A couple of weeks of running, more of the same, some of the other

Wednesday, just an easy jog at lunch. Very easy. This followed a workout earlier that morning. One of those trying to wake myself up deals.

Met Lucas and Brent Tuesday for a 6.5 -7 mile run thru town. It was cold and windy! We all wore shorts, longsleeves, and gloves. The wind was the problem, hit ya in the face. Anyway we cruised along at an easy pace gradually picking it up. Averaged about 6:50 per mile.

On Friday, I met the high school punks Armon, Patton, and Patrick for a workout over near the Research Park. It was cold again! I even wore tights today, a fleece over my short sleeved under armour shirt, a hat, and gloves. Of course, it did not take long to remove my outer long sleeved garment once we got going with the workout.  First we did an easy 1.5 mile warmup jog, then 4 X 400m, 2 X 200m, 4 X 400m, and 2 X 200m with the same distances for recovery between each. The fun part was they were all uphill. Not a super steep hill, but a good, steady one with the second half of the 400m stretch more steep than the first. We all did ok though considering the hill and cold. Armon and Patton was a bit faster, usually around 1:14-1:16 or so, followed by me and then Patrick. We kept the 200s slightly faster, mine was 33 to 35 seconds. Armon and Patton had a couple of speedier ones, and Patrick did really well on these as well. All three concentrated on good posture and overall form while doing these repeats. We grabbed a swig of water then did a cool down jog in the dark around the Research Park loop.

The weekend started out chilly and then basically it rained all day Sunday. I took this opportunity to rest my legs a bit and did not run. Usually, I take time off after I have some minor injury, and, of course, two day off is not much, but I am trying to be smarter with my running as I get older. So I took two days off when I felt great! I did an upper body workout on Sunday. Mostly a bunch of pushups and dumbbell curls and shoulder presses with 35 lb dumbbells. Was doing lots of reps and super setting stuff. Lots of reps with 35 lb dumbbells for shoulder presses means first doing 15 reps of curls, then about 50 reps of shoulder presses in a row, then another 10 or so reps of curls, then some shrug type deals, then some pushups (slightly elevated with my hands on the dumbbells). Interspersed this stuff with loud music, weird drawing and painting, and some lively stretching!

Monday, COLD!! At least for Mississippi. I again met Patton, Armon, and Patrick for a workout as they gear up for the USA Track & Field XC Junior Olympics South Regional Meet this coming Saturday. We met at 4 PM and ran the main loop in Longmeadow, a wonderful residential neighborhood with little traffic. We all wore long pants, jackets, gloves, and hats today. I had CWR running tights on under my warmup pants, and a short sleeved shirt under a long sleeved Under Armour shirt and a loose Nike running jacket over that! I lost the jacket pretty soon, but was happy to have everything else on. Today was the last “real” workout for them. Nothing crazy. You don’t get better the week before a race and you sure don’t want to hurt yourself! So, we started with a warmup jog of 1.25 miles. Needed that warmup too because it was in the mid 30’s F and quite windy! After the wamup, we did some leg swings and light stretching.  So, yep, then we did 4 X 25 second strides to loosen up those legs a bit. Then some mile repeats at tempo pace with 2 minute rests. I had Patton and Armon, who have been running a little more and a bit faster than Patrick, do 4 of these. I wanted them to be around 5:45 each, and they were spot on averaging about 5:46. Patrick and I did 3 of them. I wanted him to be about 5:55 to 6:00 minutes per mile, and he also was spot on averaging about 5:55 for each one. Mine were 5:54, 5:46, and 5:44. Patrick’s shins were a bit sore, I think from running in some VERY worn out Saucony Kinvarras, which should have been replaced two months ago! PATRICK! That was partly why he only did 3 of the mile repeats. Anyway, we finished up with a cool down jog around the neighborhood. Did some leg swings and light stretches and got out of there just after dark.

