Why I hate treadmills

Ok, so considering what happened at the gym today, I really had a pretty good workout.

It started in the pool where I swam ~1/2 mile. It was an uneventful 1/2 mile. I wish I could say that about what happened next.

After the swim, I went to the locker to change into runing gear as I had a 3-mile date with a treadmill due to the KC blizzard of 06. Shorts, shirt and shoes were accounted all accounted for. But what the hell happened to my socks. Seriously. I had them when I went into the gym I was wearing them on my feet. I swim, they disappear.

Crap.

Anyway, I put on my running shoes w/o socks. This isn't the first time I have run without socks, but it was just a little uncomfortable.

Next, I head upstairs to select a treadmill. Like everyone else, I select the treadmill based on what is showing on the TV in front of it. So there I am walking down treadmill row. I get to the end of the row seeing nothing that really excites me so I start to back in between two stationary bikes lined up behind the treadmills to re-evaluate the selections from afar (maybe I could position myslef between 2 average shows and switch back and forth).

When I say "backed up", I really mean "with my head looking up at the TVs to my right I gradually shuffled between these two bkes". All I want to know is whether or not it was necessary for 24-hour fitness to have a 4" high rectangular box-like thing connecting the row of bikes to one another because I had no idea it was there.

To say I tripped over that thing is putting it mildly. I went down in a blaze of glory. I don't know what I hit first. But it must have been entertaining. Thank god for a snowstorm that turned the gym into a ghost town. I don't think there were witnesses.

Of course, because I didn't see it coming, I did nothing to brace myself and by arm, myback, my leg were all throbbing in pain as I stood back up. I considered not running, but I ran anyway. The pain went away tmporarily just to return on my drive home. As I type this, the tylenol 8-hour just kicked in. But I have a bad feeling that there will be some awkward stiffness when I wake up in the morning.

And yes, I do blame the treadmill for this. If they weren't so freaking boring, I wouldn't care what was on TV. But they are, and I will be damned if I am going to sit through 30 minutes of Oprah when Jeopardy! is a viable alternative. So choosing the right treadmill is important.

And about the missing socks, I glanced into the pool area as I returned to the locker room after the run and, yep, they were sitting right there on the bench where I left them during my swim.

Me and my nutcrackers

One of the great things about going home is that I always return with the unexpected. This time was no exception.

I helped gather pecans from one of the 20+ pecan trees at the grandparents place on Saturday morning. Usually, I just gather the nuts for the grandparents to give away. This year, was no exception. Well, except that I was the person that got them.

All of them.

So I drive home yesterday with a large, brown bag full of pecans.

On the surface, this would appear to be a good thing, with one small exception. The only way to enjoy the meat of the nut is by individually cracking them one at time.

Fortunately for me, I come to find out that both my girlfriend and roommate excel at nutcracking.

So for about an hour, me, the EW and the roomie sat around and cracked nuts.

Now, I just need to find out what to do with all those pecans (hint, if you want pecans, let me know. I can probably hook you up).

And even though I was traveling and eating most of the weekend, I did get squeeze in an 8-mle run on Saturday morninig. The first three miles sucked. So I stopped, had a little attitude adjustment bitch-out session with myself and reset the garmin. The last 5 miles went a lot better.

Two weeks to Vegas! I gotta try focusing on nutrition and find a way to get my taper-training in. But no matter how good or bad the marathon goes, it is still a weekend in Vegas with parts of both my KC and Tulsa crew, and that can never be bad.

I got lucky last night!

Last night, I got to go on a rare, mid-week date with the EW. We went to go see Happy Feet as part of a TNT fundraiser. Any time I get to see the EW, during the work-week, I consider myself lucky. But even better was that there was a raffle and among the prizes was a frozen turkey and night in a suite at the downtown KC Radisson.

And you know how I said I got lucky last night. Well I have never won anything in a raffle.

Until last night.

Do you want to guess what I won?

If you guessed the turkey, you would be wrong.

Only now, I need to figure out how best to utilize the suite (and yes, I do have ideas).

Really, I have been on a good roll for the past couple of months. It continued tonight with my 6 mile run. It wasn't that it was particularly fast, it was that I ran at all. I left work tired and not feeling 100%. But I knew I had to run. My goal was to get as much of the 6 miles in as I could without overdoing it. Well, I covered the entire distance. Even better was I did the last 1/2 mile at a 7:30/mile pace.

It felt good to open up and I had energy to spend at the finish.

Almost as good as it felt getting lucky.

College basketball

So I got back from my first college basketball game of the year. It was KU v ORU. I saw the upset in person.

Wow.

That is all I can say.

Honestly, I was kind of torn going in because, attending an upper mid-major school, I love seeing the upsets. But also, being from Tulsa, I am not a big fan of ORU. That school is just, for a lack of a better word, odd.

So I wasn't really rooting for or against anyone.

But I was having fun watching the fans. I was sitting in the "dead faculty" section in the corner so I was next to the students. The students didn't know what hit them. Neither did the rest of the arena.

I had fun. I really wasn't too happy that ORU won. But seeing KU lose didn't break my heart. Not because I dislike KU, either. I will pull for them whenever they play the "major" schools, with the exception of a couple of schools I like better (I guess Uconn is now one of them).

