We had a looooong winter in Chicagoland. Between the cold and being a SAHD, my failure-to-run excuse bucket has been pretty full. Still, I’m determined to run the Chicago Marathon. I’m currently at the there’s-no-way stage, but deep down I know it can happen.

Spring seems to have begun in earnest. I felt thrilled about three weeks ago as I began to see the signs, so as part of my preparation, I jumped back on our trusty Bowflex to work on reconditioning. Unfortunately, four workouts in six days tried my immune system’s patience a bit too much, and I felt a cold coming on. I turned to my trusty Zicam, the miracle cure, and it kept my head nice and clear. The stuff didn’t do a thing for my throat, however, and after a couple days I was experiencing the worst sore throat of my life. Good fun.

So two weeks later, tired but otherwise feeling well, sweet baby boy entrusted to both visiting grandmothers, I hit the road on one of the first truly balmy afternoons of the year. Just a smidge under three miles, very slow, more walking than running truth be told, marked the beginning of my 2008 running season. Yes, I ran a couple times last month to start breaking in my new shoes, but I feel confident that the weather will hold, and the longer days will offer me more opportunities to run consistently. 26.2 is just around the corner.

By the way, I picked up some Brooks Radius 7 running shoes because my knees were starting to hurt in my former pair. Perhaps I’ll say a word about them next time.

A little off topic here, folks. I should be writing about running, or perhaps the trials of stay-at-home fatherdom, but I have a small pet peeve to air.

You know how your bank sends you a new credit card shortly before your old one expires? Well, assuming they still want you as a customer, they do. Anyway, I seem to recall activating new cards via an automated telephone system in the past. I was perfectly happy with this system. I’d call, enter the required information, and the friendly recorded voice (let’s call her Brenda) would tell me I was all finished. In more recent times, I’ve noticed that Brenda started trying to sell me things like super anti-criminal protection or just-in-case-you-die insurance. A little annoying, but I figured out I could just hang up on her because my card was already activated.

Then I got a Discover Card. I hung up on Brenda, and a little while later got a letter in the mail talking about some Discover Card protection plan I had signed up for. The rep I spoke to about it swore that they could not authorize such a service without my express approval. Remembering that Brenda always reminds me my phone call may be recorded for quality assurance, I said, “Hey, why don’t you just check the recording?” Well, apparently they don’t record EVERY call. Um, yeah.

So my new Bank of America card arrived today, and I dutifully called as instructed on the little peel-off strip. I enter the numbers, wait patiently for my confirmation, and what’s this? “Please hold,” says Brenda, “while we transfer you to a customer service representative.” I must have entered something incorrectly. Wrong. Banks must have figured out I was hanging up on poor Brenda, so they sicced a live person on me! Whatever happened to good old automation? Too many comedians picking on complicated phone systems? Sure, if I want to discuss a problem with a live person, spending five minutes wading through a series of button-oriented questions is not my idea of a good time. But come on! Now I have to sit on hold just so my bank has the opportunity to convince me I’m about to die?

I really miss Brenda.

I won’t claim to be back to prime blogging form (like September…seven whole posts!!), but I am still alive. I thought perhaps being a stay-at-home dad (I’m gonna have to use SAHD from now on) would have left me lifeless, but would you believe my son is now almost four months old, and my fingers are still spry enough for typing?

He’s an incredible joy if you’re wondering. I say that even after the vomit- and diarrhea-filled week (mostly him) after Christmas, not to mention those sleep droughts that left me sprawled on the couch, mumbling about green poop.

Have I kept up with the running? Yes and no. My schedule slackened a bit right after Mateo was born, down to maybe two good runs a week, with an occasional third if I had the time and energy. As he slept more and more at night, I started being fairly consistent with three runs, usually with two on the weekend because the shortening days meant huffing along on our surprisingly dark neighborhood streets, getting slapped in the face by low-hanging branches.

