Learning to Slow Down...

I finished up my first week of marathon training on Sunday and I learned some valuable lessons in that first week. The first thing I learned is that if you miss a scheduled run, don't make it up. Tuesday we had our first scheduled run, but both Wendy and I were not feeling up to it. I was fighting a migraine and she had a cold that was going around. We were going to make up our run on Wednesday, but after talking to my friend Cory Hall (a fellow run nut but with more experience) he made me realize that it is better to take the hit to the mileage and move forward with the next scheduled workout than to try and work it back in and risk over doing it/hurting yourself.

Second, slowing down. Over the past year of running, I have been trying to improve my pace but now going into my training our training pace is a tad slower than our average run pace. On a normal everyday run, I will normally average a 10:30-10:45 mile. For our marathon we are going to try to keep to a 11:30-11:45. On Saturday, we had our first opportunity to get accustomed to this pace with our first marathon pace run of 5 miles. It was a lot more difficult to stick to that pace than I though it would be. It was a beautiful, warm Iowa day and my legs were fresh and as hard as I tried I could not slow down. We averaged an 11:00 min mile. I have a feeling that the further we get into training we will either become more accustomed to that pace or it will be harder to hit that pace just because we will be tired.

Third, charge your gear. On our long runs, we are going to run off of heart rate and my heart rate monitor is a Scosche RHTHYM+ and needs to be charged after 8 hours of use. I also brought my Bluetooth headphones with me to distract myself with music during the run. Two minutes into the run my headphones died. I could work with this, I have run longer distances without music... no big deal. Keeping an eye on my heart rate during the run, I was nailing the heart rate that I needed. But aggravatingly enough, four miles into the run my hear rate monitor died. Frustrating but totally my fault, I had not charged it after our fourteen mile run the previous weekend. To get through the rest of the run and make sure we stayed on track I had Wendy keep track of her heart rate.

Fourth, It's okay not to race. On Sunday the Cornbelt Running Club held their annual "CBRC Chili Chase 4 Mile Run/Walk" in Davenport, IA. I ran it last year and it was a fun race with a good course and great swag. Instead of the normal race t-shirt, they give you gloves and sock with chilies on them. I went back and forth on whether I was going to run this race, but ultimately decided with the sage advise of Cory and many others in the running club, that is was for the better that I didn't... especially after an eight mile long run. I did make the trip down to Davenport to support Cory Hall, Bill Hinton fellow Honey Stinger Hive athletes and just as important, my Dubuque Running Club team mates. While cheering them and other DRC runners on, I realized that not running a race hadn't killed me.


Week two of training is under way and going well and I will report back soon. Until next time, I have an awful lot of running to do...

At the Chili Chase. Photo by Shannon Woulfe

14 Miles of Meditation...

My wife Wendy and I have set out this year to run one run of 13.1 miles or farther once a month (this was my idea and she being the loving and supporting wife that she is, she goes along with it.) These long runs can get tedious, especially in a smaller town like Dubuque. When we have the chance we like to knock out these long runs when we are out of town and just so happened to have that opportunity yesterday. We went out to Schaumburg, IL for our friends birthday and got really lucky with out hotel stay. It was less than a mile away from Ned Brown Preserve which has a nice big 7 mile paved loop through lush woodlands, next to lakes, ponds and an elk habitat.

We set out for our run at 6 am and thinking we would need our headlamps, we were pleasantly surprised that it was light enough out to see just fine from a glorious sunrise. My goal for this run was to start out at a 12 min mile and drop down below 11 min mile before mile 13. Trying to take my mind off of the pace and my body trying to come to terms with the beating I was going to give it, I let my mind start to wonder. The first thing that I started to think about while looking at the breathtaking sunrise and the scenery of the park was how we can so easily forget the beauty that is around us. I had a similar thought in Colorado while looking at the mountains, "how can anyone get tired of looking at this?" but I did when I lived there. I was thinking in the park in Schaumburg, "if I lived here, I would run here all the time." I snapped back to reality when the thought of running next to the Mississippi River came to mind. I have this grand river in my backyard and I take it for granted. Why are we so quick to forget or get sick of the beautiful running routes that we have? How can we make them fresh again? I don't have the answer but I really would like to know. So if you have the answer, please let me know.

