Watch me go

For all those Garmin owners out there, this will come as no surprise, but I'm loving my new watch. It arrived in the mail yesterday and I immediately put it to the test at the gym.

I ended up getting the Forerunner 50 (thanks Marriott points!), which isn't nearly as fancy shmancy as some of the other ones people recommended, but it's light and has all the functions I care about. I just want to be able to see my splits for miles, and see how far I've run without counting laps or guessing based on a route I looked up online.

Yesterday, I ran two miles on a treadmill to test the watch's data to the treadmill's numbers. When I hit one mile on the watch, I was at about 1.97 on the treadmill. So, it was pretty darn close to exact, which is good enough for me. The next test was to see if our thoughts on the track at the gym were correct.

No one has been able to tell us exactly how many laps is one mile on our local track. Apparently, that info wasn't given to the people who work there when the place was built. Since it's smaller than the track we'd run on back home in the Chicago area, we ended up guessing that 15 laps was one mile. Well, my handy-dandy Garmin informed me that 17 laps was indeed one mile.

That was bad news, considering I've been keeping a nice log of my mileage this winter. I started running primarily on the track in mid December and have guesstimated that I've done about 100 of my 250 winter miles on said track. If my math's correct, I didn't run about 12 miles that I thought I had. Ah well, from now on I'll at least know my numbers will be accurate.

The watch also came with the cool wireless USB plug-in dealy that can upload your workout data. I played around with that some on my computer last night and was pretty impressed with all the graphs and charts it spit out. I also found that what I thought was a normal pace on the track was actually a whole heckuva lot faster than I was running on the treadmill.

I ran the first mile on the treadmill in 8:01, the second in 7:10 and the third mile, on the track, in 6:50. I didn't realize I was running that much faster on the track. Now I'll know, thanks to my Garminator. That'll definitely help me keep my pace in line when I start up on the long runs again. It also logged my steps =3,846.

It doesn't take much to impress me. Everyone told me I needed this big high-tech Garmin and I think my simple one that I got for the cost of shipping is awesome. People told me I was dumb for not getting one of those video iPods when I bought my little iPod shuffle, but the shuffle has turned out to be a great little gizmo for running.

Stay tuned for more...

Give it a rest

So, I took the day off yesterday. Not just from running, but from the gym altogether. That's my first pure day off since January 6, so I think it was OK to take a break.

Kell and I enjoyed a nice Friday night out on the town, getting dinner, stopping by a book store and hauling off some bags of candy from Sugar Mountain mmmmmm. I went to bed with a belly ache and it was marvelous. It was one of those stomach aches that was solely from over-endulging, not because you ate anything bad.

But that's that. Today I'll be back at it again. The plan is to run 5 miles today and tomorrow to finish the week with another 24 miles in the books. I'm closing in on 300 miles for the winter. On Thursday night, I ran four miles in 29:30 and then took part in an activity I hadn't done since high school: volleyball.

Some time in the past two weeks, Kelly dragged me into the gym at our local rec center and tried to knock a volleyball around with me. I warned her I wasn't very good and, yeah, I wasn't very good. Kell played in high school and was a pretty good server/back-row player or defensive specialist, or whatever you call it.

So, she showed me a thing or two, and I figured since I'm leaving for six weeks soon, what harm could it do to take part in the wife's weekly volleyball game. We found out about it through friends and thought it'd be fun for Kell to play in. There's a good mix of men and women, who are a wide-range of ages and play at a small school gym outside of Toronto.

I went, fully expecting to be completely embarressingly terrible. And I was pretty bad when we first started. As the night went on, though, and I relearned some of the rules -- Kell wasn't aware that I wasn't aware of a few "basic" volleyball rules -- I improved. Apparently, you can only volley it three times on your side and there's this person called the "setter" in the front row who "sets" the ball on the second volley, if possible. Who knew?

