MPHS Track Workout

2.5 mile w/u + strides
Target: 2400, 2000, 1600, 1200, 800 w/400 jog; start @6:00 pace and cut down
Actual: 8:55 (5:57 through mile); 7:20 (5:52); 5:43; 4:11; 2:42 = 37:20 for 6 miles
2 mile c/d
Total: 10-10.5 miles

Just before bed last night, no doubt wrapped snuggly in a tryptophan-induced haze, my dad asked Jordan and me if we'd like to accompany him to the Mt. Pleasant High School track in the morning. Pops is gearing up for a five-person relay at the White Rock Marathon next weekend and was looking to put the finishing touches on his speedwork. While I'm a tad embarrassed to admit I probably wouldn't have come up with the idea on my own, I was actually happy to acquiese. I'm finally beginning to shake the grips of my cough and cold, so I might as well try to salvage the week of running if at all possible. We said goodnight early and agreed to an 8am departure time.

In contrast to the preceding days in Texas, Friday dawned crisp and startlingly cold. Since our 70-degree rainy run yesterday, temperatures had fallen steadily toward the 30-degree mark, which is where the mercury was hovering this morning. For my purposes, the chilly air meant it wasn't sensible to attempt any short, speedy intervals; instead, Coach Jordan advised a backward ladder starting at just six-minute pace for a mile and a half. It sounded pretty doable.

From the outset, I could tell things would be okay. Not great, not groundbreaking, but fine enough given my slight chest congestion and the residual Nyquil still lingering in my system. Jordan agreed to set the pace, which meant that save for a few laps I wasn't required to do much thinking. It also meant that I wouldn't have to fight the headwind on the backstretch, as his ample girth was more than sturdy enough to block it for me. Those two factors were no doubt the strongest contributors to my comfort level during the workout today, as only on the final two intervals did I ever feel like I was laboring. I was surprised to see that the entire workout totaled just over 37 minutes, which means that even including the four easy "recovery" laps I managed to average sub-6:15 pace for six miles. Active recovery isn't something I did much of while working out at Queens, but Jordan has emphasized it in all my recent workouts. It makes things tougher, but I can definitely see the potential benefits.

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Turkey Trot Meets Great Flood

1 hour 40 mins.
12 miles

While many of my friends in Charlotte, Atlanta and Dallas were lacing up their boots for a formalized Turkey Trot, Jordan and I were meeting up with my dad in the kitchen of my parents' East Texas home to drink some coffee in preparation for our own trot of sorts. Though no such official event exists in the Piney Woods region, my dad nonetheless assembled over a dozen of his friends and fellow local runners to partake in an early morning pre-feast run. Naturally, Jordan and I were the featured celebrity guests, which no doubt accounted for the unusually high attendance.

The sky was just beginning to lighten as we set off down the country roads, naturally clumping into several different pace groups. Jordan and I planned to run a half hour or so with the group before splitting off to lengthen the route. The odds of doubling after the Thanksgiving feast were nil, which meant we needed to get in a respectable distance this morning. So, after 30 or so minutes of shuffling along with the geezers (kidding, Dad), we picked up the pace and struck out on our own. In retrospect, our decision might not have been the most prudent, but we could hardly know that at the time. The first few ominous sprinkles were just beginning to fall as we waved goodbye to our fellow trotters.

Within what seemed like seconds, that all changed. Rain began to fall; steady but pleasant at first, then gradually swelling to an almost deafening crescendo of water. To make matters worse, for the next few miles we were running directly into a headwind, which made the droplets feel like tiny shards of glass pelting our exposed skin. Every time I thought it couldn't rain any harder, it did. At one point I literally turned and ran sideways because the water was flooding my contact lenses to the point of near blindness. The ground, previously dry, became a flash flood in minutes, and at certain points Jordan and I were tromping through ankle deep puddles. To say this made for an uncomfortable middle section of the run would be putting it mildly.

And then, just as abruptly as it began, the deluge stopped. Even more incredibly, it was replaced by what I swear was two-thirds of a double rainbow. A double rainbow, people! We weren't quite as excited about it as this guy, but nonetheless it was a pretty amazing sight. Even more bizarre was the curtain of rain that seemed to dance back and forth just a few meters in front of us, pelting a few square feet at a time before moving on to new territory. We found ourselves briefly soaked again as we ran through its pocket, but were on the other side again in just a few seconds. Mercifully, the rest of the run was dry and uneventful, and my dad even had fresh donuts waiting for us upon our return. My legs weren't terribly banged up, but my body was as exhausted as if it had just endured a natural disaster. Thank goodness there was nothing on tap for the remainder of the day except eating turkey, drinking homemade pumpkin spice lattes and watching the Cowboys lose. After such a crazy morning, I don't think I could handle any more Thanksgiving excitement.

