Birthday run success!

Well, I did it.

I'm now 30.

The only thing that could stop me from turning 30 was death...

OR A SWEET ASS TIME MACHINE!

But then I would continue aging, just in a time that had already occurred. Just because I could go back to the time before I was even born doesn't stop the clock from steadily ticking away time.

Yes. Aging is inebriated...

Wait, no. Well, yes! But I meant aging is inevitable. There we go.

But while I was out celebrating the start of a new decade in my life, I kept repeating a little mantra I created to myself whenever I would feel like throwing in the towel.

Age is a number, old is a mindset.

Just because I'm a year older shouldn't change anything about who I am or what I can do.

At least not yet that is.

But I did do it. Where I fell short last year, I exceeded this year!

30.36 miles! Running time was 5:51:42. I'm quite happy with that! I feel that if I had gotten in one more long run, and this were a 50K race, I could have finished close to 6 hours.

But since it wasn't a 50K race, and my training wasn't any where near where I would have liked it to have been, and it's my damn birthday, I just made sure to enjoy myself (no, not like that...) and took my time. I made 3 pit stops at the house, sat on the curb returning text messages to those who were wishing me a happy birthday and kick on my running venture. I even chilled outside the local gas station drinking Mountain Dew and eating Almond M&M's (yes, I drank some soda water) listening to the employees bitch about each other.

The total time that elapsed from my first step to my last was just under 7 hours.

Which I don't consider to be that bad of a time really. All things considered (with NPR news)

Speaking of steps, I guesstimate that I took somewhere in the neighborhood of 59,697 steps today just while running. I also burned 4779 calories, my average pace was something like 11:47 I think? And my heart averaged 162 beats per minute.

It was a very good run! Miles 19 thru 26 were tough. Duh! But I never gave up, obviously.

I took some pictures while I was on the move. I took birthday run selfies ever 5 miles to send to my wife. She in turn merged them all together to make a nice collage. I also found the elusive Walden Rooster, but he was deft and avoided being captured on camera. I did get his little chicken friend though! Ha, victory!

To top everything off, my wonderful mother in law cooked me a birthday dinner of Prejeans famous Crawfish Enchiladas!!!! Yummy!!!!

I ate 4...

So now I have room for some Oreo ice cream cake!

Yay! Back to being a fat kid again!

Belated birthday run?

Life happens.

It does. There's no getting around it.

I've been training for tomorrow's run for a little over a month now, and now at the last minute I might have to postpone it.

My poor daughter started getting sick a few days ago, so my wife brought her to the doctor yesterday to get her checked out. Turns out she might have pneumonia....

Yay....

My wife stayed home with her today, and as of this morning she is not running a fever, but still has a bad cough.

So since I was already taking tomorrow off to go run, it looks as if I will be spending my day taking care of my sick little girl. In other words I will spend the day napping and watching "My Little Pony" on Netflix.

SO, if I don't get to go running tomorrow (Thursday), then I could go early Saturday morning. I would have to start very early because we also have my daughter's 5th birthday party that day at 2.

So I could go Sunday?

NOPE! Sunday my son has a big karate demonstration where he will be awarded his next belt (Orange belt in Korean Tung Soo Doo), so Sunday is out of the picture...

If she can't go to school tomorrow then I will have to start early Saturday morning and do as much as I can. If I don't finish all 30 miles before I have to get ready to go to the party, I will have to finish the remainder whenever we get back home.

I really hope she starts feeling better soon...

1 week until the big run!

I've got 1 week until my birthday.

That means one week until my birthday run.

One week until I run 30 solo miles.

I'm going to run around the neighborhood, that way when I get hungry or need to hit El Banó (that's Spanish for the bathroom) I will be in close proximity to the house.

The weather right now shows to be ideal. 55° low with a high of 66°, mostly cloudy and no rain. Can't ask for better!

I was originally concerned because the battery on my Garmin 305 wasn't lasting over 4 hours, and this run will probably take me over 6.

Luckily my amazing wife ordered me an early birthday present! A brand new Garmin 310! Battery life around 20 hours! SWEET!