I turned out to be much better in the front row than in the back. At first, those serving on the other side were targeting me -- at least I thought so -- but I learned to get low and bump (or, pass, as Kell says grown-ups refer to it) to the others. Pretty soon they weren't hitting it only at me.

A few people remarked at how impressed they were with how high I could jump. Ha! I said "That must be new" because my 5-foot-8 (on a good day) self has never been known for his hops. Perhaps all the running, combined with all the weight lost, has given me some new "springs," as one of the women described my newfound leaping ability. Bad news, though: I still can't dunk :(

That's my report for today. I have a whole lotta work to get done in the next few days -- much in preparation for Spring Training. So the plan today is to sit on the couch, knock out a few articles and hit the gym with Kell when she gets home from work. Stay tuned for more...

Going swimmingly

I took a detour from simply running this week and added a new element to the workout: swimming. Now, I can't stand swimming -- basically, because the Good Lord didn't bestow me with the gift of being able to swim well. Instead, he included a slight fear of water in my DNA coding.

BUT, my lovely wife enjoys swimming, so occasionally -- by that, I mean maybe a couple times a year -- I'll give in and hit the pool. We went swimming at our rec center on Saturday and did laps for half an hour. Kelly kicked my butt and I spent some of time just mimicking running in the water, which is actually a good workout in its own right.

When I wasn't swimming laps, riding the bike (I did 11 miles on a bike on a running off-day on Thursday), or hitting the weight room (done three times this week), I stuck to my normal running routine. This past week I logged 22 miles, giving me 50 in the past two weeks, marking the highest mileage for me over a 14-day span this winter.

Yesterday, Sunday, I hit up the treadmill so I could keep an eye on the Packers-Giants NFC championship game last night. I ran six miles at no less than 8 minutes per mile. On my last mile, though, I kicked it up a few gears and ran the final mile in six minutes, 50 seconds. I can run a mile under six no problem, but to do so late in a run felt good.

I felt like I could've kept running, but I decided six was enough for last night. I'll probably shoot for between 20-25 miles again this week. Obviously, I wrote recently that 30 miles per week was a goal of mine, but I've backed off somewhat since hurting my leg. It's felt fine, but no need to get crazy and risk injury.

I'm really looking forward to Spring Training this year. I leave for Florida on Feb. 13 and am excited about finally being able to consistently run outdoors again. I could brave the cold here in Toronto, but the temperatures have been freeeeeeezing. It'll be nice to run in sunny Florida, and now Kelly is going to be able to join me down there for a week in March, which is a bonus.

That's all for now. More to come with the more I run...

Coming up...

And there it is. Right there on the Chicago Marathon's Web site. The registration for the 2008 Chi-Town run opens on February 1 and the race will be held on October 12. So that's that. My countdown to raceday is just around the corner.

As for the other issue this week, my leg is feeling a lot better. I iced it the day it happened, didn't run on Sunday and went to the gym on Monday without planning to run. I started with a light leg workout to test the strength and tolerance and I had no problems or pain.

So, I did a light jog around the track and had no issues, increased my pace some and still nothing, sped up until I was almost at my usual clip and still no problemo. So, I ended up getting a nice unexpected three miles in yesterday. I have work stuff going on early evening tonight, but I'll be back at the gym later to see how I feel again.

I didn't strain anything too bad, so I don't anticipate this being an ongoing problem. For the sisters and wife out there who know my personality, don't worry, I won't overdo it. If I feel any hint of anything, I'll back off some. I'm just glad this didn't turn out to be a long-term issue.

Man down!

I've suffered my first injury of the offseason. Yesterday at the gym, while running lap No. 44 around the track, I felt a sudden surge of pain in my right leg. I pulled up and hobbled around the final bend in time to finish up exactly three miles. Too bad I was shooting for five.

At first, I thought it was my hamstring, and it very well could be. But upon further poking and prodding, the main source of the pain is on the inside of my upper calf muscle. The tendon behind the left side of my knee is a little sore, but it's the calf muscle that's feeling worse. I tried resuming with a light jog after a short rest, but it was no use.

