Injured?

So I'm kicking this guy in the head on December 23rd and I roll my left ankle on the follow through. I'm not sure who took the brunt of it but I know that he had head gear on and I ended up hobbling around the mats. This is how it begins. I head home, ice the ankle for the night while watching TV and getting the kids to bed etc. then head to bed myself.
Wednesday morning comes around and it's time for my Christmas Eve morning run with the VR group. I can hardly walk so I sit while getting my clothes on to head down for the run. I limp down the stairs holding the rail for support with each step and then put the dog out. Wow, it has rained most of the night and the steps behind the house are a solid sheet of ice. Should be a fun run. So I call up a running friend who will be joining me and the rest of the VR group. I actually got some interesting advice. Go back to bed, what are you crazy, if you can't walk how are you going to run on a sprained ankle when the roads are a sheet of ice. And... drum roll.... I actually listened. No running for me through the Christmas holiday. Then comes Saturday.
It is 50 degrees and lovely. Shorts, short sleeved shirt and I'm ready to go out for the waterfall run. Well if any of you were there this was the muddiest run of my life. There were over 50 people at the run and the trails were a mess. The fast guys/girls worked the trails over for the rest of us (didn't take much) and everyone was a slipping sliding mess. The water crossings as some point were knee deep and the water was not the same 50+ degrees as the air. Nick and I cut the run short after spending a half hour trying to climb the mud slides to get to Brandywine falls. In the end it took us 3-1/2 hours to complete just over 13 miles. Unbelievable.
So now my ankle which was doing much better has been bothering me again. The no running helped out before but isn't an option now. You can imagine the looks when I limp up the stairs in the gym only to get on a treadmill for 5-6 miles. Its amazing how the pain goes away after a few minutes as long as the only motion is straight forward. The side to side is what hurts.

So I guess I have answered the question I posed to myself a year ago when I began my blog... I'm really a runner?... I ignore pain to go out with friends and put in 13 miles in the mud and love it. I get on a dreadmill day after day just to build endurance and speed so that the miles I put in tomorrow and next week won't hurt quite as much. I don't like it but I do it just because. I can't say that I love running, sometimes I hate it. I do it because... well.... friends to talk to and enjoy during runs, times to not talk and just run with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me, on and times to just run when you don't know why or how but you just loose moments of your life without any recollection of thought or movements that may have occurred during the lost time. Oh and what do I hate more then running????? Man-boobs.

Holy Cold

Well I headed to WV to visit with the wife's Aunt and Uncle this past weekend. I took my running clothes as there are some nice trails in Morgantown that I was going to hit on Sunday morning but then I felt bad heading out and leaving everyone before breakfast. You know the feeling that I would be such a selfish ass to go out and run while everyone else is sitting down for the breakfast that her aunt slaved over only to return an hour after everyone is done and then have her go through the trouble of making sure I had breakfast etc. So when I realized that we would be heading home by 10:30-11:00am I figured I would just hit the roads when I got home..... Very bad Idea.

So we leave Morgantown and it was 38 degrees but Lesa's Uncle was talking about how cold it was going to get that night. I made some smartass comment about it being a good time to leave then. Funny thing, I never thought to my self that they are about 180 miles East of us... Ah Duh that means that it is already cold as hell at home.

At around 3:45 I suit up and head out for my run. It was around 14 degrees so I was trying to decide if I should where the gay ass tights or my normal running pants. My wife looked at me and said if I was going to where the gay ass tights I should put something over them so I wore both. Good Idea. I even put on more then one layer of long sleeve tops. So two shirts, two pants, windshorts for the boys a hat and gloves off I go. As soon as I walked out the door I headed back in and grabbed a face mask and my glasses.

Well all I can tell you is it just kept getting colder and colder. By 5:00 I thought I was an icicle. By 5:15 I was an icicle and my water bottle had turned to slush so I had to unscrew the top to drink as the nipple was frozen. Oh by the way did anyone know that December 21st was the shortest day of the year. As soon as the sun went down the temps hit bottom. The wind gusts were so strong that they would stand me straight up and stop any forward motion. I finally hit my in laws front door to join the family and a funny thing happened. I tried to take my hat off but it felt like it was getting caught on my earring. Turns out I had icicles which had frozen my hat to my earphones of my iPod and then attached to my earring/ear. I had to give it a minute or so after I got into the house before I could detach the assembly. I then checked the temps and it turns out it was 5 degrees outside with a windchill of -18. You have got to be kidding me. What the hell was I thinking.

So I went out yesterday at around 5:00pm and got in a quick 4 mile run. Turns out the colder it gets the faster my short recovery runs get. I'm waiting the day out today because I see that it should be up to 30 by later tonight so I can warm up some. I miss going to work and running on a treadmill now. Although I will get over it. Ohio weather is the best.

Bad week for Running

I ended last week with a rough 14-15 mile run on Saturday. It was one of those days I had to start at 6:30 so I could make it home by 10. It's so difficult for me to find time to run anymore. Luckily Bill found it in his heart to meet me so I didn't spend the first hour on the trails by my self. I met up with Sherry, Denise, and Melisa at Boston Store and we all ran together for a while before heading in different directions.

The Buckeye 30k is only 4 weeks from tomorrow for me (well 50k for most) so I planned on getting in a good week of running. So as of today I have managed two runs for 11 miles. Wed sucked and ended up out for lunch with the guys from the office. Then Thursday we end up shutting down the office just as I was going to head to the gym for an impromptu Christmas part. Beer, Pizza, Wings, Subs, and Rock Band on the Wii in our conference room. There were only around 15-20 of us in the office so it was a good time for fun bad time to run.

