Motivated to Succeed

11:20 AM - After waking up at 6:00 (reluctantly, as I was really tired from only about 6 hrs of sleep after that hard 25+ miler last night), I made my mom breakfast in bed with my brothers complete with coffee, orange juice, home fries, an omelet, scrambled eggs and homemade fruit salad. Oh and toast! Then did all the dishes and helped outside with yardwork. Decided to go for a bike ride before work tonight 2pm-10pm. Ended up going a full half-marathon on the bike in extremely windy weather. But it was sunny and temperature around 63 degrees! Yay! Felt great on the bike, though it's not the same as running.

Total Time: 50:58 Total Mileage: 13.11 miles Average Speed: 15.4 mph

12:00 PM  - 55 degrees, cloudy, wind 15-20mph. Man. This might very well take the cake. Just finished the hardest bike ride that I can remember, almost as difficult as biking through the White Mountains in New Hampshire on the way to Maine. The wind was basically in my face the entire way except for a grateful few miles in the middle of the ride. Felt really great today! Felt so great though, despite the fact this was also my longest ride in about 2 years!

200 crunches, 100 situps, pushups, 3 x 12 @ 12 lb arm

New 2008 PR's for biking: 1/2 (13.11 mi): 45:50; FULL (26.22 mi): 1:36:53

Total Time: 2:00:01 Total Distance: 30.68 miles Average Speed: 15.3 mph

Weight: 174 (-4 pounds from this time last week!)

9:00 AM - Up early for a recovery ride. Sunny outside with a temp around 54 at the start. Projected to get up to 75 degrees today! Yikes! Windy yet again today. Ugh! Went down Parkis and Crane Road to Jockey Street into Charlton and back. Felt really great and no soreness really after the first mile. My quads were sore from the last few days of riding, but I really felt good overall. Funny thing I saw for the day today: At about mile 11 in Charlton I was cruising down this back road and I watch a woodpecker fly onto a mailbox. We have a staring contest for a few seconds and right as I get close he decides there must be bugs in the green metal mailbox and starts hammering away at it. I think it gave him a headache because he flew off shortly thereafter.

Total Time: 1:29:58 Total Mileage: 23.76 Average Speed: 15.8 mph

MY SINCERE APOLOGIES ONE AND ALL FOR NOT CONVERTING MY CROSS TRAINING MILES. THAT WOULD MAKE COMPLETE SENSE. I DID A LOT OF READING ON IT LAST NIGHT ACTUALLY AND FOUND MOST TRIATHLETES USE 1 MILE BIKE TO .3 MILES OF RUNNING, THOUGH SOME GO AS FAR AS TO SAY IT SHOULD BE .4 MILES. I'LL TAKE THE MIDDLE ROAD AND USE .33. AFTER LUNCH I'LL GO BACK AND CONVERT EVERYTHING. AGAIN SORRY FOLKS. IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN. - BENN

1:00 PM - My mom is in charge of the school store at my dad's school so she decided she wanted to bike to and from there today rather than drive the car to save a bit of gas. She asked if I wanted to go with her and of course I couldn't say no. I love doing stuff with my mom and she's just an absolutely amazing and inspiring woman. The funniest thing she said though on the bike ride was on the first hill when she goes, "Oh crap! I should have taken more 3,4 DAP" (The 3,4 DAP is a special medication she's on for her myestenia gravis that's not FDA approved  but by giving talks about her condition to a medical college in New Hampshire, down at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and then at UC Davis Medical Center in California, she is on a trial where she gets the meds for free. So it's really great!). It was hot out. Maybe 70 degrees and sunny. But we had fun. And as a bonus we made money at the school store today! $2.60! Huge pay day! No seriously it was because she said we normally only make about .50 cents. And the little ones were so cute!

Total Time: 50:00 Total Mileage: 10 miles Average Speed: 12.0 mph

*Wow two monstrous days in a row! 33.76 miles of biking today! Now headed to my brother's track meet. The first one of the season that I actually get to see! Too bad he's on the injured list :(. Oh well. Should be fun!

