Category: exercise

With all the stuff going on in my life right now, it’s good to have my exercise routine to establish some regularity.

That being said, I’ve got to deviate from my “every other day run” schedule, because if I kept up with that, I’d be running on Friday — which is also when I leave for Coachella. My friend and I are driving through the night to get there by Saturday, so I need to be well-rested. Which, to my mind at least, means I shouldn’t be getting up early on Friday morning to run.

So, with that in mind, here’s what I’m planning for this week:

• Monday: Run 2-3 miles in the morning
• Tuesday: Hiking with the Mazamas after work
• Wednesday: Run 3-4 miles in the morning
• Thursday: Run 5+ miles to work in the morning
• Friday: Off
• Saturday: (At Coachella) Dance like there’s no tomorrow
• Sunday: Probably be hungover and exhausted — drive back to Portland

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Oh, I’ve listened to some of the CDs I bought last night, and plan on posting some reviews in the next couple of days. Briefly: I like Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse, and am still trying to decide if Stereolab is my taste or not. I had Stereolab confused with a local band, StereoVision. I really like StereoVision’s music, but, because I was expecting that particular sound, I was taken aback by Stereolab’s sound — very ethereal and trippy. Anyway, I’ll be posting full reviews of them shortly. Stay tuned.

Ran today. Planned on running 5 miles. Original plan was to get up early, go downtown, change at the gym, then run up and down Terwilliger.

Woke up around 8 AM. Too tired from being out late last night. Had to trash the original plan. OK, time for a new plan.

New plan: get up immediately get up, throw some street clothes and some workout clothes in my backpack, go downtown, change, and run up and down Terwilliger.

Got up, went to the bathroom, weighed myself (169.5! Whoo-HOO!), got a Cliff Bar, checked my email, went back to bed.

Woke up around 10:30 AM. OK, OK, new plan: same as previous plan, only getting up right now.

I resisted eating another Cliff Bar (which hurt me later), but realized I didn’t want to carry around a full backpack when I was downtown this afternoon. Since I was getting such a late start, I knew that once I was out of my house and downtown, I wouldn’t want to come back home to drop stuff off. So, I had to dress for the day, instead of planning on changing at some point this afternoon.

Alright, then, newest plan: hurry up and get some workout clothes on, go running in my neighborhood, starting right now. Good plan.

An hour later, after checking my email, chatting a bit online, and otherwise goofing off, I finally got out the door. There was a brief moment of embarrassment when I realized that my drunken neighbors were having their weekly “yard sale” — sucks to be out of work and needing money, I guess. They asked me to buy something, but I pretended not to hear them over my iPod. I did wave, though. I’m only partially a snob.

Since I wanted to run 5 miles (still), I was going to go down the Springwater Corridor trail to about the 2-mile mark, then turn around and come back. That 4 miles, plus the half-mile on the beginning and end that I run to get to the head of the trail, makes a 5 mile round trip.

Unfortunately, my lack of a real breakfast and my dehydration hurt me, I think. I was struggling to make the run out, and by the time I turned around, I was panting, hard. I died and had to stop and walk right at the 3.5 mile point, and continued to alternate walking and running the rest of the way.

Nutrition is important, OK?

Tomorrow I plan on doing a short run in my neighborhood. Hopefully that will make up for the poor performance today.

Running yesterday made my nipples bleed.

Ow.

I was wearing a non-cotton shirt!

I saw 170 lb. on the scale this morning, but I think that’s just a random downward spike. I’m pretty sure I’m still holding steady at 172 for most purposes. And next week I’m adding another 200 calories per day to my diet, bringing my daily intake to 2200. If I am still losing at the same rate I was a couple of weeks ago, then I’m still 800-900 calories down from my “stable” intake, at least for this amount of exercise. So I might, in fact, be losing some more weight before I stabilize, which is OK by me.

Speaking of exercise, I ran from Duniway Park up to the Charthouse restaurant, along Terwilliger Blvd. again this morning, a round trip of about 5 miles. It was rainy, but not pouring down. I was cold at first, but warmed up nicely. I think I did it at a 10 minute pace, too; I left the gym at noon, and got back to the gym around 1:15, so, subtracting the time to walk the 10 blocks to Duniway, I did the 2.5 miles up and down in about 55 minutes. Well, OK, that’s more like an 11 minute pace. Still, pretty good for as steep as it is.

Last time I ran Terwilliger was on March 11, about a month and a week ago. I weighed 181 that morning. Means I’ve lost 11 pounds in 5 weeks, or just over 2 pounds per week.

Today brings my weekly running miles to about 13. I’m still amazed at that total. I can remember when the idea of running a mile seemed beyond me.