I was hoping to get in a 20+ mile training run, but the longest I was able to get in was 15. And that 15 miles was quite easy. I felt as if I could have gone a lot longer.

I'm feeling quite confident leading up to this run. As long as I can eat really clean for the few days following up to the big run then I think my stomach will hold out the whole time. That's the only thing I can see that would prevent me from accomplishing my goal.

And depending on how this run goes, I'm eyeballing Rocky Racoon 50 at the end of January as long as work doesn't start dicking with my schedule again.

Bridge Running

Since both my aunt and myself were going to be at my mother's this weekend to celebrate an early Thanksgiving, we decided to go for a run together.

A while back she had mentioned that she wanted to go run the Veterans Memorial Bridge that I used to go run after work every once in awhile when we used to live here, so we decided to go run there.

I haven't ran this bridge in over a year now. Probably closer to 2 years actually. I remember it being very steep, very windy, and very very dirty. I remember it being covered in lose rocks, broken glass, chunks of blown out tires, and other miscellaneous debris. One time there was a destroyed X box scattered across the shoulder for about half a mile.

This time it was still just as steep and windy, but all the debris was gone!

I had started off in my new pair of New Balance Minimus HiRez shoes (pictured below), but as soon as I got to the other side of the bridge I stripped them off. My calves were solid knots and I felt as if my feet were just flopping around in my shoes.

As soon as I started running again I realized it was a great idea as I could feel my calves relaxing. The debris never bothered me any either. I guess all the rain they've been getting down here lately helped to wash the roads clean!

I ended up running a total of 6 miles. 3 uphill and 3 downhill in 1 hour and 6 seconds.

Pushing thru to bliss

Sometimes a run doesn't feel good at first. I've had this happen several times. I take off running and something isn't quite right. Theres one little nagging issue that keeps trying to get you to throw in the towel and cut your run short.

Sunday morning (yesterday morning) I went out early for a long run. It was around 33° when I left the house and it was all drizzling from the night before. All the roads and side walks were soaked and freezing cold.

It hurt. It was as if I had never ran barefoot before. The cold wet ground kept my feet from warming up too much, thereby amplifying every little change in the running surface. It felt like I was running on crushed ice.

For those of you who might not know to much about me, here's 2 key bits of info about Chaser Williams.

1) I'm from Texas. It stays over 95° about 10 months out of the year here. I don't get to run in the cold all to often.

2) I don't like the cold. I would rather run in 100°+ temps than run on anything below about 60° 

Now that you know this, you could imagine a rainy 33° run isn't my idea of a good time.

But I pushed thru the discomfort.

I was determined to run 15 miles.

I had a goal, and nothing short of getting ran over or the trots was going to stop me.

So I kept running.

At around 6 miles either my body adjusted, or the sun was finally warming the ground up, because my feet felt perfectly fine again!

The rest of the run was absolutely amazing! I felt great and probably could have gone on for another few miles afterwards!

I probably would have ran some more, but it seemed that every 4th or 5th house I passed was cooking bacon.

I'm not a huge bacon fan. Its good and all, I'm just not one of those guys that think bacon is the end all be all of the meat section of the food pyramid.

But when it's cold, and your already a little hungry because you haven't eaten yet, and the sun is just starting to light the road infront of you enough to be seen, bacon will break you.

Update and bad runs

A week and a half ago I created a post saying that I was running again and that I had 30 something days until my birthday run of 30 miles.

Well I'm still running! Yay!

My wife and I are also trying to eat better again. This time were slowly making changes. Every week we make a change. No sweets the week of Halloween was a tough one. More water intake wasn't a big deal for me, but I'm actually finding it difficult to fit in 4 to 6 servings of fruits /veggies a day. Next week is no more bread.

My runs have been going pretty good for the most part. I'm running at night now instead of in the morning. I'm not sure exactly what I think about that. My weekend long runs (yes, I've started them! ) are still in the mornings. Last Saturday I got up and knocked out 10 miles, and I'm actually preparing to go run another 10 miles right now (it is Saturday morning right now) and plan on running another 10 miles tomorrow morning.