I had regained some momentum moving into November and ran my first 5K on the new 355 Veterans Memorial Tollway. A friend and I entered the event thinking it was a race. Not that we had any notions of being competitive with anyone but ourselves, but we had imagined official times and all that. As it turned out, our first race was something more of a fun run, although the first finishers did receive some kind of awards. We still had fun and got the T-shirts to prove we were there. Because we started about a thousand people back, and I missed the exact starting line for my own watch, I didn’t get an accurate time. I know it was in the neighborhood of 26 minutes, about a minute slower than my goal.

I got a cold right after Thanksgiving, so that grounded me for a bit. Colds have caused me to quit running long term on several occasions, so with some measure of determination, I hit the roads again after a little more than a week. By Christmas, I felt really good again. In fact, on Christmas day I put four great miles under my belt. I had visions of my first nine mile attempt for the weekend. Alas, my body had other plans, and I spent the next several days with a wicked something or other playing havoc with my GI system.

Well, this update is really starting to get a little boring, so I’ll sum up by saying I’m going running tomorrow, and I really hope my body is done being sick for the season. Oh yes, and I’m running the Chicago Marathon this year. Woo-hoo!

Just so you know, it’s 1:30am. I “went to bed” at 9:00pm and slept until my four-week-old son started his rooting routine, snorting and grunting around for something to devour. It’s unbelievably cute, which I’m sure God intended to keep new parents from late-night infanticide.

I thought I would have something interesting to say at this point, but I don’t. That’s not to say nothing interesting has happened. I’ve never had so much interesting stuff packed into a month. But my creative faculties are severely limited due to a combination of sleep deprivation and sensory overload.

Welcome to the life of a new stay-at-home dad. Nice to meet you. Good night.

If you’ve been following my running diary over the past few weeks, you may be thinking my first post on the subject turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. No new posts for a week means Eric the Runner has yet again faded from glory. Well, you’d be wrong because I’m now Eric the Daddy!

My first child, a son, was born September 17 at 10:16am. He weighed 9 lbs, 5 oz, and measured 21 inches long. I’m 6′4″, but my poor wife is only 5′5″ on a good day and weighed about 123 lbs pre-pregnancy. Still, she managed to avoid a C-section, for which we’re both very grateful.

I’m still a bit overwhelmed by this past week’s experiences, so I’ll hold off a bit on any storytelling. Maybe overwhelmed just means “tired” at this point.

As for running, how can it compare to having a new baby at home? Regardless, I knew I’d regret it later if I didn’t maintain some small level of commitment this past week. And besides, better health has most assuredly contributed to a better overall sense of well-being, and that’s a good thing with a newborn at home.

I last ran on Saturday, the day before my wife was to be induced. Still sticking to the weekly long run plan, I set out to do seven miles, running one mile, then walking a minute or two. The plan worked great, and I completed 7.2 miles in 1:12. Not bad as I had previously run six miles in about 1:10.

But after this new success, a baby. Well, that’s okay. We’ll find normalcy again, and for the first time in our eight years of marriage, we have a little one with us to enjoy the process of finding it. So, weary and still a bit unsteady, I finally got out Friday and trudged through about 3 3/4 miles. My legs felt like lead after 30 minutes, and the whole process took me about 45 minutes.

Up for today was an eight-mile run, a new personal best. I had been so excited, but reality kicked my butt. I’m still just too tired to run really well, but I tried anyway. To sum up: hot, tired, eight miles in 1:35.

I’ll redo the run next week, I hope with better results. I also hope to get out a few times this week.

On another note, I registered for my first race today, a 5K scheduled for Nov. 11.

I received my new watch, one in the Timex Ironman series, on Wednesday. This is model no. T5E231 if you’re shopping, and I got it at Amazon.com for $41. I’ve tinkered around with it, found it easy to learn, and ran with it yesterday for the first time. My wife and I have also been timing her contractions in the evening (she’s at 39 weeks!) , which is a nifty way to use the split button. We can even store each evening’s session by date if we want as there’s a 100-lap memory.

On to the running.

A more experienced friend recently told me how his pace obsessions occasionally start to take away the fun of running, until his wife, also a runner, reminds him this is his hobby. I had sworn off accurate timing for that very reason, but I also want to have some sense of progress, perhaps even some goal setting, and it’s difficult to do that without keeping time.