Tuesday afternoon I met Brent, Patton, Armon, Patrick, and Lake Spradling for a 5.8 mile run thru town. Lake is the star runner for Starkville Academy. He is a sophomore with lots of potential. He and some of his SA teammates will be traveling to Nashville, TN this weekend to participate in the Cross Country Coaches Youth National Championship. This is a fun deal and one of about 5 different national meets in the USA. Of course, the other three high school boys running with us will be at Choctaw Trails in Clinton, MS this Saturday for the USA XC regional. Cool. And cool also described the temps again today. About 37° when we started and closer to 32°F when we finished. Brent and I wore running tights, jackets and gloves, Armon also wore long pants (warmups), a hoodie, and gloves, but the other three wore shorts. Lake even wore a short sleeved shirt and seemed fine. I was way fine in my tights though. Easy run today, started super slow and ended with about a 6:55 average. I had the high school punks finish off with 6 X 200m strides. They are all looking really good right now.

Patton, Armon, Lake, and Patrick

I did not get another run in until Saturday this week, as I traveled to Savannah, Georgia to pick up Joseph for his rather lengthy winter break. When we got back, we both snagged an easy 7 mile run with Brent Wallace Saturday morn at 11 am at the refuge. It was beautiful! Run was harder than usual. I think the fast out and back trip to Savannah played a part in that. In fact, my left calf was pretty sore, I think mostly from the 18 hours spent driving. Still we averaged 6:34 per mile fairly easily.

The high school kids ended up first, second, and fourth at the South Regional meet in Clinton, easily qualifying for the national meet. I should mention that hardly anyone actually runs in this south regional. However, lots of awesome runners do participate in other regions and there will be some quality runners at the national meet. I met one such runner, Ammar Moussa, about four years ago when I took Joseph and some other high schoolers to the national meet. This young feller now runs for this year’s and last year’s NCAA I national champion xc champion University of Colorado’s team. In fact, he came in 5th at this year’s national meet himself leading his team to a second straight national championship!

Did not get to run Sunday, but did work out. Did an easy 5 miler on Monday at a 7:27 average pace. Still recovering from trip and being somewhat sore. Not bad today.

Tuesday, just me and the kid, 6 miles thru town at 6:39 pace. Wednesday, a repeat of the same route with Brent and Joseph at 6:40 pace. Felt ok.

Did not run on Thanksgiving day. Back to it on Friday with a 4 mile run in Sessums with Joseph at a 6:25 pace. Planned on getting in a nice run on Saturday, but did not. Worked out, of course. Sunday at 3 pm, I ran with Joseph and Brent again. I was feeling a bit dehydrated today, but managed to make the 6 mile loop at 6:36 pace. Hard though. Combination of low energy and not enough water the last couple of days. Can’t complain about 6:36 pace too much though.

Spartan Race Entry Give Away Winner, Nice hill workout, good ten mile run, and great weather…

Me and the Brent dude got in a nice 6 miler on Tuesday afternoon around 4 pm. Through town and campus, so had to put up with some lights of course, but mostly hit them pretty good. Run started easy as usual, 7:22, 6:36, 6:32, 6:36 (some hills on this mile), then 6:11, and finished with a 5:41. Sweet. The 6:30 paced miles are feeling pretty danged easy right now. Likin’ dat!

Man,  busy, missing some runs! Did not get to go Monday or Wednesday. Ah well, probably need the break. Just me and Brent again on Thursday. We went early because I needed to be at the local “Holiday Showcase” group exhibition at 5 PM. I needed to be there because I am a cochair of arts in public places and I had art in the show (read it about the show on my art blog). So, we started our run at 3 PM. Nice, but very windy today! Started easy as usual and picked it up along the way. Only did 5 miles. Here are the splits: 7:20, 6:25, 6:18, 6:19, and 5:40. Overall average was 6:24, the four miles after the “warmup” mile were 6:10 average.

