Time off

I’ve been fighting off some chest congestion lately so I decided that it was best to take some time off of my training. Before Sunday, I made it about 5 weeks through training without missing any training runs so I didn’t feel too bad about it. Luckily, I was feeling better today so I decided to run the 2 miles that was on the schedule. The run went pretty well and I have been feeling pretty good since I got done. Maybe I’m getting over this whole cold thing…only time will tell.

Hopefully I’ll be back on track from here on out. My next run is scheduled for Thursday and I think I’ll try to run it unless I’m still sick.

Get back up

What an inspiration…

New look, New Challenge

I decided to start this blog back up to help document my training for the Flying Pig Marathon and Timberman 70.3 half Ironman.  Since running the Louisville Marathon in May 2008, I have trained for and competed in the following races: 20 mile relay race, Air force 1/2 Marathon (1:51 PR), and the Tri for sight sprint Triathlon.

I don’t know how or why, but running the Louisville marathon set me up for a slight addiction to endurance sports.  Sure there have been months in between then and now where I lay around and don’t really do anything. But deep down, I feel compelled to train for something.  During training and competition, I am exposed to new challenges, both physical and mental, that I can’t find anywhere else.

For the Flying Pig, I have decided to take a more conservative approach to training.  I will be running 3 days per week, including an easy day, a speed day, and an endurance building day. I am in the 4th week of marathon training and all is well.  My long runs have gone over well with minimal effort to finish the runs.  Since I have started training, I have only had a little soreness that I have had to deal with. Hopefully everything keeps going well.

The Timberman training is a different story.  My official training starts on April 6th, so I have a while to build a great base.  I have submitted to defeat on increasing my swim fitness by simply increasing my laps.  I have decided to use a program called Total Immersion to learn how to balance my body in the pool.  This will allow me to use energy to propel myself forward instead of using most of my energy just to stay afloat.  So far the drills are going great and I am surprised how easy it has been.   Check it out for yourself: http://www.totalimmersion.net/

I will be giving periodic updates on my progress so be sure to add this blog to your RSS feeds!

-ZJ

26.2 miles later…

Wow, what an exhilarating experience.  On April 26th, I ran the Derby Festival Marathon in Louisville, KY with my teammates from work.  My official time was not as fast as I would have liked but I ended up finishing in 4 hrs and 44 mins.

We woke up early the morning of the 26th and caught a bus to the starting line.  The bus ride didn’t seem like it would ever end.  After a while, the length of the ride got ridiculous and others looked around nervously at each other and thought “we are really going to have to run back that far?”  If the bus ride wasn’t enough to intimidate us, the dreaded fork in the road was also in the back of our minds.  12,000 runners signed up for the Derby Festival Marathon/MiniMarathon, but only 1,500 were going to run the full marathon.  That meant that the back half of the course would be a whole new ball game because no one would be out there.

After the bus ride was over, we took our position in the starting line among the 12,000 other runners.  The race started and I was definitely excited.  4 months and over 350 miles of running all for this one moment…lets do it!

The first half of the race, I decided to listen to what a lot of people said…race conservative in the beginning and pick it up in the end.  The first 12 miles went by without many problems.  I had a pretty good pace and I felt really good about running.  All of the volunteers were out cheering us on and the atmosphere was full of energy.  Then the halfway point…

I could finally make out the sign that showed “<—– MiniMarathon  ||  Marathon  —–>”.  The only problem that I saw with this was that no one was going right…Everyone in front of me seemed to be going left.  This was going to be even more lonely than I previously thought.  I turned right and I could tell that the remaining portion of the race was going to be more of a mental challenge than anything.  Luckily my parents were right there to cheer me on!  Thanks guys!  I really appreciated you coming out and supporting us!

During the 2nd half of the race, I am not really sure what happened to me.  I think that I hit “the wall” and I wasn’t able to recover from it.  For no reason whatsoever, I started walking and then everything fell apart from there.  Every little thing bothered me and was telling me to quit.  It seemed like everything that I was carrying was incredibly heavy and just holding me back.  I had extreme thoughts of doubt in my mind as to whether I could finish the race or not.  Every bit of encouragement and motivation that I had before today was gone.  Every time that I started running, I stopped and started walking again.  After about mile 17, I didn’t run a continuous mile without walking.  It was incredibly discouraging and it got to a point where I tried to convince myself that I might as well not even finish now because I was doing so poorly.

