Tuesday Addictions

Today is my sister’s 28th birthday. We’ve always been close, and even when we don’t see each other for weeks at a time, we still make sure phone each other often. She’s a great little sister, and I’m lucky to be her brother.

Happy birthday, sis.

Today will be a nice four-miler this afternoon. The legs are feeling good after Sunday’s run and I’m getting pumped about this weekend’s 20 mile jaunt.

To the addictions!

1. The Shield – Love this show. Hate that it’s the last season.

2. Marathoning – The closer I get, the more excited/worried/pumped/stressed I get.

3. MLB 2K8 – For the Wii. You swing the Wiimote to pitch and hit. My brother-in-law got it for me for my birthday(Thursday, Rocketman, but thanks for the early wishes!)

4. House – How I love this show. So much.

5. Podcasts – I’ve grown to really love them when I’m running. I’ve asked before, and I’m asking again. What are some good ones. You guys turned me on to “This American Life,” so what else is worth downloading?

16 Down…

Yesterday’s run of 16 miles was epic. I averaged a 9:30 mile with my first mile being 11 minutes (I’m still working on pacing) and a final mile of 9:23. I felt good in all departments except my knees. They were killing me by the time I got home.

I’m not sure what I can do about the IT pain. I need to start doing my stretched more. I’ll also be getting new shoes in a few weeks, but I’m not sure if that’s much of a solution.

So this week, I’ll do three days of running and three of working out and Sunday will be my next long run of 18 miles. I’d like to push it to 20, so we’ll see.

Elsewhere, the baseball season – and the fantasy baseball season – ended yesterday. The good news is my fantasy team managed a second place finish. The bad news is Mrs. Fitnessgeek finished second in her league as well. She went into yesterday in first place but her team pulled a “Mets” and collapsed hard.

Oh well. Second is great for a third year. Hats off to ya!

Today is my last day as Kiwanis president. It’s been a long year, but I hope that I helped move the club forward.

Finally, my birthday is Thursday so we celebrated with Mrs. Fitnessgeek’s family. It was very nice. They gave me a few gifts, a new running watch (I’d been wanting one for a while but kept putting it off for various reasons), a collectible commemorative baseball (I love baseball. Who knew?) and a gift certificate to Best Buy. They’re great family, and I’m glad I’m part of it.

Tonight’ll be a weight workout and a day to rest my legs. I still can’t believe how good I felt after 16 miles…just 10 more to go!

Photo Friday

I’ve got a short run scheduled for tonight before Sunday’s long 16 miler. I’m pretty confident that I’ll finish strong and be one step closer to a great first marathon. Or surving my first marathon. Or at least showing up for it.

Before I get to Photo Friday, let me just say The Office is the best comedy on television. Holly rapping was great. Michael growing a goatee was gold. Dwight has a beeper. Angela explaining how she sleeps at night.

Gold.

But the best was Kevin and Holly. Poor, poor Kevin.

On to Photo Friday!

That’s Mrs. Fitnessgeek celebrating an imaginary (yet still exemplary) touchdown outside the Cleveland Browns’ stadium from our trip last week.

TIART – Marathon in 26 words or Less

Today’s Take It And Run Thursday is Conquering the Marathon in 26 words or less. Since I’ve yet to conquer the marathon, I’ll just post completely untested, FDA-unapproved, unsure advice.

“Run at the beginning
Drink a bit
Run in the middle
Drink a bit
Run to the finish
Drink some more
See, that’s not so bad”

There ya go. That’s my plan at least. Elsewhere, yesterday was a nice 9.5 mile run that started downtown and included two 2-mile loops at the local park. I’ve been working on my hydration plan and yesterday I think I hit the sweet spot: drinks every 2 miles or so.

I didn’t feel dehydrated and I kept up a 9:30 pace. I’m doing weights tonight and another run tomorrow before my 14-16 mile run Sunday. With 41 days to the marathon, I’m getting pretty excited. If Sunday goes well, I think I’ll be even more confident about my marathon.

