Robert

FINALLY!! I figured this thing out.  6 mi felt good today.  We'll see about tomorrow.

Work out was good this morning with BPR.  Did weight training in the evening, feeling good.

2nd early workout.  I didn't feel too motivated but once I got going it was a great trackwork out.

Started a run and twisted an ankle in the first couple minutes. It sucked!!! 

This morning we ran at AJ's with BPR.  It was the first run since twisting the ankle. I wasn't sure how my foot was going to feel but when I started it was as if nothing had happend.  The two days of rest were very good.  At AJ's I met different members of BPR that I had not met, so the pace became a conversational pace.  It was fun and probably therapeutic.

This morning I had an Army PT test.  I was tested in running, pushups and situps.  For push ups I had a total of 70 in 2 min and 63 for sit-ups. I felt I should have done better in the situps but I guess thats room for improvement.  My 2 mile I made a 13:45 and I definitely have room for improvement there but all in all it went ok.  Then this evening I had to miss BPR's practice to be with the new niece that was born yesterday.  My brother had his first baby girl, so I am now an uncle agian.  After all this I ruined the day's workout (or celebrated  depending on your perspective)  with a nice banana split from DQ.  NICE!! 

I actualy was able to finish a Thursday run.  Four miles was a nice return after two days of work.

Jeff from BPR  went with me to Sabino canyon this morning.   We ran seven falls, it was perhaps one of the most difficult trail runs I've done in years.  I had so much fun  though it really was a blast.  It took a while but it was good work.  After had a nice bfast at IHOP.  It was the start of a great day.

Showed up to run with BPR, but I guess no one else showed up.  That wasn't that big of a deal, I ran anway.  I did my two laps at Reid Park, probably a little slower, but it was still a good one.

Track workout today with BPR.  We did a mile warm up, with the usual strides, high knees and butt kickers.  The actual workout was 4x400 at submile pace, then 4x600, then back to 4x400.  It kicked my butt. 

Today we ran 7 miles with  BPR at the Rilito river.  The morning was very cold and for some reason the run seemed to go on for ever.  I guess I was just realizing how tired I really was.  The veiw was amazing though as the  sun was rising

So I was in Douglas, AZ this weekend for a wedding.  While here I decided to do a long run that I haven't done since I was in high school crosscountry.  I ran up Douglas's famous "D" hill.  To get to the base of the hill was about 3.5 miles and then the hill starts, so give or take it was four miles one way.  It is probably the best view I can possibly get in town, so I stopped and enjoyed it for awhile then ran home. 

Track workout today with BPR.  We ran did a 1 mile at mile pace then 2 miles at mile pace.  Finally returned to mile at mile pace.  I was pretty beat by the end and missed my estimated goals by a few seconds.  It was a good workout, so good I had to go home and take a nap.

Ran at Rilito River today.  I had to cut the run short because of work.  It was a fun morning but it took me a while after being at work to recover

Today I ran with Dan from BPR.  We were both glad the other showed up as both of us expected to run alone that day.  It was nice to have a second,  we did our 4.5 mile course at conversation pace. 

5 mile track workout today.  Wasn't feeling like pushing it but once we got started I was able to push my self a little more than expected.  By the end I was happy that I did.

We ran the Rilito River today it was very nice morning.  The tempo was a relaxed one but it was a nice 8 minute pace.  It was kind of good to see what that felt like, hopefully maintaing that pace for a marathon won't be to bad.

push ups and situps along with our workout today.  We changed the route which gave us one more set of 40 pushups and 40 situps, oh and lunges as well.  That gave us a total of 6 times as well as a bit more mileage.

Todays work out was a track workout.  It wasn't extremely bad it just sounded ugly.  We did 12 times 300m.at faster than 5k race pace with a 100m cool down.  After that we did 2 times 800 one at a fast pace (5K pace) and one slow cool down. It was definitely a workout.

Six Miles today on BPR's Tempo run. We started with a decent pace. We were kinda confused on the mile points give or take a few yards but all in all I'm pretty sure we averaged a sub 8 pace.

I participated in the Police Memorial Challenge today it was a lot of fun.  There were alot of different obstacles during this race.  I was glad I had done the Teusday runs with Blue Pants, with pushups and situps in between running, because it allowed me to enjoy the race more.  There were towers to climb, tunnels to crawl through, and a lot of pushups in  between.

  Today we did our bootcamp workout we try to cover 4.5 miles with  6 sets of pushups, situps and lunges.  For some reason during my workout this morning I got this overwhelming sensation of weakness.  It was very hard for me to keep running much less try to keep up.  I'm not sure what was going on.

Today was supposed to be a tempo run. I didn't run yesterday because I felt so weak. The  run started off really well.  Sub 8 minute miles, but after the 4th mile I started to get really weak agian.  The last two miles I really struggled I had to stop at least once.  I pushed through and finally finished.  I'm not sure what exactly was going on allergies may be change of weather or just a plain old bad week.

Today we decided to do a long run to see how that felt for me.  When I heard that we were doing 12 miles.  I was skeptical for two reasons.  I hadn't ran that type of distance since I was in Iraq and because I had been feeling so weak for the past week.  We went for it anyway and took a nice easy pace.  I felt really good during the run and didn't start struggling until the last 2 miles.  Once we were done we stopped at the Brandi Felton Park, which to my relief had a small water park for kids.  At this moment I was so hot I turned into a kid and we took a good while playing in the water cooling down.  It was a lot of fun.

We ran at 6 pm today.  It was supposed to be a slow run but was even slower due to the heat.  Its gotten a little to hot to run comfortably, we had to stop a couple of times for water.

Well we did it.  I finally completed my first marathon.  IT WAS AWESOME!!!  Im very glad that I picked the San Diego Marathon.  It was a beautiful course along the city, with a lot of site seeing and music to go with it.  Having all the people cheer along the way helped.  The temp was beautiful very cool in the morning but not to warm by the afternoon. 

I ran with teamate Lauren Bowmen from Blue Pants.  Although this was not her first it was mine, having that experience helped me reserve myself and enjoy the marathon.  We stayed together until about mile 21 and for the most part we were averaging about an 8:40 mile.  At mile 21 I hit my wall, my knee seemed to have gotten so stiff that it locked up.  I came to far to back out at this point, so I sped walked and shuffled(whatever I could bare) for the next two miles.  At mile 24 something relaxed in my knee and I was able to continue running for the last two miles.  This was kinda upsetting cause the whole time my muscles felt great with minimal fatigue but the joint just wasn't having it, so I had no choice but to rest a bit.  I was able to walk around ok after resting it after the race. 

All in all my chip time was 4:07, averaging a 9:27 /mile pace.  I had a lot of fun got more than my share of sun and laughs.  And gained a little experience along the way, somewhere.