I stuck it out and eventually crossed the finish line.  I had the medal hoisted (it was so big that it had to be hoisted ;o) around my neck when I finished.  After I finished, I didn’t have the feeling of accomplishment like I expected.  I was so drained mentally that I thought for many days that I was a failure.  I felt that I had let myself and others down.  It has taken me over a week, but I can say that I may not have ran the entire way, but I completed a marathon.  That was my original goal at the start of training.

The best part of the whole day was seeing my family and teammates waiting for me at the finish.  My family was so incredibly supportive of me during training and on race day and I was very happy that they came down to see my teammates and I complete the marathon!  Thanks!

Also, a big thanks to all of my teammates that where there over training period pushing me along.  I hope that I brought at least a portion of the support and good will that you provided me in this journey.  I am incredibly fortunate to get the opportunity to train with everyone and get to know you a little better.

Most importantly, I would also like to say that I truly appreciate all of the contributions that everyone made to St. Jude’s.  As a team (including our friends, family, and company contribution) we raised over $14,000 and that number is still climbing as final contributions still roll in.  That absolutely amazes me…thanks again!

On a final note, I’d like to say that this has been the experience of a lifetime and I am very determined to keep at it.  As soon as I crossed the finish line, I knew that I wanted to do it again.  I want to train harder and longer mentally and physically to be better prepared for the next marathon.  My goal is to get below 4 hours.  I think that is a very achievable goal in my future.  It might not happen on my next marathon, but I see it on the horizon.

21 miles…crossing an ocean

On Saturday (4/5), I ran 21 miles with the rest of my group.  I was thinking of blogging right away but I decided to take some time to reflect before I posted.  The more I thought about it the more I had to say.  I’ll try to keep this story short but I know it will probably be my longest post to date…stick with me and please post your thoughts .

“Pain is the body telling the mind to quit…Endurance is the mind telling the body to never stop”

That quote came to me one day last fall before we even thought about training for this marathon.  I was out for a casual 2 mile run after work and I was trying my hardest to push through some terrible shin splints that I was dealing with.  Back then running wasn’t an important part of my life.  I treated it as I treated a lot of other things.  I allowed my body to experience it in day-to-day runs, but I never truely appreciated it for what it was worth.  I was also at a weird point in my life.  I had just gotten out of a serious relationship and I had recently graduated college.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with myself.  So I kind of just lived life as it came to me not really caring what happened next.

A few weeks after that run the guys at work asked me if I wanted to train for a marathon or a mini-marathon.  I said yes, but to be honest I NEVER thought that it would go anywhere from there.  After the ball started rolling, I was convinced that due to my shins and my lack of motivation that I would be running the mini-marathon.  I tried a lot of different things to alleviate the pain in my shins.  It seemed that no matter what I did, I would always struggle with them.  I finally committed to running the marathon and I kept pushing my body to run, hoping the pain would go away.

Jump ahead 4 months, my shins stopped hurting but I have been dealing with the normal pains of training…Leading up to the 21 mile run, I kept psyching myself out.  I kept thinking that I would eventually give into the pain and quit running.  Even though I had ran a 20 mile run by myself prior to this run, I was convinced that this time, I was going to fail.  At this point, I had no other option than to try.  I put all of my doubts behind me and laced up my shoes.  We had 3 seven mile loops ahead of us out at Masterson Station.  I decided that the only time I was going to stop running was to stop and replenish myself with water.  This turned out to be the hardest but most rewarding thing that I did all day.  There were many times that I wanted to stop because of pain, being tired, not really feeling like running, and just wanting to give up.  I thought about the quote and decided to not let those things stop me.  I pressed on, and in the end I was rewarded for it.  When I got to mile 21, I felt great!  All of the hard work had culminated at that exact moment for me and it paid off.  I didn’t feel like the marathon will be the challenge that it once seemed.  I finally saw the peak of that mountain and I wanted to cross it so bad!  I want to see the other side.

350 miles after I first thought of that quote, I finally realized how much running has changed my life.  You can give up on life (like I did) and live day-to-day and just let life happen.  It’s so easy to go home every day and sit on the couch and watch TV after a long day at work.  Or you can try hard every day to live life to it’s fullest, push yourself to recognize and enjoy everything around you.  At the end of the day, when all of the day’s challenges are over, you’ll be a much more satisfied person.  I have been taking life a lot more seriously and trying to live life to it’s fullest.  I don’t want to look at myself in 10 years and realize that I haven’t been enjoying myself .

I’ll leave you with a quote that my High School English professor always used to say.  I look to this quote when I see an especially difficult challenge laying before me.  I try to look past the hard part and see the green pasture waiting for me on the other side.  This quote definitely applies to the marathon and the training associated with it.  I have never had a more rewarding expereince in my life.  I will never forget it.

