Tag: St. Petersburg

12/11/22

Another photo of the Atlantic Ocean from an Airbnb, but this time at an angle. What you can’t see is all of the storm damage. We weren’t able to use the pool (because it crumbled into the ocean). And we weren’t able to access the beach, either (Myke informed me; I was in no condition to walk). Not that we were going to. But this photo was taken after the race.

I don’t wanna go into too much detail, but I did create this website just for this type of thing, so forgive me if I indulge myself in telling some details. Not like any more than twenty five people are reading this anyway (you’re all important). As of now, I have no good race photos of myself. There were a few race day photos on the race’s Facebook page that I was in, but definitely not the subject of. So, Atlantic Ocean photo it is. Am I backtracking?

Morning of the race, I woke up at three am and first thing, made the Maurten 320 drink, while simultaneously… too many details.

I watched the weather forecast for the week prior to the race and saw that I’d probably have to slow down and take it easy from around ten-thirty am to about five pm, reason being is the feels like was supposed to be eighty degrees in that stretch of time. So, I did what I had been doing for six months of training, and I attempted to adapt to the conditions (actual beginning of race events begin with the next sentence). I went out at my normal eleven to twelve minute pace, and stayed smooth through mile sixteen, where I met my crew for the first time, for real. The for fake first time was at mile 7. That was a warm-up lap. I saw them again at the marathon mark (got there in about 5:15), and I’d been holding pretty steady at the twelve-fifteen to twelve-thirty range before then. It was warm at that point. We were past all the huge mansions, and onto the nature preserve I think (my only focus was running, who knows what I saw). From mile 26 (okay I’ll start using the numbers) to mile 36, I was still mostly in the 12s, but those miles were close being low 13s. For this entire time so far, I felt pretty good. No low points. My hip flexors gave me trouble all day and night, but that was something I was able to deal with, and almost shrug off. Like, it hurt, but not enough to get in the way at all. And my right big toe was a problem the whole day. Actually, it’s more of a problem now. But so go my toes. It’s not a surprise. Working up to the 50 mile mark, I was steady in the low 13s besides meeting the crew once more. I hit the 50 mile mark close to 11 hours, which scared the shit out of me, because it meant I had a lot of work to do. I was uneasy going slow and holding back in the heat of the day, but I was about to see if the strategy worked because the sun was going down.

I feel like the second 50 was a different race for me. The idea that I would quit never really entered my mind, but the thought that I would be over 24 hours again was front and center, like demanding all of my attention. From mile 51 to mile 75, I kept it under 15 minute miles (besides miles where I met my crew), and most of those miles were well under 15 minute per. Myke started pacing me somewhere in there, starting around 7:30 pm, and went 13 miles with me. He got me through what was probably my lowest point in the race. I couldn’t go very fast when I could go, and I couldn’t go very often. But we were talking and just having fun. The easiest way to sum up my race, at a definitely awkward point in the narrative, is to say that I never walked a full mile. Anyway, I was hurting tremendously during the later miles, specifically when I would start to run after walking. From mile 75 to 85, I was super solid in the twelves and low thirteens. I could not believe I was able to get my legs to “run” (think more hobble) at this late stage in the race. These miles are the ones that saved my race goal. From mile 85 to mile 100, the splits are sporadic with no mile under 13 minute pace. Myke paced me again from mile 92 to the end, and we had to work to get to the finish line in time, but we enjoyed it (I was tired as f*&@) when we could tell it was not only in reach, but was going to happen. At around the 97 mile mark, Taynisha texted Myke that if we kept our pace where it was, we would finish in the top 30. So that was something to kind of fight for. It felt like I started moving pretty fast, but we were doing 15 minute miles. And of course, I did the obligatory sprint finish, which is really 100 meters of 10 minute pace, and kind of embarrassing when you think about how everyone knows you weren’t running that way for very long. Otherwise, you would have been at the finish line way sooner. But still, you do it.