The other thing that I started to think about was marathon training. The day before the start and the feelings of insecurity started to creep up on me. Am I ready to take this task on? The more that I thought about it on the run, the more confident I became. I was being overwhelmed by the thought of how far I still have left to go. I switched my thinking and started to focus on how far I have come. Back in October I ran the Des Moines Half Marathon in 2:32:22 and I was now on a training run and with minimal effort I was keeping up with the pace that I ran in that race. Rewind a little bit further to May when I finished my first half marathon. I thought that I was going to have to drop out of the race. I hit mile 5 and my body shut down, I had nothing left in me. I finished that race and proved to myself that I can over come my body and fatigue. I must keep this mindset through out this training. I have 18 weeks until the marathon and a long way to go, but I have come so much farther.

The route that I mapped out was 13.4 according to MapMyRun.com but when we got close to the hotel we were at 13.7 on our watches so we decided to stretch it out to 14. Finishing 14 miles in 2:42:52 felt great, an unofficial half PR of 2:30:03 made me even more confident going into training.

Until next time, I have an awful lot of running to do...

It's a New Year... Better Late than Never

2016 is here! I am glad to say that I finished 2015 meeting or exceeding my goals from last year. Just to recap my goals from last year: get and stay under 300 lbs, run 750 miles, and run a half marathon. I finished the year at 285 lbs, ran 803 miles and ran 5 races of the half marathon distance or longer and ran the 13.1 distance or longer an additional 5 times. All in all 2015 was a good year. I have been thinking what my goals should be for 2016 and I feel like I have them locked in. First, run a marathon. I have signed up for Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, MN on 6/18/2016. Second, get my weight down to 250 lbs. While I am writing this I weigh 277.4 lbs. Third, run a half marathon in under 2 hrs. My current PR is 2:32:20. I have a good feeling about this year.

You may be asking yourself "why would you run a marathon?" Well, when I first started running back at the beginning of my get healthy campaign, I promised myself that I would be in the physical shape to finish a marathon by the time I turn 30. I turn 30 in November so time is running out. When I made that promise to myself I said "finish" that to me meant that I was going to walk most of it. I have learned from 2015 that I am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. I have since changed "finish" to "run". Don't get me wrong, this will not be an easy task for me by any means, but I can't let my fear and self doubt get the better of me. When I decided to sign up for Grandma's last year, my main goal for the race was finish with a secondary time goal of under six hours. Since then, because of the training I have put in, I changed that to finish with a secondary time goal of under 5 hours. I will train smart. I will train hard. I will do everything I can to accomplish this goal. I will try to keep you all up to date on how the training is going.

What else has happened since the last time I posted? Well back in December my sister Sharon, who had just recovered from heart surgery and started running again, called me and asked me what my 5K PR was. I responded with "31:48, I would have had a sub 30 min at the Des Moines Marathon 5K but the course was short!" She then proceeded to tell me that she was going to set out and break my PR(along with hers) while she was on a trip to Louisiana. Not wanting to be beat and also to make it more challenging, I went to running club the next night with a 3.1 mile route in mind. With the support of some good friends I pushed myself to a 29:22 5K time. There was something about hitting that sub 30 that made me feel as if I had reached a whole new level in my running. Fast forward a month and I was out in Colorado running a 5K with my Sharon and my wife Wendy. Sharon lives in Colorado so she had the home field advantage, but Wendy and I live in Iowa 5,000 feet below the altitude we would be running at. We have run a 5K there before and it kicked out butts. Our goal for this one was to finish in under 35 min. With minimal effort I was surprised when we crossed the finish line in 33:50. I could have pushed harder, but I was there to have fun running a race with my sister. We did a couple more runs out there just for fun and then decided to do something more challenging. The Manitou Incline. .9 of a mile and 2,090 feet of elevation, this stair climb is straight up the side of a mountain. I was ready to get my ass handed to me. I looked up the FKT(fastest known time) for the climb and it is 16:42 by a mad man named Chris Detone. We set out for the top of this ice covered stair climb and we did nail the 16 min mark... there was just an hour added to it. The view from the top was breathe taking... as was the climb. We then made our way down the 4 mile trail back to the bottom of the mountain running, joking, laughing and trying not to slip on the ice the whole way. We made it 10 feet from the bottom and my sister slipped on the ice and as she fell to the ground we heard the noise of a thick tree limb snapping... that was her left tibia and fibula shattering. She has since had surgery and is bound and determined that she will not let this beat her. She had signed up to run the Green Bay Half Marathon with us, just like we did for our first half back in May of 2015... Sadly this has changed that plan and even though she will not be running, she is going to come cheer us on as she will most likely still be in a boot by then.