Spent the day today with my son. I haven't figured out how to get a run in when you have to watch a 3 year old. I'm thinking I have to get a treadmill. So this weekend I need to get some miles in but... I leave for Morgantown WV at 8:30 AM tomorrow when my wife gets home from work. Only chance now is that I'm packing my clothes and going to hit the trails in WV. There is a nice trail that goes right behind Lesa's Aunt and Uncle's house. It's very much like the bike/hike trail here. I figure I'll just change and head out Sunday morning for a long solitary run. Maybe it will be just what I need. I find myself becoming very irritable and lost these days. I'm not sure what it is (stress) but I really needed this time off work and now it seems it will be full of other events and activities to just push me over the edge. I'm normally such a relaxed and easy going person and I just can't figure out what is going on with me these last couple of weeks. It's not the holidays but I think I just need some time away from everything to relax and organize my thoughts. I know it has gotten bad when I see the look in my kids face when I snap at the slightest issue. I think they are as bothered by my mood as I.

I was thinking about the 50k but now I'm happy I signed up for the 30k. Running has been a mode of relaxation in my life recently but the stress of trying to hard to get the miles in has transformed running into an activity causing stress in my life.

Week in Review

Many people review their running week by miles and days. I'm going to do it by miles, days, and cities.

Monday: Lunch with Marketing group no chance for run

Tuesday: 8 Miles at my 1/2 marathon pace in Hudson and around Hudson Spring parks. Then I caught an evening flight to Denver

Wednesday: Lunch at the original Chipotle. It was my mandatory once in a lifetime trip to mecca. Enjoy

Wednesday evening flew to salt lake city then got in 2+ miles on a treadmill. One of those that you set a 9 minute mile and it seems like you are running 8 minute miles.

Thursday: evening flight into California and then got in a 7+ mile run along the bay in the evening. I love this trail. It runs along side the bay behind the restaurants. Nice temp. Around 50.

Friday: Day off running. I'm going to visit with Apple this morning and then catch an afternoon flight home so that I can put in my 17 miles tomorrow morning with Bill, Nick, Melissa, Sherry and friends.

It has been a little over a month since I was at the summit of Jade Mountain and a friend reminded me I’m a blog slacker. I’ll have to provide a brief summary rather then my long winded ramblings as I’m catching a plane tomorrow and have to pack etc.

Day two
After a long night on the most uncomfortable bed ever we woke up early dreading breakfast. Mike and I ended up opening a can of Pringles I had borrowed from the minibar at the hotel we normally stay at by our factory and then I downed a power bar and some craisins. We hit breakfast and it was as bad as expected. I had toast and peanut butter and couldn’t really seem to bring myself to try much else. I think it was the black eggs that did it but normally I would have at least tried something. Maybe it was the thought of two days on a mountain without access to a toilet though.

So we headed outside and immediately I got looks. It was like 55 out so I was in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. The guide was even worried at this point but I let everyone know that I was good. We caught a ride for about 30 minutes up the mountain until we were at the kickoff point of our climb. Here are some photos of the first day.
5 hours later we were at the lodge we would spend the night. Talk about the bed the night before, here all we had was a wooden shelf on which each climber was allotted a spot approx 3 feet wide to set the sleeping bag. I guess they figure the body heat keeps each other warm as it was around 40 degrees with no heat for the night.
We had plenty of time left as it was only 1:30 so we convinced our guide with the help of translator to let us summit a lower peak which was only a 2 hour hike or so. Most everyone was tired or wanted to just relax so it ended up being only three people from our group of 12 and one other younger climber from another group asked if he could join us. We were more then happy to have the company. It was getting dark when we got back so we watched the sun set and hit the solid wood planks for the night. Day Three

2:15AM and very little sleep later we were awake and packing up. As we would be back here after the summit on our way back down Mike and I choose to leave all our gear and travel light. Camera’s, water, and a backpacking cup for some coffee/tea that the guide would make along the way. I don’t have any pictures of the climb because we did it by head-lamp but we made it to the West Peak just before sunrise. This was the most beautiful part of the entire trip. I will remember this for the rest of my life. This is when the pain started. We now had taken around 4 hours of climbing and had to backtrack down and then climb up to the main peak which was 2 hours. With the last hour being the hardest climbing of the trip. After some time at the top (we let the rest of our group get about a 30 minute head start down) we started the trip back off the mountain. This would take us around 5-1/2 hours total for a total of 11-1/2 hours of climbing in the day. One of the guys started mocking me on the way down telling me to run the rest of the way (with full pack). I wasn’t in the mood and told him that if he bet me $1 that I couldn’t I would run the entire 3k that was left. Apparently this didn’t translate into Mandarin properly as he didn’t understand. Well we got to where we could just see the end of the trail so it was around two tenths of a mile left and by this point we were ahead of the rest of our group. Mike looked at me and asked if I was going to run it in. You should have seen the look on the faces of the guys at the bottom as they watched us run down the trail in packs (not the safest thing either with the cliff on the side). They thought we were two of the craziest Americans ever. Then I found out there was a smaller peak that would only take us about 1-1/2 hours climb to reach. At this point we were far enough ahead of our group that I thought we could make it and get back about the same time as them. Unfortunately Mike was dead tired and could hardly stand. The guide wouldn’t let me climb alone and he had to wait with Mike so three peaks in two days is all I could do.
Oh and here is a tour bus we passed.