Back again...

I've had various blogs over the last 10 years, and each has served as a creative outlet.  They've explored different topics and had different focuses, and I've found a balance with each. 

I'm still trying to figure out that balance with this blog.

How much do I reveal about myself?  What topics do I explore?  Running, weight loss, sure.  But how much of the rest of my life to I let leak into my posts? 

In the past I've probably erred on the side of revealing too much.  Letting personal drama play too much of a centrist role makes for juicy reading, but it also has real life consequences.

In general I'm a pretty withdrawn and private person...until I know someone well enough to trust them.  Then it seems like I reverse myself and over-share.  Clearly I have boundary issues, but like everything I do I have to make it complicated and have issues on both sides of the plate.

So I'm blaming my sporadic posts on that.

It's my story and I'm sticking to it.

While I've been away several notable things have happened.

First, the good:

• My weight has dropped into the 220s.  It's probably been 10 years, or more since I've been in the 220s.

•  I had my first run at sub-9 minute pace.  I really have no idea how long it's been since I've been about to run continuously at that pace.  High school is the last time I know for sure...

And, the bad:

I tweaked my knee. 

I'm not sure how, or exactly what I hurt anatomically, but I have flashes of sharp pain in my right knee.  There doesn't seem to be a particular motion that causes it.  There doesn't really seem to be a rhyme or reason as to why or when it hurts.  It's been swollen and stiff at times, but anti-inflammatory meds don't seem to help.  With my medical background if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say probably there's a small fragment of meniscus cartilage floating around in there causing problems. 

I took several days off to rest it, and today was my first day back running.  I had a couple of tense moments at the start of my run, but then it settled down and hasn't hurt since. 

Regardless, I think I may be pushing too hard to go further, and faster all the time.  And so to push back at some of the stressors putting pressure on me, I'm scaling back my race expectations.  I was pushing to run a 10k in just 2 weeks, and a half in March 2014. 

Right now I'm putting off the 10k for sure.  I'm almost certain I could run the race, and finish. 

But at what cost? 

To date I've never run 10 kilometers.  And I'm just not comfortable with the race being my first time to conquer that distance.  Maybe that's the way I'll have to approach a marathon, but for a distance as relatively short as 10k, I want to have several runs at least that long under my belt before I step onto a race course. 

I guess I just want to be in control of my race.  No matter the preparation, there's always the possibility of having a bad day and running a terrible race.  I want to step to the starting line with the confidence of knowing that the distance is well within my reach.

What does that mean for my planned half marathon in March?  I don't know.  I'll just have to see how I feel as it approaches.

The drama:

And here's the part where I possibly stray out of bounds for this blog.

My wife and I planned on selling our house and moving this coming summer.  After contacting a realtor to get some advice on improvements to help get the house ready for sale, we actually sold our house, without it ever being on the market. 

We closed on the sale 3 weeks later. 

Now the new owner is allowing us to stay in the house until we find a home of our own--a very generous arrangement.  However the inventory of homes for sale in our desired neighborhoods is ridiculously low right now.  Like 2 or 3 potential homes on the market. 

That's it. 

Somehow through all of this we decided that if there wasn't a perfect house out there for us, we should just build one.  (Because it's every just that easy.)

Facepalm.

The neighborhood we moved into in 2005 has unfortunately bottomed out.  For example, when we moved here, my oldest daughter was in first grade, and the elementary school was rated as exemplary by the state authorities. 

Flash forward 8 years and my middle daughter is now a first grader at the same school.  Unfortunately the school is now a Title I school. That in and of itself isn't a bad thing, except that the entire school seems to be proud of that status.  Instead of expecting the students to perform at exemplary levels, they instead insist on giving students an out and an excuse for not performing well.  Instead of simply taking the extra money and creating programs to enrich the academic experience of the kids (like the program is designed) the administration seems intent on using the money to tell the kids they aren't as good as other kids in the district and require extra help to perform as well.  In my (often jaded) opinion, if you tell kids something enough, they start to believe it.

Either way, it's time to get my kids somewhere that is intent on challenging them. 

So that's what I've been up to lately.  :-)

5K Finally

Finally.

That's all I can say.

Finally I had a decent 5K experience.