So I kept time yesterday, and I’m pretty slow, as I expected, which must mean I was really slow three months ago. I started out with the intention of timing two miles, one slow and one moderate, and I figured I’d just walk/jog another mile. Having read that faster miles are often better run after a warmup, I started with the slow pace and finished at about 9:15. Picking up the pace, my second mile came to 7:55. That time surprised me a bit because I felt I was pushing myself harder than that, maybe 7:15. Oh well. Some of us run; some of us lumber.

After lumbering to a 7:55 second mile, I felt a bit winded, so I walked a bit, contemplating what kind of goals I should set for my first “race.” If I do the 5K, I’m thinking anything below 27:00 would be a good beginner’s goal. I’m definitely doing the Turkey Trot four-miler a couple weeks later, so perhaps a similar goal pace should apply, roughly 36:00, maybe even 35:00. With my contemplation complete, I jogged to the three-mile point, walked some more, then slowly jogged home for the total time and distance you see below.

With the new watch on board, I’m especially anxious for the long run this Sunday, which will be seven miles. I’ll do what I did last week: run a slow mile, walk one to two minutes, and so on. We’ll see if this Galloway guy knows what he’s talking about.

We’ll also see how I run when my first child very well may be born the next day. My wife has scheduled an induction for Sunday evening. Talk about adrenaline.

4:45pm
78 degrees, ~40% humidity
3.7 miles run/walk
37:22

I’m really getting excited about the possibility of substantially increasing my distance running. Of course, that’s a relative concept as long distance is a couple miles for some and 100 miles for others (like ultra-marathoners). For me, a marathon is plenty long, and I haven’t even begun to think of when I might attempt one. In the meantime, I have three milestones (ha!) to reach in the next six or so weeks.

First, I want to exceed my previous longest run, which I’m fairly certain is in the neighborhood of seven miles. Second, I want to break the 10 mile barrier. Third, I want to run 12 miles without the need for major recovery (that is, have to take more than a day off to rest).

If you’re wondering how I chose these numbers, it’s fairly simple. The first two goals are as much mental milestones as anything to prove to myself I can cover some distance without falling apart. They’re also stepping stones on the way to the third goal, which I got from Jeff Galloway’s book. I’m planning to run my first organized event on November 11, a 5K. That’s only 3.1 miles if you’re not sure, but as a proponent of the LSD model, Galloway recommends longer runs once a week (in addition to a regular routine during the week) as a way to boost your endurance for running even shorter races at higher speed. My current long run, which I do on Sunday, is about six miles, and the plan is to increase one mile per week until I hit 12.

If you’ve been reading these running entries, you’ll know I hobbled through a little under six miles the Sunday before last. Well, I tried it again this past weekend and fared much better. I maintained a very slow pace throughout and took scheduled walk breaks of one to two minutes every mile. I completed a full six miles this time and felt really good. Once I realized how long the whole affair had taken (1:10), I wondered if I had gone TOO slow. But I think I’ll get to my distance goal before I worry about how fast I’m going. Being able to stay out for over two hours would be quite an accomplishment for me, really for many people.

I also did three miles yesterday without much to report, though the weather’s cooling a bit, and that’s nice.

One last note. I finally got a suitable watch! So if you’re interested in more accurate pacing, you’ll get it.

There’s nothing like a little professional reassurance.

Frustrated by backsliding performance in the past couple of weeks, I decided to check out a running book for some advice. I must have loaned out my old copy of Galloway’s Book on Running, so I picked up the newest version. Apparently I had forgotten everything Galloway wrote (I last read it in 1994) because just flipping through the book again reminded me of how many beginner mistakes I had been making.

Pushing too hard

Just because I once ran a fair amount doesn’t change the fact that my current fitness level makes me a beginner. I’ve been running too fast and too far in really hot weather. I assumed my dedication would pay off in a big way, but instead, I started slowing down and feeling ill. It’s one thing to fight against laziness, but I have to learn to recognize when my body is signaling a problem.

