Pump it . . .

So I ordered 3 pairs of new shoes today online. They were all about 80% off their regular 95 dollar price and I ended up getting them all for about 100. Now lets just hope they fit and perform well. They are Go Lite shoes and each pair weighs 1 lb 10 oz, this should help with not feeling to heavy when running down in the Keys.
As far as running goes my legs felt replenished from Sunday, so after a full day of class and a 5 plate, hour and a half all you can eat session at D2, it was time to go to McComas. After running outside yesterday, going back to the treadmill felt sort of like coming back to school from spring break. So to help with the repetitiveness of the treadmill I've decided to start asking people next to me what their favorite workout song is, and by the chance that it might be in the 10 GB's of music on my mp3 player, trying to work out to that and see if I can relate. The girl next to me today said Pump It - Black Eyed Peas, and I agree and especially like the part at 2:42 - 3:10. This part of the song really threw me for a loop. It has a slight buzzing noise in it and something about the volume level or frequency of the buzz would make my tonsils start buzzing. I played the song over 4 times, and it happened every time, so weird.
I had recently looked up an article on running on treadmills vs running outside and it made a good point about how you can generally run faster on treadmills because there is no wind resistance, so they recommend a setting of 1 incline to make up for the wind, so this will now be incoorporated into all treadmill runs.
The run went rather smooth and I actually started to feel the rewards of what I've been training for, I ran 13.7 miles and at the end of it I felt like I was just getting started. Eating the huge meal about 30 minutes beforehand definetly probably played a role in this.

Total on the day

Miles = 13.7
Calories Burned = ~ 2,100
Time = 2 hours even

24 hours . . is a long time

So I woke up today, a tad bit sore from the Sunday Run and then it hit me...if this was race day, I would still be running right now and not have slept any of that time. This is all that went through my head for the rest of the day . . "right now, I would still be running" . .all the way up until 6:00 pm which was 24 hours after the start of the Sunday Run. It was gorgeous in the latter part of the day and immediately after work at 6:00 I finished the other half of the pokey sticks and jetted out onto the streets of Blacksburg. WOW, it felt good to not be on a treadmill, proof that this aspect of my training was effective.
What I am referring to here is the reason I have been training on the treadmill. Besides the fact that the keys are flat, like a treadmill, I have a feeling it will get, I don't want to use boring because this race will be anything but boring, but sort of repetitive. Running on the treadmill, is uber repetitive. After running a marathon on that thing I could have watched golf or even poker on TV and gotten really excited about it.
So I headed out at 6:30, and ran a big figure eight around campus totalling 6 miles. I felt spiced up in the last mile of my run but about 15 minutes after arriving home I fell straight asleep. Hopefully there are no beds on the side of the road in the keys, or vans named Helen with beds in them for that matter.

Total on the day

Miles = 6

Chocolate milk and Salami??

Was planning on heading to McComas starting at about 4 pm and running until close (midnight) but once again just like any running race things didn't go just as planned and it turned out to be a fairly nice day so I had to take advantage of that and go on a little motorcycle adventure. Following Liz and I's purple toed escapade to scout out some of the big wig houses of Blacksburg, I was ready for the Sunday Run.
I got to McComas around 6:45 pm, prepped my treadmill with the essentials (camelback,mp3 player,clif shots and roctane, and my cell phone just incase things got real boring) and started out. After a mile or 2 of beer perspiration I was in the groove and then came mile 6, this soon really? Yes, bathroom break.
Downstairs and back up and ready to rock again but after listening to Tracy Chapman - Give me one reason and the Black Eyed Peas - Where is the love for 50 minutes collectively, it was time for a new jam. My Music>Albums>Billboard Top 100 from 1998, perfect. The next 20 miles was a walk run mixture and i successfully calculated the amount of time that I can walk in between runs without my legs getting cramped up, 8.5 minutes. This was a good thing to know. Also tried a Roctane gel shot for the first time and it worked great so I'll be switching from Clif ShotBloks over to those now.
A marathon later, legs feeling dead and SUPER hungry I headed out of the gym at around 11:15. The Sunday Run was over and I had kept a running list of all the foods I craved throughout my run.

1)Salami
2) Chocolate Milk
3)Yogurt
4) More chocolate milk

10 minutes later I found myself ordering Pokey sticks from Gumby's, going to Kroger and buying chocolate milk, yogurt and orange juice, then going home to indulge in all 4. Gross.

Total on the day -
Miles = 26.4
Time = 4 hours 18 minutes including bathroom break
Calories burned = 3,300

5KD

Today was the 5KD Road Race. Woke up around 9:15, had a bagel and cream cheese and ran over to the Virginia Tech cross country course. I wasn't really sure how many people to expect to be there, as most races in Blacksburg are fairly small. I reached the crest of the hill of Smithfield Plantation and there was 500 people in the field! The course was quite a wreck from the couple days of rain we've had so it was an interesting start with people sliding all over the place. Finished in about 19:10 in 10th place so pretty good overall! Cheers to Kappa Delta for having such a great turnout.

