Identification

I just wanted to post as a matter of public record that when I run at night (as I'm about to do now), I am NOT wearing my grandfather's Army Air Corps bracelet on my right wrist as I usually do. I've lost weight and now the clasp keeps randomly coming undone; if it fell off at night in unfamiliar territory I'm not sure I could find it again, and that would ruin my life.

I just post this in case I get hit by a car, or mugged, or abducted, and someone who knows me would try to identify what I was wearing by saying that I ALWAYS wore this bracelet. Which is normally true, just not when I'm running at night.

You can still identify me by my copious scars, or my kickass Asics. Unless I'm mugged for those, and ... nevermind.

14:02

Having the right kind of running shoes (which allow me to actually, you know, RUN without excruciatingly painful shin splints) shaved a cool 2:41 off my time for a mile. I'm still slower than slow, but it's progress.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

EDIT: My longterm goal (for now) is to get my time down to below 10:00. My reward for doing that is going to be to buy something from Tiffany's, which is also on my 101 List of things to do. I think I'm going to get the Elsa Peretti Open Heart pendant:

Or maybe the Elsa Peretti Sevillana pendant:

Or maybe the Elsa Peretti Quadrofiglio pendant:

Conspicuous Consumption

Well I appear to be REALLY INTO this whole training thing.

Today I went to a local running store (American Running Company in Dunedin) and the owner helped analyze my running stride in order to fit me with the proper type of shoe. I've been running using the shoes I wear to the gym, which are NOT running shoes and therefore give less than zero support. They've been killing my shins.

My feet, while standing, are supinated (they roll outwards), but apparently my running stride is very "neutral." Neutral = good. So I bought a shoe that is for neutral/supinated runners.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you - the Asics Gel-Cumulus VII:

That's right, I bought a boy shoe. My feet are wide, so the men's version fit a lot better than the women's. Anyway, I haven't run in them yet, but I already love them beyond all measure because wearing them is like walking on kittens. If kittens were squooshy and filled with jelly.

I love them so much that I'm sitting here wearing them. While in my pajamas. They're the apex of cool because the top of the shoe is basically just mesh, with very little else in the way of material. I can see my toes!

AND, I loved the socks I wore to try on shoes so much that I bought a pair of them, too - Balega Women's Enduro (with blue trim, not pink). These socks are like the shoes, with mesh on the top and padding on the sole.

In roughly 10 minutes I am going to complete my flurry of purchases by using the Amazon.com gift certificate my dad gave me to buy the Polar F4 heart rate monitor.

Oh, and there's someone reading this who is feeling VERY pleased with himself right now, but he needs to know that I will never, EVER, willingly run a 10K. Unless there's a big fat reward in it for me.

I Hate Running

That's what Johnny and I both think about running.

Tonight I decided, "Hey, why not go run a mile around the neighborhood when you get home?" GREAT IDEA! Probably one of the very best ideas I have ever had in my whole damn life. Sure, I hate running. But why not go run a mile after work?!?

I can do 60 minutes on the arc trainer at an incline/resistance that burns 800 calories, so running a measly mile should be cake.

I was thinking that, at worse, it would take about 12 minutes.

Yeah. Twelve minutes. It didn't take 12 minutes, though. Not at all. Let me put it this way - after running for about a block the main thought skipping through my brain was something along the lines of "SCREW THIS."

So I walked as fast as my stumpy little legs would go for the entire mile, and I finished in a time of:

[SPOILER]16:43[/SPOILER]

You can say it - it sucks. It blows. It both sucks AND blows. Believe me, I know it. I'm embarassed to even commit the number to posterity in this post. I'm also, strangely, pissed off about it. It does mean there is plenty of room for improvement, but ... I dunno. It's just a very poor time.

*plaintive wail*

One thing is certain - if I don't improve that time a whole lot, there's not going to be much point in competing in that mini-triathlon. I'll be out of it before the first leg is even halfway over.

The only thing I can say in my defense (and I realize this is a Communion wafer-thin excuse), is that I was doing this after a full day of work, and I admittedly wasn't pushing myself. Why wasn't I pushing myself? Quite simply, I didn't really want to. I didn't have my inhaler with me, and I started feeling lung weirdness about halfway through. So I really need to remember to bring that with me tomorrow night.

Yes, I said TOMORROW NIGHT, DAMMIT.

19:42

This morning began Day One of training for the mini-triathlon at the end of April. I'm doing informal training until January 1, at which point I'm going to begin a modified 16-week program that will have me training for distances that are twice what I'll actually be doing in the competition.

My theory being that if I get my body used to biking 10 miles on a given day, going for half that - as I will in the mini-triathlon - will be easy.

My theory is probably completely wrong.

ANYWAY, this morning I did 30 minutes on the elliptical (3 miles total distance) then followed with 5 miles on the recumbent bike. It took me 19:42 to complete the five miles; it's not a great time overall, but I think it's pretty good for coming on the tail end of a 3-mile workout on the elliptical.

The next step is getting on the treadmill (my nemesis).

Let's Go Crazy

I may be completely out of my skull, but I'm 95% sure I'm going to sign up to compete in the St. Anthony's Meek & Mighty Triathlon next April.

Before anyone starts laughing, it's not a full triathlon, or even a sprint triathlon. 'Tis but a mini-triathlon – 1 mile run, followed by a 5.4 mile bike ride, then finishing with a 200m pool swim.

Honestly? I'm pretty confident that I can do this. I'm a strong swimmer, and I'm good on the bike. The big problem is that I haaaaaaaaaaate running. I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE running. Even though I know one mile isn't really all that far, I'm still going to hate every single second of that run.

The competition is April 29, 2006, so that gives me a solid four months to prepare. I'll probably end up using one of the training plans on the Beginner Triathlete website.