My Active Adventures

Today my wife and her sister went shopping and she came home and gave me these wrist bands. They will serve as a great reminder to me as to what real strength and real motivation are. Strength is not the ability to run far, it's not in training, it's not in racing, it's not in running at all. Strength was what my Mom showed when she faced breast cancer several years ago. She fought it and she's winning, she's a survivor. THAT is strength. Many years before that (when breast cancer was a certain death sentence) her best friend and boss faced breast cancer. She fought hard, she fought for a long time, she fought unspeakable odds against her and she won. My good friend and neighbor is currently fighting that fight. She is reminding me every day what strength is, what persistence is, what never giving up is. Compare this to running a marathon for the first time and the marathon sounds like a pretty simple thing to do. One week from today when I'm on the course in Na...

It's so close I can feel the anticipation starting to build. I did my last long run today, but it did come up short. I planned an 8 mile run, but stopped at 6.17 miles. Nothing wrong, I just wasn't mentally feeling it today. That happens from time to time to all of us and today was my day. No worries though, I'm ready. I've done the work, I'm physically and mentally prepared. I just have to wait out my last week until I can get this thing done. I also have the honor of running my first marathon with a pretty nice field of athletes. The Napa Valley Marathon is a Boston Qualifier, an Olympic Trail Qualifier and an RRCA Western Regional Marathon Championship. That means there will be some serious runners in the field with me. In fact, here's an article from the Napa Valley Register about some of the elite runners: "Plenty at stake for elite-level runners at Napa Valley Marathon"  I'm truely honored to share the field with these great runners for my fi...

My wife has been overnight pet sitting for a couple of weeks now so I've been having to run in the evenings, I much prefer morning runs before work. Last night she was back home and this morning I was up at 5:40 for my morning run!! So excited!! It was a nice run. I had a 5 mile Tempo Run on the schedule today. 1 mile warm up @ 10:00, 3 mile Tempo @ 8:57, cool down 1 mile @ 10:00. It felt good and I felt strong. I can't help but feel more and more confident as I get closer to the marathon. I only have one long distance event's training to compare this to, my first half marathon this last November. I feel like I've gone through very similar highs and lows, other than my ITB issues this time that I did not have training for the half. I feel more mentally ready for this than I did for the half. It seems to be a little of the snowball effect, I feel mentally strong, which gives me more confidence making me feel even more mentally strong. It seems like yesterday. The night...

I'm struggling with the taper portion of my training. I'm frustrated that I cannot run more. I'm struggling to keep a smile on my face while reducing my mileage. Last night I was even having a hard time falling asleep, I kept thinking about the struggle that running 26.2 miles is going to be. Then I started thinking about the last two years and I realized that really is a relatively small struggle in the big picture. After Thinking about that for a few minutes I fell right asleep and had a very restful night. I woke up wanting to share the real struggle with you all, so this post is not about a run or about training for the Napa Valley Marathon; it's about how I got here in the first place. Growing up I was the guy that everyone hated when it came to weight, especially the girls. In high school the girls worried that every french fry they ate would immediate show up on their thighs, while I could eat two Super Sized McDonald's Value Meals in one sitting, be hungry...

I'm now into the taper portion of my training for the Napa Valley Marathon. That means two things: 1. The official countdown has begun! 13 days left. It's starting to really feel real and I'm feeling confident and prepared. If you've done your training correctly, tapering means you've prepared yourself as best as possible and it's now time to rest up a little to gain back some energy for the big day. 2. The rest of my training runs are going to suck and I'm going to feel frustrated. That's just how it goes. If Taper Depression isn't already a term, I'd like to copyright it now! I feel frustrated just thinking about the fact that I will only be running 20 total miles this week. My "Long" Run for the week is only 8 miles. Frustrating. So far this year 4 miles has been my shortest run, but after tonight's 4 miler, 3 of my 6 remaining runs will be short 3 milers. Frustrating. I know how important this part of training is and I do ...

Wow, map out 20 miles on the streets you drive every day and you realize how insanely far that is! That's how I felt yesterday on DailyMile.com mapping my route for this morning's run. It's pretty cold out again, it was 42° when I started and only got up to 46°, which really isn't THAT bad, it was the wind that got me. Yes, a 13 mph wind from the East made it feel like it was insanely cold. It was a straight headwind for the first 6.2 miles, then it was a strong side wind with nothing to block it from mile 14 to 17.5. At mile 15 I was still WELL on pace to beat my 10:00/mile goal. Then came, what now that I'm home is kind of funny but not at the time, a giant cramp in my ass!! This is the downside of treadmill training for several months, I just wasn't ready for all the hills. That was quite painful, so I had to walk on and off quite a bit of the last 5 miles which dropped me from hitting my goal. I ended up averaging 10:21/mile, so not too far off my goal. I g...

I cannot explain how glad I am to be back running outside! Granted, the trail was not as pretty as in this picture, what with some remaining snow on the sides and not quite as much life in the trees, but man, I love this trail and I love getting back off the treadmill and onto the pavement! I had a 7 mile Tempo Run scheduled so I thought I'd try out my Garmin Forerunner 405cx's workout feature. It worked well in some respects, but I doubt I'll use it again. It was good to have the reminder beeps to let me know if I was going too slow, but it does not warn you if you are going too fast. Also, the timer stopped right on the programmed 7 miles even though I decided I wanted to run a little further, that was frustrating. Also, it apparently overrode the lap feature so I don't have the normal half mile splits that I like to see, it just shows the 1 mile warm up, 5 mile tempo and 1 mile cool down as laps. Overall, I like the function of the workouts, but I think I'll go b...