Most recently I was selected to be a part of the Honey Stinger Hive Program. If you don't know about Honey Stinger , they are a company that makes honey based foods such as gels, chew and protein bars. They are a great source of nutrition for athletes. They have accepted me as one of their sponsored athletes, which is great for me because I have been using their product for the last year while fueling for my long runs or work outs. I am very honored that they accepted me into the program and I am proud that I get to represent a product that I believe in and use regularly.

Until next time... I have an awful lot of running to do.


Warning: There are some photos below of the race and the climb, but there are also photos of my sisters injury. Look at your own risk.

Happy Trails...

It has been a while. There has been a lot going on and I have not even thought about chronicling it. So what has happened since the last post? I have found a wonderful way to rekindle and grow my love of running… trails. Wendy and I had signed up for The Mines of Spain 4 mile trail race back in March. We had hiked before, but never really went for a run out on the trails. So since we had signed up for a trail race, we needed to start training on the trails. At first, I was not sold on trial running but the more I did it the more I became enthralled with feeling of freedom that running on the trails gives you. There is something almost primal about it. At the beginning of July, on a whim, I decided to sign up for the Dances with Dirt 10K race at Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin. This race had over 1,000 feet of elevation gain because it started at the base of a ski slope and ran up and down it twice. I was nervous; I had never done anything like this. I knew that could go the distance, but I had never run that far on the trails, let alone done that much elevation gain. It was a challenge and one that I wanted to conquer. The race was great; except for the fact that it was not clearly marked and I got lost (I was one of about 90 people who did). The hooks of trail racing had taken hold. It was at that point that I decided to switch from the 4 mile race to the 7 mile race for the Mines of Spain race. When I do a race I set a goal for myself, but I was not sure what goal I should set for this race because I had no benchmark. On July 25th, Wendy and I ran the Bix 7 mile road race. We ran this one last year in a time of 1:37:53 so we knew what to expect. I set my goal for this race at 1:30:00 or under. It was hot and humid that day and I ended up finishing in 1:30:18. I felt accomplished. I now knew that I could run 7 miles with 362 feet of elevation in an hour and a half, but that still didn’t give me any benchmark for the 7 mile trail race. Trail racing is a whole different beast. You tend to run slower on the trails but somehow work harder at the same time. I still needed my benchmark. The next day after the Bix, we hit the trails and ran the course route for the Mines of Spain 7 mile race. We were tired from the day before and there were a lot of hard hill and stair climbs that we were not ready for. The only saving grace of that day was when it started to down pour at mile 5. There is a magic that happens when you are running the trails while it is raining, the sound of the rain hitting the trees, the coolness of the rain on your skin and splashing through the puddles on the ground. A connection is made between you and nature. That was it; the hooks had sunk it as far as they could go. I was sold. We finished that run in 2:09:00, we had our benchmark and so the goal was set at less than 2 hours and to run everything except for the major climbs of the race. On August 8, 2015 at 7:45 in the morning we would find out what we were capable of on the trails. The conditions that morning were perfect, 66 degrees the humidity was at 95% but it somehow made it feel cooler and most importantly we had cloud cover. We toed the line with excitement. The adrenaline and excitement got the best of us at the beginning of the race. We finished the first mile in 12:09 hills and all, which is a good pace for us on a flat road. We hit the first major climb of the race and that slowed us down. After that we settled in to our pace and worked harder that I have in any other race this year, including the half marathon. The gorgeous the scenery and having friends cheering us on along the way helped us to continue pushing for our goal. We crossed the line exhausted but proud, our time was 1:50:43 and we had accomplished both of our goals. The next day we hit the trails again out at Swiss Valley with a 6 mile recovery run, in the rain, with plenty of creek crossings. Once we finished the run we went back to the creek and sat in it. Nothing better soaking in cold spring water to soothe the sore muscles. With these events still fresh in my mind I look forward to our next two trail races in October. We will be doing the 5 mile Swiss Valley race on October 3rd and the Runners Flat 25K (15ish miles) on October 10th. That is it for now. Until next time, I have an awful lot of running to do… (Hopefully most of that will be on the trails.)

