Make No Little Plans

86 miles last week which was 4 short of the plan but work/life gets in the way sometimes. On Saturday I did the last 4 miles of a GA run at goal MP (6:45) and that felt pretty decent although I wouldn't say that run was easy. Strangely, the 20 miler on Sunday was pretty easy even in the heat. Just one of those days where I felt stronger as the run progressed and never had to work at all despite moving the pace down to reasonably fast for the last 3-4 miles. Wish all the long ones felt like that. I did it as a one way run from my house to National Airport. It is just under 20 miles from my driveway to the parking lot where I left my car Saturday night so I only had to run past it a little bit to make it an even 20.

Tomorrow I'm meeting up with Jim Lentz and Kevin for a run. Jim is in town for work so we'll meet up in the evening. I'm going to take them out to Great Falls Park where I do trail runs. We won't go very far (likely 6 miles) so we won't get into the nasty areas of steep switchbacks and technical stuff. Should be fun.

This weekend was good. We went to see Harry Potter on Friday night. It was great. A few areas were different from the book, mostly minor things, and I did find myself wishing they had done a few scenes a bit differently. But minor quibbles only and the whole series of movies was well done and very faithful to the books. I did think the 3D stuff was pretty useless. That's a technology I'm just not sold on yet. Avatar is the only movie I've ever seen where I think wearing those glasses actually made things better than a regular 2D movie would have been. Most of the time, I think the 3D stuff adds nothing to the movie and even detracts from it a bit.

Saturday we went to see Fiddler On The Roof. I had never seen it despite it being a classic. It was great. Sunday I watched the Women's World Cup. Ah, what a bummer. Soccer is like that sometimes. You can completely dominate but just not get the breakthrough or breaks you need to get goals on the scoreboard. I thought they played incredibly well all game, better than they looked against Brazil for sure. The game FELT like it should have been a 3-0 win. But they let them hang around too long and then some key mistakes on D and its into a shootout where anything can happen.

This week is a stepback week. I have a 5K on Saturday night and I'm going to try and PR there. The long range weather sure doesn't look like it will cooperate. 100 degrees!

This morning, I had my butt kicked hard again by the personal trainer. Same type of circuit program as before where it is 3 different exercise routines and you move from one to the next quickly and then do 3 total repeats of that before getting a break and moving on to a new set of exercises. It was exhausting. I could barely lift my arms above my head in the locker room afterwards! Today, one of the exercises was 0.25 miles on the treadmill at 6% incline at 10 mph (6:00 pace). That was the easiest one for me!! I'll take that over doing lunges with weights and clean and press reps! Pretty sad that a 20 miler in the heat has less impact on me than doing 60 minutes of core and weight work. This is badly exposing for me that I'm out of shape for the non-running elements of fitness. I can muddle through a pretty intense weight workout but since I haven't been doing this stuff in years, my body is screaming at me afterwards.

Can't convert. What can you do? I would say it should be a fair 3/4:1 game. The 2nd Japan goal is good. The 1st one, two defenders couldn't clear. Sigh.

Coincidentally, Argentina dominated the Copa America final. Can't convert and lost the PK to Uruguay.

Nice week Chris!

I still love Fiddler even when it comes on TV. Awesome show!


The game was very entertaining, but I'd like to see an end to the PK's. Play 8 on 8 after the OT's or go back to the Golden Goal. It's too bad that the Japanese were not punished for the red card just outside the box(ran out of time). With different rules, maybe they would have. Still, any team that comes back to tie at the end of the game and OT seems to have destiny on their side.

Nice game soccer women! Great support, too, from the German crowds after their team was ousted.

I'm encouraged by the US team's passing, strength and speed.

Totally agree that PKs should be abolished. Its a terrible way to decide soccer games. Like having a Field Goal contest at the end of an NFL game or free throws for the NBA Championship. When I was in HS, they did a cool way. These are probably not the exact details but from what I remember, if a playoff game ended tied we played 20 minutes of sudden death OT 11 on 11. We then kept playing 10 minute OTs (all sudden death) where they would remove one player from each team. So 10 on 10 for the first one, 9 on 9 for the 2nd one. At some point, the goalies had to be removed so nobody could use their hands. I never played in a game that went that far but supposedly there was a state championship years before me that went down to something like 6 on 6 with no goalies. Full field! That would be so wild. But its a much better way than PKs or even the NASL-style dribbling in shootout.