Friday at 4 PM, I got in 6.5 awesome miles with Brent, John Mooney, Patrick Bell, Armon Borzjani, and Patton Little. Patton and Armon are the top two XC runners at SHS and Patrick is about 4th. Good to have those speedy jokers with us.  Today, we hit the hilly University Estates neighborhood. Mooney wanted to do 8 X 1 minute hills, so we did. I could not believe it, but other than Brent, no one even knew about the cool hills over there! Anyway, in our 6.5 mile run, we hit the hills pretty good. Felt good to me anyway! Awesome run. Chilly though, I actually wore a tank top! Mooney was the only one crazy enough to go shirtless.

Saturday, I was in Jackson, MS with coworkers Audrey Sheridan and Lois Connington giving a bug presentation at the Mississippi Food Summit and Agricultural Revival. So, no run today. While I was there, Joseph was running in his XC conference meet in West Palm Beach Florida. His team ended about where they figured in the Sun Conference with a second place finish. Joseph did not have a great race, but I think that was due to high temps down there and an attempt to go hard early hoping for a remote possibility of beating the very strong Embry Riddle team out of Atlanta. Anyway, they finished up the season as runner up champions in the conference, and their girls won the conference championship. Good job. The guys team is super young with the best runners being sophomores and freshman, so that bodes well for their future. Not to mention that apparently Embry Riddle will be moving to the NCAA next year, meaning, at least theoretically, that the SCAD boys have a great chance of being number one in the Sun Conference the next few years and a much better chance of winning the conference meet. Winning the conference meet gives automatic selection to the national meet.

Sunday, 2 pm run with Brent “space cadet” Wallace, John “Moon Man” Mooney,  and Drew “Secret Agent Man” Boyles. We hit the campus, research park, and north farm then returned to the south farm entrance for a 10.2 mile loop. We ran a very comfortable easy average pace of 7:13. After getting some water, Drew and John headed out on the south farm for a few more miles, but that was enough for me and Brent today. I had stuff to do and needed to head out. Otherwise I probably would have ran another 5 or 6 miles. The weather was a perfect 60° F and after some of our faster runs that we have had lately, this “easy” 7:13 minute mile pace was a piece of cake. We chatted back and forth the entire run. Super Cool.

John Mooney, Brent Wallace, and Drew Boyles

No run Monday, had some meetings interfering with that. Bummer.  Of course I did some workout stuff at home.

Worked out a couple of times on Tuesday beginning with about 500 pushups, 50+ pullups, some curls, crunches, and a few other things and finishing up at lunch with a few sets of curls, military presses, and pushups. At 4 PM, I met Patton, Armon, and Patrick for a run in Longmeadow. Since their XC season is over now, I am working with them as they prepare for the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics XC South Regional Meet coming up in Clinton, MS on November 22. They all three looked good today. We started with a 2000m easy jog, then some light loosening up. Then  2000m (one nice loop around the neighborhood) at 5k race pace or slightly better. Armon and Patton both ran together doing the 2000m loop at a  5:12 mile pace. I ran with Patrick most of the way, but finished slightly ahead of him with a 5:34 pace and he finished with a 5:42 pace. About 5 minutes rest, then another 2000m loop. This time, Armon and Patton, who again stayed together, averaged 5:20, I was 5:36, and Patrick was about 5:45. A shorter rest, then a quicker, “lighter” 800m run with Patton and Armon at 2:28, and me and Patrick at 2:32. Short jog, then 1 minute pretty fast (sub 5 minute mile pace), then a 30 second jog, then 30 seconds fast uphill. We followed that with a 1.5 mile cool down jog at an easy pace, then some leg swings and light stretches. In total, about 1 hour was needed for the entire workout including warmup and cool down. Great job guys!

***Spartan Race Entry Give Away Winner***

Eric Wisniewski is the winner for the free entry to a Spartan Race. Eric will be participating in the Fenway Park Spartan Sprint on the 15th. This guy is hard core and loves these races. Good Luck Eric and Congrats on winning a free entry to the Spartan Race!

Free Entry to Spartan Race, do you want it?????