Fear of walking

When I was too tired to run or jog, I would walk. But having felt like a slacker for walking, I’d try to run faster to make up for slowing down. So in the end, I was spending less overall time running and feeling unnecessarily tired.

Galloway recommends regular short walk breaks to reduce injury and improve energy levels and overall run times. He writes, “A survey of veteran marathoners showed an average improvement of 13 minutes when they put walk breaks into their maration, rather than running continuously under the same conditions.” That really surprised me, but I decided to give it a try.

Application

I took Thursday off to address the first problem, got some extra sleep, and ate a good dinner Thursday evening. When I got up Friday morning, I ate some granola, had a banana smoothie, and fair amount of water, all over a few hours.

For the run, the temperature was about 80 degrees, and there was a cool breeze with a bit of rain in the air. I forced myself to start with an easier pace (still no watch) and focused on more relaxed breathing. After the first mile, I felt pretty good but took a one or two minute walk break in an effort to follow Galloway’s advice. Same story for the second mile, though this time I made sure the break lasted only one minute.

The third mile on the route I took has a quarter to half mile long shallow incline that usually wears me out. I crested that hill with relative ease and actually increased my pace a little as I neared home. I completed the 3.1 (or .2…I need to measure to verify) miles at a moderately fast pace, then walked about three tenths of a mile to cool down.

The whole session, including the last walk break, took about 30 or 32 minutes, which is an improvement. Also, I felt better than I’ve felt for some time after a run. Nice, huh?

I’m taking Saturday off, then I’ll do the 5.8-mile course again Sunday. My plan is to maintain a slower pace again and take a two-minute break every mile. I’ll report tomorrow on the results.

I left shortly after my last post on Tuesday afternoon. It was another late afternoon run, which I think I need to swear off, at least while it’s still so hot. The temperature hovered around 90 degrees, and there was very little breeze. I forgot to check humidity, but it was about average.

I decided to do the four-mile route instead of the reverse three-mile (it’s actually closer to 3.2, just over a 5K) route I’ve been doing for a week or two. The former has those hills I mentioned before (see Backstory), while the latter has mostly only shallow inclines and declines. That may have been a poor decision because once again, I was wiped within two miles and had to walk/jog the rest, which I cut short by at least a half mile. I’ve clearly got to do something about my energy.

Thinking I needed better food and a good night’s sleep, I went to bed early, got up yesterday morning at 8am (I really was tired, I guess), and had granola for breakfast. I drank through a bit of water, then had a peach smoothie (a whole peach, milk, and ice) at about 10am. I worked at the computer until 11, then hit the road again, this time on the easier three-mile route. The temperature was about 80 degrees, though the humidity felt slightly higher than Tuesday. I felt a bit better and ran at a decent pace (I really need a watch…sorry) for about 1.5 miles. Then, once again, my energy took a nose dive. I just didn’t feel well. I slowed my pace and kept on for another 3/4 mile, then had to jog/walk the rest of the way home.

I felt lethargic the rest of the day and had minor throat irritation, sort of like when a cold is coming on. I had a green salad and some chili for dinner and slept late again this morning. I feel a lot better today, no sign of illness, but I’m taking the day off from exercise. Perhaps I’m expecting too much too early.

Shoes 

I have learned from past experience that a major obstacle to consistent running is pain. I’ve been lazy (or cheap) about getting new shoes in the past, so I knew that had to be my first step for my latest attempt at running glory. These are the shoes I bought when I started jogging to lose weight, and although they served me reasonably well, I could have used a little more cushioning. I think I paid about $45 at Academy in Fort Worth, Texas.

I knew the older Sauconys were long since shot, so back in May, I went shopping again. I tooled around online for some advice, then went to a local running store (Palos Heights, IL) to pick a pair. Looking at the wear on my old shoes (pictured is my left shoe), I can see that I strike on the outside part of my heel, but the wear is relatively even otherwise. With my highish arch, I thought I might be an underpronator, but my sole wear seemed to indicate correction wouldn’t be a huge concern. The sales guy, clearly a distance runner, was most concerned with supporting my arch and recommended several pairs with that in mind. From those, I simply chose the shoe that felt most comfortable, the Saucony Trigon 4, paid $90 plus tax, and went on my way. It’s merely coincidence that I chose the same brand as before, but I’ve been really pleased with their performance. Plenty of cushioning, good arch support, and lightweight.