Most of my runs feel good, but I did have one that started off like crap.

Everything felt stiff and disconnected. I couldn't find a good rhythm. I was bouncing too much, and my feel were slapping the sidewalk. Usually when this happens I take a few deep breaths thru the nose real slowly and try to get my body into a state of relaxation, but it wasn't happening this night. So I decided to do Fartleks instead.

For those who don't know, a fartlek is where you run at 2 different paces for different amounts of time/distances. For this run I chose to vary between my normal snail's crawl pace and a very hard effort pace.

Instead of choosing a distance or a time to alternate paces, I decided that when I got exhausted from running fast, I would pick a location as far down the sidewalk as I could see and run just past it. Then I would creep along again until I felt I had regained my composure and then take off again.

This took a bad feeling run and made it a good run that left me with some burning legs that were actually sore the next day. I don't get sore legs very often, so it was a bit of a suprise!

It made me think that I can go out and enjoy a good run every time I feel good, but the real challenge is to go out and enjoy the bad runs too. It's all about pushing yourself thru adversity!

Back at it again!

Rollercoaster training.

It doesn't work!

I've always said the key to being a good runner is consistency. You've got to put in the required training time in order to succeed.

They keep switching my hours up at work. So for the last 2.5 months I haven't been running. Since I haven't been running, I haven't been eating right. Some I haven't been running or eating right, I've been gaining weight again. Yay...

But they put us back on our normal hours starting this week, so I've started running again. Sunday night I went 3.6 miles and last night (Monday night) I went for 2.

I've got 37 days until my 30th birthday....  I feel that's an adequate enough amount of time to give me a really good challenge for running my age in miles. Just have to continue the gradual build up in mileage. The key will be long runs on the weekends. I feel that if I can get in one run over 20 miles between now and December 4th that hitting 30 might be plausible.

But we will see....

What is all about.

I really wish I could place pictures in the body of my posts, I really do. I've complained to the creators of this app probably a dozen or so times, but they don't seem to care. The picture at the bottom of this post is what stirred up these thoughts.

My drink of choice is water. It's all I've drank for the past... 10 or 11 years now. I'll occasionally have a glass of juice or some kombucha or a home made smoothie. But if I'm eating food, 99.99% of the time is washed down with water. Even when I'm not eating I still drink water.

Unless there's alcohol involved. All bets are off then.

But my kids have only ever seen me drinking water. Daddy doesn't order a soda or a sweet tea at dinner. And I damn sure don't order a beer, yuck!

My astute son had picked up on this, and the fact that daddy is a decent runner (good in his mind, and that's fine for now) and had decided that water makes you fast and tea and Dr. Pepper (the only soda he knows) makes you slow. So he only drinks water now!

This made a pretty profound impact on me. Growing up I didn't have a good example of how I should eat. My dad would get off work and 3 or 4 Miller Lites down before he ever got home, then he would eat whatever it was that mom had cooked that night and wash it down with a few more beers while going back for seconds and or thirds. So naturally I thought that the right way to eat was to eat everything in sight, regardless of what it was. So that's what I've spent most of my life doing. Eating everything I can get my hands on.

That's not good.

I need to not only eat the right food (something I've been working on the last 2 or 3 years) but also eat the right quantities. I want to set a good example for my kids in every way I can. My wife and I have them riding their bikes while I run and my wife rides along with them. We all really enjoy it.

I really want my kids to experience the true joy and pleasure of running. It's something that I have always enjoyed. Yet, at the same time, I don't want to push anything on them.

They need to discover the love of things on their own.

All I can do is continue trying to be a better example for them.

Bites

Over the span of my life I have been bitten by various animals. Dogs, turtles, snakes, small children and other assorted vermin and such.

Some of the bites have been pretty bad. I spent the night in a hospital one time because I got bitten by a Copperhead snake... twice. It was at a cross country meet when I was a freshman in highschool, and it got blown way out of proportion.

I was also stung in the head by some red wasps when I was around 10 years old and my head and face swoll up like a damn basketball. My face was so distorted that I looked like Quazimodo (the hunch back of Notre Dame). That one hurt.

