26.2 Quest: June 2010

Not Feeling It.....

The last week has not been good on the running front. There are many reasons for this I know, but none of them make me feel any better about it. I have not yet, since Monday run in the morning before work, and every other normal week I am up and running before work or church at least 6 days.

This past weekend my wife and I made a trip to Indiana (from Atlanta). The trip comprised of a total of 24 hours of driving, three nights of between 4-5 very uncomfortable hours of sleep. OK, the third night was back home and was much more comfortable, but was still only 5 hours.

Last Saturday, the day before Fathers Day, my two daughters, Ashlee and Payton, and I ran the Atlanta Track Club Fathers Day 4 Miler. We are members of the ATC so this was a free race for us and so it wasn't a big deal when we decided to just run it as opposed to racing it.

Both Ashlee and Payton have been dealing with borderline injuries and had an official time trial race for XC less than a week later so I suggested that they not do it. They both still wanted to do it, so I told them that as long as they ran it like any other training run, and didn't race it we could go ahead with our plans. They understood and agreed.

The Fathers Day 4 Miler started right outside of Turner Field, ran around the Atlanta Zoo, and finished up on the warning track right beside first base inside Turner Field. This was very cool, however, the one thing that would have made it better would have been if they let us finish by sliding into home plate....... I am guessing the Braves wouldn't go for that, plus there would have been a lot of injured old people (like me) if they would have tried :)

The time has come and the winners have been chosen for the Strands Review Giveaway. Winners were selected using www.random.org and the results can be found below.

Thank you everyone for giving Strands a try and for stopping by my blog, I hope to see you back soon!

Below you will find the listing of all the entries, the order random.org chose them, and what they won.

Anything But Good

This mornings run was anything but good. I woke up very very tired and exhausted and not feeling like running. I woke up at 4:38, a couple minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off at 4:40 so i was already feeling cheated. I have not gotten much sleep this week so I am sure that is wearing on me. Between the lack of sleep and the 10 miles on Tuesday, I just think my body is completely spent.

nevertheless, I was determined to get the 6 miles I had planned in so I took off. I hit the road at 5:05 and every step was hard. I was on my 6 mile route and just past 1.25 miles when my right ankle tweaked just a little bit. It felt OK, but not 100% so I turned around at the 1.5 mile mark. I was going to continue but didn't want to get as far from home as the 6 miler would take me in case something went worse.

Each mile.... OK tenth of a mile.... came and I just wanted to quit. The two mile mark came (where things normally get better) and things didn't get any better. I did keep going and just pushed through it. It took everything in me, both mentally and physically to get to the 5 mile mark. I wish I could have kept going, but I stopped at the 5 mile mark. I did finish with a couple miles of walking though.

My ankle feels OK, but I will need to keep an eye on it over the next few days. If you look at my running log you will see how this run went for me. I just never was able to speed up like I usually do.

Hope all your runs have been good, but if not keep at it, because as we all know..... they will get bad, but they will get better!

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow blog - twitter - fanpage - call

S.W.A.T. Trot 5k - How did it go?

The S.W.A.T. Trot 5k has just added another "fond" to my memories of running. You are aware, unless this is your first time here, that all my memories of the S.W.A.T. Trot have not been fond. Last years race was a fond memory as it was my daughter Payton's first 5k, but the year before was not quite as fond. I won't bore you with all the details here as I feel like I have said more than enough about it over the last couple years.

If you read my kinda blah post on Saturday before the 8:00 pm start time of this race you will know that I didn't have big plans for this race. I had pretty much decided that I would just run it for fun and not try to set any PR or even come close. I had told my neighbors that I would probably run with them.... if they weren't going to fast. My left thigh was not hurting, but was not 100% either and I didn't want to end up pulling it.

Not going to Race it..... But I will Run it

Tonight is the S.W.A.T. Trot 5k. This will be my third time attempting to run it. Last year was very cool because it was my daughter Payton's first 5k, and the previous year was quite interesting to say the least.

This time is really turning out to be blah. I was hoping that both my daughters would run the 5k with me tonight, but things have changed. My oldest daughter Ashlee is having trouble with her thigh (an over-use injury) and so we didn't even sign her up. I did sign up both myself and my younger daughter Payton to run and was looking forward to setting a new PR.

Over the past week+ Payton has been having some issues with her shins. We are pretty sure that her issues are being brought on by her shoes needing replaced so I have ordered her some new shoes. That doesn't change the fact that she should not run it, and was told absolutely not by her coach when she asked if she could still run it.

When I first heard about Strands.com a year ago and signed up I didn't have much time to give it much of a chance. One of the things Strands has going for it is that they offer almost anything you could think of with a running log. I have tried many running logs over the past 3 years and they all seem to be missing some key things that I would like to have. Strands has a few of those which I will mention later, but none of which I would consider to be core needs.