Spartan Race: Mississippi Sprint coming up on 8 November 2014

Next Saturday, November 8th, there will be a Spartan Race near the Mississippi Gulf Coast at Muddy Joe’s in Kiln, MS. This race, like others in this series will be held in waves of 200 entrants every 15 minutes. Crazy race, crazy times. I have not done one of these races, but everyone who I know that has done one has greatly enjoyed them. Of course, these races cost money, and its almost last minute, so that does not help. But, guess what! I have a 10% off discount code here that will work for any Spartan Race. Cool, yeah! Here it is: SPARTANBLOGGER.  Further, I have a code for a free entry (thanks to Dan the Man) to any Spartan race in US, including the MS Race. This is a great deal worth up to $100 depending on when you register! Want it? Write a reason why you want it and include it in a comment here or email me.  I will pick someone to give the code to.  I would prefer giving it to someone doing the Mississippi race, but that is not a requirement. More info about Mississippi Sprint Spartan Race is at http://www.spartan.com/events/?event_id=168/mississippi-sprint#. More info about the Spartan Races series is at http://www.spartan.com/.

Good run Sunday afternoon with Drew Boyles, Brent Wallace, Christian Kingery, Armon Borjani, Patton Little, and Ben Mackin. The last four guys are Starkville High kids with Patton and Armon being the top runners on the XC team, and Ben being a solid runner as well. Christian decided not to run his senior year and has instead been focusing on swimming and soccer. However, he is no slouch either and was running the 400m in about 51 seconds last year as well as having been a solid XC runner. It was warmer today and we ran our almost 6 mile route a bit earlier at 4 PM. I consider these Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday runs to be easy to medium pace, but of course that varies a lot depending on how you feel. I felt pretty good today. I told the high school guys that we usually do the first mile slower, around 7:30, then pick it up and try to finish at a decent pace, but, of course, they could do what they wanted. Obviously, with me being a 50 year old man they probably going to do what I was doing if possible, even if their easy runs are typically slower. Today we were right at 7:29 for the first mile, then we picked it up. Mostly everyone hung together for that second mile, which was 6:25, but after the third mile, which was 6:10, the group broke up. In fact, after my fourth mile, which was about 6 flat or better, I realized I had drifted ahead of everyone and went back to join them. We slowed down a bit, then Drew headed home (he had already run 3 miles before joining us), then Brent and I picked it back up, with Patton and Armon content to run about a 7 minute pace for the last couple. Anyway, good run. I averaged under 6:30 pace for the entire route and about 6:13 for the last 5 miles. Thigh felt great today and whoo hoo! Good run.

Monday, got in a super easy 6+ mile run in on the hilly gravel roads of the South Farm. Just took it easy. Figured after the decent run the day before, that would be the way to go.

Tuesday, met John Mooney, Brent Wallace, and Drew Boyles for a 5.8 mile run at 4:30 PM. As we were getting ready to start, Houston Franks came running up, so he joined us. Really nice group run. First mile was 7:19, then 6:36, 6:28, 6:31, 6:09, and the last 0.8 miles was at 4:41 (5:52 mile average). Averaged about 6:29 per mile with everyone pretty much sticking together the entire way, except Mooney, who dropped back with a mile to go because he is on some training plan and did not need to pick it up. So, first mile at 7:19, then the next 4.8 at 6:20 pace. Certainly another nice run. Also cool about this was that we were pretty much talking the entire time, so it was not a struggle by any means. And, the route thru town has numerous stop lights, stop signs, roads that bisect that route, and lots of turns. Basically, we have to slow down a lot to make sure cars are not going to hit us at these places, then we pick it back up. The actual pace we are moving along at is better than the average pace indicated by our watch. COOL.

Easy run Wednesday afternoon, about 6 miles total. That followed a pretty decent lunch time workout earlier in the day!

Just me and Brent Thursday afternoon. We did our usual about 6 mile loop. Not as fast as Thursday and Sunday, but  more by choice. Felt a little stiff for the first half mile, which was at about 8 minute pace, then gradually picked it up with the first mile being 7:35, then 6:48, 6:45, 6:56, 6:40, and finished off with a 6:32. Pretty day, chillier though. Won’t be long before we will have to don our shirts. I love the feeling of running shirtless. Feels good.

