Go, you chicken fat, go away!

APRIL FOOLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (I originally put that I ran 223.75 miles today.)

Seriously though. I rode my bike to work.

*AM Ride*

Distance: 17.53 miles

Time: 1:04:24

Avg. speed: 16.33 mph

Max speed: 23.5 mph

*PM Ride*

Distance: 17.53 miles

Time: 1:10:43

Avg. speed: 14.9 mph

Max speed: 22.6 mph

On the way home I have about a 150 foot climb in 6 miles before I turn and go south.  Today the climb felt so easy.  I thought I must be getting really strong.  Then when I turned south I realized why it was so easy.  Major wind pushing me.  Going home the remaining 11.5 miles in the wind was not fun.

First time running in over a week. I tweeked my ankle some how on the hike last week, so I've been taking it easy so as to not re-aggravate it. It felt good yesterday, and I wanted to go running, but my kids' AIMS testing threw my schedule off. So I went on a nice easy 2 mile run this morning to run at my HM pace. I'm thinking I should shoot for 8:15's. My ankle felt a little tweeky at first, but after the first mile it felt good. Time - 16:28.

Every couple of weeks I recieve an email from the Arizona RunningEvents Co. with a listing of various upcoming races.  One that intrigued me because I grew up in Kingman and lived 60 miles away was the Havasu Half marathon.  When my wife told me that I needed to drive to Kingman sometime to pick up a washing machine and dryer from my mother-in-law's, I figured I had a good excuse to make the trip.  I could just stay the night at her house or my mother's house and drive up early the morning of the race.  Of course it would be much more convenient to stay in Lake Havasu City for the night, but who do I know in Havasu?  Rhett.  I wonder if he would be cool enough to let a stranger from the blog stay the night at his house.  Turns out he is super cool.  He not only let me stay the night, he offered me dinner, gave me the whole downstairs to stay in with my own room, bathroom, gameroom, gave me breakfast, drove me to the race and back, and gave me lunch.  He has an awesome family.  Of course he's a HPGL and I'm just a lowly second assistant.  Rhett had a great race.  So did his wife and kid, Chase.  Go to his blog to see his report.

On to my report: It's been very windy in the whole state of AZ the last week or so.  The night before we were pretty worried because it was blowing pretty good.  But for the most part it blows in the afternoon.  Come race time it wasn't too bad.  We arrived about a half hour before the race started.  The announcer told everyone to toe the line with the faster runners up front and the slowest runners near the back.  Literally no one went to the front.  Knowing that this wasn't a chipped race, I moved up to about 20 feet behind the start line.  There were 301 runners in the race.  With two minutes to go there were only about 5 guys at the start, so I moved right behind Dan Kuch (the eventual winner of the race.)

1 mile - 7:33 - The time I was shooting for was 1:50:00.  That would be an overall average of 8:24.  I didn't want to start out so fast, but it's hard not to when you're up front.  The bad thing about being up front is you get passed more than you pass.

2 mile - 8:11 - The first three miles were around the island.  I made up my mind beforehand to take a little drink alternating between water and Gatorade at each aid station.  Normally I skip the first couple of aid stations thinking I'm good, but then I crash.  The first aid station was at 1.25.  I just couldn't.  Knowing there were a ton of aid stations along the course I skipped the first one.

3 mile - 8:04 - My wife's going to kill me when she reads this part.  Two ladies passed me.  One of them had a very nice athletic body and looked to be in very good shape.  The other one didn't.  I wondered how she was able to maintain the pace she was at for these first three miles.  I stayed behind them until they stopped to get water at 4.5.  Then I never saw the not-so-toned lady again.

4 mile - 8:15 - At about 4.75 we crossed over the London Bridge.  That was one of the coolest parts of the race.

5 mile - 8:10 - Somewhere along here a sweet old lady caught up with me.  Her name was Wendy.  She was making sure all the volunteers were doing their job and cheering us on.  She also thanked every single one of them for being there.  I ran with her until mile 9 when she dropped me.  (She ended up beating me by 1:55)  Turns out she is in Rhett's ward at church.

