Christmas, ho, ho, ho…

Well, Christmas is great and all that, but I am still hyper and still have to run. So, Sunday afternoon, time for a run. Ran 5.5 miles through campus and around the Research Park with Jorge and Joseph at 3 pm. Nathan “the Hulk” Gaudin wanted to come with us today, as he loves rain and mud, but he had to decorate Christmas cookies today with his family. I will probably give him a hard time about that for a about 6 months!  Chilly, windy, and rainy! Not much traffic though with the holidays.  Easy -ish pace today, after the first mile, which was about 7:20, we ran then rest of the way at about  a 6:40 per mile pace.  Wet  and chilly!

Bad news though, my Saucony Ride 4 shoes are about completely worn out. Not the soles, but the top and sides have ripped. Quite a few miles on them though, so can’t complain. This has been my favorite pair of trainers ever!

Unfortunately, with my Sauconys being about dead, it is time for something else. Just ordered a pair of Saucony Xodus 3.0 shoes and a pair of Brooks Pure Flow. Will have to compare them and see which pair I like better. Look for an update on that topic in a few weeks.

Brooks Pure Flow

Saucony xodus 3

So, yeah, I have been super happy with almost all of the Saucony shoes I have tried and so has my son. In fact, when he won the 5A XC state championship this fall he ran in Saucony Shay spikes.

Saucony Shay XC2

Yes, we love Saucony running shoes. I have recommended them to many people. Heck, I have even bought pairs for various high school runners! To show you how much we  love Saucony, here is a photo of some of our shoes from the last couple of years. This is not all of them, but you get the idea. Still waiting for the Saucony company to realize how much I like and promote their shoes. Surely they can start buying my shoes and pay me lots of money to wear them?

Some of our Saucony running shoes

Got a nice Christmas eve run in at 3 pm with Brent, Joseph, Nathan, and Steve as we cruised through Starkville. About 70°F, so no need for shirts! Of course, tomorrow we are expecting storms with possible tornadoes as a cold front moves through. Every other day is a mystery here on the meteorological scene.  Nice easy smooth run today. We all started together and ran the first mile at 6:45. Nathan and Brent hung with us for the next two miles at 7:05 and 7:00 minutes, but then dropped off, so, we picked it back up and ran the last three at 6:50, 6:35, and 6:14 and finished up the remaining 0.25 pretty fast. The route was actually about 5.8, but added a bit at the end to get a 10k in.  Nathan probably averaged about a 7-7:10 today, pretty good for a “swoll-up” weightlifter looking joker. Brent somehow got ahead of us after taking a short cut, but we caught back up with that wily shortcut taking sneaky joker. Steve came drifting in a bit later and said he also took a short cut. They said something about too many Christmas sweets!

No run on Christmas day. Good day to take off too, with the strong storms that moved through the region!

Great upper body core workout on Wednesday morn with Joseph. Lots of pushups, curls, pullups, and ab stuff. Good stuff! Wednesday afternoon, back to it eh! Nathan, Joseph, and I ran 5.5 miles at a 6:50 mile pace at 3 pm on a crazy day. Windy, dark, damp, cold. Only stupid fanatics would run in this stuff. If they had not run, I would have skipped out! Both Joseph and I wore running tights. Gaudin had shorts on though. Nut. We all wore gloves and hats. Actually, when the wind was behind us, it was not terrible. We ran through the campus and downtown a bit. Nathan did a great job. He has run with us off and on over the last 3 or 4 years, but has not been out with much this past year. He only started back with us after the SHS XC season was over about a month ago. In those short few weeks, he has made some leaps and bounds in his conditioning. When he first showed up a few weeks ago, he could barely keep up with us for a couple of miles on these “easy” runs; now, he is  already running 5+ mile runs faster than at any point in the season. Pretty good for a 180 lb weightlifting, cookie decorating joker! At this rate, he will be in great shape by this spring.

Thursday, just me and the kid. Did the six mile loop at the South Farm at 3 pm. About 40°F, but not windy. Shorts today. Averaged just over 6:40 per mile, but I was lacking the energy today! Slacker.

Friday. Another one of those “rain all day” days! Did not run. Did some ab stuff and 10 sets of pullups. 155 pullups total. Not full hang pullups, but not bad. I don’t like the “full hang” pullups. Too much stress on my shoulders. Anyway. Will do some other stuff tomorrow!

