Not the Sharpest Crayon in the Box

Last week went well for the first few days. I ran twice on Monday for a total of 100 minutes and came back on Tuesday to run 30 minutes in the morning and 120 minutes in the evening. On Wednesday, I was pretty tired and only ran 30 minutes. I then doubled on Thursday, going 30 minutes in the morning and 80 minutes in the evening. I ran 30 minutes Friday morning and then doubled again, going longer once it had cooled down. On my longer run, my shin began to hurt and, by the end of my run, it was very uncomfortable to strike the ground with my left foot. I ended up going 90 minutes before getting back home, when I quickly began to ice my shin. On Saturday and Sunday, I did not run and followed a boring schedule of icing and taking ibuprofen. I also noticed that the date written on the side of my running shoes was 6/25/07. In my head, I was thinking that was only a month ago and my shoes were still perfectly good. Unfotunately, my calculations were way off, my shoes were two months old, they had over 600 miles on them, and were completely shot. I am back to running now and my shin is getting better. Hopefully this is the final hiccup I encounter before New York. It probably won't be, but I can always hope.

Doin' Work

After setting a new personal record for minutes in a week, I knew there would be a bit of a let down in my minutes. I ended up running 560 minutes, which is fine by me considering I traveled and, more importantly, I was in the presence of my cousins. On Monday, I ran 100 minutes. I came back on Tuesday and only ran 30 minutes, feeling a little tired from all the running I did the previous week. Wednesday, I ran 30 minutes in the morning and then 100 minutes in the evening. On my longer run, I passed by an older man on a bench while I was going through Codman Square, just a few minutes into my run. As I ran by he yelled to me "Woo hoo! It's mardi gras!" I don't fully understand what he meant (I am guessing it was a reference to my clothing) but I still laughed for a few blocks. Later on in my run I passed Northeastern. It must have been freshman orientation, because I have not seen that many teenagers stumbling around since, well, I was a freshman in college. One girl screamed "Yeah, tie-dye!" at me as two of her friends held her up. I was wearing a grey shirt and black shorts. On Thursday, I ran 30 minutes in the morning and did a workout in the evening that totalled 120 minutes. After a 35 minutes warm up, I ran four laps of Jamaica Pond with a two minute jog rest in between each lap. The loop is just under a mile and a half and I was running right at 8 minutes flat for each. I was kind of pissed during my workout because I was doing my math wrong in figuring out the pace I was running. When I got home, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was going around 5:20 pace. I ran 30 minutes the next morning before flying down to Charlotte. Friday night in Charlotte was low key and I got up the next day to put in 90 minutes. Things began to get silly after I got done running and had some lunch. That evening, there was an engagement party for my cousin, Rob, and his fiance, Jamie. It was a great time and I got to see all my North Carolina aunts, uncles, and cousins. There will be no recap, but I will say that I may or may not have a cousin who was pouring full bottles of water over his head. I woke up too late on Sunday to run very long outside (it was in the upper 90s). After eating a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit from Bojangles, I went to the gym with my cousin, Mike. We each put in half an hour of work and then called it a day. I hope to be back above 100 miles this week and should be able to.

Long Time No Blog

I would like to begin with an apology to the handful of people who regularly check this page. The past month and a half has been pretty packed (other than the past week, which you will hear about later). After the school year ended and we had our week of teachers' meetings, I had a few free days in Boston before I returned to Baltimore for a week. It was good to get back home and see my family (Bailey included) and friends. I only ran 90 miles or so the week I was home, but I had some enjoyable runs. One day, I made it back to my high school to see the current Loyola Dons cross country team and run with my old coach, Mr. Cucuzzella. Another day, I was able to catch up with Matt Schelberg, one of my high school teammates, for a run on the NCR Trail followed by a Slurpee date. Both of those runs were great, but my favorite run by far was with my friend Eugene's little brother Johnny the day before I flew back to Boston. He had been talking crap for weeks about how he could dust me and how he broke two minutes for the half mile and how he ran faster than I did on the Loyola cross country course. We decided to do 80 minutes on the NCR Trail and I entered the run with the sole purpose of making Johnny admit that he was hurting. He was able to hang for just under an hour as I slowly quickened the pace. After he cracked and admitted defeat, I eased off the pace and let my oversized sense of accomplishment from breaking a high schooler carry me through the final 20 minutes. After I returned to Boston, I had a few days to prepare for summer school and then left for Groton, MA. Teaching at Groton was a great experience and I enjoyed my time there, but my running definitely suffered. The school day at Epiphany is long enough, but being around the kids all day every day for three and a half weeks made me appreciate the breaks we do get between regular school days. The combination of mental exhaustion from being around the kids so much, a busy schedule, and laziness kept me from running much and I only averaged around 60 miles a week, despite having some great places to run. I ended up riding my bike many days to mix things up. A few mornings, one of the 8th graders rode my bike along side me as I did my run, which was awesome. Upon returning to Boston from Groton, I got right back into the swing of things, racking up the miles with nothing else on my plate. I ran 800 minutes in my first full week back, which is a personal best for minutes in a scheduled week (Monday through Sunday) and I also ran 870 minutes over a seven day span, which is also a personal best. I am hoping to keep my mileage at around 840 minutes a week until school starts, when I will have to lower it a little. Last, and most importantly, I had a doctor's appointment today and my latest tests showed no signs of any further cancer growth. I am a little over 11 weeks away from the marathon and have already raised $4,860. I will be updating this blog weekly (at the least) from now until November, so stay tuned for the final months of preparation.

Belated Father's Day Gift

In talking to my dad today, he mentioned, albeit sarcastically, that being able to read my blog on Monday mornings brightens his day and gives him the strength to make it through the long work day (or something along those lines). The last thing I want is to make my father trudge through a Monday without knowing how my training and life went the previous week, so I managed to snap out of my post long run food coma and here it is. This one's for you pops. If I had to sum up the past week in one word it would be "soreness." I wore spikes in my 5k last Sunday for the first time since November and my calves were completely torn up the rest of the week as a result. I gimped through a 70 minute run on Monday and then took Tuesday off, hoping to have my legs back under me the next day. My calves were still incredibly tight on Wednesday, but I managed to get in 30 minutes in the morning and 100 minutes in the evening. On Thursday, I was still feeling the effects of the 5k during my 30 minutes in the morning and 120 minutes in the evening. Friday, I ran 30 minutes in the morning and then met up with my friend Natalie and her family who were all in Boston for a family wedding. I then saw Knocked Up and laughed for pretty much two hours straight. Be forewarned, if you talk to me in the next two week, haven't seen the movie, and don't understand what I am talking about, I probably just quoted the movie...and I already know it is lame to have conversations that are entirely movie quotes and don't care so save it. After the movie, I went for an 80 minute run and did not shuffle along like Corey Kubatzky for the first time since Sunday. I had a basketball game on Saturday and my stat line looked something like this:
Steals: 3
Blocks: 1
Rebounds: 11
Points on Fastbreaks Because Nobody Else Ran Down the Court: upwards of 14
Legit Points: about 6
Assists: 2
Turnovers: 2
We won our game and then one of the teams that was scheduled to play after us didn't show up, so I played two more hours of basketball, giving me three hours of hooping for the day. I should have run an easy 30 to 60 that afternoon, but just watched episodes from the third season of Arrested Development instead. Today, I ran 150 minutes in the evening to give me 610 minutes for the week on 8 runs. This is starting to sound like a broken record, but I need to be more consistent in the upcoming week. By the way, the comic above is from www.toothpastefordinner.com and you should check out the site if you like funny things. Also, I did the HTML code to include that link, so eat your heart out Ronald Prescott Loui.