One note on the price I paid. I had seen these shoes online for $15 or $20 less, but the sales guy gave me great service, and I thought he deserved my business.

The Running

I bought my new shoes on May 15, 2007, and began running the next day. I resolved to concern myself with time rather than distance, so I went out for 45 minutes, jogging when I could, and walking the rest of the time. I probably jogged a total of 10 minutes the first time out, and I don’t know how far I went.

I jogged/walked three or four times that week and covered the same neighborhood course. I stuck primarily to the sidewalk, which is decent, though unlevel in some places, and always went in the late morning or early afternoon (I work from home, so I can usually go when I want). The weather began turning a bit hot, and cicadas descended on Chicagoland like a swarm of locusts, but I kept going out.

After a few weeks of this, I noticed I was returning home sooner and sooner, so I decided to drive through the neighborhood and check some mileage. I set up a simple three-mile course (we have a decent-sized neighborhood) and found I could easily add a mile by adding a couple of back-and-forths on side streets.

So I now had two “courses” to run depending on the day, one three and one four miles, and I set about trying to maintain a decent jogging pace for the entire four miles. That proved challenging, partly because of two dreaded hills, one at 1.2 miles, and the other about a half mile later. Actually, they’re not big hills by any stretch, but they may as well be mountains to me as I huff along. In any case, after the second hill, I’d run down one of the side streets, then turn around, which meant I was running a third lesser incline. Finishing that would put me about 2.2 miles in with only minor ups and downs from there on.

Working on Distance

So I’ve worked at this four-mile course for a solid three months, and I can still barely complete it running the whole way. I’ve done it, but I find it quite difficult. And it takes me about 40 minutes, which is a pretty slow pace. I think I could handle a flat course more easily, but I’m really set on being able to run anywhere. Heck, there are people who complete 50- and 100-mile races through all kinds of terrain; surely, I can run four miles through the neighborhood.

Last week, I decided to change my routine a little. On Sunday (the week before Labor Day weekend), I ran the three-mile course in the early evening and felt okay. I planned to run again Monday but felt a bit under the weather. By Wednesday, I had improved somewhat but still didn’t feel like running. I went anyway and barely made it through three miles again. Ditto for Friday. As I had been up to about 12 miles per week (three four milers), I felt a little lame with only six miles (the Sunday counted for the week before). Remembering reading about doing one long day a week, I thought I should try adding two miles to my longest run and do that on the weekend.

An Actual Diary Entry 

That was this past Sunday, and I actually did it, albeit very shabbily. I covered about 5.8 miles in 1:05. For the record, here was the day:

I had been really tired from a busy Saturday, so I woke up a bit late with a headache. I had no breakfast except ibuprofen (because I was rushing at that point) and went to church (wife had to work). I had a few sips of coffee before the service started and actually felt just fine. After church, I had a sizeable brunch with friends: an egg white omelette with chorizo, jalapenos, and tomatoes, along with hashbrowns with salsa, AND three pancakes with a small amount of syrup. I also drank about two cups of black coffee and probably 16 ounces of water. I came home at about 2:30pm and slowly drank about 32 ounces of water. I felt sluggish all afternoon and finally forced myself out the door at 5:00 pm.

What a hard run! It was about 90 degrees, and I’m sure my odd weekend diet didn’t help matters. I ran about 1.5 miles at a moderate pace and had to stop and walk. I had trouble running for more than a quarter to a half mile at a time after that point, which felt pretty frustrating considering the progress I’ve made in the past few months. I remember feeling my sugar bottom out after about 4.5 miles and thinking that nothing would satisfy me more than a juicy peach I had waiting in the fridge. Funny. Regardless of the less-than-stellar performance, I finished the course I had laid out. My plan is to run three times this week (3 miles each), then do the 5.8 mile course again this weekend. I took yesterday off, so I’m leaving right about now.