Took both Friday and Saturday off from running. Was planning on going Saturday, but it did not work out. Got is a couple of brief workouts though

Sunday, I met Brent at 3PM at the Refuge for an afternoon run. Temps in the low 50’s, so pretty good for running on this sunny early November morn! He brought his lady friend Clara along as well, although she biked. Brent showed up sans shirt, so I had to brave the chill and run shirtless too! Glad I did too, but it was chilly after and nice to get my warmups back on after the run. We decided to only do 8 miles today because we had both eaten late heavy lunches. Man, that food was churning in my belly! Anyhoo, started off with a 7:06 mile, then dropped to 6:33, 6:24, and 6:23 before turning around at the 4 mile mark (also a quick “pee” break). Turned around and picked it up with a 6:06, 6:04, 6:12 (a hilly section), and finished up with a 5:53 mile. Afterward, I jogged easy for about 10 minutes to loosen up. I thought this was an awesome run for both of us. We averaged 6:20 for the entire 8 miles, 6:13 for the 7 miles following the slower warmup mile, and 6:03 for the final 4 miles!

Clara and Brent Eno action

Clara and Brent

 

Good ten mile run at Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge

Starkville hosted a half marathon Saturday morn called the Preparathon. Our bud Lucas Muniz ran away with first place. His official time was 1:12:59, although he said the course was slightly short and at that pace he would have actually been about 1:15:35. Either way, awesome job Lucas! Big PR.

Lucas Muniz dominated the Preparathon Half Marathon in Starkville, MS last week in Starkville

Awesome 10 mile run with Brent Wallace on Sunday afternoon at 3:30 PM. We headed out to the Sam Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge for today’s run. It was worth the drive out there to run thru wonderful wilderness and no stop signs or street lights. We ran out and back on one of the main paved roads. A few cars here and there, but they were all kind (nobody ran over us). Started out with an easy 7:27 first mile, then 6:44, 6:42, 6:40, 6:39, 6:34, 6:29, 6:15, 6:25, and finished with a 6:09! Really good run for us I thought. No water break, but we did briefly stretch at the 5 mile turnaround. That second half was awesome as we averaged 6:22 per mile. Nice.

Next run of the week was with Brent on Tuesday at 3 PM. Had a huge lunch at noon with ribs, chicken, beans, and potato salad! Our Mississippi Entomological Awards Luncheon. Well, weather was beautiful even though my stomach was full. We did a 5 mile route and it turned out better than expected with first mile at 7:24, then 6:24, 6:22, 6:16, and 5:59. Go figure.

Ran by myself at the South Farm and XC course at noon on Wednesday. Another beautiful day! Got in just over 5 miles at a 7:09 average pace. Nothing crazy today. A bit sore here and there, especially in my left quads! Might have slightly strained some muscles after the fast runs this week coupled with the awesome hills on the XC course.

Thursday, got in an easy 5 miles thru town and some neighborhoods around 5 pm. Beautiful day. The last couple of weeks have been extraordinarily beautiful. Great temps and not humid. Kept my pace easy today, trying to let the quads rest a bit. I have no idea what my pace was as my Garmin watch was all over the place today for some reason!

No run Friday, but again took some time off from work and did some mountain biking at the Tombigbee National Forest trails. Rode harder this time than last week. Maybe a bad idea with the sore quads on left leg, but it actually felt better after. Tight though! Got those legs feeling good hitting some the crazy hills out there. And the down hills! Umm, umm. Nice.

Somehow, I woke up at 5 AM Saturday morn. I say somehow, because I drank a bit too much bourbon Friday night! Since I was up, I went over to run with the Boardtown Club. Quite a few jokers out there. About 46°F when we started, so I wore an thin long sleeved bright orange shirt with some reflective stuff on it as it was still dark out when we started. I ran 11 miles (just about) with Drew Boyles. My thighs were feeling that hilly mountain bike ride from the day before, so I did not push it today. Ran pretty steady though, averaged 6:50 something per mile. Both Drew and I picked it up on the last mile, but Drew killed it leaving me behind. I was probably under 6:30 pace, but that was all I could do with my quads still sore. Drew had a great finish for sure!