My goal was to finish under 24 hours. I did it in 23:37. I’m rounding up a few tenths of a second. Honestly, it’s not too close for my comfort. I’m fine with it. I said before the race, anything under 24, even if it’s 23:59.59, would be okay. And it is. I’m good. I finished in the dark.

There is no way I could possibly have done this without you, Taynisha and Myke. I know it was hard for all of us but I love the time we spent together and I will always remember it. I won’t ask either of you (Myke, you volunteered) to do this again (I’m saying this now) for a long time. Thank you both.

Bye for now. (Maybe there are some typos. I’ll fix them later.)

11/24/22

It’s almost that time. Hay is in the barn. (I’ve been waiting to say that.) I started training in June for this race and it is about to be time to go.

The photo above is from Crescent Lake a few weeks ago. Most of my miles training for this race have been run, or shuffled, or jogged, yogged, logged, whatever, covered, at Crescent Lake Park and on the Pinellas Trail. I am so sick of running at these places, but their convenience, which is mostly proximity, has won time after time over any other routes, or god forbid, driving somewhere to run. Training has been a massive time sink, so the locale didn’t matter at all, just the miles. For example, November 14th was a Monday, and I had 20 miles that day. I also had to work, so I didn’t get started running until about 7, which is nuts. My race pace is 12 minutes a mile, so 20 miles takes four hours. I went a little faster than race pace at the end and got in the door a few minutes before 11. I was eating hot food right around midnight. This is no kind of life.

Today was my last speed workout before the race. 8 miles, 5.5 of those at basically 9 minute pace and the last 2.5 progressively faster to the point of just, death I guess. I wanted to be going very hard at the end, in other words, on tired legs, not just from this run in particular, but from the 6 months of assault on my legs (and psyche), seeing as this run was the last chance I had to get my legs moving at a faster-than-race pace. In normal times, this workout would be much faster (Strava excuse), but I’m extremely pleased with how my legs responded in their current state. (If I had written more during this training period, I would have said similar things about 75 percent of my speed workouts. My legs have been solid.) The last time I trained for this race, I was so busy with work I wasn’t able to do anywhere near all of the workouts, so I had to prioritize the long runs. This time though, I’ve done every single workout (I missed two miles of an 8 mile run in the second week of training). I feel ready. It’s still 100 miles, though.

My next post will be from the other side. Hopefully the sub-24 hour side.

10/16/22

I still do this, yes. I know.

I’m in week seventeen of a twenty four week training plan that’s supposed to get me ready to run one hundred miles on December third. I spelled out all the numbers. I ran twenty two miles today and I have twenty more tomorrow. The week following this one we’re in is a down week, and then I run fifty miles the day before Halloween. After that, it’s a gradual taper, with one up week in there before the race in the beginning of December.

Now, about how I feel. I feel good for being in week seventeen of a twenty four week torture plan. It’s not torture, I love it. It’s not something I could do more than once every other year though, I don’t think. Who knows if my body would even let me do it that often. Anyway, when I say I feel good, it means that I haven’t missed any workouts, speedwork included; I haven’t called in sick because wah wah I’m too tired; I haven’t become a menace to my friends and family that I’m aware of; and most of the time, I actually physically feel pretty good. Legs hurt though.

I’m going into the fifty miler with some good momentum. My goal is to run as many hours as I can at 5 miles an hour. Faster is okay and will probably happen early, but the times tend to flatten out after a few hours, when I get into a rhythm. Lately, like the last two weeks, I’ve been doing my long runs at even splits, or negative. That is something I’ve never been able to do in training for an ultra. I’m excited to get the fifty done, then basically just wait til the race.

Very special people are helping me to get this done. Thank you.

