dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I ran about 4 miles today, running around San Francisco "sightseeing" before taking the train home from the ACSM conference.  I ran over by the Giants baseball stadium, and also ran by the water and through some parts of town.  I can say that I would never want to live in a city like San Francisco.  In order to get here every day I had to drive 15-20 minutes to the train station, followed by an hour train ride up into town, followed by about a mile walk (run in my case) from the train station to where the conference was at.  Total time spent commuting every day was about 3 hours.  If I just drove every day it wouldn't be much better time wise because of traffic.  To top it off, it is really expensive to take the train all the time, and if you are driving you have to pay for parking (unless your workplace has its own garage and they don't charge).  Definitely not my idea of the American dream... more like a nightmare to me.

I ran home from school today.  I was finishing up some of the final things that I needed to do in order to finish my thesis.  My problem was that by the time I finished what I needed to work on, it was the middle of the day, and my route home is completely exposed to the sun.  So, I ran home in approximately 103 degree heat with a decent headwind for about half of the run, while wearing a backpack that added approximately 5 extra pounds.  I didn't want to get myself in trouble with overheating so I made no effort to push myself at all, and I made it home in 1:10:44, almost 2 minutes slower than an 8:00 average.

I ran what I will call 2.7 miles while running errands today.  I ran to Walgreens to buy hair gel, then to the grocery store to get a few things, and finally to get a hair cut before meandering around a bit more and coming home.

I ran 8.6 miles today in 1:03:xx.  What a world of difference it makes when temperatures are about 20 degrees cooler, you have a little shade, and there is no wind.  Despite running to school where I have a net increase of about 200ft (vs. coming home on Wednesday when I was coming downhill) I had all of the previously mentioned benefits, and I made the trip about 7.5 minutes faster today than I did on Wednesday.  I was wearing a backpack again, but it only weighed 8 or 9 pounds, so it wasn't too bad.

I performed my thesis defense this afternoon, which was good to get finished.  Now I just need to finish up the last few necessary things to get graduated so that I can move to Iowa at the end of July.

I ran 5 miles today.  During the run I ran 3 sprints where I accelerated until I felt like I was going all out, after which I backed off and coasted until I had slowed back down.  I doubt I was ever really pushing really hard for more than 5 seconds, but the total time for each sprint was between 10 and 20 seconds depending on how quickly I sped up/slowed down.  I want to do this as I hopefully start to get back in shape again so that I can remind my body what it feels like to run fast.  Even before I stopped running much I started to struggle when I attempted to sprint, barely getting under 60 seconds when I ran an all out 400 at one point.  Since my training became sporadic I have not run faster than a 61 second 400.

I ran 5 miles today in approximately 108 degree heat.  I ran 4 sprints during the run.

I ran 4 miles today before we left to drive to California.  Only 2 sprints today.

We are in California to visit Kimia's family before we move.  I ran 6 miles today in 39:53, running on the Los Gatos creek trail.  I got excited running in a different place, and I ran faster than I had planned.  I ran a 1 mile stretch just past the halfway mark in less than 6 minutes, with half of it run in 2:42.  I also ran 1 sprint at the end of the run.