“The greater the conflict, the sweeter the victory”.

~anonymous

March 30th – April 5th (Papa John’s recovery)

Wow…It’s been a really long time since I’ve posted.  I’ll just try to recap the high events to save everyone a little time.  The week after I ran the Papa John’s 10 miler was definitely a recovery period.  I had a lot of pain in my IT band on the side of my right knee and my left archillies tendon was really sore.  I was pretty afraid that it was just going to rip as I was walking down the street.  I took it easy for most of the week because I had to save up for a 21 mile run on April 5th.

Monday (3/31), I biked 17 miles at the gym to try to get a low impact exercise.  It took me about 40 minutes which is comparable to my scheduled 5 mile run.  I really pushed myself and kept my heart rate up the entire time.  Even though I got a pretty good workout, I still felt that I left myself down because I deviated from the training schedule.  I keep telling myself…at least I didn’t sit on the couch.

Wednesday (4/2), I went out for a nice easy 8 mile run with Derek, Mike, and Greg.  We ran around lexington and overall it felt pretty decent.  I struggled towards the end because my IT band was getting really tight, but I slowed down and tried to finish strong.  It was unfortunately the last training run that I got to run with Derek.  (We’ll miss ya buddy!).

Friday (4/4), After the 8 mile run, I developed a sharp pain in my right foot that wouldn’t go away.  I am not sure what it was, but it was pretty painful and I didn’t feel like pushing through the sharp pain.  I took the day off on Friday to stay off of my feet to see if the pain went away.  I was going insane just laying around all day so I decided to go to the gym to workout and delay my 21 mile run until Sunday.  I ended up swimming to try to get an equivalent workout.  Apparently, that did the trick because I Friday night my foot felt really good and I decided to go ahead and run the 21 on Saturday to get it out of the way.

Papa John’s 10 Miler

Oops…I must have pressed save instead of publish…check it:

Today the crew went to Louisville to run in the Papa John’s 10 miler (3rd “leg” of the Triple Crown of Running).  I was very optimistic about this race and I had planned on giving it my all.  My running has been going great this past week and I was very excited about being able to push myself a little bit more than normal.

We got to Louisville kind of early because a few of us still had to register.  After we got that taken care of, we sat in the car for a little while to take advantage of that last bit of warmth.  We stepped outside and walked up to the starting line.  For this race they had pace times posted in the starting line to try to get the walkers towards the back.  This helped a little bit because there weren’t as many walkers to dodge when we started the race, but there were still those few people that were insistent on getting up front!  Oh well, its just something that we’ll have to deal with b/c we are so fast…haha!

The race went really well…I was pretty happy with my performance.  I didn’t push it really hard in the beginning because I didn’t know what to expect for hills.  I ran around a 9 minute pace for the first 6 miles then I really started to step it up.  I ran around 8 minute miles for the rest of the race and I didn’t get to the point where I lost energy.  I had lots of energy and I was able to push myself to the point that I was breathing moderatly heavy for the last 4 miles.  It was great!

I’m a little sore but I’m icing everything down right now and getting ready to eat a big lunch.

12 miler at keenland

Wow…another incredible run.  Over the past few weeks, I had become discouraged with my injuries and my attitude was suffering as a result.  This week, I am determined to stay on schedule, no matter how inconvenient it may seem at the time or how much I might try to convince myself that I need another rest day.

I wasn’t really thinking about our scheduled 12 mile run all day because I didn’t want to psych myself out.  About 20 minutes before it was time to leave work, I decided that I would run the course of the 13 miler that we ran at Keenland and try to modify it a bit to cut out a mile.  I drove the course and dropped off my water at mile 6.  During the drive, I realized how awesome this run was going to be and I got pretty excited about it.

When I got back to the starting point, I decided that I would just try my hardest to enjoy the run and I wouldn’t push myself too much because we have the Papa John’s 10 miler coming up in a few days.  When I started to run, I settled into a comfortable pace and enjoyed the scenery.  As all my teammates can imagine, it was an incredible run.  The scenery and peacefulness was just unreal.  Running the course by myself allowed me to enjoy the peaceful aspect just a bit more.  I didn’t mind running at all.  I decided that I would have much rather been out here putting forth a little effort for 2 hours than being stuck inside at work or at home watching TV (even if it is big brother!).

