The Winter Olympics

I love the Winter Olympics. Love it. I watch almost everything. I watch the hockey, I watch the alpine skiing events, I watch the sliding events, I watch the cross country skiing and the biathlon - it’s skiing AND shooting! I watch the speed skating (note to Sven Kramer: “What are you stupid?”). I even watch some of the curling. “The USA has a curling team? Awesome, TiVo it I’ll watch it while I’m running on the treadmill!” (Side note: Why is men’s and women’s curling segregated? Can women curlers not hold their own with the men? Keep it segregated I say, all the more curling events for me to watch). I watch the snowboard cross and the ski cross, I watch the aerials, the moguls, the ski jumping, and the halfpipe. It’s all very good. I do draw the line at the ice dancing though. When the ice dancing comes on that’s when I catch up on the other shows I’ve been neglecting in order to watch the Olympics.

The other night I was watching... I don’t even remember what event I was watching but I had a thought. You know what the Winter Olympics needs? A marathon. The marathon is the pinnacle of the Summer Olympics, you can argue that the 100m is watched by more people or that the swimming gets more coverage, but none of the other events have their medal ceremony incorporated into the closing ceremony. Only the marathon winners get to receive their medals during the closing ceremony of the Olympics. It’s like a tip o’ the hat to the marathon as the original Olympic event, so why not have a Winter Olympic Marathon too?

Now the Winter Olympics likes to have a bit of an X Games feel to it and we’d have to make some changes to the Winter Olympics Marathon course to keep with that theme. The race would be held in and around the host city so it would be a cold weather marathon. Perhaps the race would actually be an ultra marathon, what’s more X-treme than that? The course could traverse deep snow fields and treacherous frozen lakes, maybe it would even have transition areas so the runners could change into snow shoes or spiked shoes for the different sections. The runners could run up one side of a mountain and down the other side, it would make Heartbreak Hill look like a pimple. I think it would be a great event, but unfortunately we will have to wait for the next Winter Olympics to incorporate this idea because the Canadians would have tried to make the down hill portion of the race faster and more dangerous, eh.

30 Days, 30 Runs, 30 New Curse Words Learned

You know how sometimes people decide to do something (e.g. running) every day for a set period of time (e.g. 30 days) and then when that period of time comes to an end they decide they’re just going to keep doing the thing they were doing every day anyway because they wouldn't know what to do if they stopped, or they feel like they’re on such a roll that they just can’t stop? You know how that sometimes happens? Yeah, me neither. What the hell is wrong with those people? My 30 day running streak is over and I’m taking some days off. That’s right, days - plural!

The streak will officially be over at midnight tonight. I knew from the start that I would not be enticed by the thought of continuing the streak, just as I knew before my marathon that I wasn’t going to get bitten by the marathon bug and sign up for another one. I accomplished my goal of running at least a mile for 30 straight days and I learned a very important lesson: I need my rest days. My joints hurt, my muscles are stiff in all the wrong places and my pace has deteriorated faster than everyone’s respect for Governor Sanford. Running every day in the month of June has pushed me to the brink of burnout, I know this because usually when I see runners during my morning commute I wish that I could be out running with them. This morning I saw a couple of runners and thought “ha ha suckers! I don’t have to run today, it’s July!” So yeah, I’m taking a couple of days off and then I’m getting back into it. I’ve got 6 weeks before the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon so it shouldn’t take long for motivation to kick in.

Here are numbers for June:
Total Miles: 105 - New monthly PR!
# of Runs: 30 - (Duh!)
Average Pace: 9:36
# of 1 mile runs: 11 (Way more than I wanted.)
# of innocent bystanders I innocently screamed at during runs: 2
# of different shoes used for running in June: 4
Chance of me doing this ever again: 0%

Site News
I’m taking a little Blog Sabbatical this week (present post excluded) because I’ve never really taken any time away from this blog and because I deserve it. I’ll be back again on Monday, unless I decide to make it a 2 week sabbatical in which case I’ll see you all the following Monday. I hope you all have a fun and safe 4th of July, and I’ll catch you all on the flip side.

Run Every Day?