Running Behind...

Get it... since I haven't posted here in a while and this is a running blog. Yea, that was pretty lame. I just noticed the last time I posted here was in April. A lot has happened since then. Let me see if I can remember all the details and catch you up. I stopped posting here because in April I started vlogging, that was fun. I was posting a daily vlog on my YouTube channel for one month. Some of the videos turned out well, other were just thrown together, because I needed to get something posted that day. That pretty much sums up April which brings us to May. That was a busy month. We ran 3 races, 3 weekends in a row in May. The first race was the MVRA Heritage Trail 10K and the first race of the Dominate Dubuque race series that we joined. That was a very well done race and the scenery was gorgeous. I also learned that I need to eat something before a long run. The second race was the Cellcom Green Bay Half Marathon, <---(click the link... you know you want too) our first of what I am sure will be many half marathons. I had a goal to run the half in under 3 hours... that did not happen. The day started out well, but then as we were lining up in the corral I started gagging. I am fairly confident that it was a mixture of nerves and the humidity which caused me to choke. I lost everything, but I pushed on. Five miles into the race I had nothing left, I was ready to be done, but I had to finish. I kept moving and finished in 3:16:10 with my loving wife’s hand in mine. That was HARD, but an excellent way to spend our third anniversary together. While we were running the half, my friend Rob (AKA Zippie, who ran with us) had a talk with me about my dietary habits and my goals for weight loss. He pretty much dropped the hammer on me and told me to stop screwing around and get my ass in gear. I love having good friends like that. The next weekend we ran our third race of the month, the Madison Twilight 10K. That was a fun race, it started at 8pm and was a great course. We both PR'd our 10K distance at a time of 1:23:09, which on a course that has 185ft of elevation gain is pretty good. This brings us to June. We have 3 races 3 weekends in a row again this month. The first one was the Rhubarb Run 5K which is a good race because it is flat and they have brats afterward. The only downside of this race is that the course is never right. It is either short or way too long. I started Biggest Loser at work the following Monday, so I had to cut back on the brats. I have a goal of losing 40+ during the contest which lasts until September. It has been a month since Rob talked to me and I have started to change my ways. So far, so good and I am down 10 lbs. Our next race was this past Saturday and it was the Grandview Gallop a 4 mile race and I had two goals for that race, Run the whole distance and finish in under 50 minutes, which would have shaved 5+ minutes off of my time from last year. I did run the whole distance, but my time was 50:30. I was sooo close, but I feel good about my performance that day. Our last race this month is this coming weekend in Des Moines, IA and it is the Great Plains 10K. I have two goals again for this race, run the whole distance and finish in under 1:20:00 which would be a PR for us. I will check back in and let you know how I did. On Sunday, my lovely wife and I hit the trails for the second time this year and got a little ambitious. Took on some big hills...it was rough. I know I am going to love trail running. That is all for this update and until next time, I have an awful lot of running to do.