I also got bit by a Water Moccasin (aka; Cotton Mouth) one time when I was probably 12 or so. It barely grazed my right ankle (luckily! ) and I ran a little fever and my ankle swoll up a little bit. I kept that one from mom...

I've also had less severe, but equally as painful bites.

Ever seen a Cow Ant (aka;  Velvet Ant, which is actually a female wingless wasp. That explains a lot!) Before? Those things are a bitch! Their tougher than nails and make you scream in pain. Geeez... that's some bad memories there.

The Banana Spider (that's what we called it at least, I think it's also known as a Golden Orb Spider, maybe?) Is another pain rendering insect. The leave you with a massive whelp that burns for a few hours.

But now I'm encountering something new. I think they might be spider bites, maybe?

They're concentrated on my lower thighs, just above my knee caps. I'm not even 100% sure their bug bites. I don't know what they are, but they itch a little and are quite tender to the touch.

I've included some pictures below. These were taken at around 5 this morning after a 2 mile run while putting some gas in the truck on the way to work. You can see about 6 of them on my right leg, and 1 big bastard on my left.

A Learning Experience

It's difficult to talk to your kids sometimes. I have a big problem communicating with my son. It's not that we fight or anything like that, it's just that we both get frustrated quickly with each other. He's a very very sweet kid who is extremily kind and wears his heart on his sleeve (it's going to be hell when he starts really getting into girls...), but he gets frustrated with me when I laugh at him for being such a literal person.

I want to have a good relationship with my children, and communicating is the heart and soul of a child / parent relationship. So I have been working on a lot of things.

One thing I've found that works is when we have good one on one time where he gets to do something he enjoys, and learns something new at the same time.

So today after school I decided that we could go on a journey together.

Me running and him on his new bike.

He rides his bike GREAT, and quite fast when he gets the chance. So I want worried about him, I was more worried about me keeping up with him throughout our hilly neighborhood.

I aimed for going about 2 miles, so we strapped on his helmet and I strapped on my Garmin watch and we took off together. Within 2 minutes he's taking his head off about his first day off school. At the house I couldn't get a full sentence out of him!

Around. 75 miles we had a little hiccup.

We were traveling down a pretty steep hill when he somehow ended up behind me. I think he missed the turn I took and had to turn around and play catchup. I called out to him to make sure he was still behind me and he replied with "Daddy, watch out. Daddy, watch out!!!!"....

BAM!

His front tire his the back of left heel just as I'm starting to lift that foot off the ground, effectively jamming the front of my foot back into the cement road where my toes fold under and my foot gets dragged / pushed forward. I skinned 3 toes and had a painful spot on the back of my left heel now.

Great....

My son, being the caring sweet child that he is, freaks out and immediately asks if I'm ok and apologizes repeatedly. Then tells me "daddy, I said for you to watch out. Didn't you hearded me saying that?"

Haha!!!

Then when he sees me foot bleeding he starts panicking a little and asks if I need to go to the hospital.

No bud, I'm ok. It's just a little road rash. No biggie.

Are you sure? We need to find a band aid.

I think it will be ok buddy. Let's just get back home.

Ok.... are you sure it's ok? Your foots bleeding a whole lot.

Yes Bubba, it's fine. Let's just not run into daddy anymore, ok?

....

Funny kid.

But we did have a great time! We did 2.03 according to the Garmin, and we talked the entire time. If we had stayed at home we probably would have just sat on the couch and watched Pokémon or some other nonsense.

I think we will go again soon, but this time we will discuss how to pass before we take off.

Running with music

I love music. I really do. A good song that speaks to my soul is something I really about. I even listen to music when there isn't any playing, there's a constant soundtrack within my mind that seldom stops playing.

But I don't listen to music while I'm running.

You won't find me with headphones on while I'm out on the run. I just don't do it. I have music in my head while I'm running. Hell, sometimes I'm even singing out loud. But I don't listen to music.

I feel like you miss out on too much of the world around you when you intentionally tune it all out. You miss out on the best music of all, the song of Mother Nature.

