My goal for next year.

I might just be counting my chickens before they hatch but oh well.....sue me.....I like to count baby chickens.  I've been giving a lot of thought to what my running goal should be next year.  In my head its always been to run a half marathon.  To complete that would be wonderful.  But I also know that I get bored really easily and I have to come up with a goal that keeps me entertained and excited.  So, in preparation for my half marathon next year I've decided to run the equivalent of my home in Brisbane Queensland Australia to the Sydney NSW Opera house.  This distance is 926.43 ks (thanks to google maps).  To accomplish this goal I will need to run at least 18K's a week which would give me 936K's for the year. 

Just to put this into some perspective, I've run this year 226K's.  That would take me as far as Evans Head, NSW (http://www.evansheadnsw.com.au/).  That's 6 months worth of running (on the map below that distance is shown from Point A to Point B.  Sydney is still very far away).  I will need to double that output if I want to reach my goal.  I'm excited and scared at the same time.  If you want to see an example of how far I've run......and how far I need to run please view the map provided on this blog posting.

A big thank you to JVN for giving me the inspiration for this goal.  It is very much appreciated.

I think my GPS is lying to me

The wife goes to yoga on Mondays. I pick her up afterwards.  Which means I had 2 hours to kill after work.  With a very light rain falling I went out for a long(ish) run.  This is my third day running.  I felt no pain in my legs or back.  I felt great.  Pacing myself slowly to do 7K's I just got stronger as the run went on.  That's when things got a little murky.  I don't think my pace to K ratio was being calculated correctly with  the Adidas miCoach program.  Even though I felt like I was running above my normal pace my K reading seemed slower.  I'll have to check into that to see if that is correct. 

Tomorrow I run (4 days straight) with VH and possibly AF.  Looking forward to that.  I really do enjoy running buddies......speaking of which I should setup a running date with my running buddy KW.  It's been too long.

Another positive thing today (no not the part where the homeless man showed me his penis in the parking lot of work) was that I ran 46 of the 48 minutes.  I only walked for about a minute and half.  A personal record for me. 

calories:  702

1K: 6:55
2K: 7:10
3K: 7:20
4K: 7:21
5K: 6:47
6K: 7:42
7K: 6:37

Tracks:

Everything in its right place - Radiohead
Fire - Kasabian
This is hardcore - Pulp
Close to me - The Cure
Addicted to drugs - Kaiser Chiefs
Pumped up kicks - Foster the People
Help I'm alvive - Metric
Heroes - David Bowie
Bones - The Killers
On the evening train - Johnny Cash
Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves) - The Wombats
Voodoo Lady - Ween
Waste - Foster the People

10ks.....until your wife calls.

I woke up and had a cup of coffee.  After the coffee some stretches.  I had an apple (red and delicious). I put on my boots and got on the road.  Today's goal.....10K + run.  I was hoping to get in 11 or 12Ks.  I felt good.  5 minutes into my run my phone goes off......its the wife......where are you?  I'm running I tell her.  When will you be done she asks me?  I'll be home in one hour.......No No No.....we have things to do.  So, my 10K + turned into a quick 5K run.

The upside......it was my quickest 5K's of the year.  Completed in 30:50.....the downside.....because my wife called the GPS functionality in my phone crapped out.  So it did not record the K's in any accurate way.  The only marker that I knew for sure was the the 5K mark.  Which is why I was able to record the 30:50 5K.

Calories: I don't know.....about 500 or so


Tracks:

Flippers - Art vs. Science
Sunday morning - No Doubt
Bones - The Killers
Addicted to love - The Eagles of Death Metal
20th century boy - T-Rex
In a flash - Ron Sexsmith
Barely listening - Pilate
What the water gave me - Florence and the Machine

I thought I was doing 10K's today

I had booked a tennis court at 11:30 am.  I woke up at 10:00 am.  Since it will take me an hour to run 10K's (ok ok an hour ++) I figured that by the time I have some breakfast and a coffee I wont have time to run and also make it to the court to play tennis with my wife by 11:30 am.  Since disappointing my wife slowly rots me on the inside.......I figured a 5K run would be better.

