13 Miles

Day 63.

I’ve once again caught music madness. Now that we’re getting close to the Bill Seymour — less than a month people!! — I’m going to start testing songs. I ran 4.5 miles today, and re-realized the power a song can have on your pace. So now, as I listen, I’m going to ask a few questions:

1. Can I run to this? If the song is great, but too slow or to mushy, I won’t be able to run to it. Likewise, if it’s too hard to listen to, then I can’t run to that either. Examples of songs off of my list: “Beth” by Kiss; “Without You” by Motley Crue; “9 in the afternoon” by Panic At the Disco (see earlier post.).

2. Do I like this song? If the song has a good beat, but I really don’t like it, it has gotta go. This may sound overly philosophical, but I don’t like songs I don’t like. “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter is a song I really don’t like. Sorry. I’m not going to run to you.

3. Does the song make me depressed? I’m running for God’s sake. Do I have to feel depressed too? Sorry, but I can’t listen to Buck Cherry’s “Sorry” or “Hate Me Today” by Blue October. Give these guys a hug.

4. Am I tired of this song? There are some great songs, that aren’t too slow or depressing that I like, but I’ve played them too many times. I can’t let the music numb me out so that I don’t listen to it and then pay attention to the fact I’m running. Sorry, but “Jaded” by Aerosmith and “Photograph” by Def Leppard are out.

5. Is the song just too long? I can’t get bored with a song. It’ll make it feel like I’m not getting anywhere. So, a lot of epic songs are out. “Hey Jude” by the Beatles, any early Metallica are out.

So what’s good?

I do like a lot of hairband stuff. I like fun stuff, fast stuff, poppy stuff.

“This Love” by Maroon 5, “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit, “Inside Out” by Eve 6, “Cumbersome” by Seven Mary Three, “Machinehead” by Bush and “Hey Baby” by No Doubt are some that I really like.

But there are some inspirational songs for runners I’m not sure about. “Run” by Collective Soul is on the bubble. Kinda slow.

I’m also not sure about “Born to Run.” I’ll try it out.

Let me know what you listen to. And I’d like to know your thoughts on a playlist vs. random order. Is it better to know it’s coming or be surprised. I’m leaning toward surprised, but it might be nice to plan a rhythm for the long run to keep pace. Your thoughts?

BY THE WAY: I’m changing my schedule. Since the half-marathon is on a Saturday, and I’m struggling to get enough sleep on Monday nights, I’m reworking the whole thing. Actually, I’m just moving it up a day. Saturdays will be the big run, Sundays will be rest, Mondays will be 4.5 or 5 miles, Tuesdays will be cross training, Wednesdays will be 4.5 or 5 miles, Thursdays will be rest, Fridays will be weigh-in and light cross training, and back to Saturdays.

AND: I’d like to get a 10 mile run for the week before the Bill Seymour. If others would like to join, leave a message here. We’ll make some plans. But you’ll all run faster than me. And I’m alright with that.

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Day 61.

When I was a school-age kid in Indianapolis, I went to West Newton Elementary School. We’d go to the library to check out books what, once or twice a week. A lot of us boys would fight over these monster series books.

Basically, these books were old 1950s horror movies put into book form. “Dracula,” “The Thing,” “The Blob,” “The Werewolf,” etc. I don’t know if we actually read them, or if we just looked at all the cool scary creatures.

I’ve become one of those scary creatures.

Well, kinda.

You see, I’ve begun taping up and bandaging so many parts of my body, I’m quite sure I’ll be “The Mummy” from those old books before too long.

It started off as a simple blister prevention method on the side of my foot when I got the new shoes. Then it was a toe. Then two toes. Throw in the headband for the sweat in my eyes. Now, well it’s moved beyond feet and forehead.

See, when men run too much, I’ve always heard, their shirts cause friction on parts of their upper body. Think mansiere. Or the Bro. I’m using bandages.

If you’re cringing or saying “ouch,” think how I feel.

Running is fun.

The Mummy ran 4.5 miles today in 46 minutes. Not bad, but I didn’t have my hands straight in front of me, and I wasn’t saying, “Mmmrrrahhhrrnnnmm, mmmrrrahhhrrnnnmm.”

I’m my own kind of scary.

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Day 59.

I have a question for any runners out there:

How fast should I be running? And how much should I be pushing myself?

Maybe my mind is at the Brickyard. I’d like to be at the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in Indianapolis today. Maybe if I was there, I could set my speed to the pace car. That’s what I need.

I’m struggling right now with pacing. I ran seven miles today in 80 minutes, exactly. I probably could have gone farther, but decided to stop with what the training said to stop with. I found myself at the end looking back on an hour and twenty minutes of trying not to waste all my energy.