I have resurrected my Strands account and have given it another go at their request. This time I have spent much more time just getting to know the interface and checking out what it has to offer.

They have thought about almost everything. All the basics are there, the profile, the gear, the routes, and the ability to log your workouts and races. One of the pleasant surprises was how well the mapping utility works. I have tried this same feature on many sites and they are either clunky or just not very accurate.

Two Round Trips Through Downtown Gatlinburg

We are in Gatlinburg with family for a couple days. We ran almost 6 miles Sunday morning before leaving to come here and then took Monday off (my first day off after 9 days in a row) I threatened to take my girls for some hill repeats since we are half way up a mountain.

I decided, mainly for my personal reasons, not to make them do the hill repeats. I first took Payton and we drove down near to downtown Gatlinburg. We ran to the last light at the end of the strip and then turned around and ran back to the van. From where we parked it turned out to be almost 3 miles. We did a small out and back to make it 3 miles.

I did a quick round trip (drive) back to the cabin to drop Payton off and to pick up Ashlee. We went back to the same parking lot but this time we ran 1 mile out and then back to the van for a total of 2 miles. Ashlee is still having some issues with her thigh so we took it short and easy. This run was better than most of her last runs as far as her thigh is concerned.

The interesting thing about downtown Gatlinburg is that even though it is the flattest place around it is still either going up or going down the entire time. The last 1/4 mile back to the van was a pretty steep climb, but still better than the ones around the cabin.

Running through downtown is worse than running the Peachtree Road Race. We were out early and that was the only reason it was even doable. We almost took out a few old people who took a b-line to a shop right in front of us, but we got lucky and avoided the collision.

We are headed home this afternoon so we will not be able to get those hill repeats in - DARN!

I want to take an opportunity to thank Thad for featuring me as the Runner of the Week this past week on his Runner Dude Blog. Go over and take a look.

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow blog - twitter - fanpage - call

A Tough Run With My Daughters

A hot 3.8 miles is just about the only way I know how to put it. The run kinda sucked to put it plainly. It was in the middle of the day in some really hot sun, right after mowing the lawn. It really was harder than a 4 miler at that pace should be, but I think the circumstances around it made it that way.

We ran at Alexander park, a park just a couple miles away from home, and the first 1.4 mile circle was with both my daughters. Payton ran a bit in front of us and Ashlee and I took it a little slow trying to nurse her injured thigh. After one time around she was starting to hurt so I told her to stretch and then walk another time around while Payton and I ran two more.

After one more time around Payton and I really were all done with this run. It was wearing on us and just seemed quite hard. We slowed it down a little bit for the third mile..... or so we thought. We must have only slowed it down for a few steps because that last mile was at the same pace as the third mile.

At about 3.5 miles we made a deal. If we caught up with Ashlee we would walk the rest of the way in, if not we would run the rest. We caught up with her at 3.8 miles, just .3 miles before the end of the last loop..... so we walked. :)

I sure hope the 6 miler Payton and I have planned for early in the morning goes better, but I am not so sure since I am up so late tonight.

Have you ever had one of those runs that just seem harder than the rest? Harder than it really should?

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow blog - twitter - fanpage - call

Our Trail Run - Podcasted

You will recall that I went for my first trail run this past Monday morning. It was not only a trail run but was also a Tweetup with a few twitter friends. One of the twitter runners that went was Ron aka:@losttrailrunner. You may know Ron from the podcast called Lost Trail Runner.

Ron has been running since before many of today's runners were born, as he likes to put it, and has been podcasting for a while since he is up to episode 53 as of today. If you haven't stopped by and given him a listen I recommend that you do.

The last two podcasts are of special importance to me. The first one, episode 52, was recorded during our trail run on Monday morning, while in the second one, episode 53, Ron talks about his possible broken toe (from Monday's run) while he is giving it a test run. Why is this second one important to me you ask? Why because my blog gets a mention and it makes me feel all special and everything.

S.W.A.T. Trot - Take 3

As I sit here filling out the registration form for the upcoming S.W.A.T. Trot 5k a lot of thoughts go through my mind. The S.W.A.T. Trot is an evening run and it is run just outside of Brookwood High School. This year it is on June 12th and I am once again hoping for a 5k PR.

My mind first goes back to 2007 when I ran my first 5k, the Saratoga 5k Fun Run. There is a long story to get to that point in my journey and the best thing to do if you have some time is to go read about where I started.

I was not able to run the S.W.A.T. Trot that year because of a schedule conflict, so my first one was in 2008. I had run the 2nd annual Saratoga 5k Fun Run and set a new PR of 23:23. The Saratoga race is a very difficult hilly course and so I was really excited to run the S.W.A.T. Trot just over a month later and set another PR. I had hopes of getting down near 21:00 and had a very good shot at it.