Also, this is the first time I’ve actually worn my iPod for the run. It did OK — only skipped two or three times, and that was after about 25 minutes of operation. The iPod is only really sensitive to jostling when nearing the end of it’s 25 minute buffer, and what will usually happen is that it will pause for longer than the normal 2-3 seconds between songs and then skip ahead to the next song in the playlist. Oh, I was playing a specific playlist, not playing on shuffle; when on shuffle mode, the hard drive will spin up after every song. Not good when working out.

I ran to work this morning. And, unlike last week, this week I ran all the way across the Hawthorne Bridge, making my total run at least 5 miles!

Didn’t see any raccoons this morning, though, but two guys on bikes did pass me on the trail. Probably the same two guys from last week.

This morning I ran to work. I’ve been talking about it for a while, and I finally made it happen. Yesterday I brought a change of clothes and left them in my office, along with the stuff I needed but didn’t want to carry when I was running. Which was, basically, everything: my wallet, my bus pass, my cell phone, my iPod (I don’t run with my iPod), yadda yadda.

Then, this morning, I got up before 5 AM, threw my contacts in, took my vitamins, got into my running clothes and shoes, and headed out the door. It’s taken me about 2 hours to walk downtown before, so I figured that would give me enough time to run and have time left over to shower and change. I was out the door at about 5:10 AM.

I started running about 5 blocks from my house. From there to the head of the trail is about 1/2 mile (according to Yahoo Maps), then I stopped to do some quick stretches, then ran the rest of the distance, all the way to the Hawthorne Bridge, another 3.8 miles according to the signs on the trail.

There wasn’t many folk on the trail at that time of day; I saw two lone bikers and a racoon. Once I got going I found it very peaceful. On my previous runs I’ve found it necessary to think about other things; plans, or my stories, anything but the run. But this morning I was able to either just notice the scenery around me, or zone out entirely and just move.

I walked the rest of the distance to my office, but in the future I plan on running across the bridge, which should make it a 5-mile run. I did feel a pang of guilt that I didn’t go the full 5 miles today, but that was immediately followed by the positive voice in my head telling the negative voice to shut the fuck up. I mean I’d just run farther than I’d ever run before!

I got to my office at 6:28 AM, plenty of time to shower and change before I had to start at 7:00 AM.

My right hamstring is bothering me today, so I may not run again until Saturday. I’ll stretch it out and maybe even go sit in the hot tub at my gym tomorrow or Friday.

In a burst of spending, I went ahead and registered for two more 5Ks:

• The Lake Run 2004, in Lake Oswego, OR, on Saturday May 8th, and
• The Mount Tabor Challenge on Saturday, June 19th.

Both of them should be pretty challenging.

I might be willing to try an 8K or 10K event by the time I’ve completed these. We’ll see how I do. It’s exciting to have something to look forward to!

They posted the official results for the Bridge-to-Bridge.

Jake finished in 19:49, with a 6:23 pace, 2nd in his age group, 26th overall, and 25th overall men’s.

Caleb finished in 25:57, with an 8:21 pace, first in his age group, 81st overall and 68th overall men’s.

I finished in 30:25, with a 9:47 pace, 10th in my age group, 184th overall and 100th overall men’s.

Woo-hooo!

Now we’re all going to improve our times by two minutes in the next one, right? Right? Who’s with me?

Whoo-hoo! I finished today’s race at least 5 minutes faster than the Shamrock Run! A friend saw my time as I crossed and tells me it was 30:33 or thereabouts. Which means I ran a sub-10-minute pace!

As I was crossing the finish line, I saw the clock for the 10K race, thinking that was my time, and I was so disappointed because it showed over 40 minutes. I thought that I had done significantly worse. Good thing my friends were there to correct me 🙂

Here’s a pic of Team Saponified for the Bridge to Bridge 5K 2004:

From left to right, that’s myself, Jake Edge, and Caleb Phillips. Full image is in the Picture Gallery gone. ¹

¹ Sadly, this picture was lost in the mists of time. I am unable to update or replace this. Always back your shit up.

I’m running in the Bridge-to-bridge 5K on Sunday. It’s going to be challenging. I thought it crossed the Fremont Bridge, but looking at the website the 5K only goes across the Steel and Broadway Bridges. The 10K, however, does cross the Fremont.

My friends are running, too, and they’re probably going to kick my ass, but that’s OK, it’s my second-ever race. I just want to finish.

In anticipation of pain, I made it a long weekend by taking time off from work on Monday. Here’s hoping I don’t have to spend my day off in the hospital…

Update: I’ve updated the link to point to the current (as of 2009) website for this run. 5 May 2009 – BAM