You can't hear the birds chirping, or the frogs croaking, or even the angry little Yorkshire Terrier drag the little metal chair that he's chained up to across the wooden slats that make up the back porch of his owners lovely home that's just off the Tee Box on hole 7 on the local golf course. You can't hear the Wood Pecker going to town on an old Pine Tree in search of his first meal of the day, or the soft crunch of a small herd of deer just inside the tree line, afraid of being spotted in the days first rays of sunlight.

You also can't hear other runners approaching. So when I pass you and smile and wave and you come across as a total ass hole, don't worry about it, I'm sure the latest Nickelback album totally rocks.... Douchebag...

And then don't look at me like I'm the dick on the road because I scared you when you finally realized that you weren't, in fact, the only person in the neighborhood that goes running early in the morning.

.........

You also can't hear the soothing sounds of the water lapping against the shore as you run out to farthest extent that you body can take you without going for a swim. That's when you look up and realize that you in a beautiful place that you wouldn't have seen any other way... other than maybe a golf cart, but then you wouldn't have as much appreciation for it, would you?

Another Map my ride app FAIL!!!!

Seriously. It's comical at this point.

I went for what is right now a "longish" run this morning and used both my Garmin Forerunner 305 and my Map My Ride app on my phone.

This isn't abnormal. I like to use the app to get my elevation profile along with a map of where I went. Although it's ability to accurately measure distance is about as good as my dogs ability to speak mandarin.

So after my run I compared the 2, and over 7.5 miles they were an astounding .6 miles apart!!!!

Now, I wish the map my ride app was the correct one because it said I ran over 8 miles compared to the Garmin's 7.5, but looking at the rest of the data from this last week of running I'm not sure what the app is doing while I'm running... Maybe it's still asleep at 4 in the morning?

I ran 2 different courses over the 5 day work week, a short one on Monday and Thursday and a longer one on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. My app shows 5 totally different distances, and I dont know if any of them are even remotely close to being accurate!

And just to throw out another complaint in the end of this bitch fest of a blog post, I have to post all my pictures at the END of the post because the Blogger app doesn't allow you to place them in the body of the post. I could do this when I first started blogging on another platform with no issues using a different blogger app that isn't avaliable on my current platform. ANNOYING!!!!!

Grrrrr......

OK. That's all! Have a great day!

I'm walking thru the spider webs...

Well.... Running (more like slowly trodding, fat ass...) thru the spider webs, but that's not the lyrics that Gwen Stefani chose. So ya know.

I've went running 2 mornings in a row and came to the conclusion that whatever poor sap goes for the first run of the day gets the joy of taking out all the freshly built spider webs along the sidewalks and /or trails.

I'm that sap.

On top of that, my damn Map My Run app that I have been using on my phone keeps failing to save my course maps of my runs. The other day it just timed me and didn't say how far I went or my pace or anything. This morning it did all of that, but it didn't save my map or elevation profile although it was clearly all the when I hit the "stop workout" button.

Let's see what tomorrow morning holds!

Chef Chase-R-Dee...

I'm not much of a chef.

Although I did hold down a job as a chef in a fine dining establishment (Dairy Queen) while I was in high school, historically I haven't ever cooked. Not really ever for myself, and only once or twice for my family in my 8 years of martial bliss.

But that has changed lately.

Since moving into our new house I have decided that I need to both learn how to cook, and cook.

So I've been working on it.

I've got a few meals down pretty good so far!

I make a kick ass Mexican Cornbread dish (it's got taco seasoning in it, so that means calling it Mexican Cornbread ISN'T racist) that I have made twice now. I've made spaghetti a few times, and the family's new favorite dinner, Corn Flake Chicken!!! It's been a HUGE hit with my son who is allergic to wheat and so therefore cannot have any normal fried chicken. He also likes my side of mashed cauliflower! It's like mashed potatoes, only better!!!

Now, although I feel like I've been doing sort of alright with this cooking stuff, I wouldn't say I'm a good cook. Not even close! My wife is a good cook! No. Scratch that. My wife is an amazing cook!
As proof of my low status as a cook, I'm offering up the following picture of yesterday's wheat free (aka; gluten free) garlic bread AFTER the flames died down...

