My Better Me than You Log

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

Except for the iPod, I approve.

She said that was one of the rare times that she's raced with it.

Dang, she looks like a CrossFit girl!

Yeah, she's alright. Smart and funny, too. Not my type, though. I usually go for the crazies.

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

08JUN06

speedwork
300 meter repeats/ 100 meter rest (all rest periods ~2:00 mins)

1 mile warmup jog to the track
1. 1:05
2. 1:02
3. 1:01
4. 1:02
5. 1:04
6. 1:06
7. 1:00
8. 1:05
1 mile cooldown back home

Another tough day. Even Laura was feeling it. Of course, she ran twice yesterday. She wisely ran only six repeats while I gutted out a couple more. I think I'm on the verge of overtraining. I haven't slept well in the past week, but have been tired all day. Total off day tomorrow.

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

Well, I was reconsidering my decision to take the day off. I just have way to much to do. That's probably for the better. Lots of homework- big test in science on Monday and a final project in business coming up that I have tons of research to do for yet, so many stupid errands and chores to do plus my daughter has only a half day of school- her last day. I want to get down to the running store and pick up a new pair of shoes, too. 6 days til I leave for Chicago!

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

10JUN06

10 mile run

This was slow. I didn't even bring my watch with me. If it was at an 8:30 I'd be surprised. Not that it was bad, though. Laura and I just ran real easy and talked the whole way. Damn my luck. We did get attacked by a mama red-wing blackbird thogh- twice! I thought I was going to get my eyes pecked out on the way back!

39.9 miles for the week. Next week will be pretty light on the miles, but I could use a step-back week, I guess.

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

11JUN06

AM workout

sumo deads
255 x 5
265 x 5, 5, 5

lat pulldown
150 x 5, 5, 5, 5

incline DB press
70s x 5, 5, 5, 5

squats
225 x 5, 5, 5,5

EZ curls
75 x 10, 10, 8, 8

Well, this was an interesting workout. The gym was missing half its equipment. I guess the old owner of the place came in yesterday and repossessed a bunch of stuff. This included a complete set of DBs, pullup tower, dip station, exercise balls, and probably other stuff I didn't notice. Hopefully they will be getting it back soon.

PM run

3.2 mile run
25:24 (8:05 avg pace)

Hopefully this run will alleviate any DOMS I may have experienced tomorrow. 8 miles with Laura in the morning. I'll probably get a few in on Tuesday and take Wednesday off before the race on Thursday. In case you guys didn't know, I'm so looking forward to this trip.

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

12JUN06

6 mile run
49:00 (8:10 avg pace)

Nice run. I thought we were going to do 8 but Laura said we should only do 6 seeing the race is in 3 days. I felt pretty good. I forgot to mention that last night I ran in my new shoes. (Asics Gel Landreths) I tried them again today. Not too bad, my toes got numb a couple times. I think they just need a little breaking in. (I hope.)

I have a killer day with a test and presentation in my classes. Plus I need to do some more research and work on my International Business final project. Ugh. I so can't wait to take off for Chicago. We joked about just staying there. Sounds fine with me at this point.

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

Well, upon further review, I'm going to take today as a rest day (which will be nice- I am sore from lifting Sunday) and if I can find the time, do a couple Wednesday to loosen up. I had planned to skip class on Thursday and pack, get ready, etc. in the morning (class late on Wed night- I have to meet with my group over our final project), however, we have a mandatory field trip to the waste water treatment plant that day. My class is supposed to meet over there at 1:30 PM which is about two hours after we had planned to leave. Luckily...my prof also has an earlier class and they are meeting from 9:30 to 11:30 that morning at the plant. He said I could go with that class. So, hooray, we'll be able to leave in plenty of time and I'll get to see millions of gallons of shit!

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

I am so full of shit. I couoldn't resist. I had some time this evening so I went out and got in a quick , short run. I pobably won't be able to find time tomorrow so I wanted to get one last run in before Tursday.

13JUN06
3.2 mile run
~25:00 ~7:55 pace

[kmwest]

good luck tomorrow!

[BamaDave]

Are you full of shit because of the trip to the sewage treatment plant? Did something unfortunate happen there?

Good luck in your race!

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

Thanks, guys! Finally the day is here. I'm pretty excited. We'll be leaving about 12:30 this afternoon. That will get us to Chicago about 3:30 (their time), giving us plenty of time to get our rooms and packets before the race which starts at 6:30. Hopefully, 20 minutes or so later, we'll be having a free post-race beer. We should be back on Sarurday afternoon. I'll post a race/weekend report then.

Are you full of shit because of the trip to the sewage treatment plant? Did something unfortunate happen there?

Oh, God, no! I worked at a plant all through high school and one of my biggest fears was falling into one of those tanks. Even had nightmares about it.

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

15JUN06

Jim Gibbons Memorial 5k
Chicago, IL

21:23 (avg pace 6:53)

Race/ fun-ass trip report (caution- very long)


It's a PR, but I'm very disappointed with my performance. I know I'm able to do better. Well, I'll begin at the beginning and tell you guys about my trip.

I didn't sleep very well Wednesday night, I was up pretty late taking care of some stuff at school and didn't even get to bed til after midnight which is very late for me. I got up pretty early so I could get to my science trip to the sewer plant on time. It actually would have been interesting except I just wanted it to end so we could get on the road to Chicago. I was so excited.