6 mile - 8:22 - From mile 5 to mile 8.5 we were running into the wind.  It wasn't too bad, but still noticeable.  So far all of my miles were under the 8:24 pace.

7 mile: - 8:25 - First mile over my goal pace.  I knew we were getting close to the turn around and I figured we would be seeing Dan Kuch pretty soon.  As soon as I voiced this to Wendy, there he was, right on cue.

8 mile - 8:41 - Saw Rhett coming back.  He was in sixth place.  Wendy was about 10 feet ahead of me.  She went to give him 5.  He seemed to be scared that his hand would fall off so I think he purposely missed.  I put my had out to give him 5 and made sure just to lightly touch his finger tips.

9 mile - 8:18 - I reached the turn around and now the wind was blowing against my back.  Funny thing when it does that; you can't even feel it.  It's so much quieter, too.  But you can also feel the sun beating down on you.  Luckily it was only 68 degrees, but it felt warm.

10 mile - 8:14 - For the first time I started passing people.  That was kind of nice.  But I got passed by two guys.  I'm starting to think my strategy of taking waters and Gatorades, keeping myself feuled, was paying off.

11 mile - 8:40 - Second slowest mile of the race.  However, I start to think I'm going to smash my goal time of 1:50:00.

12 mile - 8:39 - See that I'm still on pace, but then I remember that after mile 13 there is still another 0.1 miles and that's another 48 seconds at an 8 min/mi pace.

13 mile - 8:29 - We run back over the London Bridge.  I've got a guy hot on my tail.  Trying to stay strong to hold him off.

0.14 miles to finish - 55 seconds (6:49 pace) - The guy is still pretty close behind me, but far enough to where I think I can hold him off if I finish strong.  He would have to run at a total sprint to catch me, and after 13 miles, I don't think he can.  I beat him by 10 seconds.  More importantly I beat my goal time of 1:50:00 by a full minute and PR'ed by over 16 minutes!  I'm a happy bunny.

Well, now I've run London's Run half marathon.  That's a run for little London Solomon who died of cancer.  I've run a half marathon over the London Bridge.  I guess the only thing left is for me to run a half marathon in London England!

Pictures from yesterday's race:

This one is a beautiful picture of the desert for Kelli.

The London Bridge and a paddle boat

The London Bridge - someone must've locked up my fair lady.

Rhett, Chase, me, Doone

Nice and easy recovery run.  (Like I even know what that means.)

Time: 24:15 (avg. pace 8:05)

Splits:

1 mile - 8:09

2 mile - 8:14

3 mile - 7:53

Temp: 55 (very nice)

My wife wants to get serious about losing weight, so we broke out a workout DVD that we've never used and tried it out last night.  It was a 15 minute Men's Health total body workout.  Afterwards I rewarded myself with some Rocky Road Ice Cream.  That was my treat for doing the half marathon instead of chili dogs and a root beer float.  This morning when I started my run, my back felt a little tight.  But after about half a mile it felt good proving once again that running is the cure-all for what ails you.

Time: 45:05 (avg. pace 8:07)

Time - 22:57 (avg. pace 7:39)

Splits

1 mile - 8:08

2 mile - 7:41

3 mile - 7:09

Temp - 60 (I hope I'm not taking this perfect weather for granted.)

Finally I went running!  Oh Easter.  If only I could celebrate it the right way.  Instead I gorge on chocolate and Easter ham.  Et cetera.  Et cetera.  Anyway, I felt a little tight this morning.  Especially in the shins.  I wanted to average 8 min./miles.  Nailed it!  (Sung in a high pitched voice.)

Time - 23:58 (avg. pace 7:59)

Splits -

1 mile - 7:50

2 mile - 8:09

3 mile - 7:59

Something strange happened today.  The Palo Verde trees were bent and twisted in different angles than usual.  The sidewalk seemed to meander in a different pattern.  Bushes had sprung up from whence they were not before.  Ah dang!  I missed my turn.

Time - 27:04 (avg. pace 7:56)

Splits

1 mile - 7:57

2 mile - 8:02

3 mile - 7:53

0.41 mile - 3:13 (7:48 avg.)