The Office returns tonight. To say I’m excited is a bit of an understatement. I miss it nearly as much as I missed Lost and 24.

Oh to vacation at Schrute Farms…

The Mets continue to crash and burn. As a Braves fan, I can’t say I’m remotely sad. But the end of the season is going to be exciting in several divisions. Sad the Braves aren’t a part of it, but maybe next year…

Why I Run

So I thought it might be good to do a “Why I Run” post on Wednesdays. I’m always curious how others got into running and what motivates them day-to-day.

Here we go: Today is going to me a mid-week long run. I’m planning for 8-10 miles. I’m running today because I have to. Not for the marathon or for training. But I want to see what I can do. I want to find my limits after a long day of work and see what my body is capable of in the middle of the week.

As I said yesterday, my birthday is around the corner. I feel this has been an incredible year for me on so many levels.

But I’m not done yet. I want to really push myself. To find my potential. So, my goals for the next year of my life are:

1. Run 1,500 miles. I tried 1,000 a few years ago, and ended up injured. But I’m older now, and not necessarily smarter. But 1,500 works out to about 4 miles a day or just under 28 a week. I can so do this.

2. Write a novel. I’ve done this once, a long time ago. It’s time now to do it again. National Novel Writing Month is November. I plan to hit it hard.

3. Lift weights four days a week. I should be doing this already.

4. Run a marathon in under four hours. I’m running my first in November, and I figure to be around 4:20. I’ve always wanted to go under four. It may take some work.

5. Watch the Braves/Thrashers/Falcons win their division. I can’t do too much for this one, but hey, a wish is a wish.

That’s it. Back tomorrow for TIART.

Tuesday Addictions

Well, we made it home. We went to a wedding, two baseball games and I managed to get in a nice training run as well.

All in all, it was a blast. We took approximately 600 photos, so it’ll be a few days before I post any of them. I’m sure I’ll have a few on Photo Friday.

On to the Addictions!

1. Panicking – Less than two months to my marathon. Am I training correctly? Am I running enough? Why do I hurt? Aaaaaaagggh!

2. See above.

3. End of Baseball – Sigh. It seems like only yesterday I was cursing the Braves. Oh wait. Yeah, that was yesterday.

4. New TV shows – Hurray for Fringe. Hurray for Heroes returning. And the Shield.

5. My birthday – It’s just around the corner. I’ll blog on that more tomorrow. I’m planning some big things for next year.

6. Also, does anyone listen to Coast to Coast AM? I rediscovered it on the long drive home Sunday night/Monday morning. Good stuff.

TIART – Best Running Blogs

This week’s TIART is Bring Your Favorite Running Blogs. Most of the ones I read are on the sidebar, but there are plenty that I look at daily that for some reason (laziness) I still haven’t dropped into my blogroll.

Here are a few of the ones I really like:

1. Where’s Karl - The dude is running the entire Appalachian Trail. He was aiming for a course record, but an injury early on sidelined him. Still he’s pushing along and it’s pretty inspiring. Also, he has an RV with his name on it, so I’m a bit jealous.

2. Mark Tanaka - I haven’t finished my first marathon yet (less than two months away) and I’m already thinking of doing an ultramarathon. In fact, I read a lot of ultramarathon blogs just to learn more and prepare. Also, those dudes are crazy. Flat out crazy.

3. Another ultra blog – See above.

So that’s three I enjoy. There are plenty more. I’m out of town right now in Ohio and will be here through the weekend. I did go running this morning, a nice seven mile jog that felt good. I’m getting in my long run Saturday. It’ll be fun to see that much of a new city. Last week’s injury messed up my training and now I feel like I’m scrambling to get everything in.

By the way, Mrs. Fitnessgeek just crossed the Cincinnati Reds ballpark off our list of stadiums. We’re trying to hit all the major league parks, and by the end of the weekend we’ll have also visited the Cleveland Indians. Thank goodness for friends who hold weddings way out of town.