My IT band and calf hurt a little, but it didn’t matter too much.  I was just out there trying to enjoy myself.  The weather couldn’t have been better either.  I ended up running the 12 miles in 2:02.  I was really surprised that I ran that fast because it didn’t feel like I was putting forth the normal level of exertion…I was just trying to take it easy and enjoy myself.  I’m really happy at the outcome of my first two runs this week.  Hopefully the rest of the week goes well too!

5.3 miles with a purpose

Today was an outstanding run.  I got home from work determined to actually stay on schedule this week.  I don’t think I’ve run on the correct running schedule ever since we started running the triple crown races.  Coming of the 20 mile run 2 days ago, I didn’t think that my body would like me too much.  I finally got everything together for my donation letters and at the last minute, I decided that I’d just run them up to the post office for the first few miles of the run, then finish up with a loop that I normally run.  I didn’t realize how cool idea would actually be until I ran.

As soon as I stepped foot outside the door with the 35 donation letters in my hand, I transformed into a different person.  My purpose of this particular run was not the normal maintenance run like I thought it would be.  I finally felt deeply connected with the kids that we were helping out at St. Jude’s.  I was running for a purpose.  In my mind, the only thing that I thought of was a kid sitting in a hospital bed hundreds of miles away at St. Jude’s awaiting treatment.  Getting these letters in the mail would enable the recipients of the letters to donate money to help this child.  This made me feel really great about all of the effort that everyone at Mason & Hanger is giving.  I reached the post office and dropped the letters in…at that point, it was out of my hands.

The rest of the run turned out to be just as rewarding.  For the rest of the run, I just thought of the pile of donation letters sitting in the mailbox waiting for a mailman to stop by and allow them to fulfill their purpose.  I had no problems with fatigue and very little pain in my IT band for the entire duration of the run.  I felt great and ran very fast.  However, I can’t tell how fast because for the first time, I forgot to bring my watch!

Oh well, it further reinforced that this run wasn’t for me…it wasn’t for the time…it was for the kids.

20 something miles

Wow…Today was incredibly challenging.  I decided to kick it up to Northern KY a day early to celebrate the Easter weekend with my family.  This meant that I’d have to run 20 miles by myself.  I wasn’t really looking forward to it because in the past when running long distances, I allow myself to keep stopping and walking for a few seconds.

I struggled to get out of bed early because I rarely get to sleep in anymore.  It worked out well anyways because on Friday night, I decided that I would get up in the morning and go to a local running store to pick up some new power steps.  They worked really well in the past for me and Mike’s Dr. recommended them to him until his custom inserts came in.  The running store didn’t open until 10 so I kind of waited around until I could drive up there.  I picked up the insoles and some gel packs and headed to the starting point of my run.  Along the way, I decided to stop at a gas station to get some bottles of water.  Much to my delight, they had Accelerade!!  Dean K. and others swear by this stuff.  I have always looked for it but this is the first time that I’ve ever seen it.  It’s a sports drink that has a 4:1 carb/protein mixture.  It’s supposed to replenish very well.  I purchased 2 bottles and headed to the starting line.

The run seemed to take an eternity.  At mile 5, I got a call from Taylor asking how my run went…I told him that I was currently running and he told me a little bit about their run today.  It sounds like everyone did very well!  It really helped that he called and asked how it was going.  I made one loop of 10.65 miles, then a little detour up to my brother’s house to get some water, gel pack and a restroom break.  Everything was going pretty well at that point.  My IT band was acting up a little but other than that it was good.  I start out the second loop and it was pretty challenging.  At the beginning of the 2nd loop I had a very weird sensation.  As I was running, I felt like I was 2 feet tall.  Something was really wrong with my perspective because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t “grow”.  It was really weird but it eventually went away.  After that, for some reason I kept convincing myself to start walking.  At some points, I would walk a few times every mile and at other points, I would run for about 4 miles before taking a walk break.  I kept telling myself that as many times as I “failed” by walking, I also made myself start running again.  That seemed to help my spirits a little.  Another thing that kept me from walking was that my IT band would inhibit me from running correctly when I started running.

At about mile 17, I actually felt REALLY good.  It was incredible.  I actually picked up the pace A LOT and it felt like I was spriting the last 3 miles.  It was really weird to have that kind of energy after 17 miles.

Overall, the run went pretty well.  I’m not exactly sure how many miles I went because I deviated from my initial map.  I *think* that I went 22 miles.  It’s hard to tell because the road that I ran on was re-routed and the new route isn’t on google maps yet.  I think that I might go drive it tomorrow.  I might update my post with a more accurate distance.  Anyways,  I finished in 3:48.