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Merry Christmas to All

AM: 68 mins.
8 miles
PM: 3 miles

I woke up bright and early on Christmas morning to go running with my dad and some of his friends. We kept a pace that was considerably slower than I'm used to--probably between 8:30 and 8:45--and it took my body a while to relax and feel comfortable instead of trying to fight it. Once I did, I actually kind of enjoyed the leisurely tempo. I'm probably guilty of running a bit too fast on many of my "easy" days, and this morning's run was really more about the company than anything else. Plus, I've got ten days of hammering with Jordan coming up, so I need all the easy days I can get.

At one point I was chatting with my dad's friend Tom (whose wife, incidentally, was my ninth grade biology teacher) and he mentioned a story I found later in today's Dallas Morning News about a local charity that helped brighten the Christmas of many of the city's homeless. Soup Mobile, a nonprofit that operates similar to a "Meals on Wheels" program, partnered with the Hyatt Regency in Dallas to put up over 400 homeless people for the night. In addition to providing each person with their own room, they were treated to gifts, clothing and a banquet and were even greeted by volunteers while walking down a red carpet. On a day that so many of us spend opening gifts at home with our families, stories like this serve as a reminder of how important it is to help those less fortunate. Feel free to visit the Soup Mobile web site if you're interested in donating to their cause.

Anyhow, I was fortunate to get in another run this afternoon after a day relaxing and eating some good food with my parents. Mom wanted us to go pick up a movie and Dad wanted to try out his sweet new Garmin 405 (shout out to Jordan and OK Runner for helping play Santa), so Dad and I volunteered to run to Blockbuster and back. I feel pretty confident that we're the only two people who have ever done so in Mt. Pleasant. This was another easy run and another chance to spend some time with my dad, which is always fun. All in all this was a wonderful Christmas and the perfect end to a relaxing visit in Mt. Pleasant.

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Riff Ram Bah Zoo!

49 mins.
Strides, Drills
7-7.5 miles


First and foremost, I must give a shout out to the TCU Horned Frogs, who pulled out an amazing fourth-quarter upset to beat the previously undefeated Boise State Broncos in last night's Poinsettia Bowl. Go Frogs!

Now on to the important stuff. I'd fully planned on going to the Mt. Pleasant High School track this morning, but it wasn't meant to be--not for lack of motivation, but moreso for the innate hectic-ness that is Christmas Eve. I'm pretty sure I just made that word up. Anyhow, since I still wanted to get in a harder effort I decided to do a progression run of sorts along the familiar country roads. I was aiming for about 7 miles and I took the pace out pretty easy, so I waited until just after 26 minutes to turn around. When I did, I was greeted by the wind, which apparently changed directions last night with the change in weather (whereas I was bundled up as heavily as possible on Monday, today I was warm in shorts in and a short sleeve top). Naturally the stiff breeze made the going a bit more difficult, so I just focused my efforts on continuing to press at a gradually increasing rate. The last mile back to my parents' neighborhood is a steady downhill and I used it to help me relax while tightening down the pace. I finished up at just under 49 minutes, which means I went out in 26:0x and came back in 22:2x. Not a bad effort. I concluded the run with some strides and a set of drills.

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Country Roads, Part Deux

AM: 73 mins.
10 miles
PM: 4 miles
30 mins. walking around the driveway

This morning was a solid ten degrees warmer than yesterday, which put temperatures in the mid-30s at go time. Unfortunately the sky was spitting a misty drizzle throughout my entire run, which kept my face and hands sufficiently chilly when I was going into the wind. Unlike yesterday, when there were quite a few cars on the road, today it was pretty much just me and the cows. The peaceful solitude is quite refreshing considering I do 90% of my runs in the city.

One thing I was consciously working on during this run was my arm motion. When I worked out with Jeff last week, he noticed that I have a lot of across-the-body arm movement, which is pretty inefficient. Easy distance runs like today's give me plenty of time to focus on keeping the arms lower and minimizing lateral movement. Meredith said she used to have this problem when she was younger, to the point where her coach made her run with a stick in each hand so she could concentrate on not allowing them to touch. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

In the afternoon, my pops and I ventured into town for lunch and a matinee. We took in the new Will Smith flick "Seven Pounds," a romance/mystery/drama that walks the line between being depressing and majorly depressing. There's a scene in the movie where Rosario Dawson's character, who has congenital heart failure and has only a few months to live without a transplant, tells Will Smith's character that there's so many things she dreams of accomplishing and doing with her life. She lists the obvious things like traveling, having a family, etc., and then says, "I would love to go running. I dream all the time about what it must feel like to just be able to go for a run." Given that I spend half my time grumbling and complaining about pounding the pavement, situations like that (be they real or dramatized) certainly put things in a different perspective. And so, when we got home, Dad and I laced up the shoes and headed out for a double. And then ate some cake. It was a pretty solid day overall.