2/21/22

It’s always been too long these days. Not because anything unfortunate has happened. Just because I do more nowadays. When I started this blog, I didn’t have a job and I was training pretty hard, and that’s the energy that I tried to bring here, just enthusiasm for writing and running. Not like those things have faded away. In fact, I have quite a bit of enthusiasm and excitement about writing what I’m writing now, or at least the fact that I’m writing anything at all, is what I’m enthused and excited about. La la la.

So anyway, I’m probably going to have to go and edit the “about me” page that no one has ever viewed, with perfectly good reason. I haven’t decided yet, but the fact that I’m mulling it over and have already discussed the logistics with the people who would be involved means that I will most likely decide in favor of doing it. “It” is the Daytona 100. The same 100 miler I did in December 2018 and finished 49 minutes past 24 hours. I just want to finish a 100 mile race in less than 24 hours and I will be done with that distance. I don’t care if it takes me 23 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Just finish under a day and I will be happy.

Now, having trained for a 50 miler last year, I know the challenge, or at least half of the challenge facing me. The last time I trained for a 100, I had the same job, but I was going in at 9:30 and working til 6. Plus, my legs only had a few months of carrying mail on them. Now they have over three years on them, and trust me, they don’t feel like my 2018 legs. The upside of that is that my legs are tough and can endure a lot of distance and strain. So that helps. But I still have one of the same problems I had back then; I rarely ever have Saturday and Sunday off, to do my back to back long runs. My plan is just to do one of the long runs on Sunday and the other I’ll do on my day off, whatever that is. And when I do have a long weekend, it’ll just be business as usual. Of course though, the heat. I don’t really think there’s any new ground I can cover talking about heat and running and the combination of the two, in Florida, and how horrible it can be. I’ve made it clear how I feel about it. And maybe I shouldn’t complain anymore because I’m making a choice to continue the behavior…

So I’m not sure if I’m waiting for some kind of sign to tell me it’s a go, or what. I’m just not 100 percent sure I want to commit to it yet. What will probably happen is, I will keep pretending that I’m mulling it over instead of admitting that I’ve already admitted to myself that I’m going to do it. I’ve told the people that I’ve told, “I’m not getting any younger.” This use of this phrase, in this context, is the most practical use of this phrase I have ever come across.

I have been enjoying running very much lately. The weather is beginning to turn hot again, in the afternoons. It’s the kind of weather where the sunlight feels so good on your skin, because most days there’s a cool breeze, and the contrast of the two is pleasing. Today I ran 10 miles at 9 minute pace and enjoyed almost every minute of it (I need a new shoe rotation). It’s likely that I will continue this kind of blissful relationship with running, until the summer when I begin to train. Then it will be a love/hate relationship. Right now it’s all love.

I will write again when there is some news that seems big enough to share, or maybe just because I feel like it, but most likely the former.

8/31/21

Well, it’s been a while. I would say that I haven’t had the time to write, but that would be a lie. The truth is, I haven’t had the will, or the want. While that is mildly sad to me, it kind of is what it is. Losing my motivation to write on a daily basis is understandable under the circumstances; I’m working around 45-55 hours a week and running about the same total in miles, all in the hot ass sun. Some days I don’t even want to run, and that’s understandable as well. It’s not always easy and fun.

Mostly, training has been decent. At the time of my last post, I was just beginning the schedule. Since then, there have been some ups and downs but for the most part it has been smooth sailing. Two weeks ago, however, I took a week off. I was experiencing so much fatigue at work and during runs that it started to affect my mental well-being. I wasn’t able to communicate effectively with co-workers and customers. My relationships felt burdensome. I probably should have taken the break earlier, but it took me some time to accurately locate the problem. I kept telling myself, “You’re training, of course you’re tired,” but at a certain point I knew something was wrong. I was feeling anxious at work and even around people whose company I enjoy. So that’s when I decided. I’m so glad that I made that decision. My energy levels went back to somewhat-normal and my head cleared, kind of putting me back where I needed to be. It might be that I lost a little fitness, but that’s far less important than maintaining my mental stability.