Sorry I haven't run, Eric.  I've got a pain in my leg and after reading everyone's blogs about getting injured, I'm paranoid.  But here's a picture from Easter.  My wife got all the girls dresses while she was in Mexico.

I got beat by 671 people and still came in the top 5%!! 

Today was Pat’s Run.  This is a 4.2 mile run in honor of fallen soldier Pat Tillman.  If you don’t know, Pat cut his career short as a member of the NFL football team, the Arizona Cardinals, to fight in the war against terror.  He was killed in the line of duty by friendly fire.  Pat wore #42 when he played football at ASU and #40 as a member of the Arizona Cardinals.  The race was held at ASU, and 42 was a common theme for many aspects of the race.  That’s why the race is 4.2 miles long.  The kids’ race is 0.42 miles.  Both races finish up on the 42 yard line of the ASU football field.  They even have a special age category of 40-42.

I knew I needed to get up early to make it to the race on time.  Four of my girls ran the 0.42 mile race, so I made sure they had everything out the night before.  I was still worried that our wake up time of 5am wouldn’t be early enough.  But any earlier would just be ludicrous.  So I got up, got dressed, had 3 fig newtons and some Cytomax for breakfast, got the girls ready (I’m sure my wife did most of that), and got out the door by 6am.  It’s a good 35 to 40 minute drive to the stadium.  I figured I could take the 60 to the 101 to the 202 and get off at Rural.  Good idea, but about a half mile before the exit, traffic was at a halt.  If you’ve done the math, you know that there were a lot of people in this race.  I thought about jumping out of the car as soon as I got on the off-ramp and running the rest of the way to the race.  Might be a good warm up.  But traffic picked up some when we got there.  Still it was slow, so with about a half mile to go, I jumped out on Rural Road and ran to the start with 10 minutes to spare. 

I lined up in the 7 to 8 minute mile pace corral.  They started us out in waves.  My goal time was 30:30.  Secretly my goal was to beat my boss and his wife, Jared and Michelle.  They have been a big inspiration for me to start running again.  (I beat them, but I’m not bragging.)  Read my 2009 Del Sol Ragnar report for more on them.

1 mile – 7:10 – I spent the most part of this mile doing the bob and weave.  I was actually surprised that this was my fastest mile, but there were times when I looked at my Garmin and saw I was running sub 7.

2 mile – 7:18 – This must’ve been the hill James W told me about.  I pushed it because he said it would be the same amount of downhill.

3 mile – 7:16 – I can’t think of anything interesting about this mile.

4 mile – 7:25 – Another boring mile, but almost done.

0.2 miles – 1:28 (7:20 pace) – I didn’t have much of a kick.  Next year I‘ll know that as soon as I get inside, it’s a mere 42 yards to the finish.

So, 672nd out of 13,360.  I’ll take that.  The old man from Kingman that I want to beat so bad next month in the 10k beat me again.  He better watch out. His days are numbered.   After the race we grabbed some free ice cream popsicles from Blue Bell.  I snagged one and kept walking.  After a while I wondered what was taking my girls so long to get theirs.  I went back just in time to see my wife dumping PowerAde onto my 6 year old’s mouth to unfreeze the popsicle that had frozen to her lips.

Next my girls ran.  I only signed up the three oldest, but my four year old wanted to do it, too.  So my wife went with her and they ran it bandit. There were so many kids that I didn’t see them finish, but my wife said that our 4 year old left her in the dust.  She was just praying that no one would take her and that she would be able to find her at the finish line.  All is well.  Pretty fun day!

Pictures from yesterday's race

Me in front of the two with my back to the camera.

Katelynn and Abby

Julianna, football dude, Mary

Julianna, Sparky, Mary

Julianna, Baxter, Mary

Emily!

We went to Ted's Hot Dogs afterwards.

35.2 miles in 2 hours and 14 minutes...on a bike.  It's nice to know I can pedal faster than the Merga, who won the Boston marathon today, can run.

Why is it that prairie dogs are content to sit at the edge of the road with thousands of pounds of steel and metal coming by them at 55 mph, but when a couple hundred pounds of man flesh come cruising by at 17 mph, they scatter?  Think about that, Kelli and Marion.

