It's A Mad Mad Mad World. ...and a 12 mile run.

Today's run did not turn out at all as I expected.  I have been trying to avoid the lousy feeling that I had after the last long run and had a strategy all mapped out, and it worked!  Well, it worked great for the first eight miles then we got kicked out of the gym.  Unknown to us, the Gucci Gym closes at 7 PM.  Fabio came by and said we had five minutes until they close, just as I clicked mile eight and a bird hit him on his head.  Austin was playing in a basketball tournament and a grocery store trip got us to a late start - I thought the gym would be open until 9 PM.  Come on folks, this is not Rexburg!  Even the Army Buckner gym closed at 7 PM!  We ended up doing the last four miles on the dark icy streets of Eagle River.

Now for the good news.  All things considered - it was a great run.  I felt great, my strategy worked, reasonable splits (and I ran negative splits to boot!).  I never got sore or burned out.  I love the Garmin - it did an excellent job logging my miles on the treadmill and outside, logged splits every mile, and downloaded it all to my Mac.  Good times!  And the cherry on top - - - the spikes (screws) in our shoes worked great the last four miles!!!  The roads were shiny packed snow, temperature was 8 degrees, and it was fun finishing outside.  We ended up finishing a little after 9 PM.  I am not near as sore or burned out like the 10.5 miler two weeks ago.  And probably, as you can tell, the runners high is in full swing.

New York, London, Paris, Rome, Eagle River!

It was pretty cold today - single digits in the AM, warmed up to the mid-teens by noon.  So, Michelle and Jason dragged me to the Alaska Club in Eagle River for today's run.

When we were walking from the front door to the parking lot Michelle mentioned that she forgot her ID card with the bar code to get onto the gym.  I was curious as to what kind of ninja skills she was going to use to get in.  I was giving all my attention to her stealthy moves and she slid right in past the guards.  A few seconds later, as we entered the bowels of the gym, we saw some friends there and they asked us if we were here for the movie.  I was clueless.  Then I looked around and there were lights, cameras, cables, about 20 film crew in black clothes - there was a lot going on.  I cant believe by paying attention to Michelle and her ninja skills made me miss all that.  There were about 20 actors ("talent") there.  It was easy to tell the actors because they were the ones that spent most of their time sitting around on the couches in their designer gym clothes.  It was also easy because Eagle River is a small town and everyone who was not film crew or an actor in the gym I knew anyway...  Now I know where Deja gets her ninja skills from.

Michelle and I found the whole "scene" rather disrupting to our running plans.  We had to jump over paraphernalia everywhere, dodge people on the track setting things up, and get blinded by the bright light (actually, if we saw a moose or bear it would be a normal Alaska run).

The good news is my mile pace speed up to a nice 10:06 min/mile!  I can probably thank showing off and Olivia Wilde for that.  As a beginner to the "club scene" I have a lot to learn.  I lost track of the time as I was showing off - I was running the wrong way around the track (Saturdays is a clockwise day which I realized by glimpsing the sign on lap 4).  Michelle started running in the correct direction - we ended up giving each other High Fives as we passed each other.  I did not want to stop and change direction because I was in the middle of my speed timing distance.  Before I knew it I had run a mile.  I am pretty happy with my time - a good improvement over my last timed run - even though I had to dodge multiple film crew members and various pieces of production equipment throughout the run.  The track got pretty chaotic as time went on and after the first mile we went to finish the run on the treadmills.  No chasing rabbits into holes or worms on giant leaf smoking a bong on this run.

Six Miler at Ft. Richardson

I am interested to hear how everyone's six miler went.  We had a pretty good run - did this one on Saturday, October 24.  Temp was about 46 degrees but it was cloudy and a little humid.  It was sunny and warmer about an hour before we started the run.  I took a photo of Michelle borrowing my gloves at the north end of the landing strip on our run.  There is some new "termination dust" in background Chugach.

I fixed the link to the GPS site, click here to get to the site and see the map and stats.  On the top right you should see three buttons for Details, Splits, and Player.  Choose player, then at the left side, above the graph, click on the play button to watch the bouncing Brad and Michelle for six miles.  You can see different stats and graphs for the run too.  The stats have been fun to track the last couple of months and show a definite improvement.

The six miler went well - the last two miles were a little rough.  We both agreed that aerobically it was no problem.  However, some soreness set in after about four miles but we ran through it.  When you look at HR and Pace on the graph together you see a crazy sawtooth pattern which is a sign of a good heart (being able to respond and recover quickly) which is good - which is at least one thing that is working.

Total Stats

• Distance: 6.01 miles
• Time: 1:27:29.68
• Ave pace: 14:33 min/mile
• Ave speed: 4.1 mph
• Max speed: 5.5 mph
• Calories: 923
• Ave HR: 136
• Max HR: 15 bpm
• Acent: 736 ft
• Decent: 681 ft

Splits

1. 14:27
2. 13:57
3. 14:25
4. 15:24
5. 14:23
6. 14:44

Not quite negative splits, pretty even, we will have to work on those.  The second mile was a gradual uphill, not sure how we dreamed our way through that one.

Michelle and I just completed a run. Michelle was much faster than I was. I have a map of the run posted, the blue flags are one mile lap markers, the red and blue flags are our driveway. It was sunny and great temperature for a run.

• Miles: 2.82
• Time: 39:06.52
• Ave pace: 13:52/mi
• Ave speed: 4.3 mph
• Max speed: 6.6 mph
• Calories: 496
• Ave HR: 145 bpm
• Max HR: 160 bpm
• Ascent: 635 ft
• Decent: 636 ft

I had a little wobbliness in my spine and knee but overall felt better than my previous three runs. Seems like my shins feel tight on the uphills but OK otherwise. Michelle was way out in front of me, I could not keep up. She waited for me on one of the Gallowalking breaks and she said "it's time to run," I start running, Michelle says "lets go, are you running?" I look down at my feet and the road. The road seems like it is moving past my feet pretty quick. Brad: "I am running." LOL. I think it is gonna be a long journey to the marathon.

Gruening Run

Went to the track at Gruening to do a time trial - just got back. My plan was to run two miles and run the first mile fastest for time. I did the first lap and about half way through I was fighting for breath. I completed it in just over two minutes then walked for about 200 meters before picking up a "shuffle" pace for the rest of the mile. Finished first mile in 11:42 and the two miles in 25:58. Basically I did that first 400m way too fast and it wiped me out After about six laps my shins started hurting which was my problem at my third marathon - the one I did with Michelle where we walked/ran.

Anyway, that was a two mile run under the belt that will hopefully get me a little more prepared for upcoming mileage increases. Everyone else needs to post their runs on here so we can see how each other are doing and motivation.

Fairbanks run

I did another 30 (actually 35) minute run while I was in Fairbanks on Thursday. It went well - it was somewhat painful but I am hoping that goes away once my mileage goes up. Considering it is my second run since April I think it was OK. I went to the Steam boat terminal on the Tanana river - never been there before and it was nice to do it on a run. About 2/3 of the run was on soft (almost sandy) dirt and it felt great. However when I hit pavement and concrete I could tell my body was taking a pounding compared to the dirt. I nabbed a Geocache on the way too! The other good thing is that there were no hills too. I am not sure how to run around Eagle River without hills, but I am not ready for that yet.