Am I supposed to save it up? How much? I was sweating and pushing myself, but at 11 and a half minutes a mile, I wasn’t exactly running fast. I’d like to get back to the ten minute mile pace, but I’m somewhat worried I can’t keep it and go the entire distance.

What’s the balance?

Aside fromthe slowness, I was happy with the run. It was the longest time and farthest distance I’ve gone yet.

And, my cross-training yesterday was having a garage sale. A successful garage sale, I should say. Thanks to anyone who stopped by.

For the rest of the day, I’ll be following my mind … and watching those racecars at Indy.

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Day 57.

Thank you for saying that, you’re too kind.

Well, now that you’ve mentioned it, I have lost a little weight.

No, no. Nothing major.

Well, I did start doing a tiny bit of exercise. And changed the diet ever so slightly.

Exercise? Oh. I’ve been going on some runs. Just around the block. Maybe up and down the trail. Around a few blocks. Couple miles here, couple miles there.

Diet? Yeah, I guess it was a change. Started eating more veggies. Started watching how much I ate. Cut out pop. And caffeine. And high-calorie snacks. Actually, started looking at calories for everything I eat. Stopped using fatty-high-calorie add-ons to things that are healthy until you add those things. You know, just a few little things.

Yeah, I do. I do feel great. I’ve noticed I have a lot more energy. I’m less stressed. And, get this, I’m going to run a half-marathon at the end of August.

A little crazy. But it’s fun. What are you gonna do?

Well, those pants look good on you. I like the way you can’t button the top button, so you use your belt to cover it up. Nice. I’m sure the kids love the big belly.

Well, I’ve gotta go to the store and buy some tighter pants. I’ll see you later, in about two months. Maybe by then, you’ll try some of these things. Maybe you’ll lose 22 pounds in 57 days. Enjoy the potato chips, fatty.

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Day 56.

I ran 4.5 miles, in about 50 minutes this morning.

I’ve run 60 miles in about 56 days. Or about 60 miles.

I’ve tried to keep pretty close tabs on my distances, and mark them on my log and my blog. I took about two weeks or so off when I was worried about my knee, but remember I didn’t lay around doing nothing, I was atleast biking and walking. But not running.

We have 36 more days, I think, until we run the 13.1 miles. I’ll hit a 125 miles by then, so I’m not even half-way to the finish.

My wife has asked me a few times, as have others, what I will do after the Bill Seymour. Good question.

As much as I enjoy running, getting into shape and losing weight, I have to say it will be tempting to just stop running all together.

However, I just got out of the shower after running 4.5 miles from 5:30 a.m. to 6:20 a.m., all after getting off work at 11:30 p.m. last night and sleeping on the couch, so as not to wake the aforementioned love of my life. So maybe, talking about running longer isn’t a good topic right now.

I’ll have to think about that. But one thing I know for sure: I don’t ever want to be in as bad of shape and overweight as I was before I began running. So I’m sure, even if I don’t run 15 miles a week, I’ll do something to stay fit.

By the way, I didn’t blog yesterday. I biked from my house to the beginning of the course at Fonner Park. It’s a bit further from the end of the trail to the start of the course than I realized (it’s the 5K turnaround point). I think it will be fine. It’s about 7.6 mile there and back from my house, so I’ll probably do that for my Sunday run this week.

Rock on my friends.

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Day 54.

It’s not how fast you get where you’re going, it’s just that you get there.

That’s the new plan. The new creed. The new motto. The new thing I tell myself so I’m not embarrassed about finishing last in the Bill Seymour. I’m keeping time on my runs only so I know how long I’m running and to see the pace I’m keeping for different distances.

Today I ran four and a half miles. I took me close to 50 minutes. I ran to the end of the trail on the east side, to Cherry Street.

On the last block before Cherry, a lady runner came at me going the other direction. By the time I made the turnaround, she was a block ahead of me. By the time I hit Pier Park again, she was way ahead of me. I didn’t see her again.

That was fine. She was probably starting her run, and I was half-way done with mine. She had more energy. I can go on with more excuses, but I won’t.

When I hit Suck’s Lake I was avoiding goose poop and angry geese, swatting mosquitoes and breathing heavy when another runner went by me. He looked like he was running a fairly comfortable, slow, barely-moving pace as he passed me like I was standing still.

And that’s when I realized speed means nothing.

Hopefully, looks mean even less. I was also sporting a Jim McMahon-style headband as I ran today. Melissa says I look rediculous, but it kept the sweat from burning my eyes, so I could care less.