Remember that from the game, Japan got completely screwed by a full breakaway from midfield that was NOT offsides and yet was whistled as such. So the breaks can and do go either way. The Wambach shot hitting the underside of the crossbar was the most painful near miss for the US. What a shot and its just not their day when that doesn't go in. Really fun game to watch and while I wouldn't say the better team won, the US failed to put them away and you can't let decent teams hang around forever and not have things go bad.

I actually watched the entire game....though I spent the majority of the time debating Hope Solo v. Alex Morgan. I still haven't reached a conclusion.

Dave-O wrote:I actually watched the entire game....though I spent the majority of the time debating Hope Solo v. Alex Morgan. I still haven't reached a conclusion.

One has attitude and the other is sweet. Does that help?

Dave-O wrote:I actually watched the entire game....though I spent the majority of the time debating Hope Solo v. Alex Morgan. I still haven't reached a conclusion.

I have a solution........both!

Nice week of training Chris. Looks like things are going well and I love reading about you getting your ass kicked by the PT guy. Although I do think the working out is going to go a long way for you to reaching your goals in Chicago this fall. You will be amazed at how much that extra core strength will mean in the later stages of the race.

Great job on the 20 miler in the heat, speaking of that do you feel you now have a good handle on the cramping issue stuff?

Also thanks for opening your home up to us for November. We are looking forward to staying with you and your family again. I think my mom might be joining us for this one also. You guys don't mind do you? And should be bring extra dog food?? HaHa

Dave-O wrote:I actually watched the entire game....though I spent the majority of the time debating Hope Solo v. Alex Morgan. I still haven't reached a conclusion.

Seriously?? If Hope Solo was named Megan Smith, people would think, "Yeah, she's okay..."


It took me about 1 second to wonder why Alex Morgan didn't get more hype.

86 miles, that is really amazing, how you've been able to ramp up like that. I've heard a number of good things about trainers too, was thinking of trying one as I also don't feel in great non-running shape. Nice week CHris.

Met up with Jim Lentz and Kevin Fitzgerald for a run last night. Jim is in town teaching an IT course and the office he was working out of is right across the street from my office so we met up and then we picked up Kevin and headed to Difficult Run Park and Great Falls Park for a trail run. This is my "home turf" that I run at least every other week or so I got to play tour guide and show them where I do my trail running. We did just the first part of my regular run down to the Falls themselves (see picture below)



Once we got to the river itself, we turned around and went back out for 6 miles total. I didn't take them to the really nasty portions of the trail which are along the cliffs right by the water. We call that section "The Billy Goat Trail" and its crazy technical running of leaping from boulder to boulder. Yesterday, we kept it mellow and stuck with the fire road and mostly groomed stuff. Its a great trail system and I recommend it to anyone in the DC area or visiting. I've done 10 out and back for 20 total and still never reached the end of it. After our run, the three of us went out for dinner (mmmm.....yum milkshakes). Great time and its always nice to catch up in real life with people from here. Kevin and I will be running a 5K this Saturday together and then he's coming out to where I live to run a 10K the following weekend as well. Its been hot which may make fast race times tough. It should be over 100 starting tomorrow and then on through the weekend. Ugh.

Jim is coming back to the area next week (DC next time, not Virginia) and so the 3 of us may be able to meet up in DC for a different kind of run where we stay in the city and hit all the DC sights.

I always loved that picture.

I don't understand how you folks can do 20 miles in Summer. I haven't done 15 for a long time.

Jerry wrote:I don't understand how you folks can do 20 miles in Summer. I haven't done 15 for a long time.

Because some of us train hard and don't live in Texas heat all summer.

I really need to try and make it back up there again so we can run that trail...it looks so beautiful.

Wow - it is sometimes amazing to see photos like that and realize that a place like that exists within a few miles of DC.

that is an amazing view. So much beauty.

Julie wrote:that is an amazing view. So much beauty.

It depends on how tired I am in terms of how much I appreciate it! Runs out there are never particularly easy because of all the varied terrain. You are constantly changing between loose rocks, hills, groomed fire roads and flatish paths like this section below. The truth is sometimes I see those dramatic Potomac River Falls in the picture up above and all it means to me is "...3 miles to go...." But it is a great place to run and I'm glad my buddy here makes me go out there often. I'm lazy and would probably stick to the local paved rail trail but my buddy Scott makes me head out to do long runs on the trail often.

Yeah good for Scott dragging your ass out there. Kinda like you making me race a 10 mile trail race after racing a 1/2 marathon some buddy you are!