Saturday was cold and windy. About 36°F at 3 PM with wind and damp skies. Joseph and I were being lazy slacker punks, but somehow managed to drag our sorry selves to the SHS track to attempt some type of workout. Had some tights and gloves on for sure today. Got a mile warmup in, then 4 X 800m with 400m jogs between, then 2 X 400m with 400m jogs, and finished off with a pretty quick 200m run.  Of course, got a cool down in after. The 800s were between 2:36 and 2:43, and the 400s were 1:08 and 1:10.  Nothing crazy, but good enough for this nasty day. As we were finishing up, Steve Shaffer showed up and ran a mile with us during the cool down. Too cold for him he said though, and he soon left to run indoors at the Sportsplex indoor track.

Will be back at the South Farm tomorrow at the 3 PM for another afternoon jaunt.

Nathan “the savage beast” Gaudin executes a horizontal handstand!

Monday, quick 4.5 mile run through the quite hilly University Estates neighborhood before dark with Joseph; averaged 6:52 per mile according to Nike GPS watch, which sometimes seems accurate and sometimes not.  For sure the instant pace is way off. The instant pace seems to be much faster than I am actually running. I know it is supposed to change, but my pace is not changing to the extent the watch says. The average pace also varies somewhat, but seems to be pretty close. Will start testing on the track. For example, today, my last mile was pretty fast, I know that, and the watch only showed it being a 7:03 minute mile. I would have guessed it was closer to 6:10.

Tuesday, Nathan Gaudin, Brent Wallace and Jorge Villarreal joined us for a run at 3:45 PM at the South Farm. Jorge, Joseph and I did 7 miles. Those two finished up a bit ahead of me and I averaged 6:39 per mile, so they were better than that. Pretty good for this gravelly hilly course and the fact that our first mile was a warmup at 7:22. Nathan did 6 miles, and Brent finished up with 5.5 miles. Pretty danged nice out.

Before the run, Nathan Gaudin (pronounced “G0-Dan”) demonstrated a horizontal handstand! Pretty cool! This high school senior is a beast and is in incredible shape. I have not met many kids his age or any age in the kind of shape he is in. So, of course, I have about 100 nicknames for him!

Nathan Gaudin, horizontal handstand

Wednesday, beautiful outside, about 70°F! Grabbed Joseph after school and we did a 5k tempo type run through Longmeadow neighborhood. Got a mile warmup in, stretched a little, then got going. Pretty good run, except it was busier than usual in places, and we were probably slowed by about 20 seconds during the run as we dodged cars and slowed down to talk to people in vehicles. This was a route we have been running off and on for several years. So, its nice to compare runs from back when to now. For me, today was my best run for this route in quite some time, so I was pretty happy. We ended up at 17:55 for the 3.1 miles with mile splits of 5:31, 5:53, and 5:55. Did not feel exceptionally great today, but ok. Maybe finally getting back in shape? Definitely in pretty good shape lately doing lots of pushups, ab stuff, and consistant running. So, who knows, maybe a 17:30 5k is not out of the question. Good day, able to break 18 minute 5k and it was not hard.

Well, Joseph starts his Christmas break today and is off shopping with his Grandma. Meanwhile, out here in Sessums, I got in a pretty hyped up workout while listening  to some Radiohead. Pushups, pullups, curls, handstand pushups against the wall, and some ab stuff. Still feel like I am hanging in there for an old feller and this stuff helps for sure. Not going for the gigantic weightlifter look or anything, just trying to stay healthy and feel good. For folks old enough, you might remember the solo flex ads back in the 80’s? People used to think I had a “soloflex” styled build and maybe even resembled one of the guys who did the ads. Of course, that was over 25 years ago. I found one of those ads on line and put a picture of myself from now next too it. Not exactly the same pose, but somewhat similar.

Solo flex guy (Scott Madsen) and me now.

Thursday afternoon run with Brent, Gaudin, and Jorge. Sunny, but chilly, and windy!!! 25-30 mile per hour sustained winds with higher gusts! The wind was mostly from the west, which was unfortunate for us because for the majority of our run we had wind hitting us in front or on either side of our body. We only headed east briefly on the route, but that minor respite was most welcome! Pretty decent run even so. Planned on going easier today anyway. Averaged 7:01 for 7 miles. Jorge was faster, as he took yesterday off.  Brent and Nathan both ran well and kept up the first 3 miles or so. They somehow beat me back though? Must have taken a shortcut.

weather channel wind forecast!

