The title of this post will surely have faithful readers scratching their heads and saying, "Didn't we have a big fooferaw about Post #200 back in the summer sometime?"
To which I respond, "Yup."
This is the almost-200 miles I have run since I started keeping track in February, when I ran my first 5K race.
This morning's 5K run at 5am (a clear frosty moonlit morning) brought me up to 199.
I plan to hit the 200 mark running with some women from church this weekend. This year's Women's Retreat is this Saturday, right here in town rather than up in the wild woods, but I'm sure we'll manage a wild and wonderful time anyway.
200 miles isn't much of a total for someone like Joy's Uncle Marathon (or UncleDO or Auntie RatM either, come to think of it.) But for me, it's pretty special, particularly since I managed to start back running again after being interrupted by the red-white-&-blue-foot phenomenon this summer.
Yay, wild women!
Showing posts with label Couch to 5K. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Couch to 5K. Show all posts
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Only She Who Is Running Knows
From the comedic genius of PDQ Bach, in his ground-breaking work Iphigenia in Brooklyn:
Kleenex, anyone?
Any run outdoors in winter is going to involve Kleenex for me, and yesterday's 5K was no exception. It was a gorgeous day, though. The race started just after 11am, under bright-blue skies, temperature right around freezing, light winds, sunshine glistening on a 2-inch layer of snow that had fallen the night before. Most of the race was along cleared bike-path, so we were really only running on snowpack for a few blocks of city street.
The race was a lot bigger than my friends and I had expected. From past years' posted results, it looked like the usual turnout was around 120. This year? 430! I wonder how many registered same-day, once they saw what a nice day it was.
My personal goal was to run an 11-minute-mile pace, for a total time just over 34 minutes.
I ran it in 33:15, for a pace of 10:42, running all the way. I even had enough steam left to put on a bit of a sprint at the end, passing up the woman I'd been pacing behind for much of the race. I guess if you take off the ten seconds it took me to cross the start line, that's 33:05. Fastest I'd ever gone, even on the treadmill! I placed 383 of 430.
WOOO HOOOOOO!!
I enjoyed having friends along so we could share one anothers' excitement. The woman with whom I shared the Couch to 5K link back in November at the Women's Retreat had been training with her husband, and their two sons (10 & 13) came along for the run too, pretty much without training but they play soccer so they run well. All of us were happy with our times. The young'uns beat the pants offa me, but who's counting, right?
Then last night we all went over to their house for dinner. Joy was in a fine mood, ate well and sat happily at the dinner table for a long time, playing with the plastic from around the ice-cream carton while the rest of us talked. The 13-year-old entertained Rose very obligingly, without a hint of teenaged-guy-attitude. (Rose kept her own attitude in check as well, not complaining about the curry main dish but simply saying "No, thank you" as we had coached.)
Wow. Now I need a new running goal! Shave my 5K? Ten-minute miles, anyone? I wouldn't have believed it when I started...
One thing I failed to bring to the race was a camera. Here are some older running-related photos for your entertainment, though:
This photo from September 1991 was, if we're being picky and technical, my other first 5K. It was a fun-run/walk at a Mennonite Relief Sale, a fundraiser for international relief work. I had just finished a 2-year stint of Mennonite volunteer service in Chicago at the time, and a local pastor cobbled together a team with me and one of my former housemates and a couple other guys. I don't think I trained much if at all, and don't remember much about the race either. Like, I don't remember the starting gun, though I do have some flash memories of the actual running, including near the end when I was passed up by a race-walker! I didn't know enough to look at my time on the clock at the finish line, so I have no idea how fast I went (if they were posting times, I wouldn't have known where to ask anyway).
I wore the shirt again eleven years later, at the SCAATY Run in Chicago, September 2002 (Rose, hiding in the stroller, was seven months old). SCAATY stood for Still Crazy After All These Years, and was organized by Uncle Marathon in honor of his 20,000th mile running. Yes, you read that right. Twenty thousand. He'd been keeping logs since he started, something that I've now been talked into doing, and organized a run to invite friends and relatives to join him in running mile 20,000. It was a nice little bit of post-pregnancy training for me, just to get to the point of jogging a mile, and JoyDad and I had fun joining in the 20,000th mile run and festivities.