9:00 AM - Legs are a little tired from biking this week, but not hurting sore, just a little achey. Went on the treadmill and started with 1 mile walk in 15:00, then eased into a 2 mile jog in 21:53 (10:56/ mile), then finished with 1 mile walk for cooldown in 15 minutes. Post-run stretching followed. Before run did arm exercises with the 12lb free weights 3 or 4 sets of each exercise. 200 crunches and 150 situps.

Total Time: 51:53 Total Mileage: 4 miles Average Pace: 12:58/ mile

From one of my local running clubs' May 2008 Issue of The Pace Setter: pg 23: Article titled "Reasoned Accomodation": "We really stink at accomodation when it comes to ourselves. We are usually much better at extending it to other fls. Accomodation is not neglecting ourselves. It is protecting ourselves... What is more important, topping off some weekly mileage or being healthy enough to enjoy your next run whenever the sidewalks are clear or whenever that horrendous chest congestion and fever subside?... What I have began to espouse is accepting reality and working with it rather than fighting it or, if you will, accomodation." - Hank Steadman

I think Hank's article especially hits home for me as I've been battling this achilles issue for nearly four months now. I think I erred in the fact that I expected a couple days off or reduced mileage and I'd be good to go once again. Rather than taking a couple of weeks off to see if that helped at first, I tried to run through it, which I suspect only made my injury worse. We have a lot to learn as runners, and while we are definitely good at giving advice to other runners, we very rarely take the necessary time to reflect on our own training and our own bodies. If there's anything I've learned during my layoff that I can take away and use later in life, it is this idea of accomodation. We need to listen to our bodies rather than dictate what we desire from them. Progress comes at its own pace for each one of us. We shouldn't hasten the process. At least we can know that if we listen to our bodies we stand a better chance at not only recovery, but future progress.  Keep on truckin' friends.

9:00 AM - I iced my foot for about 30 mins last night and then zonked out for a couple hours. Up early because I work 11-8 today so I guess we'll have to see how the foot holds up at work. 100 situps, 200 crunches, 4 x 15 @ 12 lb arm exercises. Probably do a second round of them tonight.

6:00 PM - Had a long day at work. My achilles is a little red after this long work week. I'm going to go ice it in a little bit.  Only did a little over two miles today. Just needed to have something positive to take away from today. Ended up doing 2.05 miles in 27 minutes, 13:10 pace. Trying to stay positive, though Wednesday will be 4 months and counting :(.

Just wanted to send out a good luck to everyone running Ogden today. You're in my prayers. Run Fast. Run Within Yourself. And most importantly, Run to Have Fun! Look forward to reading all of those race reports tonight. You are all so talented and amazing athletes. FRB truly is the cream of the crop, hands down. So glad to be able to talk to and get advice from you all! See you all after work.

Some words of wisdom I've taken from Norrie Williamson'sEveryone's Guide to Distance Running:

pg. 19 "If you want something to happen with all your heart, you will find ways to make it happen: If you do not really want it with all your heart, you will find an excuse to explain why it didn't happen."

pg. 25 "There can be few other sports where so many different people with varying objectives come together to meet their challenges. Running offers that."

pg. 33 "Theirs is not the pain of intense speed of marathons or shorter races, but rather the slow, concentrated pain of distance. It is something that takes as much in guts, courage, skill and ability as their speedier counterparts." No matter what speed we all run at, Williamson suggests that it takes as much guts to run a long, slow race as it does to prepare for a short sprinting event.

"The race is not always to the fleet of foot, but to he who goes the distance." I think that this is something important to take away from Williamson's work as well. If we sacrifice everything, lay all our cards on the table, and push ourselves to truly go the distance, we can still be successful and take away a positive outlook on the experience.

Long distance running, like life, is a journey, not a race. We can choose to take its course at our own speed and forge ahead or at the same time slow up and sit back and enjoy the scenery as we jog down the path. We all have something to gain from participating in the sport of running, and the comraderie amongst our participants are like no other.