The Results Are In.....

Today was my first day back running in almost a week.  It was a balmy -3 with wind chills of -13.  My left toes were freezing and my quads were red when I got done but it was great being out there again.  My feet don't feel any better (or worse) than they did before the small break.  They were a little tight when I first started but once I got warmed up and my achilles were warm everything seemed to flow much better.  I wonder if some of my heel problem is caused by tight achilles.  Something to work on I guess.  I iced when I got to work so hopefully functions normally tomorrow.

Asher was thrilled to go running today.  He had a frosty beard and his new red shoes on and he had a blast.  Here is a picture of him with his red shoes on.  His frosty beard melted as soon as we got inside. 

We saw something kind of funny today.  There was a guy at this stop light, that we were waiting at, turning while eating a donut giving us a look like we were the crazy ones.  One day we had a guy smoking a pipe shaking his head at us as he drove through the round about as we ran through it.  And another morning some girl drove by us and yelled at the top of her lungs that we were crazy.  It was November and I had shorts on so I'm not sure if it was that or the fact that it was 4:30 in the morning.  Either way she seemed pretty convinced that we were crazy!  Too each their own kind of crazy I guess.  I think donuts, smoking pipes and staying up all night at the bars is crazy.  I guess it takes all kinds. :) 

Heel Update and Other Misc. Items

Well today marks my 4th day since my last run, my 18 miler last Saturday.  This actually turned out to be a good week to take off since the feels like temperature this morning was -12 and I probably wouldn't have taken Asher out anyway since I don't like to take him out if it's that cold.  Even saying that, I am missing it and Asher is majorly missing it.  I think he's even a little ticked at me for not taking him.  I try and explain but he just doesn't seem to understand, or really care, he just wants to run.  And to top it off I'm not really sure if my heel is any better.  It doesn't really hurt when I push on it like it did before but sometimes I think I feel some pain.  I have been wearing my gel heel cups in every pair of shoes and icing at least twice a day, sometimes even three times so I sure hope it's all in my head and my heel really is doing better. 

I have been biking a ton this week, 4 times for 6 hours in the last two days and I'm going to go pool running tonight.  Last night I took Jeff through my weight routine.  He did pretty good, he did about 1/2 to 2/3 of the workout.  We did find out he doesn't have any tricep strength which is something he will have to work on.  Brad and I used to lift pretty regularly a couple years ago and I could tell last year when we didn't.  It's not always the most fun but crank the music, dance a bit with Asher and the time flies.

Training January 17-23, 2010

As I get into this blogging thing I'm trying to figure out how to keep track and report my training for the week.  Here is a quick recap of the week by day.  Not a lot of detail here.  I keep a lot more detail in my training log.  As I get into this more I'll figure out what I want to post.  I'm usually pretty private about my training because all I ever seem to get is criticism (about mileage, duration, times I work out, etc.), not a lot of encouragement or positive feedback so I usually just keep it pretty quiet.  We'll see how this works. 

Sunday:  
am) Bike: 70 miles 3:32:46 Run: after bike 6 miles 55:00 
pm) Weight Lift: 40 minutes  Snowshoe at Baird's Creek.

Monday:
am) Swim: 3400 yards 1 hour 
pm) Bike: 31 miles 1:31:45 recovery ride

Tuesday:
am)Run: 6.1 miles 48:08  intervals
pm)Weight Lift: 50 minutes

Wednesday:
am) Run: 7.1 miles 58:08  tempo
pm) Bike: 41 miles 2:05:23   Run: after bike:  3 miles 25:38   Endurance ride with a brick.

Thursday:
am) Swim: 3200 yards 1 hour
pm) Bike: 31 miles 1:34:32 Intervals

Friday:
am) Run: 5.3 miles 47:14 recovery

Saturday:
am) Run: 18 miles 2:45:54  Long run

Totals:
Swim: 6600 yards 2:00:00
Bike: 172 miles 8:44:26
Run: 45.5 miles 5:52:48
Weights: 1:30:00

Good solid week of training.  I ran all my miles except for my brick with Asher.  He even did the 18 miler on Saturday with us.  He did awesome.  He lost a shoe on Friday though so that was a bit disappointing.  Some notes on the week:  Sunday's long ride and brick felt good.  I still need to work on regulating the calories on the bike for the run after as I was a little light headed for the run.  Tuesday night I had to coach all night so only had time for a good weight session.  Wednesday morning Asher and I met Mark and Tammy for our mid-week run.  Nice to catch up with them.  Mark just came back from Naples where he did the Naples Half Marathon and did awesome.  Thursday did a hard interval session on the bike.  Friday did a nice recovery run.  Saturday was a long run with "the gang" (Mark, Steve, Mike, Erik and Asher).  We ran up Scray's hill and back down heritage.  We had 1800 feet of elevation gain.  And I kept my heart rate in the right zone so I was very happy with that effort. 

My feet are really bothering me so after doing some research and talking to my orthotics guy, I think I've figured out that I have bruised heels.  My right is much worse than my left but they have been bad for a couple months with no reprieve.  A day off and they feel better only to feel bad again the next day when I run again.  So because I have a lot planned for the year I am going to take a few days off of running and instead bike and pool run.  And lots of ice and gel heel cups in my shoes.  Hopefully this allows them to heal.

Baird's Creek Snowshoeing

On Sunday, 1/17/10, Jeff, Asher and I went snowshoeing over on the east side of Green Bay at the Baird's Creek trail. 

Here is Asher before we started.  He was ready to run!

Here is a picture of the trails.

Asher is scoping out the trails.

Jeff not happy about just falling over in a big sink hole.  I laughed.

And I want to try this video thing so here's some video I took of Asher running back to meet us.

Hello World

Hello to all my blogging friends, oh wait, this is my first post, I don’t have many blogging friends yet, okay this is a hello in advance to all my blogging friends. This blog is very informal. I’ll try to update it everyday or every other day. And it’s going to be about all sorts of fun stuff, training, racing, baking, crafting, hanging with Asher or just simply hanging. I’m generally a person of few words so I’ll try to work on that so you don’t get two word posts. Post comments as you like and hopefully everyone has a lot of good stuff to add and contribute. Thanks for reading in advance.