This morning it was one of those you wake up to an inch or so of pain-in-the-arse white shite, which meant just enough snow moving for three driveways and then getting to walk Bennie a ways in wet slushy crap.

After Bennie’s first walk, I decided to throw together this breakfast and it didn’t last too long, although Bennie did do more than his usual begging for a piece of the sausage pattie. 🙂

Can you tell that I love snow about this time of year. Sometimes I think that I would almost rather deal with a 6-12 inch storm than a PIA 1-2 inches. At least what I didn’t have to move melted for the most part later in the day.

Which meant that while I was scheduled for a Something of Substance (SOS) workout according to the Hansons Half Plan, it didn’t mean that I was chomping at the bit to do it after having over 10,000 steps on the old body by 9:30a. Yeah, I was already tired and really thought about moving the planned tempo workout to Friday.

However with freezing rain in the forecast for tonight, I figured that I might as well just do it today and get it over with. I figured that I would do the minimum: 1.0 mile warm-up, 3 miles at 1/2 marathon race pace and a mile cool-down.

Err that was the plan.

1.0 warm-up @ 6.3 mph – no issues and the legs started to feel pretty good

4.0 tempo @ 7.8 mph – I felt really strong the entire time and focused on keeping my form compact.

.50 cool-down @ 6.1 mph – Everything felt good, so I decided that I would do some strides.

7 x .10 strides @ 9.1 mph and .10 recovery @ 6.1 mph – the fast stuff felt really good and when I got to the 6.5 mile point, I decided to keep doing them to 7.0 miles

Dramatic pause and music cued please.

1 x .10 strides @ 10.1 mph – my old quarter repeat speed something that I haven’t felt comfortable enough to try lately and even though it was only for .10, it felt good to run that fast and be able to do it without pain or feeling like the old body was going to go into shock or something.

Walked .40 to cool-down at constantly slower paces.

I am very happy with how well the workout went this morning, while I have been getting closer to being able to hold some of these paces better than I have in the past – that consistent training thing is helping a lot. I didn’t expect to be successfully doing this kind of volume workout at this point in my training, actually, I didn’t expect to hit these kind of paces at all.

While I usually do better on the treadmill, I am also finding that this year most of my treadmill progress is also translating to running better outside. So I am hoping that keeping pretty close to the Hansons Half Marathon training plan will provide me enough structure to keep making good progress, but at the same time letting me continue to see progress, but allow me to stretch out the legs every once in a while, just not all that often.

Believe me, I know that I need to keep to the guard rails that the Hansons plan is providing me, so that I do not go into full “Harold Mode” and screw everything up by doing too much or thinking that I too can run “that” fast again.

Sometimes I am my own worst enemy and this year I want to work hard to avoid that guy for as long as I can.

The other thing was that I had a nice conversation with an old co-worker from my UMA days, who ran on the treadmill beside me and congratulated me on my workout. I was so focused in on my workout that I didn’t notice her getting on the treadmill or watching me change speeds. I laughed a little when we talked about how it wasn’t bad for an old fart.

We did get caught up on some other stuff and it was nice to talk with her again.

A pretty decent workout.

Friday’s run was one of those easy 6 mile runs in the Hansons Marathon plan, which I have been using to prep for a half marathon in April and also to see if I could manage the training and mileage required to run a marathon this Fall.

During the run I had a chance to think, which for me can be dangerous.

No, Friday’s run itself was not a problem and I actually got to enjoy the time outside in the sun, with decent weather for January in Maine. I even got to test the Beacons on a variety of surfaces and was surprised at how grippy they were. Now I wouldn’t wear them on any gnarly trails or anything, but they were decent on sanded ice, wet gritty sand and regular roads. Plus they were comfortable for the entire 10K and when I wanted to pick the pace up during the last mile – I did.

Today’s run was another scheduled easy run and since I did the 6.0 miler yesterday, I planned on 5.0 for today.

I could have probably could have run outside, but once I got to the gym, I decided that the treadmill was going to be easier and got on and set it to an easy pace for 4.0 miles. When I got to 4.0 miles I decided that I wanted to do some .1 strides at a faster pace. I may have gotten a bit carried away and ended up doing 8 of them.

They just felt good and the Beacons didn’t get in the way like some other trainers have when I pick up the paces to the I’m going too fast speeds. Then I did a half mile cool-down and walked for another half mile.

So far I am very happy with the way the New Balance Beacons have performed on easy runs and the faster paced strides that I did today. Just need to keep putting miles on them.

I did get to think some more and am pretty sure that I will be making a few changes to my training plan next week based on what I have been thinking about.

My New Balance Beacons, a pair of reasonably newer shoes, even though a few images of version 2 are out in the wild, they are not available for purchase yet. So the original Beacon is still pretty current.

Let’s get something out there right now.