Don't worry, this isn't going to become a running blog. I might sneak in updates now and again, though.
P.S. Many thanks to Auntie RatM and Uncle Marathon for the tips and encouragement leading up to this race! Yes, I did start near the back, and double-tie my shoelaces!
Oh God, who knows what it is
To be running?
Only he who is running... running... running... knows.
Running, running knows,
Run running knows, run running knows...!!!
Kleenex, anyone?
Any run outdoors in winter is going to involve Kleenex for me, and yesterday's 5K was no exception. It was a gorgeous day, though. The race started just after 11am, under bright-blue skies, temperature right around freezing, light winds, sunshine glistening on a 2-inch layer of snow that had fallen the night before. Most of the race was along cleared bike-path, so we were really only running on snowpack for a few blocks of city street.
The race was a lot bigger than my friends and I had expected. From past years' posted results, it looked like the usual turnout was around 120. This year? 430! I wonder how many registered same-day, once they saw what a nice day it was.
My personal goal was to run an 11-minute-mile pace, for a total time just over 34 minutes.
I ran it in 33:15, for a pace of 10:42, running all the way. I even had enough steam left to put on a bit of a sprint at the end, passing up the woman I'd been pacing behind for much of the race. I guess if you take off the ten seconds it took me to cross the start line, that's 33:05. Fastest I'd ever gone, even on the treadmill! I placed 383 of 430.
WOOO HOOOOOO!!
I enjoyed having friends along so we could share one anothers' excitement. The woman with whom I shared the Couch to 5K link back in November at the Women's Retreat had been training with her husband, and their two sons (10 & 13) came along for the run too, pretty much without training but they play soccer so they run well. All of us were happy with our times. The young'uns beat the pants offa me, but who's counting, right?
Then last night we all went over to their house for dinner. Joy was in a fine mood, ate well and sat happily at the dinner table for a long time, playing with the plastic from around the ice-cream carton while the rest of us talked. The 13-year-old entertained Rose very obligingly, without a hint of teenaged-guy-attitude. (Rose kept her own attitude in check as well, not complaining about the curry main dish but simply saying "No, thank you" as we had coached.)
Wow. Now I need a new running goal! Shave my 5K? Ten-minute miles, anyone? I wouldn't have believed it when I started...
One thing I failed to bring to the race was a camera. Here are some older running-related photos for your entertainment, though:
This photo from September 1991 was, if we're being picky and technical, my other first 5K. It was a fun-run/walk at a Mennonite Relief Sale, a fundraiser for international relief work. I had just finished a 2-year stint of Mennonite volunteer service in Chicago at the time, and a local pastor cobbled together a team with me and one of my former housemates and a couple other guys. I don't think I trained much if at all, and don't remember much about the race either. Like, I don't remember the starting gun, though I do have some flash memories of the actual running, including near the end when I was passed up by a race-walker! I didn't know enough to look at my time on the clock at the finish line, so I have no idea how fast I went (if they were posting times, I wouldn't have known where to ask anyway).
I wore the shirt again eleven years later, at the SCAATY Run in Chicago, September 2002 (Rose, hiding in the stroller, was seven months old). SCAATY stood for Still Crazy After All These Years, and was organized by Uncle Marathon in honor of his 20,000th mile running. Yes, you read that right. Twenty thousand. He'd been keeping logs since he started, something that I've now been talked into doing, and organized a run to invite friends and relatives to join him in running mile 20,000. It was a nice little bit of post-pregnancy training for me, just to get to the point of jogging a mile, and JoyDad and I had fun joining in the 20,000th mile run and festivities.
Don't worry, this isn't going to become a running blog. I might sneak in updates now and again, though.
P.S. Many thanks to Auntie RatM and Uncle Marathon for the tips and encouragement leading up to this race! Yes, I did start near the back, and double-tie my shoelaces!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Rhythm of Life
Oh the rhythm of life is a powerful beat,
Puts a tingle in your fingers and a tingle in your feet,
Rhythm on the inside, rhythm on the street,
the rhythm of life is a powerful beat.
I think I may have only heard this song once, performed by a highschool group back when I was a gradeschooler, but it was so catchy that it has stayed with me all this time.