This morning I ran the Rahr Oktoberfest 5K.  It's an interesting race to be sure.  It's put on by a craft brewery that's become a fixture in Fort Worth, and there's a whole sub-culture that has developed around it.  It's an interesting crowd that shows up on race mornings--beer culture meets running culture meets local Fort Worth culture.  It's a lot of culture packed into one pretty small place.

The start line from half pack.

With a 9 am start time (the crack of dawn for the beer people and nearly lunchtime for the running culture) the unpredictable Texas weather had the potential to turn this into an ugly venture.  In fact the morning dawned overcast and muggy.  Temperature was in upper 70s with humidity in the 80-85% range, and a wall of thunderstorms out to the west were steadily on the march towards Fort Worth.

In a word, the weather was sticky. 

But what I was truly worried about was the sun coming out and really steaming things up.  And I forgot my sunglasses at home.  So I was hoping it would stay overcast, and it did.

My own little starting pothole.

Rahr & Sons Brewery is set just south of downtown Fort Worth in an older part of town.  It's a little dilapidated, a little overgrown, and a little rough around the edges.  But there are also scores of thriving small businesses firmly entrenched in old business districts of yesteryear, with older neighborhoods surrounding.  It's an odd juxtaposition of living, breathing community in such run down surroundings--especially here in Texas where society seems to worship the almighty new construction.

After the gun, (and about 1:30 getting up to the line,) the course left out of the brewery, headed south down the block, and turned west onto old Magnolia Blvd.  It was fun to run along the wide, divided boulevard under the old growth pecan trees.  The Fort Worth PD was out en force, with officers and cars at every single intersection--big and small--making sure we were safe.  We ran several city blocks along Magnolia entering into the hospital district.

Pretty cool bib.

Save a few brief uphills, almost the entire time from the moment we left the brewery we were headed downhill.  I concentrated hard on keeping a handle on my pace, trying to balance keeping my cadence up but not going out too fast.  Scores of people blasted past me, lured in by the downhill course--and I got seriously cut off several times to the point where I was worried I was going to get tangled up in them and trip.  But I just smiled to myself thinking, "We'll see y'all again in a little while."  There was the usual dodging of people that never had any intention of running the course, but insisted on starting at the front of the start line.  I'll never understand it, but I'm hoping they just don't know any better.  The worst is when there's 5 or 6 of them spread out abreast of each other, like a slowly moving roadblock.  I'm hoping as the length of my races increase, the number of joy-walkers decreases.

We turned the corner and headed back north on 8th Avenue, and it was time to pay the piper.  The uphill was mercifully shorter, but diabolically steeper.  And that's when I began to catch up to and pass the jackrabbits.  I concentrated on not tripping over the walkers, keeping my cadence up, and also on attacking the hill.  With such a large crowd, and a well protected course, I pumped up the volume on Pandora and let the music drive me up, up and away.  The trip up 8th took us past Cook Children's Medical Center where my wife has been a PICU nurse for more than 11 years.

Thistle Hill

As the hill topped out, we turned the corner and headed east on Pennsylvania Avenue.  This took us past Thistle Hill mansion, (where my wife and I got married), and past more hospitals.  The course was mostly gentle rolling hills at this point, and I began to catch the faster runners that were casualties of the hills and the humidity.  As I went by I tried encouraging those that had dropped to a walk, reminding them we didn't have but a mile left in the course.  I started seeing some of the much speedier runners running back on the course to find friends and family members to help cheer them in--easy to identify since they were holding the commemorative pint glass, ha!

As we turned back south to head to the entrance to the brewery I hopped up on the sidewalk to miss a sudden walker, and nearly ran into the traffic light pole, hidden just around the corner.  At the same moment I realized that the entrance to the brewery was much closer than I had anticipated, and I belatedly picked up the pace for my final push to the line--much later than I could have.  Dang.

One final turn into the back alley of the brewery, and up the short, uneven, pothole-y chute to the finish line.

Into one hand the volunteers thrust a bottle of water, into the other my commemorative pint glass--which I promptly dropped while juggling my phone, my headphones, and a slippery bottle of water.  Miracle of all miracles it didn't break even though it was dropped from waist level onto asphalt.  Weird.

Beer line!!

Storm Cloud IPA.

