Running in 2008

It's been a while since I posted on this blog (I've been busy on my so-called "professional" blog), but I wanted to share my year of running for 2008. Of course, it's now early February and this would have been more appropriate in early January, but, I guess, I missed my window of opportunity.

I've been using a Nike+ for almost 2 and a half years now, so 2008 was my first full calendar year using it, and it provided me with excellent motivation to "get out and run", I'll say! Because I've been using that, I also have a much more comprehensive view of what my running was like for the year.

According to the "2008 rundown" that the Nike+ website provides, my year looked something like:

• I ran on a total of 235 days, covering 2,685,599 steps and just a bit over 1390 miles.
• Monday was my favorite day to run during the week
• My longest run was on October 19th (when I ran two legs of the Detroit Marathon)
• I burned 178,370 calories (yet I did not seem to lose any weight that I can tell - I must have eaten quite a lot more, too!)
• I "saved" 89.5 gallons of gas (not sure what that's supposed to mean, though)

In addition to those stats, I also ran probably about 10 road races. I was shooting for one a month but didn't make that goal. Of those races, 6 were 5K races, 2 were 10K races, 1 was a 2 mile race and then I ran in a relay team in the Detroit Marathon (my leg was the first leg - about 7.25 miles - and I ran along with a team mate in the second leg - another 5.5).

In those road races, I had personal bests in all distances. That's always gratifying, especially as I'm quite a bit older than my last stint of "significant" running (when I was in college).

Speaking of the Detroit Marathon - I also managed to pull together 2 relay teams (9 other runners) to take part, which is almost a more satisfying achievement than all of the running on my own. My run there also gave me the confidence to run a half marathon - I'm shooting for the Martian Marathon in early April to do that.

Looking forward to 2009 - One goal I have is to run even farther this year. Maybe I can hit 1500 miles?? I've also joined a number of new challenges on the Nike+ web site:

• One challenge is to run 2009 KM in 2009 (I did more than that in 2008, so hopefully it's not too much of a stretch)
• Another is to race "across America". Basically, run 3,260 miles. Currently, I'm 16th out of 343 participants. I figure that should take me at least into early next year.
  
• Another even more ambitious challenge is the "Run around the Earth" - run 24,902 miles. I'm currently 32nd of 672 participants there. This one is definitely a multi-year challenge - if (and that's a big if) I can keep running any where near what I have this past year, it's still going to be, what, 15-20 years to run that far.

I also am hoping to continue PR-ing in my road races this year. I just ran the Super Bowl 5K this past Sunday and managed a new PR in the 5K, which was very cool.

I'm definitely looking forward hopefully to another good year in running, but time will tell.

Run Fit 5K

So I ran in the Run Fit 5K last night in Novi. A good race (I've run the course a few times - I remember the first time, I was shocked at the large hill you go up toward the end of the race) and beautiful weather combined to make for a pleasant evening.

My daughter competed in the "Kids Dash" and managed to take first place. Of course, it was for kids up to 9 and she's nine and also tall, so she was about a head taller than anyone else, which helped her, I think. But, regardless, Hurrah for her!


My son competed in the Mile Run and managed a third place - his goal was 9 minutes, which I thought was conservative and he ran an 8:10 (or thereabouts). Hurrah for him!

Both kids brought home a medal, which is always fun.

In the 5K, I was thinking leading up to it that A) my summer goal this year would be to run under 22 minutes. Not all that fast in the grand scheme of things, but certainly a challenge for me. For last night, I was thinking maybe a more conservative 23 minute goal.

The race started out well - I felt good and loose. I crossed the first mile at about 6:40! I was quite surprised, needless to say. The course seemed very accurate - pretty much at each mile marker, my Garmin "beeped" the mile lap, so I knew it was pretty legitimate!. I crossed the two mile mark at about 13:40 - just under 7 minutes again! I'm still feeling good at this point but I know I'm facing that tough hill that comes right after that point.

I make it up that hill feeling OK and trying to do the math in my head, "How fast do I have to do this last 1.1 miles to finish under 22 minutes?? Hmm... I think that's 1.1 miles in a bit over 8 minutes, which I think means about a 7:15 mile, right?"

With about a half mile to go, I had a runner pass me and I thought, "No way, buddy!" so I picked up my pace and kept on trucking. Still feeling good!

I cross the line and see.... I ran a 21:34! Wow - Not only did I better my evening's goal but I've already beat my goal for the summer road race season! That's (well) over a minute faster than the other fastest 5K I've run any time in the last 15+ years. Woo hoo!

The only downer is that I now have to set myself another goal for the summer! Can I get under 21 minutes?? We'll see!

So my family likes to count the # of runners I finish behind (gives the kids something to do). They tell me I was 33rd overall. I knew the age group awards go 5 deep in each 5-year bracket for each gender. I figure statistically I'm likely to get an award (which turned out to be coffee mugs).

I wait through all of the female age groups and most of the male (yeah, yeah, waiting for the 40-44 bracket...) and they get to my group. Turns out that my group had something like 3 people run under 17 minutes! Holy cow! I did not get an age group award, but I did realize that my age group was probably the most competitive of any of them! Yikes. Good on them! (And, I did not need or want a coffee mug anyway - don't drink coffee....)

But I am left with the great feeling of having run a great (for me) race and setting myself up with a good summer to look forward to.

