Sunday, July 29, 2007

Gone, but not forgotten

I am SO sorry to be SO far behind. It's been, well, quite a time.

I'll try to fill in the blanks, but there's been:

1] seeing an old friend
2] playing with the grandkids
3] speaking at a memorial service
4] riding with the Kyle Petty Charity Ride
5] riding the legendary "Tail of the Dragon"
6] my father's bypass surgery
7] riding a GoldWing at the Honda Homecoming
8] Get from where I was to where I needed to be and back

Anyway, I'm hoping to get back to the laptop soon.

Play nice!!

j

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Holiday Week

It's Sunday night, the end of a long, but fantastic, holiday week. Have the 4th of July on Wednesday really means that the whole week is sort of messed up. Hard to get started on Monday because you know you're leaving early on Tuesday. [especially in Chicago where the big fireworks are on July 3rd] The Thursday it's hard to get going because Friday's coming and then it's the weekend. You get the idea.

I did managed to take the 4th off from running and spend the day out on the motorcycle. Jenny and I are leaving next weekend to join up with the Kyle Petty Charity Ride so we needed to get in some motorized training.

My running has been very consistent lately and it's paying off. I'm able to run more often and get it more miles. I'm not even thinking about pace and that makes EVERY run a fun run. I've been heading out to the 'burbs to do some more interesting trail runs. The change of scenery has helped reinvigorate my running.

Today I was back in the 100 acre wood in Willow Springs. About 5 minutes into the run I saw two beautiful young deer just standing there looking back at me. It was VERY cool.

I've got a 10 mile run coming up on Saturday, so I'll need to take it easy during the week.

Monday, July 02, 2007

I am NOT a jogger

WOW, that touched a nerve. I've never gotten so many on and offline comments. It might be that I'll need to write a column about THIS!

The truth is, yesterday, I was NOT a jogger, I was a bicyclist. I wanted to get out and do an easy spin, but ended up on a very nice hard-packed stone trail where the temptation to "get after it" was just too great.

Keep in mind, at my BEST I'm not even getting CLOSE to it, let alone getting AFTER it it, but I had fun. I led for a while, then drafted behind Jenny for a while, then cooled my jets and road like a normal person.

Today was "tempo" day. Nothing TOO impressive, just trying to maintain a somewhat higher level of effort for a shorter distance/duration. It was a near perfect day and
I was actually faster than I thought. NOT FAST. Faster than I thought.

ORN: 3.2 miles, 36 minutes, run 5/walk 1

{ORN means "Obligatory Running Note", from the original Dead Runners Society list that required every post to have some running content}

Sunday, July 01, 2007

A fine nine

I can hardly believe it myself. Yesterday I ran [OK, ran/walked] 9 miles with the Chicago Endurance Sports training team. We used a run 3/walk 2 interval and it was perfect. The run took us about 2 hours and 10 minutes.

This puts me well within range of a half marathon. Based on yesterday, I think my back is "back" to normal - which is not to say perfect, but good enough.

Part of this, I think, is that fact that I've been doing at least one "sort of" hilly trail run every week for the past 5 or 6 weeks. And that I've been doing some cycling in addition to running. Yeah, I know, it's called "cross training". But I LIKE to ride so I don't think of it as training.

Some folks have written to me about the "We are not Joggers" ad that was in Runner's World. I won't mention the manufacturer's name because that just gives them more publicity. It was, in my view, about the dumbest thing a shoe and apparel company could do. I'm sure there was a bunch of 30 year-old ad people that thought it was clever. It wasn't. It was just dumb.

As George Sheehan wrote: The difference between a runner and a jogger is the signature on a race application. If you are willing to line up at take your shot in an event, you are NOT a jogger. And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with BEING a jogger or a recreational runner/walker.

The ad was just stupid. Enough said.

John