I strolled around a bit to cool down, and then headed over to get my beer glass filled.  The lines were long, but the beer was good.  I picked the Storm Cloud IPA.  It seemed fitting with the weather, and a good crisp IPA was just the perfect thirst quencher (after my bottle of water that is!).

As far as the race goes, my official chip time was 31:33, for what they're calling a 10:07 pace.  RunKeeper said I ran 3.17 miles in 31:43 for a 10:00 pace on the nose!  If only I'd realized how little of the race was left and started my final kick just a fraction sooner, would I have broken into the 9s?!?  That would have been so epic for me.  But a 10:00 pace in humidity and unknown hills?  I'll take it!!

According to RunKeeper, my splits broke down like this:

Mile 1:  10:12
Mile 2:  10:01
Mile 3:  9:52
Mile 4:  9:22

I'm pretty proud of the fact that my splits got progressively faster, despite the humidity and terrain.  Obviously work yet to be done, but it's certainly gratifying for the moment.

Now that I have a solid race under my belt I feel a little more prepared to start pushing the distances and paces in the future.

After the race I skipped out on the belly-busting German/Czech food and headed home to shower for soccer games and birthday parties.  The race was a great way to start a busy day though!

5k Fail

Well crap.

The race started fine (aside from all the people who never intended to run who started at the front of the pack) and I settled into a steady pace pretty easily.  It was a little faster than I'd intended, at 11:10 rather than the 11:30 I'd planned.  But I felt ok, it was a cool morning 75* and there was a nice breeze that happened to be blowing just nicely.  The first part of the course was mostly downhill, with one small uphill in the middle.  By the time we hit the uphill portion, most of the people who'd gone out too fast stopped to walk, and were easy pickings.  It was here when we looped back towards the start that I saw the lead runners returning already--like 11 minutes in.  That should have been my first clue.

The second part of the course was relatively flat, and aside from being nearly taken out several times by a woman pushing a jogging stroller that kept leap frogging me after she had to stop to walk, I felt really good and I settled into a 10:30 pace.  The third portion of the course was a marked uphill/downhill, out and back dog leg that I was looking forward to.  I figured the hill would cause even more people to walk and I felt really strong and looking forward to attacking it, (thank you intervals!), and then the downhill was running directly into that blessed breeze.

Only, we never made it.

The volunteer course marshal turned us around at the point we should have headed out for the dogleg, and sent us back towards the start instead.  I argued with her for several seconds (having run the course several times) but she was not hearing it.

Realizing that it was going to be a very short course, I immediately attacked the pace, dropping below 10 minutes and pushing the less than a mile back to the start/finish.

Unofficial results put me running the entire course at a ridiculous 8:17 pace.  Too bad it was a lie.  In actuality it was 2.46 miles/10:32 pace.  Mile 1, 11:11; Mile 2, 10:31; Mile 3, 9:10.

I'm really kind of upset--when I got home and talked with my wife, my eyes welled up a bit.  It's a pretty big let down.  Grr!!  It was going so well!! And I felt so good.  And...and...

Waiting for my refund check from my prorated entry fee in the mail.

I won't hold my breath.

Edited to add:  Official results are in, and based on the numbers they've now corrected for the altered course distance.  Officially I ran a 10:34 pace.  Overall 192/514, 102/182 males, and 23/41 in my age group.

Nerves

My bib is pinned, my chip is laced in place. My socks are tucked neatly in my shoes. My breakfast is beside the stove waiting to be prepared. Phone is charging, my earphones are with my keys and wallet. I read through the runner's program one last time. My wife is cleared to leave work at 0600, 90 minutes early. Now I'm laying in bed visualizing the course, and me successfully running it.

I don't think I can be more prepared, but I'm still nervous.

My loose plan is to force myself to run the first 10 minutes at an 11:30 pace, then allow myself to run the next 10 at 11:00. Then depending how I'm feeling I plan to advance to 10:30 for the next 5, and then push myself progressively faster to at least my fast interval pace of 9:40 by the finish. The last 75 feet or so of the course is a nice little downhill into the finish line, so I hope to have a little gas left to come in looking good.

I would love to be under 33 minutes, but I'll gladly take a simple "finish" as a big ole "W".

Going to try to sleep now.

Oh yeah.

Alarm set.

Check.