All that is not to say that training has become easier since the break. Just when I thought the heat had reached its peak, the humidity cranked up as it always does in August. I had to rethink my routes for long runs. On the first 24-miler, I tried breaking up the miles into two 12-mile loops with a break halfway at my apartment to refuel. That worked pretty well, but the last 3-4 miles turned into a death march. So the next 24-miler, I broke it up into four 6-mile loops. This strategy was much more effective. With the additional stops, the average pace of the two runs was similar, but I was able to finish the run… running, not walking. Also, the rest of the day I felt okay, not like a zombie. This Sunday is the 30-miler, so I’ll do five 6 mile loops. Luckily, the next day is Labor Day, so I don’t have to work. The training schedule calls for active recovery but no run. My goal is to complete the 30 miles on Sunday and still do 5 miles on Monday, but if I feel terrible then I’ll take the rest day as scheduled.

I am going to try to post again before the race, at least once. I mean, come on, I can do that. And then I’ll post again after the race to review and summarize.

Hopefully, New Orleans and all the affected areas bounce back quickly from this hurricane. From what I’ve read, it seems like getting electricity back up and running will be the biggest challenge. I really want to be able to run the race, but at this point it’s not very important in the scheme of things.

4/18/21

This photo is objectively bad, but it is not intended to show this bumper sticker in any artistic way. It’s only intended to show the content of the bumper sticker. I had never seen/read this particular saying and I found it to be true, or at least to be a statement that I wish to be true. Mostly referring to bathroom activities that unfortunately occur outside of bathrooms, “What happens on the long run, stays on the long run.”

At this point, I didn’t do a long run today. I just did my every Sunday 2 hour run. 13 miles @ 9:35 pace. It didn’t feel long in time or in distance. I had a little pain in my left foot, around the ball of my big toe, about miles 7-9. Nothing too bad. It went away. I had a little pain in my right foot, around the same area, about miles 9-11. That went away too. Then I had some, I don’t want to say pain, more like irritation, in my left calf from mile 11 to the end. I think that was due to me not tying my left shoe tight enough. My heel was lifting slightly and I was too stubborn to stop and fix it. Pretty stupid. Not like I was on some kind of record-setting pace.

I had a very easy time mentally blocking out those pains I had today. I guess now I can tell the difference between pain that is serious, and pain that is fleeting. Now, sitting on the couch, I don’t feel any of those pains. I also think my mind is in a good state right now. I’m distancing myself from the negativity that was creeping into my thoughts and kind of plaguing me a few days out of the week. Just waking up in the morning and thinking about all the things that can go to plan instead of thinking about everything that can go wrong makes a big difference on my outlook. Not stressing about a bedtime that’s set in stone is helping as well. I would really like to get 8 hours of sleep but it’s not realistic. 7 hours, maybe. 6.5 is doable every night and I feel ok in the morning and throughout the rest of the day. I catch up on my days off and go about my business. Worrying about it multiplies whatever tiredness I may feel. So cheeseball but just thinking positive thoughts is important, apparently.

But I can’t stay positive without a few positive occurrences… occurring. I met someone and today we are going for a walk. Hopefully a long one. All kinds of excited, and a little nervous.