Been thinking a lot about rhythm lately. One intriguing place that rhythm has broken into the routine is something that Joy's occupational therapist has begun to try with her. Here's how she put it:
I was experimenting some with rhythm... I want to address some of that internal rhythm for attention and regulation. So completing activities to a rhythm or song for attention and focus. Giving movement and input (deep pressure, massage or tapping) to a rhythm for that internal self-regulation.
This has possibilities! I think it resonates particularly well for me at this point with my running. Yes, I'm still at it, having completed the Couch to 5K training just before Christmas, still running three times a week. When I get outside (on weekends if the weather isn't too rough) I can keep going for 5K without too much internal struggle. With hills and wind and some ice, I managed to do a 5K route in 34 1/2 minutes last Friday.
At home on the treadmill, though, I need help and I usually do shorter (2-mile) runs. If I don't have music to listen to, it's TOO boring to even get through that. Two favorite tapes to listen to (yes, old technology, I know) have been Footloose and a tape of the Radiators from New Orleans. I find that when the beat of the song matches my running pace, my energy level goes way up.
What songs match my pace, right now?
Well, let's see. On the Radiators tape, there's "Walking Backwards With Our Eyes Closed." The line repeats again and again. It's kind of like -- life with Joy. Feels like we do an awful lot of walking backwards with our eyes closed sometimes! Have to trust that we're going in good directions, with help from above.
On the Footloose tape, the best run-pacing song is "Heaven Helps the Man" by Kenny Loggins. (What's with all this "man" stuff -- medicine man, heaven helps the man, etc? Oh well.) Once again, my thoughts are drawn to my daughter:
Looking into your eyes I know I'm right
If there's anything worth my love it's worth the fight...
Heaven helps the man who fights his fear
Love's the only thing that keeps me here
You're the reason that I'm hanging on
My heart's staying where my heart belongs
Yes. There are surely fears to conquer, but love keeps us hanging in there. Joyfully.
So, are all my running songs Joy-related? Uh, turns out... not quite.
How about another one off the Footloose album, "The Girl Gets Around"? Let's see, that one must be... about running. Yeah, that's it. See, I get around faster because I'm running...
Oh, and the one from the Radiators, "The Nasty Boogie Woogie."
Nope, can't spin that one. Other than... life has its rhythms. What can I say?
Speaking of which, turns out the original version of the Rhythm of Life song comes from the Bob Fosse musical Sweet Charity and has slightly different lyrics from the childrens-choir re-write:
And the rhythm of life is a powerful beat,
Puts a tingle in your fingers and a tingle in your feet,
Rhythm in your bedroom, rhythm in the street,
Yes, the rhythm of life is a powerful beat!
Heh.
By the way, yesterday's treadmill entailed a 5K in 33:31. A good sign, since I've signed up for a race in 2 1/2 weeks, on Valentine's Day! Also running will be the friend from church that I told about the Couch to 5K thing back at Women's Retreat this fall. And her husband, and her sons! This will be so much fun! Fingers crossed for reasonable weather!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Who Shall Stand?
Christmas Eve morning.
The strains of Handel's Messiah are emanating from the CD player.
"Who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth?" demands the alto.
Joy punches a button on her Sesame Street toy.
And up stands: "This is the song, la-la-la-la, ELMO's song, HA-ha-ha-ha!"
We have our answer, folks. I never before did think of the significance of the "El" in "Elmo"...
And with that bit of theological malpractice, I wish you all the merriest of Christmases!
P.S. I treadmilled 5K today. In just under 34 minutes!
The strains of Handel's Messiah are emanating from the CD player.
"Who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth?" demands the alto.
Joy punches a button on her Sesame Street toy.
And up stands: "This is the song, la-la-la-la, ELMO's song, HA-ha-ha-ha!"
We have our answer, folks. I never before did think of the significance of the "El" in "Elmo"...
And with that bit of theological malpractice, I wish you all the merriest of Christmases!
P.S. I treadmilled 5K today. In just under 34 minutes!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Like the Wind
With snow on the ground and wind chills hitting double-digits-below-zero this week, Joy isn't getting the opportunities for big long backyard sprints anymore. She sure can dash back and forth through the living room, though!
I continue to marvel at Joy's physical strength. As I mentioned in my very first Elvis Sightings post, she has been a powerhouse from the get-go. Her baby book contains a notation at the ripe old age of two weeks, amazed at how dang strong she was. At two weeks!