Sore Muscles

I think the best thing about coming back into running after taking some time off is the soreness that develops in the muscles in the beginning.

I like the feeling of sore muscles. Especially the quadriceps! Those are my favorite!

When I've been training consistently for awhile it takes a lot for my muscles to get sore. This is due in part to the way I run (slow and steady), and to my muscles becoming stronger and better suited to what I want them to do.

When they are is shape I can feel them. I can feel the fibers firing almost individually as I'm running. I can feel the tightening and loosening of the muscles as I walk or climb stairs or even stretch out in a yawn.

I LOVE that feeling. When I'm out of shape and inactive I miss and crave that connectedness with my body that only months of training can bring around.

But the initial soreness of just starting out is a great reminder of things to come.

New running partner

I love animals.

I always have.

Where I grew up, people would dump their dogs by my house quite often. We had a lot of dogs growing up. A LOT...

My wife also loves dogs. (We're not really cat people)

My sister loves dogs as well.

My wife and I share a love for one breed in particular and have always wanted one, but their too damn expensive and not very common.

Well... I got a text from my sister last night with a picture of the dog I want saying that is a dumped dog and they can't find the owner. Then this morning she tells me that she can't take it (she has 5 dogs currently) and asks if I would be interested in taking it....

HELLS YES!!!!!!!

So, we are now the proud owners of a 3~4 month old, black, male Irish Wolfhound!!!!!!

His name is Sampson.

If your unfamiliar with the Irish Wolfhound, here's the gist of what you would be interested in knowing...

They are the world's tallest breed of dog

They were bred to hunt Wolfs... in Ireland...

They look like Werewolfs.

They're totally bad ass!!!

I've included a few pics below. He's the black puppy, the others are compliments of a quick Google search.

Monday and an injury review

I'm going to go for a run on Monday.

I don't know if it will be a morning or evening run, but I do know that it won't be very long. Maybe 1/4 mile at the most. Just testing the foot too see if it's ready.

I'm going to continue these small runs for awhile just to make sure I don't over do anything and get set back even further. And that's only providing my run tomorrow goes smoothly.

This injury has led me to think back on my other injuries that I've had since I started running barefoot.

My first injury was a dropped cuboid in my right foot, and the funny thing about it is that it was caused by me altering my gait while running in a pair of shoes (my homemade huaraches), so I can't blame that on running barefoot.

The second injury was an interesting one that took me out for nearly 3 weeks during my optimal training time frame for the Rocky Racoon 50 miler. I managed to damage my seismoid bones in my right foot. I think this can actually be blamed on being barefoot while doing bleachers. I would land with my seismoid bones right on the edge of the stair while coming back down. I think that knocked them a little out of whack. That coupled with running 50 mile weeks (that's high for me) and altering my gait to accommodate for the soreness on the inside of my right forefoot area inflamed a tendon on the lower outside section of my right foot. I actually had to call or quites 9 miles into a 20 mile out and back run and ended up getting picked up by a total stranger and given a ride back to my car. That sucked.

.....

Well, that's it! Other than my current injury (500 pound pipe crushing foot at work) I have only had 2 bad strings there. If I had stuck with barefoot running (no minimalist shoes or cross training on bleachers) then I don't think I would have suffered any injuries at all!

Still on the road to healing

My foot is still not at 100%, but it's getting better.

I'm not ready to start running just yet, but I might be ready to start off small next week.

We went back to our normal schedule at work (6:00am to 4:00pm) starting this week. So I will be able to catch up on some much needed sleep this week and hopefully get healed up a little better so that I'm good to go starting next Monday.

I'm really missing my running. Running helps me cope with a lot of inner turmoil that I struggle with. Running helps me balance out everything in my head and assists in keeping me sane. It always has.
In the mean time I have been working on building us a dining room table for our new house out of free materials (yes, I had to buy a few tools and such, but the lumber is all free) and once it is complete I will create a very large post for it. It's been very therapeutic working on it.

Damn foot.

It's not getting better.