Friday afternoon run through town with Jorge and Joseph was brisk and steady. About 6.5 miles more or less. Started out slower and picked it up. Not sure what the pace was today, as Jorge’s Garmin and my Nike watches were quite different. Last week I measured this course at 6.7 miles on my Nike gps watch. Today I measured the same route at 6.35 miles? Jorge’s watch said 6.5 miles. Who knows? 45 minutes of running, I know that! Probably around 7 minutes or slightly less per mile.

Saturday afternoon, Joseph, Jorge and I met at the MSU track to do some 400’s. Been a while since I have done any of these jokers! After a mile warmup, I did 12 X 400 meters with 90 second rests between each; averaged about 1:14. Kept them pretty consistant with the slowest 1:15 and the fastest 1:12. Joseph and Jorge did a 2 mile warmup then jumped in with me. I had already done 4 by then.  Joseph averaged about 1:12 I would guess. He also did 12. Jorge did 16 and was around 1:13-1:14 for his. We all did a cool down. Pretty good day, about 58°F and sunny with only a slight wind. These were good 400s for me pace-wise, especially since I have not done 400s in a while. They were not hard, but my lunch and breakfast were weighing heavy on me. Breakfast was awesome! Ham, eggs, toast and orange juice at 9 AM. Then we had to go to a funeral. Very sad. The mom of a kid on the SHS XC team died this week. Man. Man. Too young and such a nice lady. We left there and got a large bag of M&Ms and  some mountain dew action.  So, yeah, not the best food for an upcoming workout. So, we then ate lunch at Popeyes Fried Chicken. Got some chicken strips, a bunch of fries, and lemonade. Tasty. Pretty good. So, by about the 7th 400 I was ready to throwup!!!!! Joseph said it hit him at about the 7th 400 also! But, we made it through it. Cool. One thing of note today. I used my Nike GPS watch to see how accurate it was on the track, but also used the shoe sensor, which I have not used before. I recorded 14 laps around the track and with both the sensor and GPS and the distance recorded on my watch was 3.5 miles. Pretty good. It was not exactly spot on for each lap, but the end result was right there. In other words, this watch appears to work better when used in conjunction with the shoe sensor.

Will be running tomorrow afternoon at 3 PM meeting at the South Farm.

Great running weather….

Our run Sunday afternoon was awesome. 73°F at 3 pm as I met up with Brent Wallace, Dominique Belcher, Lucas Muniz, Jorge Villarreal, Ian Prester, Nathan Gaudin the Savage, and Steve Shaffer. Ended up getting 10. 5 miles in at a 6:57 pace. We all started together as we made our way through town and back for a 6.63 mile route. Some of us wanted more. Lucas and I headed toward the South Farm, where I ran about 4 more miles. Lucas was shooting for 14, so he kept going. Ian ended up with just over 11!  Nathan and Steve ran like beasts today, and finished the first loop just behind us! Good job Jokers!

Monday. RAIN!

Tuesday, 5.5 miles, with Steve, Nathan, and Joseph at the south farm. 6:40 pace. Steve and Nathan hung with us for first couple of miles! Waited for them at 3.6 mile mark, then took off again! Awesomeness. Cool weather, felt great.

Wednesday, 9.1 miles with Joseph, Lucas, and Arash on the south farm and XC course. Arash did about 7. We averaged 6:53 per mile. 43°F as we finished. Good run. Chilly!

Thursday, 6 miles, super slow, 7:30 mile pace. Entomology Christmas luncheon today meant me and Joseph were as full as ticks! Ran with Arash, Steve, Dominque, Brent, Joseph, and Jessica Comer. Jessica, Brent and Dominque split off after a mile and did some fartleks, the rest of us continued through and around campus, around the research park and back. Easy running. Too full! Got back and some of the MSU team and their coach, Houston Franks were there stretching after a run.

Got a 5 mile run Saturday at noon with the Joseph. First mile was 7:01, then 6:33, 6:44, 6:53, and 6:10. No energy! Not enough breakfast!!! We planned on doing 10, but didn’t happen!