One of her favorite "heavy-work" games right now is a jumping game, one she requests by coming over and taking both your hands and beginning to bounce. She wants you to support her jumps by lifting her hands with yours, so that she gets more air with each jump. If you get a good rhythym going, all forty pounds of her are soon flying high with every leap, coming down with a satisfying "boom" on the carpet that must feel so good as it shocks through her frame.
She can even run and jump wearing weights! Her previous OT acquired ankle weights for her and made a weighted vest out of a floaty swim vest, replacing the removable floaty-foam blocks with door hinges (just the right size to fit in the pockets!) and heavy little beanbags. I don't know how much weight it is, but it's enough to make her notice -- and help her regulate, and focus, and lots of good stuff. But especially right after she puts it on, when she's still in run-and-jump mode, you should see how she motors, even with all that weight.
It brings an image to my mind...
I can imagine my girl, grown tall with her hair gone brown like mine did and in a pony-tail, wearing an adult-size weighted vest and ankle weights, jumping up and down beside the track in preparation for her race. Then she takes the weights off and joins the other runners in the starting blocks. "On your mark, get set, GO!" (oh, and haven't we practiced those words, over and over...) And Joy takes off, running like the wind.
Maybe someday we'll train together, and then she'll leave me in the dust.
Me, I don't run like the wind. Jog slow, like old pony. But I'm still working on my Couch to 5K training, and can now jog 25 minutes without stopping, at an 11-minute-mile pace. I've got my eye on a 5K in April that I might actually win! Yes, you heard that right. It's called the Poker Run. How I might win is, they deal you three cards at the start of the race. Then when you finish, you get two more. The best hand of 5-card stud "wins" the race, no matter the time!
Oh, and the race benefits Special Olympics.
Whether Joy eventually runs Special Olympics or with the neurotypicals or all on her own, I'll be cheering her every step of the way.
I continue to marvel at Joy's physical strength. As I mentioned in my very first Elvis Sightings post, she has been a powerhouse from the get-go. Her baby book contains a notation at the ripe old age of two weeks, amazed at how dang strong she was. At two weeks!
One of her favorite "heavy-work" games right now is a jumping game, one she requests by coming over and taking both your hands and beginning to bounce. She wants you to support her jumps by lifting her hands with yours, so that she gets more air with each jump. If you get a good rhythym going, all forty pounds of her are soon flying high with every leap, coming down with a satisfying "boom" on the carpet that must feel so good as it shocks through her frame.
She can even run and jump wearing weights! Her previous OT acquired ankle weights for her and made a weighted vest out of a floaty swim vest, replacing the removable floaty-foam blocks with door hinges (just the right size to fit in the pockets!) and heavy little beanbags. I don't know how much weight it is, but it's enough to make her notice -- and help her regulate, and focus, and lots of good stuff. But especially right after she puts it on, when she's still in run-and-jump mode, you should see how she motors, even with all that weight.
It brings an image to my mind...
I can imagine my girl, grown tall with her hair gone brown like mine did and in a pony-tail, wearing an adult-size weighted vest and ankle weights, jumping up and down beside the track in preparation for her race. Then she takes the weights off and joins the other runners in the starting blocks. "On your mark, get set, GO!" (oh, and haven't we practiced those words, over and over...) And Joy takes off, running like the wind.
Maybe someday we'll train together, and then she'll leave me in the dust.
Me, I don't run like the wind. Jog slow, like old pony. But I'm still working on my Couch to 5K training, and can now jog 25 minutes without stopping, at an 11-minute-mile pace. I've got my eye on a 5K in April that I might actually win! Yes, you heard that right. It's called the Poker Run. How I might win is, they deal you three cards at the start of the race. Then when you finish, you get two more. The best hand of 5-card stud "wins" the race, no matter the time!
Oh, and the race benefits Special Olympics.
Whether Joy eventually runs Special Olympics or with the neurotypicals or all on her own, I'll be cheering her every step of the way.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Deep Thoughts
Gentle geographical gradients are ever so much more noticeable when running than when walking.
They're even more noticeable when attempting to run while pushing a jogging stroller containing a sturdy four-year-old.
That is all.
They're even more noticeable when attempting to run while pushing a jogging stroller containing a sturdy four-year-old.
That is all.
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