I’ll do the Super Bowl Shuffle all the way down the trail.

(Sorry about the video not showing the headband, but it’s the best I can do.)

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Day 53.

It’s a rest day. I think I’ll take it. I’m mowing the lawn this morning, then taking a nice relaxing day and night at work.

How did I relax after my personal long 65-minute, 6.1 mile run yesterday? By working my butt off.

Former Independent photographer Lane Hickenbottom is moving to Omaha where he starting his soon-to-be very successful wedding photography business, laneweddings.com. But first, he had to move all of his and his wife and his kid’s stuff out of their house into a truck.

Sunday. He told me to come over around noon, but if I wanted to come any earlier, they’d be started. I took that to mean he had other help coming earlier. I figured I’d mosey over at 11:30ish to help. I was going to go at 11, but that Greg Norman was still leading at 11. I waited until he was a few strokes off the lead, then left.

The truck was backed up to the house, there were a line of cars on the road. Perfect, I thought.

The truck, I found, was empty. The cars, I realized, were not Lane’s other helpers. His wife was leaving to take his son to a sitter for the afternoon. Lane was downstairs unhooking the washer and dryer. We were about to begin.

Two of us.

Six hours later, with about 45 minutes of help from Mike Bockoven and an hour or so from Scott Kingsley, Lane and Sarah’s house was all but empty.

And I had done my extra cross-training for the day.

Oh, and Mark Coddington and his wife Dana showed up to each grab one last thing, literally right before we shut the truck door. So, I guess they helped, too. But I don’t think they lost as much weight in sweat as Lane or I did.

We’ll all miss Lane in Grand Island. He takes great pictures and has a great family.

But I won’t miss his couch, washer, dryer, easlily breakable dining chairs …

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Day 52.

Oh, baby.

I did something, well, a few things, today that I’ve not done before.

The accomplishments were cool, and rewarding. But the big thing I’ve not done before is just go out and change the plan, then again, then again, all after changing the plan before I left.

Whew!

I woke up and figured I’d do the 5K thing I’m supposed to do. I started mapping out a route, then realized instead of a 5K, which is just over three miles, I should at least do four miles. That would put me at the cross walk across Highway 34 by College Park.

So I set out on my run. As I was running and getting into the zone, I realized if I’m not doing to 5K race style run, then four miles was a step back from last week’s 5 mile run. I decided to change the plan. I would go on across the highway down by Stuhr Museum, 10 minutes and turn around then.

I figured that would be another mile, or close to it, each way. Getting me around 6 miles. True to form, I crossed the highway after 20 mintues.

However, when I reached 30 mintues, I changed the plan again. I was pretty close to the end of the stretch of the trail, almost to the turn toward Hall County Park. So I went all the way to the end of that stretch of trail.

The plan became go for an hour. I made it to where the trail splits either to the cemetery or to College Park. About 5.64 miles in that hour.

Screw it. I’m almost home, and I’m not exactly sure, while I’m running out there, what distance I’m at. Go all the way home. So that’s what I did.

And it ended up being 6.11 miles in 65 minutes, 8 seconds.

And I felt great. Right as I stopped, my iPod changed songs to “Wild Mountain Honey.” The perfect groove for the cool-down walk.

For the first time I made it six miles. For the first time I made it for an hour. And for the first time, I felt like I could have gone 13.1 during this run.

Ok, that may be pushing it a bit. But give me 31 more days.

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Day 51.

What does day 51 mean? It’s Saturday, a cross-training day normally. But this week it’s supposed to be a rest and prep day for a practice 5K race-style run.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet, because it’s already 9:15. So I started looking at the map of the actual course for the half-marathon.

You can too, at http://www.giymca.org/PDFs/2008/Fitness/Bill%20Seymour/2008%20Half-Marathon%20Map.pdf

I think I’ll get used to it. Either bike it today, or run parts of it the rest of the training.

Remember the post on being familiar with a post making it go faster? I’ll start testing that.

Of course, it’s just a course.

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Day 50.

It’s a weigh in day. Fifty days, twenty pounds.

That’s right. Twenty pounds. I’m feeling good.

And I’ve got music on the brain. This whole Music Madness thing is contagious. I hope you’re having fun with it. Our 256-song bracket contains many, many songs to run along to, including about 40 or 50 I have on my running playlist. These are good songs.

I talked to Amy at the YMCA the other day, about using an iPod or other music player while running. She said the half-marathon rules don’t prohibit it, but you shouldn’t have it too loud. You’ll want to make sure you can hear, especially when approaching an intersection. You’ll want to be able to hear an race officials as well.

So, run and listen on, my friends. Let’s make the Bill Seymore rock!

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