Sunday, raining all day! Got up at 6 AM and did pushups. Went back to bed. Probably won’t get a run in today, it looks like rain all day!! Workout instead I guess…..

running with the beasts

Got in a great run Sunday afternoon with Brent “the voice of reason” Wallace, Steve “happy as a clam” Shaffer, smooth Jorge Villarreal, and Joseph the trippy hippie as we hit the 7 mile loop on the South Farm. We started together then drifted a part a little.  Joseph was hyper early and ran the first 3.6 miles pretty fast. Jorge, Brent and I ran together for about 2.2 miles, then Jorge and I picked it up some. Joseph waited for us at the 3.6 miles point, then we took off. Jorge was going now and took the lead, but came back to run with me for a bit. Must have been lonely, poor feller. Then, he caught Joseph and they ran together for a while, then he took off again. I caught with Joseph at about the 6 mile mark and actually finished up before him. I think his skipping breakfast this morn caught up with him. I ran the course in 46:08. Jorge was at least a minute faster. Joseph was right behind me. Brent came strolling after not too long, and Steve pulled up at just over 53 minutes. It was truly nice out today, warm-73°F!

Did not run Monday, took the day off. Headed over to the gravelly goodness at the South Farm again on Tuesday. Met Nathan “the Hulk” Gaudin. That muscle headed joker ran with us for a couple of miles before veering off to the east and finishing up a 5 mile route.  He was running pretty well as we were doing about a 7 minute pace.  Joseph and I continued southward and picked up the pace. We met Jorge and Lucas Muniz at about the 3 mile mark and ran with them the rest of the way. Lucas is wanting to walk on the MSU team this spring and seems to really enjoy running. We went ahead and did the 3000 m loop of the XC course before heading back to the gravel. We were running along at a decent pace I think. Kept up with those rascals for a while, but after about 7 miles, I either slowed down slightly or they sped up! Or both. Anyway, those three punks finished about 25 seconds ahead of me. Joseph and I ended up with about 9.4 miles, and I think they were closer to 8 miles. Almost as soon as we got back to the cars, a crazy dark storm came in! We were running shirtless, but suddenly it was mighty chilly! Got a quick stretch in, and headed out. Good run. Yeah!

Wednesday was also a grey and chilly day. Picked Joseph up late from choir practice, and we managed to get a short run in before dark on the rainy, wet roads of Longmeadow neighborhood. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had some issues with my Garmin watches, so I ordered a Nike GPS watch. Today was my first time to try it out. I used the first half mile or so to see how the thing worked.   The watch said I was going an average pace of 10:39!! I was probably going about 7 minutes a mile type pace. Looked at the watch and realized that both the GPS sensor and the shoe sensor were on, and I was not wearing a shoe sensor. Figured that might be messing it up. Hoped that was it, or I was sending this joker back too! It was cloudy of course, but surely it would not mess it up that bad? Anyway, then ran two semi quick miles along a route I knew. Average pace 6:05. Better. One thing I did not like was the back lighting on the watch, which is activated by tapping the screen, absolutely sucks!!! To the point of not really working. Other ticky things are the tiny letters and numbers for some things, but the giant numbers for the time of day. What’s up with that? Also, I would like to be able to plug it into an outlet to charge, but have to use the computer for that. The coolest thing is when you connect to Nikeplus.com though, and you can chart your run. Very cool.

Since the run was cut short by weather, I was still hyper as a wild duck, so I went home and did pullups, pushups, ab stuff, curls, dips, and military presses! Nice. Helped a little.

Thursday afternoon was awesome. About 73°F and not windy. We met Nathan Gaudin and Steve Shaffer at the South Farm and got going. We all started together. We pulled ahead of Steve a bit at the mile, and Nathan hung tough until the 2 mile mark, where he again veered off for a 5 mile run. Joseph and I ran the 6.1 mile loop, and Steve ran the full 7 miles! Man, it was so nice out! Muddy too. Nathan “the beast” loved the mud and made crazy noises while we splashed along. When we got thru, we did a few push ups to make Nathan happy! As we were getting ready to leave, Lucas showed up for his second run of the day. He is needing 70+ miles this week. I was curious if the Nike watch would show the same distance at various points and at the end as my Garmin watch had. It seemed to be very close. So that was nice. I uploaded the data to Nikeplus.com and it drew me a cool map with elevation. Said my splits were: 7:04, 6:47, 6:54, 6:51, 6:35, and 6:15.  Interestingly, as we ran, the pace on the watch said we were going much faster. But, when the route was completed, these were the results.

Steve Shaffer, Nathan Gaudin, Joseph MacGown, and Lucas Muniz

Bummer, did not get to run either Friday or Saturday! Did get some pushups, crunches, shoulder presses and curls in Saturday morn. Nice hike Saturday afternoon at Tombigbee National Forest!

