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Saturday, July 27, 2002

well alrighty then - i ran 10 miles today! and yes, this is, indeed, the farthest i've ever locomoted under my own power, so i'm feeling pretty smug right now. remember, this is me we're talking about - formerly, the embodied definition of sedentary lifestyle.

i'm getting better at ignoring the inevitable bad mental mojo that can appear on longer runs. as is typical for this time of year in grand rapids , humidity was hovering around 100 percent, sans rain, which made things less than comfortable. adding insult to injury, the sun came out when we started to run and raised the temperature to a horrid 87 degrees. luckily, kris and i stashed reserves of gatorade along the route. unluckily, someone stole the stash at riverside park . ack! often - pleasant, calming scenery can compensate for slow, steady dehydration, but for this particular run kris and i decided to try out the bridge run , which ended up taking us through dreary, light-industrial districts of the city. making the bad mental mojo that much more difficult to counter, i had to stop and stretch every mile or two because my calf muscles decided to go into slow motion charlie horses. and then there's the fact that i had my first encounter with the dreaded nipple chafing . ugh.

but despite all that, i persisted, one foot in front of the other, for 10 miles and accomplished something that seemed incomprehensible only two-and-a-half months ago.

4:46 PM

Friday, July 26, 2002

wired magazine has a techno-geeky article on nike's attempts to use technology to improve the us marathon team's performance:

"Inside a Soviet-style training camp, corporate scientists are reengineering neuro-mechanics, blood chemistry, and brain waves. Welcome to the Oregon Project, where Nike is rebuilding the US marathon team one high tech step at a time."
3:48 PM

Thursday, July 25, 2002

3 more miles at the chicago lakefront running path again. not a terrible run, but certainly not my greatest. i seem to be doing a good job of trying to create unecessary mental and physical hurdles for myself. case in point - for a variety of reasons, i've been running really late, which i don't like at all. and today the sum total of my food intake was a piece of cold pizza, a garden burger and a power bar. not exactly the type of fuel you need to keep your engine running smoothly. no, in fact i managed to turn my quadraceps into Great Masses of Heavy Concrete.

nonetheless, i'm happy to report that i made it through the run and am getting geared up for a 10 mile jaunt on saturday.

9:14 PM

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

i got in five miles tonight on the chicago lakefront running path .

the run was a little difficult for the last mile or so. not really painful, just difficult as the calf muscle on my left leg started to ever so slowly clamp down. lots of stretching calf and hamstring stretching seems to be helping things a bit, but i think i need to expand my repertoire of stretches because i'm obviously could do a bit better.

9:50 PM

Tuesday, July 23, 2002



oh yeah, me and and the soleus muscle stretch are getting along real fine these days as i look for new and inventive ways to reduce the snaredrumedness of my calf muscles which are contributing in a big way to my shin splints.

i've said it before and i'll say it again. stretching is a Good Thing.

dig that crazy graphic.

9:09 PM

Monday, July 22, 2002

i'm back from The Great Northeast. i didn't get a chance to document my running as i had hoped, but kris and i did have several great runs - most notably a 7 miler at the scenic roque bluffs state park , which is just a few miles from my grandmother's house. between the cool breeze, and the smells of the sea salt and pine in the air, it's diffficult to imagine a better run. the scenery enhanced what was a painless, smooth and extremely pleasant run. after i finished, i really felt like i could have run a few more miles.

unfortunately, after several hill-laden runs, both kris and i seem to have developed quiet a good case of shin splints . to no avail, i tried to stave off some of the pain from an eight mile run on sunday, by running on a track with a shock absorbant overlay. i'm happy to report that running eight miles on a quarter mile track is really, really, really mind-numbingly boring. trust me on this. especially when it's 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity. oye!

despite the boredom, i'll probably continue to run this week on a track to help reduce the chance of injury. i'll also start doing a few of these exercises and see if they help the situation:

"A good exercise for the anterior tibialis was described in Owen Anderson's "Running Research News" a couple of years ago. Simply stand against a wall and extend your feet out at about a 20 degree angle (more or less). Dorsiflex both feet rapidly (move your feet up while your heel remains on the floor) about 12 times. Imagine that the floor is an eggshell that you're trying not to break--you'll get the right speed for the exercise. Then do one foot at a time by bending the leg you aren't working at the knee and resting your foot against the wall. Work up to 3 x 15 with both feet and then one foot at a time."

hopefully the shin splints won't get in the way of my running this week. i'll be busting through two milestones. this is the first time that i'll be running over 20 miles in one week and on saturday i'll be running 10 miles, which i've heard can be a bit of a psychological barrier.

6:23 PM

Thursday, July 11, 2002

3 mile run today. sunny and cool at around 60 degrees this morning. around a 10 minute 10 second mile pace for 6 miles feels pretty darn o.k. at this point. i can still hold a conversation at that pace, but probably wouldn't want tto get into a deep philosophical dissertation on the epistemics of cognition. whatever that means.

lesson for today? never leave home without your bodyglide. because, even if it's cool, you'll still chaf, in the most uncomfortable places.

8:16 PM

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

yes, i'm still running. i'm just not doing such a great job of documenting it, which is a shame, since my runs have been going very well. in particular, the three and four mile runs have been getting smoother and smoother. on monday, i nearly broke the 10 minute mile pace without breaking a sweat. o.k., maybe i broke a little sweat.

at this point, i think i need to be careful and not push things to much and increase the odds of injuring myself. i also don't think it's such a great idea to start focusing on running times, since my only objective should be to finish the marathon. according to the bible, measuring time is a Bad Thing, but i think i have a good perspective and set reasonable goals, so we'll see how it goes.

as our weekly mileage starts to increase, i need to do a better job of keeing a journal of how the runs went. i wasn't originally planning on using this space as a personal, daily journal, but i'm close to changing my mind. at the very least it'll keep the content a little fresher and it'll force me to spend a little more time documenting how things are progessing. originally, i was hoping the other accidental marathonists would write about their experiences, but it looks like they're all a little shy about writing their trials and tribulations for all the world to mock.

7:32 PM

just in time for summer - look snazzy and support the site at the same time by buying some snowdeal schwag!



"I think you devise your own limits for your own personal convenience. There are some people who wish to have limits, and they'll invent as many boxes for themselves as they want. It's like, you know, men invented armor. They wanted to protect themselves from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and so forth. And people do the same thing psychically and psychologically. They build their own armor. They build their own rathole, whatever it is. And they choose their existence. Whether they do it consciously or whether it is helped along by a government or an education system, somebody is helping to shape this imaginary box you live in, but it doesn't have to be there."

--frank zappa





runner's world / joe henderson / chicago marathon /


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