Heading out to dinner last night, it was sore while walking even and we took some stairs outside along our walk and I had to stop at one point because the pain shot up again. I iced my leg last night and it felt a little better today. It was sore while walking Barkley this morning, so running is out of the question for now.

I'm pretty frustrated about the injury, but had I not pulled up I might've blown a calf or hammy, so I guess that's the silver lining. I came two miles short of my weekly mileage goal, which I was bummed about. I did two easy miles on the bike before leaving the gym last night to make myself feel better about it.

I still made it to the gym today, but I stayed away from running. I lifted for an hour and did three miles on the bike. I planned on doing 10 at an easy pace, but after three miles my leg was singing. I did a very slow jog around the track -- more like shuffling my feet -- and could still feel the soreness. Looks like my normal Monday routine is about to be thrown out the window.

I guess it's possible (sarcasm) that I overexerted myself this week (28 miles) after logging exactly zero the week before. I also went from a gradual increase throughout the week to a five-mile mininum on my runs. Perhaps my body just finally said, "What the heck are you doing to me?!" I'm not going to let this minor strain slow me down too much, though.

I can still hit the gym and lift, do some light leg work or ride the bike. Maybe on Tuesday I'll try to do a light jog again on the treadmill, which is easier than running on the track. I'm not sure what caused the injury, though I read dehydration can lead to calf strains. I've got to suck it up and stop for water breaks more often. I have a bad habit of not wanting to stop once I get going.

That's all for today. I'm just happy that, for once, the issue wasn't with one of my ankles, which have been troublesome through the years. Stay tuned for more...

High Five

This week I've taken a slightly new approach, running every day and logging five miles each time. So, today is Friday and I'm up to 20 miles this week with another fiver coming tonight when Kell gets home from work. I've been running on the track at the gym, which I haven't minded so much.

The only nuissance is having to count the laps -- 75 is five miles. If I lose count, though, I just go with the lower of the two numbers I'm debating to make sure I cover the distance. My plan right now is to log at least 30 miles a week until I head to Florida for Spring Training. Once there, back in some lovely weather, I can take to running outside again more often.

My running over the holidays back home in Chicago went OK. I didn't do as well as I planned, but I didn't abandon the routine altogether. My first week down there was fine. I finished up a 30-mile week with a 4-miler outside and a 3-mile easy run at a local rec center. The following week, I opened with a 7 mile run on a route I used to run with the cross country team back in high school and I did another 4-mile run outside through town. After that, well, I took to knocking off the must-eat restaurants off my to-do list.

So I had about a week off and had put 4-5 pounds back on by the time I headed back to Toronto (in our new car! We bought a 2008 red VW Jetta while back home). For me, though, 4-5 pounds is easy to knock off and I'm already back to where I was after 20 miles logged this week and a return to more normal eating habits. I just couldn't NOT eat Chicago pizza, go to my favorite Thai place or get some really good Mexican food. I'm only human.

Today, i will eclipse the 200-mile mark for running since I came home this winter. I'm at 196 miles in the 78 days I've been home -- good for 2.51 miles per day. If I succeed at running 30 miles/wk until I depart for Tampa, my winter average will be almost exactly 3 miles per day since I started this offseason program. So, that's something to shoot for.

I wasn't able to shell out a bunch of money for the fancy shmancy Garmin watch I wanted for Christmas, but I did find something that will work. I had about 270,000 Marriott points stored up and I found the Garmin Forerunner 50 available for 65,000 points or something. It comes with the heartrate monitor and foot pod -- the latter of which I'll use more. So I ordered it -- thanks MLB.com! -- and should have it soon.

The watch can track my distance and time and that's pretty much all I'm concerned with. It'll be nice to just hit the road running without wonering how far I've gone, though the google maps pedometer is a big help. Anyways, that's my update for today. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years.

And why can't people come up with better resolutions than to get in shape? It's really making my gym too crowded these days. I'll be happy when the weaklings return to their couches.