Back tomorrow with Photo Friday from the Reds game.

I Didn’t Know This

I went to a bakery this morning and asked for something low-fat for the wife.

Employee: The muffins have apple in them.

Me: But nothing else healthy?

Employee: We also have muffins with peaches inside.

Sooooooooo…something that has a fruit inside it is automatically healthy? Sweet. That means those sweet tarts that are grape-flavored are better for me than I thought. Also, I’ll be stocking up on peanut M&Ms.

I had a good workout last night. It was a sort of foundation workout where I’m trying to figure out where I’m at and how much I can do so I don’t end up sore for days on end. I do these type of workouts when I first get back into lifting so that I know exactly how much to push the first few weeks.

We leave for vacation tonight so I’m not sure if the ol’ blog will be updated before Monday evening. I’m sure I’ll have loads of photos and plenty of stories. Maybe on the way up I’ll eat a box of chocolate-covered cherries to stay healthy.

Have a great rest of the week!

Tuesday Addictions

Had my first run this morning in almost a week. the shin splint was gone, but my calves tightened up less than a mile into the run. It hurt. A lot. I was slowed considerably, but they loosened up in the final half mile of the four miles.

I’m thinking it was from not stretching enough. I’ll run again tomorrow and hopefully all will be better.

On to the addictions!

1. Oops! – Desean Jackson caught a touchdown pass last night and started to celebrate a half yard to early. The touchdown doesn’t count and the Eagles end up losing. Hilarious.

2. Marathon training – It was great to get back into running. Even if it hurt. I’m less than two months out from the marathon and I am getting nervous.

3. Baseball – I so want the Mets to tank. Is that bad? And yes, Adam, Zambrano’s no-hitter was pretty awesome. I’ve always liked Zambrano’s fire.

4. Baseball/Vacation – I’m heading out late tomorrow evening to go to a friend’s wedding. Mrs. Fitnessgeek are also working to visit all the major league baseball stadiums. This weekend, we’ll catch two: Cincinnati on Thursday and Cleveland on Sunday (the wedding’s in Cleveland). We’ve already got our tickets.

5. Marathon running – Less than two months away? Really? Crap, I better get some more runs in…

An Ouch, A Win, A Show and A Sigh

It’s been a few days, but the business trip messed me up a bit. The good news is I ran two of the three days I was out of town.
The bad news is I ran seven miles on day two, all seven of which hurt. I developed a bad shin splint that was aching before, but by last Thursday was killing me. So I bit the bullet and took a few days off. It was miserable. I hate off days enough as it is, but the fear of an injury made them miserabler (it’s a word).
But today I’m feeling better. I doubt I’ll have time to run this evening, but I’ll definitely lift some weights. I’ll run tomorrow. However, missing my long weekend run means I may not have a long run for another week as I head out of town for a wedding. But I’m going to get in as many good runs as I can.

The Braves beat the Mets yesterday in grand fashion, coming from behind in the ninth to win their last game ever at the old Shea Stadium. I’m always happy to see the Mets lose, and even happier when they lose like that.

I did catch up with Fringe, which definitely lived up to expectations. I’m a huge JJ Abrams fan, and this looks to be another win for him. I also finally caught a few episodes of Burn Notice. Any show with Bruce Campbell is automatically a B+, but I think it’s just about can’t miss for me now. I think I might rent the first season after I get back from the wedding.

Finally, Mrs. Fitnessgeek and I are dealing with a few things on the home front, so this weekend together was nice. Now, we aren’t dealing with problems with each other or anything. In fact, we’re doing great. It’s just that life sometimes wanders by and punches you in the nose for no reason. Sometimes when you decide to punch back, it’s important to have somebody you can trust in your corner.

With that in mind, Mrs. Fitnessgeek and I hung out together as much as possible over the weekend and just had a great time of it. Those kind of weekends are nice. It helped also that we spent a good chunk of time watching shows like Psych and 30Rock.

I’ll be back tomorrow with Tuesday Addictions. Have a great rest of the week!