Tomorrow, meeting at the South Farm again-3 pm, and also on Tuesday and Thursday at 3:40pm. Join us if you like!

back in the swing of things?

Due to the death of  my Garmin 405 watch, I had a few days without knowing my pace. However, on Saturday, my new Garmin 110 came in the mail. This was  a cheaper model that I thought I would try. This model has buttons, instead of the stupid bezel, but has fewer functions. That’s cool, because I don’t use most of them anyway! Unfortunately, this model appears to lack the ability to save the pace for each mile in the history. It does save the overall pace for each run, but I like to know my splits. It was cheaper though.

Cold again last night, but beautiful by the afternoon. Steve, Brent, and I got in a sweet 5.9 mile run through the campus and University Estates neighborhood. Had so much fun running those hills with Joseph on Wednesday, thought I would share the joy with Brent and Steve. We pretty much ran together for the first 4 miles or so, then I broke away on a nice hill and finished the last 1.9 at a nice 6:26 pace. Ended up averaging 7:05 per mile for the entire journey.

Rained on Monday, but was able to snag a 5 mile run in with Arash “Dance Machine” Taheri on the quite muddy gravel roads. Went out 2.5 miles relatively slow, around 7:20 pace, but the return was significantly faster. I even hit one mile at 5:58.  Was cruising in to finish up feeling like a maniac in the drizzle when Joseph showed up. So ran another 3 miles with him before it got dark. We were running about 6:18 average per mile. Arash took off after the 5 miles.

Stormed for a few hours early Tuesday morn and the temps dropped. Tuesday afternoon was dreary, overcast, windy and chilly. Joseph had something going on after school, so I decided to just do an upper body workout today at lunch. It was a good one. Got all pumped up and hyper while listened to Jane’s Addiction!! Pretty much skipped out on lunch, although I did have a breakfast bar, a hunk of habanero cheese, and some peanut M & M’s. Jorge Villarreal emailed me at about 3 pm and wanted to run, so I ended up running after all. We ran the 7 mile loop at the South Farm (its really more like 6.9 miles). It was cold enough with the wind that I wore a long sleeve shirt! Jorge wore running tights. I figured I would be pretty worn out, but actually felt good. We did the route at a 6:41 pace. Not bad for such a windy day. I was really hyper! The cold, windy weather gets me going.

Thursday, just me at the South Farm today. As I was about to get started, Jessica Comer and Dianna Eddington of the MSU XC/track team stopped by to say hello while they were out running. They asked if I wanted to join them, but I was headed the other way. Got my new Garmin out, and guess what??? It was dead!%@$#! Nothing on the screen!!! Yeah, great. I think its time to try the Nike GPS watch, because these Garmins are not doing the job.  Well, I ran “old school” style today, no watch. No shirt either. Can you believe that? It was 27°F this morning, but warm enough to run without a shirt on this afternoon. Did the 7 mile loop. Pretty easy pace. Who knows.

Got Joseph after school Friday and went back to the South Farm. Why not. Place is beautiful and basically no cars. Of course, if you don’t like to run on gravel, then you would hate the place. As we were getting ready to start, some dude pulled up on his Yamaha scooter, got off and started stretching. Looked like a runner, so I said hello. His name was Daniel Scoggin, and he said he was a recent MSU grad. Anyway, he ran with us for a while. Cruised along easy enough to the first 3.6 mile mark, which we hit at just over 27 minutes, or just over 7:30 per mile. We split off there as Daniel headed straight back northward for the 5.5 mile route, and we took the right/east loop and did the 6.9 mile loop. We ran the next 3.3 miles in 21:07, which was about 6:24 per mile. Felt really nice out again today. No shirts again as it was 62°F when we started, and even though it got colder along the way, we were plenty warm as we moved along. I was actually sweating quite a bit. What an awesome day to run!

Planned on getting up and running the Chinese Restaurant loop with the Boardtown Running Club, but at 5:30 AM, neither Joseph or I really felt like getting up and running in the semi cold. So, back to sleep! We ended up going at noon when it was 72°! No shirts, awesome. Ran steady for 35 minutes. Beautiful day!!!!!

Tomorrow we will be back at the South Farm Parking area at 3 PM if anybody wants to join in for a run. We will be there on Tuesday and Thursday at 3:40 PM also.