Buh-Bye Jacksonville! / Celebration of Running 5K

Hello Everybody!



I start this blog out with sadness in saying that my running of the Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon in October is no longer going to be happening. :( - I will still run on my own though in the World Wide Festival of Races Half Marathon :)






The reason I will not be running in the half marathon then is that is the day of my son's FIRSE EVER T-Ball game! I could not miss this for ANYTHING! This is a short 2 month league, so my Saturdays from October 3 til the end of November are now filled. This also means I will have to cancel my running of the Big Pig Jig in Bushnell, FL on October 17th. For this, I say sorry to the rest of the Central Florida 5Klub, but I will feel to badly if I miss my son's t-ball games.

In other running news, Week 3 of my training plan was a DISASTER! I have been sick all week! Being sick at the begining of the week had me decide to change up some of my schedule for the week. Monday was a cross training day, so I just decided to take the day off. On Tuesday, I still was not feeling any better, so I decided to move my Thursday REST DAY to Tuesday and give myself another day of recovery. On Wednesday, I did get back out there and did 5 miles and was "thinking" I was feeling a little better. Thursday, I figured to be safe, I would do the scheduled 5 miles, but would make it an easy run instead of a Tempo Run. Friday, I made my way to my friend's house in Groveland, FL as we had a race to run on Saturday in Orlando. We had planned to run together on Friday night as I had 4 miles planned for the day. But visiting with friends, chatting, and playing old-school NES caused this to not happen (I did kick his butt at Double Dragon though). We finally got to bed around 1:30 AM and had to be up by 6am for the race.


I awoke fine though and was ready for the race (or so I thought). At 6:30 our small group (4 to be exact) met up and rode together to downtown Orlando for the Celebration of Running 5K presented bt Track Shack as the started off their Grand Prix series of races. (I was Bib # 590 If anyone wants to look up my results) Upon arrival we did not have time to run our SWAG bag and t-shirt back to the car, so we just decided to "hide it" in some nearby bushes. A little bit later, the race of 1,747 runners was off! I was not ready for the start of the race when it happened and my Forerunner 305 was not yet ready and was still "Locating Satelites". About a half mile in it finally located them (I guessed nearly 2,000 runners and being in downtown Orlando had something to do with that)! I was still feeling fine at this point and kept on moving at a good pace (somewhere around 7:30). However, about a half mile later I reached the 1 mile mark in around 8 minutes flat and then the COUGHING started. Just when I thought all the sickness was gone IT'S BA-ACK!!! I then slogged my way though the course while hacking up my lungs for the next 2.1 miles! I did finally come to the finish line and finished the Celebration of Running 5K in a time of 24:55 (according to my D-Tag Timing chip on my shoe anyways). I felt horrible after the race and just wanted to lay down.

After the race we all went out to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and then I headed home to my family. Upon arriving home I ended up taking a nice, long nap as I had a 10 mile long run planned for Sunday. Sunday came and my mind was ready for it's 10-miler! I had a course all planned out and was going to run it around 5pm when the weather cooled down. However, I had kept coughing all day long and was still not feeling perfect. PLUS, upon getting close to 5pm I saw that a really bad storm was approaching us, and figured between my sickness and the nearby storm, the last thing I wanted was to be 5 miles away from my house hacking up my lungs while a monsoon was comming down on me. So, as hard as it was to do, I decided to skip my long run for the week. So, in a week that I was supposed to run 27.1 miles, I only managed to run 13.18 miles! HORRIBLE.

Well, this is now a new week with no races so hopefully things will go much beeter and I will get my miles in (and please let me be cough free). I have 29 miles on schedule this week with a 10 miler on Sunday! Hopefully all goes well!

I still have full intentions on starting The Crazy Runner Podcast. I was waiting for finances to get right until I could get a digital recorder and a microphone before I started it, however, I might just go ahead and record with my headset for a while just to get my podcast out there and started. NO MORE EXCUSES! So hopefully within 2 weeks I can have AT LEAST episode 1 out there for everyone to hear. I can always switch the format to a runcast once I get the equipment, but at least this will be something in the meantime

Til Next Time!

¿ I better Slow Down ?

Hello Once Again !

Well I am now officially into the middle of Week 2 of my training plan!