We're going to sign Grumpy, I mean my son, up for a triathlon.  We've been having him run a mile each morning for the last week and having him wear my Garmin so he doesn't cheat.  I know he can run faster than what his times are.  It's frustrating because he's the one that said he wants to do it, but he doesn't seem to want to put the work in for it.  So this morning I decided to take him with me on my 3 mile loop.  He dragged his feet, but eventually made it out the door.  I was hoping he could maintain a 9 min. pace.  He did for about a quarter mile.  Then he dropped to an 11 min. pace.  He jogged for about 1.25 miles then had to stop and walk.  After a while he started again and then stopped again, started again, then stopped for good.  He said his knee felt like it was going to shatter.  I walked with him until about 1.9 miles.  Then I took off.  Splits were 10:26, 14:51, 7:02.  When he finally got home I told him to ice his knee.  Now I'm not sure if I want to sign him up.  I haven't told him yet that it's only a 100 yd. swim, 4 mile bike ride, and half mile run.

Took it nice and easy so I wouldn't leave a big carbon footprint being that it's Earth Day and all.

Time - 45:54 (avg. pace 8:08)

Splits -

1 mile - 7:57

2 mile - 7:46

3 mile - 8:03

4 mile - 8: 22

5 mile - 8:23

0.65 mile - 5:24 (8:21 pace)

Temp - 71

Since I think Montelepsy is so cool and I want to be just like him, I tried to do intervals for the first time to day.  I suck.  My intent was to do one mile all out, jog for half a mile, run another mile, jog half a mile, and run another mile.  My first mile was pretty good, but I wore myself out.  I jogged the next half mile and tried to get going for the second mile, but I'm not man enough.  I stopped after a half mile and rested for about 5 to 10 minutes.  Then I ran the last one.  Below are the splits:

1 mile - 6:35 (this has to be a post HS PR.)

2 mile - 8:05

3 mile - 7:17

I don't even know if "intervals" is the correct terminology for what I attempted to do.  On a side note, my boy's running has gotten a lot better these last two days.  The day before yesterday he did an 8:20 mile and yesterday an 8:09.

That's it!  My wife and son are fobidden to use my Garmin.  They can't even put it on the charger correctly.  I didn't even get a mile into my run when the battery died.  Now I'm reduced down to tracing my route on GoogleEarth.  What is this?  The dark ages?  I'm far too important of a runner to be tracing my route on GoogleEarth!

AM Bike

Distance - 17.5 miles

Avg. Speed - 16.0 mph Max. Speed - 21.6 mph

Time - 1:05:24

Temp - 60

PM Bike

Distance - 17.5 miles

Avg. Speed - 15.7 mph Max. Speed - 24.7 mph

Time - 1:06:53

Temp - didn't check, but it was nice and cloudy, so it was cool the whole time

PM Run

Distance - 2.18 miles (avg. pace 8:40)

Splits -

1 mile - 8:46

2 mile - 8:43

0.18 miles - 1:21 (7:40 pace)

Time - 18:50

Temp - 79

AM Bike

Distance - 17.5 miles

Avg. Speed - 15.3 mph Max. Speed - 21.0 mph

Time - 1:08:29

Temp - 66

PM Bike

Distance - 17.5 miles

Avg. Speed - 17.3 mph Max. Speed - 26.2 mph

Time - 1:00:26

Temp - 83

Two stories:  Yesterday I was cruising down the road, and some idiot was riding his bike on the wrong side of the road coming right at me.  That's not a big deal.  I'd prefer they be on the sidewalk or better yet, on the other side of the road, but it happens.  So what should the person that's coming the wrong way do?  They should go on the inside because they can see the oncoming traffic.  This idiot wouldn't.  Argh!! I wanted to clothesline him.

Today I was cruising down the road, within a mile of yesterday's incident, and this pervert starts wooting at some lady in her car.  Then he sticks his tongue out.  Now, I don't know if he knew her or not, but I yelled at him to knock it off.

Time - 44:46 (avg. pace  7:58)

Splits -

1 mile - 7:45

2 mile - 7:54

3 mile - 7:56

4 mile - 8:13

5 mile - 8:10

0.62 miles - 4:49 (7:43 pace)

Temp - 69