Athletics since January

My last post prior to today was about the start of my soccer team's first indoor session of the year. Well, that season did *not* go so well. We finished with 1 victory, 1 tie and 6 losses. After the success of our last season (we finished 7-1), we were pushed up a division, which hurt. At the same time, we lost some of our players, which hurt.

So we're now two games from the end of our second session for the year and are now 4-2, having been pushed back down to the third division since the second season. Our game this past Sunday was a victory, but only in name - the other team forfeited due to lack of players; we scrimmaged (giving them two of our players) and the rest of the team just could not get it together. I think it ended something like 7-1 or some crap like that. :-(

In other athletic news - I've only run one road race so far this year (since the Belle Isle Fun Run on New Years Eve), which was the Super Bowl 5K - it was a slightly long course by both my Nike+ and my Garmin, but I felt very good and thought I had a good race.

Tomorrow I run a second race for the year - another one associated with Running Fit in Novi - The Run Fit 5K. I'm looking at another 4 in the next 6 weeks or so, so things are picking up.

I also think I've managed to pull together two teams for the Detroit Marathon relays this next October, which I'm happy about!

Lastly - as for general running - January was a slow start - not so much because of the weather but because of the house flood, hotel, etc., situation. I finally settled into things (running at the office several days a week to juggle schedules) and have managed to rack about 375 miles this year so far! I'm in a challenge on the Nike+ site to run 1,000 miles in the 2008 calendar year - I think I'm well ahead of pace right now, but it's a good goal for me!

5K, Templars and Treadmills

Well, I ran the Reindeer Run 5K yesterday and it was a good time (and I had a good time). It was a pretty chilly 18 degrees at race time. I managed to get pretty close to the front - I think there were probably about 500-600 people in it as it seemed pretty large, so I didn't want to get "stuck "as I did at the start of the Turkey Trot.

I managed a pretty decent race and, most importantly, accelerated into the last mile, so I feel like the numerous longer runs have really helped in that regard.

In other news, yesterday I finished The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury. A decent read but it sure did feel like a first novel (I think it was Khoury's first). I thought the end was a bit of a cop out after the way the "mystery" of what the characters were looking for was revealed.

And, today I hit the treadmill again after a few days back outside. Was planning to do a longer run (probably 7-8 miles) but got to 5 and was aggravated by the inaccuracy of my Nike+ on my treadmill, so at 5 I decided to try to calibrate my Nike+ with a mile run. I did that but didn't realize that mile didn't "count" for my runs. Stupid thing :-/ I was going to go another mile but was too irritated. Now I'll need to do a longer run during the week at some point.

Ran the Detroit Turkey Trot 10K today!

I had a great run today and I'm very happy for it!

Ran a 48:35 10K as Nike+ measured, and the course was 6.35 (where my time was 49:37). I'm very happy with the time as it's the first 10K I've run in many years.

SuperBowl 5K 2006

So, this morning I woke up at about 6:45 wondering if the snowstorm we were anticipating last night had shown up - did we get the expected 4-7 inches of snow?? I was too lazy to get out of bed until I had to, so I didn't bother moving for 30 minutes.

I got up figuring either I'd find a good 6" and then NOT do the road race (instead going for a run on the treadmill and then get some more workout with shovelling) or I'd find nothing on the ground and go do the road race. Turned out that we got about an inch or two.

Soooo... I figured I'd go do the race! I called the store that was sponsoring it to make sure the snow wasn't going to stop the event (it didn't) and then got everyone ready to roll; my wife was determined that she was going to go spectate and so the kids were coming along.

The weather was pretty much a drag - cold (about 28 degrees) and windy (about a 15 degree wind chill) and, of course, it was starting to freezing rain/snow while we made the drive there. During the race, there was a pretty good headwind whenever we were going west - other than that, it didn't bother me too much.

The real challenge was the slushy/snowy roads! Getting a good footing was definitely a challenge.

The turnout for the race was surprisingly high - I'd guess about 200 people or so. Not huge but much larger than the race I ran last summer at the same location.

I ran a decent time for the conditions (a bit over 25 minutes); overall, the race was great fun. We ended up staying after for about 40 minutes waiting for the results, but the computer was apparently affected by the snow, so the results weren't available at that point and I decided to not wait. I'll look for them online.

In an odd coincidence, I ran into an old college friend of mine - Tim Gretkierewicz and his younger brother Matt! Very strange coincidence, I'll say. Tim lives in Ann Arbor (about 40 minutes from the race location) and was about the last person I'd be looking for at a road race. I haven't seen him in a couple years and haven't seen his brother, Matt, in about 14 years now! Got to catch up with them, though, which was cool.

Road Race tomorrow!

So tomorrow morning (February 5th), there's a local 5K road race - called the Superbowl 5k run by a local running store. I'm planning to run - it'd be my first "winter" road race (though this winter has been pretty darn un-wintery since about Christmas day with daily averages running about 10 degrees above normal throughout the month of January!) and also my first road race of 2006.

I like that the giveaway is a beer mug instead of the standard t-shirt (of which I have, it seems, about a hundred!). We'll see just how good the mug is tomorrow (if I make it). We are actually supposed to get some snow tonight, so if we get more than I care to deal with, I won't be running in the race tomorrow morning.

My normal Sunday night soccer game has been rescheduled (because of the Superbowl, believe it or not) which is why I'm even considering running this tomorrow. Of course, it was rescheduled for Tuesday (February 7th) when I'll be out of town for work. Darn!

Let's see how I do as a winter road racer