This was my best 5K run of the year.  I completed the 5K in 31:05.....which is just a little bit over my fastest 5K time.  Also, there was no kilometers in the 7 minute range.  In the past I have floated from running each  k in 6 minutes (than I get tired) to mid seven and half minutes.  My slowest K this time was the last one that I completed in 6:54 seconds.

When I got home ready to have a shower and play tennis my wife tells me she is not feeling very well and we won't be playing today.  I guess I'll have to run the 10Ks tomorrow......but she did mention she wants to go to the beach tomorrow........

calories: 496

Times:

1K: 6:14
2K: 6:12
3K: 6:01
4K: 6:39
5K 6:54

Tracks

How can you mend a broken heart - Al Green
Bizarre love triangle - New Order
Stay - Belly
Young folks - Peter, Bjorn & John
Running to stand still - U2
Sex on fire - Kings of Leon
One time too many - P.J. Harvey
Need you around - Smoking Popes

stopping people and getting them to run.

I'm leaving work yesterday.....VH is walking into work......I point at her....."Wanna go for a run tomorrow?"  She looks scared......does she want to go for a run?  "Sure.....what time?" she asks. "I'll call you tomorrow." I tell her.

So, today I text VH and tell her I'll be over in 15 minutes......15 minutes later VH and I are running on a cool Brisbane Friday night.  We mixed up our run.  Going from running 2 minutes and walking for one minute to running for one minute and walking for 2 minutes.  Over all we ran for 30 minutes and the distance was 3.58k's. Not only did we increase our distance but we had a great chat along the way.  Great job VH!  Our next running date will be next Tuesday......and we may have another person joining in.  Our dear friend AF mentioned that she also wants to train for the Bridge to Brisbane and would like to come along.  I'll keep you posted on what happens next Tuesday.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get a 10K run in.  I haven't done a long run in a few days so it will be nice to get out there and run 10K's.  After the run my beautiful wife wants us to play tennis.  I've booked a tennis court at 11:30 am.  Lots of exercise tomorrow.

I've also been thinking about my running goal for next year.  My overall goal is to complete a half marathon.....but I feel like I have to do something day by day to keep me going.  So I am thinking about a second goal.....one that I can share with you all and post my progress on this blog in a fun and informative way.  Stay with me for the next few weeks and I'll announce that soon.

P.S.

The goal I'm thinking about was inspired by a conversation I had with friend of the blog JVN.  Thanks JVN for your continued support.  It is appreciated. 

Running with VH

My friend (and friend of the blog) VH wants to run the 5K Bridge to Brisbane.  She hasn't been running a whole lot lately.  She is currently on holidays from University and she is putting her passion into more fun pursuits.....until she caught that cold.  But today....she was ready to run!

We ran along the river in the west end of Brisbane.  I had never run there before and the paths had great lighting and not to mention lot of other runners pounding the pavement.  In total we ran for 30 minutes (one minute of running one minute of walking) and clocked in 3.26k's.  Even though she was fighting off a cold VH did a great job. I look forward to next weeks run.  We are 62 days away from the Bridge to Brisbane. 

VH wanted to include her schizophrenic play list in this blog posting.  Here are the songs she listened to while running 3.26K's.

Love is a battlefield - Pat Benatar
Disarm - The Smashing Pumpkins
Antarctica inside me - Poison the Well
No air - Jordan Sparks ft. Chris Brown (class choice all the way HA!)
Brick by boring brick - Paramore
Echo - Balance and Composure
Hunting for witches - Bloc Party
Love letter to Japan - Bird and the bee


Total calories burned (for me not VH): 320

Tennis.....

I had Monday off work.  Ben (a co-worker) also had Monday off.  We teed up a tennis game.  Ben is very tall.....about 6'5 .  I realized very quickly that I wasn't going to hit many balls past him.  He can take 2 steps and cover most of the court with his long wing span.  I had to make him run.  Lots of back-spin and drop shots.....and I had to get my serves going.  Well....I kinda did all those things for one set......the set that I won.  Ben beat me 2 sets to 1.  Here is the scoring.

7 - 5
3 - 6
6 - 2

In total we played for almost 2 hours.  It was a lot of fun and I look forward to the re-match.


http://gusestennis.com.au/