Wow! That's looks like an amazing place to run, and right outside of D.C no less. Who would have thunk it? I imagine the more technical parts of the trails require real caution so you don't get to look up at the scenery too often.

Dave has me in a step-back week which has been nice. One of the reasons for that was to set me up to try and really go after a 5K race on Saturday evening. The weather sure is not cooperating. Current forceast is for temps right at 100 and heat index at 112-115. That likely makes my race time plans impossible for me to reach. I had thought I was ready to go somewhere in the 18:15-17:59 range. About a month ago, Kevin and I went to do a 10K in Georgetown and because of the heat (nowhere near as bad as this weekend) they converted it to a 5k. Lacking any real plan or motivation to run that one once they changed the distance, I did an 18:31 in that race without really working too hard at all. My PR is only a few seconds faster than that, at 18:28, although the recent 18:31 was soooo much easier to get to than my PR. Anyway, with where I am now, 18:15 seems about right and on a "all planets allign" day, 17:59 is fun to think about and I think I could get that in the discussion. But geesh, not at 100+ degrees plus, I don't think. Jennifer and Cassidy are also signed up to run this 5K but we may decide to not have them do it. I think I'll run it no matter what but I'm going to play it by ear as to whether I really try and mash it or just scale back the plans and make it a good hard training run. There's a different 5K I'm likely to do in mid September so perhaps I'll have to wait until then to take my PR a little lower. I also have a 10K next Saturday right near my house and I sure would like to lower my PR at 10K. We'll see. The brutally hot weather is frustrating in that it messes with some of these race plans but what can you expect from a July in the DC area? In general, the running is going very well and I feel like I'm handling the cycle pretty well so far. Some big mileage weeks coming up soon.

I had my 3rd personal trainer appointment today. Those are really tough but its a great all-body workout. He wised up that I was handling the treadmill portions of the circuits fine so today I had to do those sections on a spin bike. The one that got me the most today was Seated Dips. As I mentioned last time I deccribed the workouts, its 3 different exercises and you do 1-2 minutes of each or a set number of reps like 15-20 before moving on to the next. Complete a quick circuit of the 3 and then you do it all again, doing each of the exercises 3X for a total of 9 exercises in each "pod". Then he explains the next 3 different ones and you do 9 total of those. Some aren't bad (ie box jumps, spin bike, curls) and some kill me like the Seated Dips, Burpees and the one where you just lie on your back holding your feet a few inches off the ground. Ugh. But so far I'm kind of glad this gym forced me to sign up for these sessions and they are good for enforcing some discipline to get out there and do non-running workouts. I'll have to think about whether to continue beyond the 3 more I've got scheduled. I'm sure the gym will put the hard sell on me to keep going but I may be able to be convinced.

I just found out there's a chance work could have me travel to South Africa! How wild would that be? I've never been to Africe. Too bad it couldn't overlap with last Summer's World Cup. That must be a crazy long flight.

Has the NFL strike fully settled? I hope so! I need to go look at ESPN and get the latest. I'll be so pumped if the season is back to 100% on. There should be a wild time of free agent activity and I'll also be cramming for the 3 fantasy football drafts I have coming up in August. Fingers crossed that the NFL IS BACK!

That is a breathtaking view, I wish I had seen that when I was out there, very nice that you get to run it often. Similar to Bob K's awesome scenery by the ocean.

Be careful if you go to South Africa!

I had a wealthy client there, and his son was attacked on the streets of Johannesburg and badly injured.

I think the only reliably safe place is Capetown. Otherwise, the advice is not to wander out of your hotel, except with security (would make for an interesting run with a phalanx of armed running buddies).

Aren't those exercises where you lay on the floor and hold your feet a couple of inches up supposed to be killer on your back?

How much mileage are you knocking down in a step back week these days?

The lockout isn't over and it sounds like the owners are trying to pull some fancy lawyering tricks on the players with this new revenue sharing deal they approved along with the labor agreement and the time constraints they put on the players to approve the deal. Something about the whole thing just sounds shady to me at this point.

mul21 wrote:How much mileage are you knocking down in a step back week these days?

The lockout isn't over and it sounds like the owners are trying to pull some fancy lawyering tricks on the players with this new revenue sharing deal they approved along with the labor agreement and the time constraints they put on the players to approve the deal. Something about the whole thing just sounds shady to me at this point.

It will end up being around 60 miles done this week. Did 70/90/86 last 3 weeks and so this week goes back down and then starting next week there will be some long weeks. For this week, 14 miler on Sunday is the long run.