Laura picked me up at my place about 1 PM and we headed out. It was such a fun drive until we got near Chicago. We thought that we had given ourselves plenty of time to get there, get our room, and get to the race. Well, we never took into account the absolutely horrendous traffic in Chicago. It took us 3 hours to got to within 20 miles of town, and 2 more hours to go the last 20 miles. We were really starting to worry that we wouldn't make it on time. Well, we did. We got to our hotel downtown (the W- just a half a block from the Sears Tower- the best place I'd ever stayed at. That is until Friday night. )

We got changed at grabbed a cab for the short drive to the park. Turns out we had plenty of time. We had to stand around waiting for the rave to start for an hour. Actually, It was even longer. The start of the race was to be televised live and they couldn't cut off Pat Sajack so we had to wait about 5 or 10 minute longer.

Once Miss Illinois (Holy Hell was she hot! ) sounded the horn I was off. (The men's race started 10 minutes before the women's) I was stuck behind so many slow MFers at the beginning and the route was narrow enough that it was about a half mile before I was able to find my pace. I was SO pissed. I don't have a lot to say about the run. It was crowded and the last mile we had to share a bike path with bikers. Nobody seemed to stay to the right and once when I tried to pass someone, I was almost taken out by a biker going the other way. It was BS.

Anyways. I finished, thoroughly pissed with myself and the race, and waited to cheer Laura in. She had similar issues with other runners, but still finished in the top ten with a low 20. She kicks ass. I never want to run an evening race agian. I was so out of it as far as eating, not being rested etc, I'll stick to morning races. (Except when I run Boston!)

After we relaxed for a minute and had some water, we headed to the free beer tent where it was on. We each had 3 beers before heading back to the hotel. Whoa. Have any of you ever had three beers right after running a race? Whoa.

After cleaning up we went to an old hangout of Laura's where we just hung out, got to know each other some more, and had a few more beers. Around midnight we called it a night so we would be able to get a run in in the morning.

The next morning came really soon. We were going to do about 9 miles, but we both felt pretty rough, so after about 5 we stopped and walked the rest of the way back. After cleaning up, we headed to lunch (where I had the best hummis ever at a place called Duffy's- go there and try it) and then we began a pub crawl to Wrigley.

We finally made it to the game in the middle of the 4th inning. I didn't care. I was having a blast and can now say I've been t Wrigley. What an awesome experience. Here's the proof:



Laura and me at Wrigley.

We left the stadium right after the seventh inning stretch (man, I wish I could have heard Harry Carey at least once). We made our way via a couple more bars to the car and then went to the hotel we were staying at that night. Check this place out: http://www.sofitel.com/sofitel/fiche...he_hotel.shtml



Holy crap! I can't wait to get out of school and back to work. Anyways, we got ready and headed out to get sushi and drink some more.

This was my first time eating sushi and it was great! I've got some funny pics of Laura eating, but I'll not post those. Here's a funny one of me:



The rest of the night was just so much fun, I didn't even remember that I had a shitty race the day before. Her is one last pic of Laura and me enjoyng a rum-runner at some bar. Check out the guy behind Laura checking her ass out!



We got back to the hotel about 3:30 AM. When she called and woke me at 6:300, I thought I had died. The trip back was pretty quiet. We were both still pretty out of it. Anyway, that was my race report. I have no idea where my running is going to go for the next month and a half. I would really like to redeem myself at my local 5k (which happens to fall on my 33rd birthday in July. I may concentrate on readying for that. Who knows.

[BamaDave]

Jim, sorry about the race frustrations, but it sounds like a fun trip overall. I'm surprised that a large race like that would have such a narrow path. 5K's are the worst as far as slower runners placing themselves up front near the start, probably because a lot of people who don't run races regularly or are running for the first time will enter 5K's and don't know the etiquette (even though it seems like common sense for the most part). In a really crowded race, there's not much you can do about it.

How do you like 5K's versus the longer races??

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

5k's are nice because they are over and done with so fast. But, that leaves little time to make anything up if you have a bad start. Plus you have to run a whole hell of a lot harder. lol So I'm going to say (of the distances I've raced) 15k or 10 miles are favorites.

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

18JUN06

5.7 mile run
43:30 (7:40 avg pace)

splits
1.12 miles - 9:22 (8:26 pace)
2.15 miles - 8:08 (7:54)
2.66 miles - 3:53 (7:37)
3.80 miles - 8:40 (7:36)
4.51 miles - 5:15 (7:24)
5.68 miles - 8:09 (6:58)

I started out really slow on this one but gradually ramped it up. I felt pretty good, even though it was humid as hell out. At least it has cooled off a bit. I'm going to get in 8 or so in the morning. Not many miles last week,I want to get back up there again. There is another 5k this coming weekend that Laura has mentioned, but I don't know if I want to run it. We'll see. She could talk me into it.

I checked the online results for my race last Thursday. I came in 100th out of 515 in the men's race and 14th in my age group (out of 78).

[twinsavsvikingsfan]

19JUN06

9.3 mile easy run
1:16:40 (8:14 avg pace)

splits
1.17 miles - 9:56 (8:29 pace)
2.13 miles - 8:19 (8:40)
3.14 miles - 8:35 (8:30)
4.15 miles - 8:28 (8:23)
5.12 miles - 8:03 (8:18)
6.12 miles - 8:05 (8:05)
7.14 miles - 8:07 (7:57)
8.17 miles - 8:03 (7:49)
9.31 miles - 9:00 (7:54)

My goal on this run was to just take it real easy and try to keep a steady pace. Well, I took it easy, but didn't keep that steady pace. I gradually sped up and really had to keep reigned myself in on the last segment, because I did catch myself really speeding up. It was very hazy and humid out, not very comfortable running weather, except for a nice little breeze. (Yes, the same thing I was bitching about a few months ago is now a blessing.) My goal this week is to get into the mid-40s even if I do run the 5k on Saturday. That means I'll have to get in some longish runs during the week.

[kmwest]

Originally Posted by twinsavsvikingsfan

Once Miss Illinois (Holy Hell was she hot! ) sounded the horn I was off.