I had this crazy idea on the way in to work today that maybe I should run every day for a month. Then in the spirit of crazy ideas I decided to write up a quick post about it and put it out there for everyone to read before I really thought it through. So here it is; I’m thinking about committing to running every day for the month of June. What do you think? Good idea? Stupid idea? Stupid idea but go ahead and do it anyway?

I know that several of you fellow bloggers out there have done this in the past and I thought it would be a good opportunity mix things up a little. Now June isn’t really the best month for me to be trying this (that would’ve been February- only 28 days!) because in the month of June there seem to be a lot of things that could get in the way of me running; our anniversary, a huge family reunion, Father’s day, apathy, and hotter weather just to name a few. But, that’s part of what makes it a challenge. If it were easy, then everyone would do it.

So what say ye? Should I attempt to run every day in June? And before you answer in the affirmative you should ask yourself if you’re prepared to read a whole slew of posts next month that feature me pissing and moaning about how hard it was to find the time to run and how stupid an idea this was, as I suspect it probably is. This isn’t just a commitment on my part, you’ll be committing to putting up with me as I go through with this or you’ll have to deal with me sulking around like Jay Cutler in the event that I fail. Are you ready for that? If so, what should the rules be? How long does a run need to be to qualify? How should I reward myself if I’m successful? I eagerly await your noble suggestions.

In the meantime I’m going to be perfecting some of the Parkour or Free Running moves in the video below. People who know what they’re talking about make a distinction between Parkour and Free Running, which is why I use them interchangeably.


[h/t With Leather]

What Have I Done?

I mentioned in the previous post that I did something stupid this weekend. Those of you who are hoping for a story about how I embarrassed or injured myself are going to be disappointed, although my act of stupidity certainly has the future potential for both. So what did I do? I registered myself for the PF Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon. The marathon, which takes place the morning of January 18th in Phoenix, will be my first (and probably last) attempt at this distance.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to running the PF Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon lately and finally decided this past weekend to Nike-Up and just do it. Everything has been pointing me in this direction for a while now. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to run a marathon until I could realistically hope to finish in under 4 hours, and according to McMillan my new 5K PR of 22:48 translates to a marathon time of 3:58:31. McMillan’s estimation of my marathon time has been hovering around the 4 hour mark with my recent results but this was the first time I’d seen it at sub 4. In addition to that I received a $10 off coupon at the Georgetown Half and then noticed an ad for the PF Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon over there on in the right sidebar so I was pretty much obligated to sign up.

So, why the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in Arizona?

• Are you not paying attention? $10 off!
• It’s a flat course.
• It’s at an elevation that’s roughly 4,000 feet lower than where I train.
• It’s in January, which means all my long training runs can take place in the cooler, winter months. I’ve struggled with some of my long runs in the heat this past summer and I’m not dedicated enough to get up early on the weekends and start running prior to 10:30 am.
• The marathon takes place on my Father-In-Law’s birthday providing me with the ultimate excuse to miss his party. (Actually, he’s going to be in Scottsdale for the Barrett-Jackson Car Auction which means I might even be able to convince him to watch my kids while I run, and maybe buy them their first car.)
• I’ve been saving myself for the right marathon, and this is it.
• Finally, $10 off! You just can’t pass up a deal that good.

As most of you probably know I’ve been a big fan of the FIRST plan for some time now and I’m planning on using it again to train for this marathon in January. The FIRST people actually offer two different training plans for marathon runners; one that is for marathon virgins like myself, and one that is for people looking to improve their marathon time. Obviously the first timer’s training plan is the one I qualify for and it is probably the gentler of the two, but it only has me doing one 20 mile long run, while the other plan has five 20 milers over a 16 week span. So my question is this: Is it enough to only run one 20 miler before the race? Shouldn’t I be doing more? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

By the way, you should prepare yourselves for lots of questions like this over the next few months, and probably for lots of whining and complaining too. Right now, I’m brimming with confidence and enthusiasm about this marathon, but I’m sure it will soon give way to pessimism, self-doubt, and a defeatist attitude. For example, the day after I signed up for the marathon I went out for a 10 mile run and logged the worst pace that I’ve seen all year. Oh crap! What have I done?