I had fun because I got to see (please note my biblical reference) David vs Goliath. And David won.

Isn't that what makes college basketball great?

That, and the Sports Illustrated jinx - way to go, Josh!

A brick

So I did a brick at the gym tonight. Actually, it was more like a mini-triathlon. But the original plan was a swim and spin brick.

I swam about a mile and then hit spin class for an hour.

Between the two, I jumped on the treadmill for a quick acceleration mile, where I start out at a brisk walk and gradually accelerate until I was at a sprint and completely anaerobic. This is about the only way I can handle the sheer boredom that comes with a treadmill run. Today, I covered the mile in 9:13.

In total , I spent nearly 2.5 hours at the gym.

Today's workout must have been the psycological beginning of training for marathon double I want to do next April. It had to have been. I have no other explanation. Unless it was punishment for eating like crap all weekend

All I know is that it felt good.

No.

It felt great.

Those stupid ideas keep coming

Well kids, today some unnamed source (ok, it was Doug) put the following thought into my head.

And let me say up front....

DAMN HIM.

I know better than to take advice from him, but just like you can't dangle a carrot in front of a rabbit, you can't dangle some stupid challenge in front of me. I totally bit this morning.

During our 8 mile run today, we were comparing and contrasting our 2007 race schedule and, when finding out that I was doing both RNR-AZ and RNR-SD, he told me I should go ahead and run the Country Music Marathon in Nashville in April. This is for no other reason than you get another medal when you run three RNR-series marathons in the same year (and the only reason we do this is for the hardware, unless you are EW and run the KC marathon and they run out of medals - and people ask me why I don't run KC).

And that is a great idea.

Except...

The CMM is the same weekend as the OK Memorial Marathon and that is my annual run because it truly is a great run and I get in quality family face time. It is the proverbial two birds with one stone. Additionally, this year, my sister and cousin Carly are both tentatively planning on running the 1/2 in OKC.

But notice how I said "same weekend" and not "same day".

The CMM is Saturday and OKC is Sunday.

So here is what I am thinking...

Drive to OKC on Thursday. Friday, I catch a flight to Nashville. Saturday, I run the CMM and then fly back to OKC that afternoon. Sunday, I run OKC.

Crazy. I know. But others have pulled this off.

Plus, I am going to be doing the Tahoe Triple and that is three marathons in three days (assuming I don't follow Doug's other bad example and take on the Tahoe Quad), so wouldn't a double-header make sense.

Perhaps we could even name it. If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears. The only catch is the name can't include the words "stupid", "crazy" or "insane". "Idiotic" and "Nuts" will be allowed.

But I think this is going to happen.

And it will happen if for no other reason than because it's there to do.

A running date

Note: You probably have to be a runner to really appreciate this story, but here goes.

So EW have been officially dating for one month today.

How do we celebrate? There wasn't a romantic candle-lit dinner. That's what non-runners do.

Nope.

Runners are different.

EW and I did celebrate. But we celebrated with a running date. And really, it worked out well. It was a perfect November evening with temperatures in the 60s. We both had to run tonight. We are both busy. We run practically the same pace. We get face time together (so much better than phone time). Why not run together. So I met her at her place on the plaza and we ran south through the neighborhoods of brookside. We got to talk. We got to laugh. We pooped.

Well, I pooped.

That's right. We were about 1.5 miles into the run and I was in a poop or explode mode. So I was like "EW, I have stomach issues", and she asked "Are you going to throw up" and I said "no, I have to poop." Of course, we were in the middle of a neighborhood, a half mile from brookside and 1 mile from the plaza. Basically, I was up shit creek without a paddle.

And then, EW went "look, a port-a-potty."

And she was right. In the middle of this Brookside neighborhood, on the sidewalk, there was a port-a-potty. It was about as out-of-place as a mountain in Kansas. But it was clean. So I pooped and we finished the run.

I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. But neither of us missed a beat during the whole episode. We are runners. These things happen. It is part of being a runner. It is part of dating a runner.

It is a good thing.

On the eve of election day

I don't know which is worse, recorded messages on my phone or the all the annoying commercials. But at least it is almost over. Tomorrow night, I will be glued to the television set watching anything but network television. Don't get me wrong. I do vote and I am informed (for the most part), but I am so sick and tired of the campaigns, I figure I will just find out who won by opening a paper Wednesday morning or turn on the TV to my new favorite morning news program (more in the morning) to get the results.

Oh, and if you haven't seen Borak yet, and you like totally offensive movies that are so over the top that it is no longer offensive, you should go see it. I haven't laughed that hard in months.

And seriously, don't forget to vote.

Call me a slacker

Training has been somewhat hit and miss lately. This should be a concern because Vegas is coming up. But it really doesn't bug me that much.

It has nothing to do with burnout. It has nothing to do with injury. I am feeling better than ever.

It's just that I have been pre-occupied with other things and the workouts were taking a back seat. I think I needed that break in October.

But it is now November and time to focus once again on training. I started the month off with a brisk, 4-mile run. Tomorrow, I get re-acquainted with the pool. It's going to be a good month.