Cross Country Time Trial

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If you have been reading my blog long I am sure you have read about my daughters.  Since they both started running they have been a regular and favorite subject of my blog.  Last year my younger daughter Payton killed it in Cross Country her freshman year, and both Payton and Ashlee did great this past Track Season.

Both Ashlee and Payton will be running Cross Country this fall and I am super excited.  As fun as Track is, Cross Country is still my personal favorite.  From a spectator's perspective it is sometimes harder to watch, but I think that is one of the things that find to be just that much more invigorating.  I sometimes get up to a mile run in just getting from one point to the other to cheer them on.

Running 100,000 miles

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I was going through my reader when I came by a post on Scott Dunlap's A Trail Runner's Blog about Raven Craft - link to post

I had read about Raven a year or two ago and how he ran 8 miles every day and hadn't missed a day in over 30 years. I wasn't aware that he was coming up on a milestone this year of 100,000 miles. Pretty amazing stuff!

ESPN did a piece on him which can be seen below or a cleaner copy can be seen on his website.

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow

Camping, the beach, and family running

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It has been a busy week this past week. I have been running a lot, but also been keeping busy with life in general.

This past week I missed my run on Friday morning and didn't get a long run in on Saturday. The reason being that we decided at the last minute to go camping at the beach for the weekend. I ran Thursday morning and then again Thursday night (which has been common now that my daughter is training for Cross Country and needs someone to run with on the days she is not running with the team)

Since I had run Thursday night and Friday morning I needed to pack the van for the camping trip I decided I would forgo my Friday morning run. As the morning progressed I was happy I had chosen to do so since I barely had enough time the way it was (and I didn't want to get up at 4:30 on my day off)

We headed to Jekyll Island, on the coast of GA for the weekend camping trip. We are (new) tent campers.... and yes.... it was HOT! It got up near 100 degrees each day we were there, and was probably still in the upper 80's and humid when we crawled into the tent each night.

My daughter Payton and I got up on Saturday morning and planned on running 5 miles. I wanted to do those 5 and then head back out for more after dropping her off.... but..... well..... We drove down near the beach and got ready to go about 8:00 am. I thought we would be able to miss the heat of the day that way, but I didn't think about how hot the sun could be that early in the morning along the beach. We ran the bike trail along the beach for the view, but of course since we were running that close to the beach there was no shade anywhere - mistake! We didn't get far before we were both feeling the wrath of the sun. My daughter just couldn't go any further following 3 miles so we called it quits. It is hard for me to give in to a run, but it was the right thing to do.

We spent the day at the beach, and even though it was hot, we really had a great weekend camping/beach trip.

Last night was also a new and exciting time for me as a dad. If you have been reading long you are aware that my second daughter (Payton) is training for Cross Country so we run together a lot. My 7 year old son, Brady also runs with me occasionally, but my oldest daughter Ashlee, and my wife have yet to lace up the running shoes.

Yesterday I got one step closer to true family running. Ashlee is in Color Guard and has been practicing lately. She realized that she needs to get in better shape so she decided she needed to run. I won't let her run alone so she had to wait till last night. Last night we went out for just a mile. Both her and Payton went out with me. This was the first time Ashlee has run with me, and I don't know that she has truly ever run a mile before.

The run started off good and Ashlee was running with a smile on her face just in front of Payton and I. She said she was feeling pretty good..... but we had only gone about 2 tenths of a mile. She quieted down shortly after that, and when we got close to the 3/4 mile mark she started saying it was really hard and started to slow down. I looked at her and she was not happy, the smile was gone. I wouldn't let her stop before the mile, and to her credit she finished it strong and didn't complain anymore..... until after we were done. She said it was too hard and she was never going to run again. :) I talked her off the ledge and I think she will run with me again, but not as fast as we did this time. I let her pace this run and we ran it too fast for her ability. She ran the mile in 8:54 - excellent for the first mile I know her to have ever run.

This week is going good so far, trying to put some miles in and hope to get a good long run in this Saturday. This past Monday Payton ran on the Cross Country trails for the first time. She said it was fun and she did great running just behind the varsity. This Friday is her time trials for Cross Country. They have to run a 2 mile race to see where they all are on the team and to see who gets to go on the summer training trip. She is one of the top Freshmen on the team, and is running with last years JV most of the time. I think she will do great this Friday if she can mentally keep going when it gets hard. (I think she can do 15 min if she really wants to but am not going to say anything to her)

Till next time.....

Tim Wilson - blog.262quest.com - subscribe - follow

Run The Beach

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This weekend ended up going a bit different than originally planned. As mentioned in my previous post we went to Savannah GA, or actually Fort Stewart, to pick up my wife's brother. We made the trip with his wife and kids who stayed the night with us in Atlanta. He is headed over to Iraq in the next week or two for his second tour of duty.

Our plans were to drive down (4 hours) and have dinner with him and spend a couple hours with him and then he and his family were headed on down to Florida to spend the few days of leave he gets before heading out. We were going to just get a hotel because of the late hour and then drive home Sunday. Well, we changed plans and decided to drive the couple extra hours south and spend the night with them since they had rented a beach house in Fernandina Beach, Florida, just over the Georgia/Florida border. This gave us a little more time to spend with them before saying goodbye. We were very happy we did.

I woke up this morning just before 5 and laid there for just over another hour because it was still dark out and I didn't know the area. I knew we were only a couple small blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and the beach and I love the water. The problem was I didn't bring anything to run in, and the only shoes I brought were my recently retired running shoes. I couldn't miss the opportunity so I put on the swim suit I had brought, and one of the t-shirts I brought and my retired running shoes and headed out the door at 6:55 this morning, just as the sun was rising over the water. It was a beautiful 50 degrees and the morning was gorgeous. I headed down the road a bit and then turned towards the beach.

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I started to run down Ocean Drive which is just on the edge of the beach because I figured the sand would be too loose. I only took this for a short time when I had to walk over the steps to the beach. The sand was quite solid down by the water, and the beach was almost deserted. That coupled with the fact that the sun was just rising over the water, I ran the rest of my run on the beach. I didn't have any watch, mp3 player or even a plan on how far I would go other than I knew I couldn't be gone much over 30 minutes. I just ran, one of the most enjoyable runs I have ever had. Much because of the place I was privileged to run, but also because I had no watch, plan, or felt like I needed to do a certain mileage. I ran down the beach until I was ready to turn around, and then just ran back.

One interesting point that I didn't think about till it was too late and I had turned around and was heading back. I had not made any mental note of where I had gotten on the beach. This was probably because I was completely mindless just enjoying the run. I was running back trying to figure out how far I had gone. Luckily the beach was almost deserted so I eventually found my footsteps and followed them back till they headed off the beach.

I ended up running for about 35 minutes and when we got home to Atlanta tonight I checked and I had run about 3.25 miles. My favorite course so far :)