in and land on the water. At the end of my run I saw some baby geese eating as the parents kept an eye on me. I’ve determined that if a goose does not move away as you run closer to it then you need to avoid that goose.

My mind continues to tell my body to stop running. It’s a constant battle that today my body won. I have to play little games to keep myself going. About halfway in to the run I spotted a lady with a pony tail running far in front of me. Now, for me a girl with a pony tail is it! I’m like a kitten chasing string. It was a good game to play for a while until I caught up close enough to see that it was NOT a pony tail and she had her pants pulled up to her armpits. I passed the lady and continued on to find the next game.

Nearing the end of the run I found some more motivation, it was a pony tail girl catching me! One part of the trail was open for about ½ mile and I could see that I had a girl that was running pretty good behind me. Now, I love to have people in front of me so that I can try to catch them but I hate to have people catch and pass me. I can handle the people that fly going by me but I dislike it when someone that is about my pace “beats me”. I picked it up a bit and never saw her again.

I ran the complete distance at a time of 54:54.

Dragin' Ass

I'm dragin' ass today and I hurt all over! I have only been bringing it for 3 days now and I hurt. I think I’m going to lose weight because my arms hurt too bad to lift any food to my mouth. I still can’t stand the instructor on the videos but I can see that after 90 days I will be in better shape.

I made the mistake of running at lunch Tuesday and then doing the power 90x thing when I got home. The run was great! I finally found a nice 4 mile route around my office building that has little traffic and good hills. I was happy that I could start using this as my everyday run and start working my more miles on the weekend. The problem started when I got home and determined that I was to do some workout called Plyometrics (Explosive jumping cardio routine proven to dramatically improve athletic performance). I tried to bring it and I failed. I made it halfway through when my knee could no longer take it.

Last night I brought it again for the Shoulder and Arm workout. It hurt but I got it done. I was hoping to run again today but I’m not feeling it and I want to be able to run the 10k on the 10th - . Tonight is yoga so I’m hoping it will help me get all these kinks out.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend. Remember to enjoy yourself.

BRING IT!

My caring wife bought these DVDs some time back for her. Yeah right! She has been bugging me to do this Power 90X for at least 5 months now because she wants me to get some exercise. The running, biking, and swimming that I do is not getting the results that she wants. I'm getting skinny but she wants a buff stud. She is funny, why can't she just come out and say that she wants me to look like the guys on those infomercials? So I have now started to "bring it" as the guy on the video keeps repeating. I didn't get 3 minutes in to the video and I was already tired of his voice. He just kept talking about how to "bring it" and all I could say was let’s go, stop talking and let's get working.

I started the first video last night and think it will be a good addition to the training. I'm a little sore this morning from all the push-ups that he had me doing and I discovered that I can't do any pull ups yet. But, in 90 days I will be a ripped machine!

Kickin' Back

After much thought I've decided that Triathlons are not for me. Just kidding! This sport sucks you in because you know that you can always do a little better. I'm looking forward to the next event and many more down the road.

It's been over a week since the race and I'm ready to start back. I wanted so badly to train this weekend and had some really good options but I needed some family time. So this weekend I trained by drinking beer, eating junk, and sleeping late.

Races I’m thinking about:

Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon - Lifelong goal is to finish a marathon
The Tugaloo Triathlon
The Siege on Fort Yargo – This is a team event that some co-workers want me to do with them.
Peachtree City Sprint Triathlon