Total on the Day

Miles = 5

Homewrecker

Trying to integrate some longer runs into the weekdays now to bump my training up to around 60-70 miles a week in the next 2 weeks or so. Today I went down to Moe's before my run to support the VTTV fundraiser. I ordered the Homewrecker burrito. For those of you not familiar with the Homewrecker burrito, it as about the size of 2 softballs fused together. This thing is no joke. Well I can honestly say never again will I go running 15 minutes after eating one of these bohemoths. I could taste the thing the whole hour and a half and looking in the mirror in front of the treadmill all I could imagine was this huge burrito wrapped in aluminum foil bouncing up and down in my stomach. Lesson learned, but on the positive side, I had PLENTY of energy.

Total on the day

Miles = 10.34
Calories = 1254
Time = 1 hour 38 minutes

Relief

So I decided at the wedding to spend the time with my friends which I hadn't seen for a year or two and put off the running until we all split our own ways. Well we got back to Blacksburg around 7:15 pm today and I headed over to McComas at 8:15 to start running. All in all it was a successful trip, the inserts are working! My knee was still hurting a little bit but I ran much farther than last time and it didnt hurt as much afterward so that is a good sign. The downside of the inserts is they put pressure on my feet where I am not used to so now just about every part of my foot is sore.

Total on the day -
Miles = 20.15
Calories Burned = 2,500
Time = 3 hours and 40 minutes

I actually remembered to eat before running today. 5 soft bean tacos from taco bell and a full foot long sub before the run. After I have had a couple glasses of chocolate milk, a yogurt, and now im breaking into a pizza as i type, so I think I'm gonna concentrate on that now!

Designated Driving

Designated Driving on Thursday night was successful! I raised $32.69 so thanks to all of you all who were responsible and donated! This weekend I'm down in North Carolina for a wedding so I called ahead to make sure that the hotel has a treadmill and they do so hopefully I will be getting some running in later today. Thanks again to all those who have made donations to the website, cruising right along to hit that goal of $1000!

Orthodics

So I went searching for inserts for my shoes to straighten out this knee problem and found a great little store out in Christiansburg. The name was something like New River Valley Orthodics right across 460 business from Montgomery Regional Hospital. I only took about 3 steps into the store and started looking at inserts before I was greeted by a man named Phil. I told Phil what I was looking for and what my problem was and he must have been watching me walk those 3 strides into the store or something because he described exactly the same thing that I thought was going on with my foot. I knew the guy wasn't lying because he said I drag my heel and then my foot rolls inward. Well, I just happened to look at the bottom of my running shoes the other night, and guess what. They were worn down very heavily on the outsides of the heel. Phil, was on the ball. Well I went ahead and took his suggestion for which pair of inserts to buy and talked to him slightly about custom orthodics as well, which would cost $300 but he said would be a good idea. Maybe we'll save that for a later date.
Tonight I'm going to try out DDing for a St. Patricks Day party that is going on in town to hopefully raise some money through donations for the fundraiser. I'm hoping maybe to get about 50 on the night but we'll just have to see how it goes.

Problem solved!

So after my Monday run my IT band was starting to feel all locked up again and I figured immediately it was time to get to a specialist. Being late, going that day wouldn't be an option so I started researching more online about this ITBS (Illiotibial Band Syndrome). Well come to find out that one of the causes of it can be overpronation of the feet, which is basically just having flat feet. I do have flat feet and when people with overpronated feet walk, their knees tend to move towards the inside of their leg. So if the IT band is on the outside of my leg, and due to overpronation, my knee moves inward, then it must be pulling my IT band where it dosen't like to go! No wonder it hurts!! So problem solved, ice the knee and rest up a few days while looking for a new pair of running shoes or finding some solid inserts to save my arch!

Lesson learned

Running to McComas I felt my IT band starting to act up going up stairs and what not so took it easy on the way over. Treadmill started out great but gradually I felt my knee starting to act up a bit again and ended up having to stop at about 12.1 miles after 1 hour and 40 minutes. In this 100 minutes, I listened to 3 songs, each on repeat for about 30 minutes. 1) Black Eyed Peas - Where is the Love 2) Candlebox - Far Behind 3) Mariah Carey - One sweet day. I dont know if i'll ever do that again.

Lesson Learned: Don't try to run 26 miles when all you've eaten on the day is a pear, a piece of cheese and about 30 ounces of chocolate milk.

Immediately hiked over to west end and demolished 2 pieces of pizza and an entree of whole wheat pasta.

Goal = 26-30 miles Reality = 12.1 miles

Training begins . .

Two weeks after the Cheaha Mountain 50k, 6 deep blisters, 1 swollen IT band, and plantar fascitis in the right foot have all finally healed up and it is time to continue training for the Keys 100. The fundraiser page reached $500 yesterday which is the half way mark for my goal of $1000 so heres a pat on the back and a thanks to all of those that have contributed. The plan for training today will be to jog over to McComas and do some treadmill work to simulate the flat terrain that I'll be running on down in the Keys. Goal for the day.... 26-30 miles.