Flu, Races, 11 Miles, Pepper Spray and DNS

Once again I am falling behind on documenting my running journey. We are under 40 days away from the half marathon and I have not posted anything in a while, so let’s change that shall we? I have a lot to tell you to get you caught up. So to recap, at the beginning of the month we ran a 10K after not really running at all in February. That was a bad idea. I got shin splints. Really bad shin splints, but thanks to Dr. Josh at Spine and Sport I have learned a new technique to help combat them, which means I was not taken down for long. I did two races in March, the first one was on the 14th and it was the Gaelic Gallop 8k, which was not an 8K because it was 5.08 miles instead of 4.97. I had shin splints the whole race and should not have run it… But I did… to help film the race… which I failed in my attempt to do so. I had my camera ready and thought that I hit the record button, but it didn’t register. I got half of the footage that I wanted to get. The following week I got over the shin splints and started preparing for my next race which was on the 21st… at least that is what I thought I was going to do. On Tuesday night I came down with the stomach flu and was bed ridden until Friday night. I went to my doctor on Friday and he gave me some anti-nausea medication. I figured I would try it and at the very least I could walk the race on Saturday. I woke up Saturday feeling fantastic and hopped in the car to go to the We Run Lucky Run 5K down in North Liberty, IA. At the start of the race, I told myself that I was just going to enjoy the run and I did. It was great not having that pressure on myself to PR or to push myself harder than I should considering I was sick for the three days prior. I had a good friend run it with me and that made me enjoy it that much more. Towards the end of the race I looked at my watch and I was 3 miles in and was at 35:00 my 5K PR at that point was 35:59. I could do this. I kicked it in to gear and tried to shoot for my PR. I crossed the finish line at 35:50. It felt amazing… especially because I filmed the whole thing and my wonderful wife PR’d that day as well, so there was a lot to be happy about! That is right, I am starting to make running and race videos. Go check them out at DRC video. The next weekend I embarked on my longest run to date… 11 miles. Again I went out with the attitude of enjoying the run and enjoying the scenery around me. I finished in 2:32:00 I feel very confident at this point that my half marathon is fully attainable. That brings you up to speed on March. April started in an odd way. I have been attending a class called Citizens Police Academy which is taught by the Dubuque Police Department. On the 2nd our class was about pepper spray. So naturally I volunteered to be pepper sprayed. It was a good experience, but let me tell you… IT SUCKED!!! Because of the pepper spray and tensing my neck the entire time from the pain, I got a severe migraine on Friday night. I was not feeling any better on Saturday morning which really sucked because I had a race that morning. I took my first DNS… it was a sad day. But I was great to stand on the side lines and cheer on everyone that did run (including my wife who kicked ass and broke her mile PR) and get the opportunity to film that race from the sidelines. That gets you up to speed on what has been happening until next time… I have an awful lot of running to do.

P.S. here are some pictures of me after I was pepper sprayed.

Keep Marching Forward

Do you get the pun? Normally I try to avoid puns, but I thought this one was appropriate. Today is the first day of March and I am just coming back from an injury. Lucky for me the injury was nothing serious, just some inflammation and irritation of the joint capsule of my fifth metatarsal on the right foot or how I referred to it before I learned that, the bottom of my right foot hurt on the outside back by the heel, when I walked. During the down time from the injury I became even more lethargic. So getting back into running was a challenge. I logged 6.8 miles for the month of February, so I decided to kick March off with a bang and run 6.2 miles. It was tough, but so worth it. It helped reinvigorate me, get me back in the mindset of training for the half marathon. Before we started I really did not want to do it, even halfway through it I didn't want to continue, but I kept marching forward, one foot in front of the other and not only did I finish, but I finished strong and set a personal record for my 10K distance. Now I have to thank my friends from the Dubuque Running Club. They called me on my lethargy the other day and gave me to push I needed to get back into it and keep marching forward.

Today's Run
Title: Starting March with a 10K
Distance: 6.23
Elevation Gain: 29 ft
Time: 1:21:55
Pace: 13:10 min/mi
Shoes worn: Altra Paradigm
Temp: 23.0 F felt like 14.0 F 14 mph winds