Week 1 of my training went well! I finished the week with 5 runs, totaling 26.45 Miles. On Monday, I went to my parents house and enjoyed a nice walk with my mom around the neighborhood for just under 2.5 miles. This is not technically Cross Training, but, It will do! Tuesday and Wednesday I did nice easy runs of 4 miles each. On Thursday, my wife was off work and it allowed me to run in the afternoon and not get up so early. WooHoo SLEEP! That afternoon having more time, I did my Friday workout instead as it was a little longer. I did a 5 mile Tempo run with a 1 mile warm up and cool down with 3 miles of tempo run. On Friday, I had another nice easy run of 4 miles also. Saturday was to be my rest day, even though I do not know how restful it was as I went tubing down the Rainbow River in Dunnellon, FL - I think this wore me out more then my runs do LOL. I then ended my week on Sunday, with the 1st long run of my training by doing a 9 miler.

I do not know if I was just having a week that I was doing well in or if it is something I need to look out for, BUT, every single run I did this week (including my long run) I ran a little faster then I had scheduled myself to run. Each day, it seemed as I was running about 10-15 seconds per mile to fast! On Sunday, while on my long run I took a picture of the sign you see at the top of this blog as I found it pretty amusing that on a week where I am running to quickly that I came upon a sign warning drivers to SLOW DOWN. To top the "speed week" off I got pulled over for Speeding on Monday afternoon (luckily I only got a warning). I guess I am just trying to do EVERYTHING to quickly. I better slow down before I get injured.

I am now half way through week 2 and am still feeling great! I will update everyone early next week as to how week 2 went.

ALSO, If anyone is in Florida and is interested in doing any running or races with me, just let me know. My schedule is posted and here is a link of my upcoming races from now until Jan 10, 2010:

• August 15, 2009 - Celebration of Running 5K - Orlando, FL
• September 12, 2009 - Rock 'N' Run 5K - Orlando, FL
• September 19, 2009 - Run for Autism 5K - Ocala, FL
• October 3, 2009 - Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon - Jacksonville, FL
• October 18, 2009 - Big Pig Jig 5K - Bushnell, FL
• November 26, 2009 - YMCA Turkey Trot 5K - Ocala, FL
• December 5, 2009 - Reindeer Run 5K - Ocala, FL
• January 10, 2010 - Walt Disney World Marathon - Orlando, FL

As far as I know that is the complete list, who knows what can still happen, I love races!

Hope You Enjoy,

Til Next Time

IT IS OFFICIAL!

HELLO EVERYBODY!

It Is OFFICIAL!!!!!

As of 8:45am on Friday, July 31, 2009 I have registered for the 2010 Walt Disney World Marathon! After the entrance fee and the Processing Fee through active.com for registering ($125.00 and $8.63) I am now out $133.63 and could not be more excited about it! JANUARY 10, 2010 at 5:50 am I will be at the starting line (or a good mile back LOL as 20,000+ other runners will be there also). I encourage you all to come out and run it with me. We will have a BLAST!

ALSO, in other exciting news, I have decided that I too want to venture into the podcasting world! I want to join the rest of my friends on the run-net community and contribute another running podcast for all to enjoy. I just downloaded Audacity for editing everything and also opened an account with Podbean. Now, I just need to go out and get a Digital Audio Recorder that has a USB input and a Microphone. (I will gladly accept donations or if anyone has an old one that they no longer use).

I am 5 days into my training plan and things could not be better.

I will keep you all updated

Til Next Time

My Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon/Disney Marathon Training Plan

Here is my training plan for both the Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon on October 3rd and the Disney Marathon on January 10th. The 2 plans overlap by 4 weeks.

I was gonna do the Runner's World Smart Coach Plan for the Half and the Hal Higdon Intermediate II plan for the full. This however was not easy to do because of that 4 week long overlap. So I decided to merge them together and make 1 big 24 week long training plan that I call the "Hal Higdon Smart Coach Intermediate II Plan". Kind of a long title, but it is exactly what it is, a combo of the 2 plans put together.

Training Schedule

Random Pics

Here are a few random pics from one of my recent runs where I ran from my house to the Santos Trailhead, a loop in there, and then back home. Hope you enjoy!

Don't mind the picture quality as these were taken with my phone instead of my regular digital camera


I came upon him on my run to the trail. As I took my phone out to take the picture of him, he walked right up to me






Here is the entrance to the Santos Trailhead (actually is a mountain bike trail, but I love to run it) - This is actually a part of the Cross Florida Greenway a trail that runs right through the entire state, coast to coast

Which trail should I take?