3/28/21

Finally a day off. And a pretty good one. I set out this morning around 10 on my run. The goal was just to do 2 hours at a relaxed pace. I set the goal this way because of the heat. It’s getting hotter now, gradually, and I knew that it would be a factor. I’m not used to running in the heat of the day because I run after work when it’s slightly cooler and the sun is closer to the horizon instead of beating down from directly overhead. Turned out to be just slightly harder than I thought it would be. I ended up going 12.7 at 9:30 pace, roughly. I took the trail going away from downtown and then took a left at the Skyway Trail junction. I couldn’t figure out how far the water fountain at Gulfport was but I knew the one at Clam Bayou would be about 6 or 7 miles from my start point and that’s about the distance I needed to go before turning around. Now thinking about it, I think both water fountains are about the same distance from my starting point, but the Gulfport water fountain is sometimes turned off. I made a fine decision, either way. I love the smell of saltwater so it was nice running through the little bayou back there. There was an older guy and his lady/wife/friend riding their bikes past me on the way back and he said, “Looks like you’re doing a great job running!” To which I replied, “I’m doing my best!” Then his lady/wife/friend dinged her bike bell and said loudly, “Bike on the left!!!” Like I didn’t know. It seemed almost like she was trying to discourage her guy/husband/friend from talking to me, because he was in the middle of saying something else to me. Oh well, I’ll never know what it was, but I have an idea that it was about my sweat volume. One other person commented on my sweat volume during this run. Overall, it was a good run. No pain of any kind. No GI stuff. My heart rate was elevated for the pace I was running only at the end of the run, when I was in need of hydration. I think it’s common for my heart rate to jump up towards the end of a run even when I’m fully hydrated, though. It’s the excitement of being done, maybe. I notice that sometimes in the stats, even on short runs. 

Had band practice afterwards and that went well. Still need to figure out why Spotify and every other streaming service besides Apple Music won’t post our EP. 

Went grocery shopping after that. Had to go to Publix and Trader Joe’s. 

Made pizza with cauliflower crust after that. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, but not great. I guess that needs to be explained, ugh. I am trying to cut out as much wheat as I can from my diet. I’m eating things that are gluten-free. No nuts. No seeds. I have ulcerative colitis. It makes my life more difficult, but like anything else, once I get used to it, that will be the norm and I won’t think of it as difficult. 

Oh, it’s been a long time since I have had the time and correct head to write here. It feels strange, like I am writing to an audience that doesn’t exist. That’s not too far from the truth, I guess. I’ve been writing in a journal that’s contained within my computer, but at some point I knew I would come back here. Today felt right, because of the run mostly. I can’t make any commitment to frequency here. All I can do is remember that it helps me to write for some kind of perceived audience, as opposed to the circuit boards inside my computer. And hopefully, that will be enough to make me write here more often. I’m in a better place to write and run now. 

5/24/20

I got my new vest and new headphones this week. Ran with the new headphones on Friday, and was pretty happy overall. Jabra headphones don’t mess around when it comes to bass. That Friday run was a half hour after work thing, just relaxing and cruising. Today I ran 15 at 11:00 minutes a mile with the new vest. I’m very happy with the choice I made. No more bruised ribs. Just have to get used to pocket placement but no big deal.

A theme at work for me this week was just to stop caring. Not about the quality of work I do, but about the little, annoying, extraneous things that I can make too much of. It’s like I want to have a fistfight with time — the concept, or construct, or very real thing which rules many (most) people’s lives including mine — over not being home earlier. I can’t care about it when I’m at work because it makes me super anxious, like wound up tight, and it’s another challenge in itself to get unwound. So maybe not such a little extraneous thing, but annoying to be sure. And things plural I said. I love my job because of the people I get to talk to. That’s one reason. But sometimes my interactions while working are very difficult to process. I take it to heart when someone displays even the slightest amount of negativity towards me and/or the quality of my work. That Abraham Lincoln quote though, especially with over 600 people to please. What running blog? This is about work today.

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5/17/20

Kind of an in-between Sunday. Sundays are inherently good. No work. Time to reset, to regroup, and… clean stuff. But there’s like a smell that I can’t quite identify. Not a bad smell really, just a smell, and the fact that I can’t figure out what it is bugs me a little.

Housekeeping, I guess – I assumed I would be writing more than once a week. After last week, when it felt so great to post something here, I was like, back. I can’t make a commitment that I feel unsure about though, and at this point a weekly post count seems like it would get in the way of my big, important LIFE, life. So the approach that seems more practical is to take pleasure in the time I spend here, whenever I choose to spend time here. This place is a place my mind goes to, more than anything else.

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