Got home and did a little workout to finish up my exercise for the day. Not posting every time I workout, but basically I do pushups, pullups, abs, and something else every day. Keeps me semi sane.

Spartan Race: Mississippi Sprint coming up on 8 November 2014

In about two weeks  on November 8th, there will be a Spartan Race near the Mississippi Gulf Coast at Muddy Joe’s in Kiln, MS. This race, like others in this series will be held in waves of 200 entrants every 15 minutes. Crazy race, crazy times. I have not done one of these races, but everyone who I know that has done one has greatly enjoyed them. Of course, these races cost money, and its almost last minute, so that does not help. But, guess what! I have a 10% off discount code here that will work for any Spartan Race. Cool, yeah! Here it is: SPARTANBLOGGER.  Further, I have a code for a free entry (thanks to Dan the Man) to any Spartan race in US, including the MS Race. This is a great deal worth up to $100 depending on when you register! Want it? Write a reason why you want it and include it in a comment here or email me.  I will pick someone to give the code to.  I would prefer giving it to someone doing the Mississippi race, but that is not a requirement. More info about Mississippi Sprint Spartan Race is at http://www.spartan.com/events/?event_id=168/mississippi-sprint#. More info about the Spartan Races series is at http://www.spartan.com/.

Spartan Race: Mississippi Sprint coming up on 8 November 2014

Yep, for you crazy semi athletic to super athletic types out there that like to do obstacle type running races, the Spartan Race is one of the more popular ones out there. In about three weeks, we will have one near the Mississippi Gulf Coast at Muddy Joe’s in Kiln. This race, like others in this series will be held in waves of 200 entrants every 15 minutes. Crazy race, crazy times. I have not done one of these races, but everyone who I know that has done one has greatly enjoyed them. Of course, these races cost money, and its almost last minute, so that does not help. But, guess what! I have a 10% off discount code here that will work for any Spartan Race. Cool, yeah! Here it is: SPARTANBLOGGER.  Further, I have a code for a free entry (thanks to Dan the Man) to any Spartan race in US, including the MS Race. This is a great deal worth up to $100 depending on when you register! Want it? Write a reason why you want it and include it in a comment here or email me.  I will pick someone to give the code to.  I would prefer giving it to someone doing the Mississippi race, but that is not a requirement. More info about Mississippi Sprint Spartan Race is at http://www.spartan.com/events/?event_id=168/mississippi-sprint#. More info about the Spartan Races series is at http://www.spartan.com/.

Whew, back in town after my collecting trip and got in an awesome run on Tuesday. Did not get one Monday because we had crazy storms with high winds and hail that downed numerous large trees, damaged lots of houses and cars, and knocked power out of much of downtown Starkville. So, Tuesday at 5:15, I met the awesome fit dudes Brent Wallace, Jay McCurdy and John Mooney for a 6.5 mile run. Cool weather helped of course, and having Jay out there didn’t hurt either. First mile, 7:27, then picked it up. Averaged 6:32 for the entire route and it felt pretty easy. Finished last mile about 5:45. Cool.

Got a solo 5 mile run in at 5 PM on Wednesday. Another nice day, cool temps, still shirtless weather though! Easy run with first mile 7:10, then 6:50, 6:49, 6:47 and finished with 6:34. felt good.

Thursday was such a beautiful day that I decided to take most of the day off from work. Went in for a while, then took my mountain bike to the awesome trails at Tombigbee National Forest in Winston County. Nobody there but me! Rode the hilly trails for about 2 hours, then threw a hammock up on a ridge overlooking a creek. Ate a snack, then fell asleep for an hour. Cool. Got back on the bike and headed back a slightly different way. Good day!

Got home in time to get a run in with Brent. Six miles at an easy 7:07 pace today. Started out quite slow as my legs were still in mountain bike mode!! By halfway we were doing fine though………

6 AM! Pushups, pullups, curls, abs, shoulder presses and Nirvanna! Yeah Baby!