Why the yellow one of course (It is the easiest one, and remember these are mountain bike trails, so none of them are that easy on runners)

Here is a quick snap shot of a part of the trail (one of the only parts that actually are in open space not surrounded by trees)

One last picture which I did not take but I figured I would throw in anyways as it is another show of the Santos trailhead taken with a much better camera then my junky little camera phone.

Citrus Summer Showdown

Hello Everyone!


So, this past Saturday I ran in another race. This makes 2 races in 2 weeks! This race was the Inverness Citrus Summer Showdown which is a 5K trail run in Inverness, FL. I ran this same race last year, and I must say that this is a TOUGH race. This year though, I had the pleasure of my mom doing the race with me as this was her 2nd ever 5K. The best part about this race is that it is completely FREE. That's right F-R-E-E, FREE!

We were running behind and did arrive at the race site pretty late. I basically had time to get my bib number, get my chip timing device, go to the bathroom, and then off to the starting line! My friend Grant was supposed to be running this event also, but he got sick the night before and decided to skip it. Me and my mom did not get to line up together at the starting line though as the women started their race 15 minutes after then men did.

As the race started I took off with the pack! About a quarter mile into the race I looked down at my Garmin and saw I was running at a 6:30 mile pace. I thought "What the hell am I doing!!" and proceeded to slow my pace down (this way I could FINISH the race - LOL) I passed the 1 mile mark at 7:48 and was feeling wonderful. About another half a mile in, at around the half-way mark, I came to the only water station on the course where I decided to go ahead and take a cup. I did however only take a small sip of the water then doused my head with the rest of the cup. This felt GREAT as trail runs in Central Florida during the midst of summer do not bring about good temperatures or humidity! I finished the 2nd mile in 8:04 and was starting to feel pretty tired. The final mile was dragging on as my body was becoming more and more tired as I am not used to running on trails and keeping an eye out on the trail for roots and other things to make you lose your footing. I finished the 3rd mile in 8:09 and was ready for the race to come to an end. I finally crossed the finish line in a total time of 24:11, which is actually my 4th best 5K time to date (nothing to complain about). I then went and met my dad and my two sons as I awaited my mom to cross the finish line. She eventually reached the line and finished in a little over 52 minutes. This was about 1 minute slower then her 1st ever 5K but I was very proud of her as this was probably by far the hardest course she will ever do AND she had not really trained at all for.

I finished the race in 83rd overall out of about 300 runners. I was the 30th place "Adult" as this race is broken down into Middle School, High School, College, and Adult instead of the regular 5 year age groups. This race is actually full with a lot of high school aged kids as a lot of school's have their cross country teams come out and participate in this race and get them ready for the upcoming season.

We then gathered the troops and went out for a nice breakfast before coming home for the day.

I will soon be posting some pictures from one of my recent training runs where I just went out and relaxed on a nice 10 mile run.

Til next time!

4 on the 4th

Hello to all my fellow runners!

So,another race has come and gone. This past Saturday (The 4th of July) I arose by myself without any other members of the Central Florida 5Klub to participate with me in the God & Country Day Freedom Run 4 Miler. This is an annual event held in Ocala, FL to support the Marion County Veteran's Memorial Park. I arrived at the race 45 minutes prior to the start of the event and got my bib number (133), T-Shirt, and SWAG bag. I pinned my number onto my shirt and brought my bag and shirt back to my car. After lots of walking around and a short warm up run I was ready for the race to begin.

The race had perfectly blue skies and the temperature was great. The humidity was pretty high, but then again, this is FLORIDA. I passed by mile marker 1 in a time of 7:43 and was feeling great. After a small loop I finished the 2nd mile in a time of 7:47 and was still feeling pretty good. Shortly after the 2 mile mark I was getting a little tired and ran up to the only water station on the course. I was pretty thirsty at this point so I actually walked the water station to make sure that I got as much water in me as possible. I finished the 3rd mile in a time of 8:09 - A little slow, but not to bad considering that I had walked through the aid station. A little after mile marker 3, we passed by a guy that every single runner in the race LOVED. This guy was nicely standing outside of his house at the edge of the road where he had a hose that he put the water nozzle onto MIST and he refreshed everyone superbly with a wonderful misting that completely rejuvenated me. With about a quarter mile to go in the race, there was a person there handing out a small flag to all of the runners. I crossed the finish line shortly after with a smile on my face and a flag in my hand as my 4th and final mile was my fastest of the entire race which i completed in 7:28 to make my overall finishing time 31:07. This time put me in 55th place overall and 6th in my age group. I am not positive on the number of total runners as the results are yet to be posted online. My guess would be roughly somewhere from 200-300 runners. I did run into a couple of people that ran in the event that I had not seen for a number of years and it was nice to get to catch up with them.