Oh, and I spent 30 minutes walking up and down the driveway talking to Jordan on the phone. It's not mileage per se, but it has to count for something.

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Feels Like Christmas

AM: 60 mins., Drills
8-8.5 miles
PM: 4 miles

When I awoke at my parents' house in East Texas this morning I was greeted with temps in the low 20s that promised not to rise much during the day. I waited until 9am in hopes of things warming up a bit, but it was still 25 or so with overcast skies and a stiff breeze. At that point I was expecting the worst, and was actually quite surprised at how good I felt out there. My face was quite chilly during a few sections into the wind, but otherwise I enjoyed meandering around the country roads behind my parents' neighborhood for a bit. I returned home and did some drills in their driveway, which is sure to have puzzled any neighbors who may've been watching.

I was looking for some company on my afternoon run and luckily my dad was happy to oblige. By then it was a tropical 31 degrees and still breezy, but like the morning we both warmed up fairly quickly. There's been a mention of sleet tomorrow, which none of us are looking forward to, but I'm hopeful that the conditions will improve. I know it's warmer here than many other places in the country and therefore I shouldn't complain, but come on, people! This is Texas!

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Adios, Mt. Pleasant

60 mins.
8 miles

For our last jaunt in Mt. Pleasant, Jordan and I stuck to the newly-paved and low-traffic country roads we'd grown accustomed to during the trip. First we took a spin over to the park adjacent to my parents' house so we could measure the distance of the walking path for my mom with Jordan's GPS. She has been known to take in a power walk after work on occasion and wanted to be sure she wasn't giving herself more credit than she deserved on the distance. Anyway, after looping the concrete path we headed back to the roads for the remainder of the run. As Jordan said, not much else to report other than a wild animal sighting of the coyote varietal. Jordan wanted to play with the little guy but I preferred to hightail it home, and luckily we emerged unscathed.

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Black Friday

30 mins.
4 miles

After a Thanksgiving day filled with food, napping, food, football, food and an early bedtime, Jordan and I awoke before 5am on Black Friday to help fulfill a Christmas wish. You see, my mom is participating in an angel tree at work, and the 8-year-old boy whose name she drew really wanted a bicycle. We found a sweet bike advertised in the Wal-Mart newspaper insert on Thursday, naturally with the catch being that the sale only lasted from 5-11am, and Jordan took the liberty of volunteering both of us to get up before the crack of dawn and procure it ("Come on, it will be fun!").

Now, let me make something very clear: I love to shop. There is no disputing that. However, as much as I love to shop, I hate crowds and bargain-shopping in equal measure. They could've been selling gold-plated crack cocaine for $5 at Wal-Mart on Friday and it wouldn't have enticed me. Therefore, I have never in my life done the whole "Black Friday" deal or ever had any remote desire to do so. At the same time, I knew nothing would really encapsulate the whole "East Texas" experience for Jordan like meeting half of my graduating class and their families at the one and only local shopping establishment at 5am. I was pretty confident this would be a first and last experience for both of us. Anyhow, long story short, we got the bike. But I kid you not, I have never seen anything as frantic and chaotic as that Wal-Mart. We had to park almost a half mile away to get a spot. Seriously. And yes, we did see plenty of people from my high school and yes, Mt. Pleasant's finest were out and about and certainly didn't disappoint my guest.

As you can imagine, after this exhausting endeavor neither of us were too eager to run. Add to that the intermittent cold rain showers that lasted the entire day, and you've got a recipe for lethargy. We were almost going to scrap the run altogether in favor of an extended nap, until around noon when my dad came upstairs and informed us he'd just logged a few miles. Not wanting to be shown up by the geezer (kidding, Dad!) we set out for a 30-minute jaunt. We arrived home just in time for Jordan to eat all of our Thanksgiving leftovers in sandwich form and then settled in to hibernate for the rest of the rainy afternoon.

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Turkey Day

~60 mins.

8 miles

Jordan and I slept in and enjoyed a leisurely morning of coffee drinking before venturing out around 11 for this run. The running in my parents' small town is less than ideal, as there are no trails or bike paths to speak of, but fortunately they live in a nice neighborhood with a variety of country roads within easy reach. Today we set out from their house and meandered out and back on one of these aforementioned roads for a bit. The road has been repaved since my last visit, and the surface was quite nice for a change.

At the end of the run we incorporated a detour to CVS as Jordan needed to purchase some razors for his bi-annual shave. We finished up through Dellwood Park, which runs adjacent to my parents' neighborhood, before heading back home. I needed to make myself moderately presentable for the Thanksgiving meal and Jordan needed to actually get in some miles under 7:30 pace, so he headed back out for a few minutes while I went inside to hit the showers. By 1pm the feast was ready and all thoughts of health and fitness went out the window.

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