New Balance running shoes generally fit my feet better than any other brand in a men’s size 8.0, which is my true to size foot. I have not had a pair of New Balance running shoes that did not fit my Hobbit feet well. The problems with the New Balance daily trainers that I have tried is that they tend to be heavy, stiff, have high ankle wells and bother the hell out of my left foot’s Plantar Fascia.

If it were not for those reasons I would have been running in a LOT more of their shoes over the years.

Enter the New Balance Beacon. Continue reading →

Holy raining cats and dawgs!!! Yeah, can you believe it rain in Maine in January and actually it was a pretty good thing, I can’t imagine what kind of snow totals we would have had if it had come down as white shite…errr snow. Clean-up from the rain is definitely a lot easier on the body, but when it freezes up tonight it is going to be a regular skating rink, out in the driveway.

Yesterday was a scheduled day off and it probably have been easier to have run 5.0 miles than roof rake three very large roofs. After 4.5 hours of roof raking, needless to say I was pretty much toast by the time I got done.

Sometimes we just take things for granted. Like our health.

Last week we found out that the next door neighbor had a stroke back in November and while we thought something was going on, out of respect for their privacy we never really tried to find out what was going on.

While we have had our differences over the years, when I know that someone needs the help, you check egos at the door and offer to help. That was two of the roofs I got to rake yesterday that hadn’t been done this winter, in preparation for today’s storm.

What we didn’t know was that the wife also has stage IV cancer and has been traveling to Boston every couple of weeks for treatment. When I found that out, I were floored to say the least.

Sometimes life is strange, but sometimes doing the right things for the right reasons…is the right thing to do.

Even though when I left the house three hours later, I was sore and tired, the handshake, thank you and smile that I got was all I needed and accepted. I smiled back and told them thank you for letting me help and I can do anything else to help to let me know.

No, I am not patting myself on my back or anything else, I mention it because so often we are so busy going about living our daily lives that we don’t really notice the changes in our neighbors that may indicate that they are really struggling. Sometimes all it takes is asking “are you okay” or “what’s been going on”, especially when you notice things out of the ordinary going on around their place. Being a nosy neighbor is not always a bad thing.

Especially, when you can do something that could make their’s a little better.

Getting back to Running

So this morning my SOS workout was one of those ones where you really think about changing it to tomorrow, because my body was pretty much miserable from the heavy duty upper body workout yesterday. Then I got to thinking about my neighbors and their recent struggles – there wasn’t any doubt about doing the workout.

I am lucky and at the same time have worked hard to get my health to where it is today and to duck out on a workout after yesterday’s revelations is not something that I could do.

With the rain storm going on outside, it was another treadmill workout. However, I was going to get to run in my first new shoes since November (a new record) and was wondering how they would do?

New Balance Beacon. I was shocked that they came in under 7.0 ounces.

I was a little concerned about running in new shoes for a 7.0 mile planned tougher workout, but that is the primary reason that I got the Beacons, so I figured why not see what they are going to be like.

My workout was a 1.0 mile warm-up, 5.0 miles at ten seconds below race pace and then a mile cool-down.

The mile warm-up went nicely and the shoes felt fine.

I pushed the speed up to faster than my race pace and settled into a nice stride and just ran comfortably. Although I gotta admit about 3.0 miles into the faster pace stuff, I was definitely feeling the last week’s extra curricula activities of snowblowing and roof raking. When I got to mile 4.0, I decided to kick it up just a little for the last mile. A real sucker for punishment aren’t I?

It was a tough mile, but I got it done.

The cool-down felt good and I got the 7.0 miles done before the 60:00 cut-off on the treadmill – by five seconds. 🙂

One thing I is that I forgot my Garmin at home (I was charging it and when I left the house, it was still attached to the charger). So I had to rely on the treadmill and my Milestone Pod, which I put on the Beacons to see if I they changed any of my normal stride patterns from my adidas.

How did the Beacons do?

No issues, I stopped noticing them once I got to the faster paces and I could tell a difference with the extra cushion in the forefoot. The only difference that I will wonder about is the lower drop and how it will affect my left Achilles, but according to Milestone, there are no differences to my stride patterns, so I don’t see a lot of things that I need to worry about.

A good run and a more than a little reflection during the about life, health and what is a good neighbor.

Well that was an interesting couple of days and taxing on the old bod, but I got through it and today was the workout that I actually look forward to – Speed work. Yeah, I am one of those guys.

At least now that I have learned that I don’t have to run stoopid speeds to do these workouts. I just have to run controlled paces that are based on reality versus “how I used to be” or wishful thinking.

A pretty big difference to say the least.

Yeah, I ran yesterday 6.0 easy miles on the treadmill, the temps were below zero and the wind chills were nothing I wanted to deal will. Today the temps were still in the single digits and the wind chills were not all that great. So another treadmill day, but since I have committed to do my speed work inside for a while it was not a big deal. Continue reading →