At the awards presentation they actually were giving out some prizes by randomly drawing race bib numbers from people that ran in the event. I was shocked to find out that I actually had a little luck run my way and I, Mr. Never Wins ANYTHING, actually had my number drawn and I won a 3x5 American Flag complete with the mounting kit. I was happy to get this as I missed winning an age group award my just over 1 minute.

I then came home and spent a nice day with my family as we just relaxed and enjoyed the holiday.

I will eventually list the official results on a future posting assuming that they are ever posted online (which I assume they will be as prior runnings of this same race have been).

I do have a 5K race planned for this coming Saturday in Inverness, FL which is F-R-E-E FREE ---- AND you still get a t-shirt.

Well, I will keep you all updated.

Til Next Time

RESULTS ARE NOW POSTED

I got 55th out of 266 (top 20%) and 6th in my age group out of 13. Also I was the 46th place Male (meaning only 9 women finished ahead of me)

To see the official results click here.

Mornings?

Hello Everybody! (sung like Charlie on Lost)

Well, today I started doing the one thing that I NEVER thought I would do. I woke up early and ran BEFORE work. I got up a little after 5:30am and went out and completed a 5.5 mile run. I must say that it was much better then I figured it would be. I even had to work until 7pm tonight (2 hours later then normal) and still do not feel exhausted!

I decided to try morning runs for a few different reasons.

1) It is way to hot in the afternoon now as lately when I get home from work the heat index has been around 105! And that just makes for miserable running at a SLOW pace. This morning it was still very humid out, but it was nice because the temperature was only about 75.

2) It rarely rains here in the morning hours but feels like it is always raining in the afternoon with thunderstorms.

3) Wakes me up in the morning allowing me to be more energetic at work and not dragging in rubbing my eyes as I enter the office

4) It allows me to concentrate on my work. When I run after work I feel like I spend half of my day there thinking about my run for the day, how far I will run, mapping out a course for my run, and other various things that prevent me from concentrating on and competing my work.

5) Allows me more time after work to get things done around the house and spend time with my 2 boys other then just going out running.

6) Less traffic on the road making my runs more safe.

I am sure that there are more reason that I have just failed to realize or am not thinking of at this time, but I feel that this list is a plenty big enough reason to start trying it out.

Day 1 was a success for me, now let's just see how the rest of the week goes

Also, one other thing which could be interesting in the future is that my brother in-law said that he wants to start running. He just went out and got some running shoes, now I will do my best to hold him to it. I will gladly help him out and try to bring yet another new runner into the Run Net Community. So I now say in hopes that I don't get sued for copyright infringement (LOL Dan) ERIC, GO RUN!!


Til next time

Dreams, Festivals, and Blisters

Hello Once again!

It is I, the Crazy Runner, once again with a new blog post to keep everyone updated on myself.

Now that I am getting closer to 30, I have finally decided on what I want as my long term career goal. With the life of a professional athlete not seeming like it could happen, I have decided that I would like to eventually open up my very own running store right here in Ocala, FL. Running stores are great and are the true backbone of any running community. I think this would be a great thing that I would love to do AND there currently are ZERO running stores in Ocala at the moment (unless you count major sporting chains like Dick's or Sports Authority). There is obviously a lot of work to be put into starting a business but, that is why it is a LONG term goal. I obviously would need some financial backing or any small business grants would be super. If anyone has any ideas for the store OR helpful suggestions on getting a business started I would LOVE any advise that anyone could offer to help me out in any way at all.

So last week, I went out on a nice 7 mile run for my first run in like 10 days. This proved to be a mistake. Not the run itself, but the fact that I decided to wear my custom ortotics on this run. You see, all the prior running I had done in them so far was on my treadmill, and well, I quickly learned that running the roads is a lot harder on my feet then the treadmill is. After this run, I realized that I had gotten a nice blister on each foot right on the side of the foot at the arch. This did not feel pleasant at all. Plus I started to get a little bit of runner's toe again as my nail was killing me on one of my toes on my left foot. Well, tons of band-aids and a little rest later I have been back out running again. I will say that I have not worn the orthotics for running in since then (I am wearing them for daily use though). I will soon once again venture out onto the roads with them on some much shorter runs and see if the results are any better OR if I need to take them in and have something done with them so that they do not kill me LOL

Before ending this post, I would like to either remind or inform everybody (depending on who you are) to go sign up for the 2009 World Wide Festival of Races. Here you can sign up to run in the Worldwide Half Marathon, the Zen Run 10K, or the Kick the Couch 5K. These races are absolutely free for everyone. It actually is a virtual race that anyone can do on their own course in their neighborhood, or they can run an actual race and register that time for the event. The WWFOR will take place on the weekend of October 10-11 (or within a week if doing a scheduled race-just send an email to the director of WWFOR and make sure it is OK) and I strongly recommend everybody go out and register. This is the original virtual race (Nike did copy them with their virtual 10K race) and currently has 355 entrants from 24 different countries signed up for it. I myself will be running in the Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon on October 3rd in Jacksonville, FL to obtain my time for the World Wide Half.

Again, I strongly recommend everyone both go sign up and let others know about this event.

If anyone has any advice or comments I would love to hear from everyone.


Til Next Time

I'm Ba-ack!

Hello once again everyone!


Wow, it sure has been a while since I posted anything new to my blog (partially because my running has been pretty non-existent as of late).

Well, yesterday was my first day of running in over a week, as the last time I ran was on Sunday the 24th. Man, I sure have been a slacker lately. I think it really hurt my running with the combo of my headphones broke and all the non stop rain we got here for like 4-5 days straight (and I got sick of only running on the dreadmill). But now, the weather is clearing up, and I got my new headphones in the mail and I love them. I got the Sennheiser PMX-70's which sell at Target for $50 and I got them on Amazon for only $25 with free shipping!!

Yesterday's run was an interesting run, as it was actually 4 different runs all done consecutively with no breaks in between. First I went out for my normal run and got back to the house after about 4.5 miles. Then (after listening to Phedippidations episode 188 talk all about running with dogs), I felt like taking one of my dogs out for a short 1/2 mile run. Well, she was running so good and fast that the 0.5 mile run turned into a 1.1 mile run. Upon returning home with her, I realized my other two dogs were extremely JEALOUS. So I took each of them out on separate runs (not as long - because they do not run as well as the other) totaling my 3 dog runs at 2 miles. So for the day I did a total of 6.53 miles in a time of 64 minutes.

Overall, the run felt good, and I felt great to once again hit the road. The worst part of the run is that now both of my feet obtained blisters on the inside of the foot right at the arch. I am not sure if this is due to the fact of running 6.5 miles after not running for a good 9-10 days , my new custom orthotics rubbing my feet badly, or both. Hopefully it is the first, but we shall see from future runs how my feet feel. Right now they have band-aids on them and feel fine.

Due to my lack of running, I did decide to skip the 5K race this past Saturday as I truly did not feel best prepared to run the race and did not feel like spending $20 on a race I was not prepared for.

I also have spent the past couple days catching up on my running podcasts and was sad to find out that one of my favorites in Trilogy Running appears to be have came to an end. I hope this is not true and they do continue they show as it is great listening to Shawn and Jason as their podcast is different then all of the others out there as they humor is great and they do push the envelope. This just makes their podcast even better! I will not get into the details of their leaving, but hopefully they will return.

So, the month of May ended up being a pretty bad month for me in running as I only totalled 68.3 miles (a good 45 miles less then April) bringing my year to date total up to 447.7 through 5 months. This puts me on pace to finish the year with 1,074 miles and surpassing my goal of 1,000 for 2009. I expect June to be a much better month and to once again get back to how March and April were and pass over 100 miles for the month.

I was going to go on about what I decided that I want to do for my future long term dream goal, but this blog entry is getting a little long so I will leave that for my next entry (which will not take a month to put out like this one did). How is that for suspense - LOL

Til Next Time