I had my third follow up yesterday and after describing my symptoms to the Dr she had it re-x-rayed and they came up clean. No cracks, breaks or fractures. The bone placement looked fine to.

But if I apply pressure to the outside of my foot, like walking on the side of your foot, it hurts like a bitch! It doesn't feel like a muscle pain, it feels like a bone pain.

Maybe I just need to rest it longer though. It's not like I have a race looming in the near future (or even far future...), and I don't really have the time to do any serious training any ways.

On a positive note, today is my lovely wife's birthday! I dont know how she manages to become more and more beautiful every year, but she certainly does! So a happy birthday shout out to the love of my life! I love you baby!

Fruit till' 4

Want guaranteed Acne, gas, energy, atrocious smelling poop and a good detox?

Then don't eat anything other than fruit until after 4 in the evening!

It works!

Extremes

I have always held a fascination with extremes.

Well, more of the extremes of human capabilities. I loved watching the World's Strongest Man competitions growing up. I love watching elite runners run. I love watching gymnasts do their thing too.

I feel that I'm motivated and driven by extremes. I dont want to run 5k's or marathons. I want to run races that take place over the course of an entire day, or even multiple days.

But I'm sort of an all or nothing kind of person at the same time. I dont want to run 20 miles a week. I want to run 20 miles at a time.

I feel the same way about the way I eat. I have to be strict and extreme in order for it to work. I can't have areas of gray (or even grey for that matter) because I fall into them too often and end up with the opposite result of what I was shooting for.

I'm currently sitting in a room at this medical clinic waiting for the doctor to come look at my foot and give me her opinion on it....

... OK,  she just left. Strange how that timing worked out there. She said to come back in a week and that I might need to start going to rehab.

The damn thing is still swollen. Grrr. Need. to. run. !.

Won't be running for awhile

That's right, I won't be running for awhile...

... because I might have broken my foot.

Tuesday morning I had a 500ish pound pipe roll over my foot. Luckily I was wearing steel toes. Unluckily it rolled over the steel toe part and crushed the top part of my foot.

Ouch!

I did get it x rayed, and the doctor said she didn't see any breaks at the moment, but that there could be hair line fractures present that won't be visable for a few days.

It's quite swollen, and I can't put a shoe on it.

I go back to the doctor on Friday for a follow up appointment and more x rays.

In the mean time it just hurts to put any weight on my forefoot area. So I have to walk (limp) around on my heel of my left foot.

I also can't do any pushups because I can't put any weight on that area of my left foot.

Yay....

But I did get a new truck!

700 pushups in a day!

It is 9:15 AM right now and I just did my 370th pushup of the day.

Chest is getting tired.

I'm going to continually update this post as the day goes on and I continue to do more pushups. So here's a quick rundown of what's gone down so far...

3:45 AM - alarm goes off, while getting ready I do a quick 50.

Before leaving the house I knock out another 50.

After arriving at work I did the following sets. ..

60
60
50
50
50

This brings me to where I am now at 9:15 AM.

When I do another set I will add the info and comments below. Of course when this gets posted it will read a little funny, but it's the only way I can think of to keep track of both hire in feeling, and how many pushups I have done.

Think of it as a race report for pushups!

10:55 - another set of 50. Wasn't too bad until my boss stated making me laugh...

11:45 - 50. Not bad at all.

I'm at 470 for the day. Chest is feeling it for sure, but I've got some more in me!

1:50 - after eating some delicious left over roast and enjoying a blisteringly hot nap in the car I grabbed 50 more. In starting to feel it now! After 38 they got pretty tough. After 45 they were hard.

2:45 - the recovery time between sets is getting longer, and my chest is feeling tired for longer afterwards. Another 50 and I'm sitting at 570!!!

3:06 - Holy Jesus on a hot buttermilk biscuit! Just did another set of 50. After number 30 things got difficult. Dave had warned me that anything over 600 was hard, but I didn't expect that to be an exact number in the middle of a set... geez!

5:03 - another 50. Their not getting any easier. I'm at 670.

9:27 - 30... decided to just hit 700 for the day and call it done! My chest is definitely tired now.

Looking back...

I think doing sets of 50 aren't too difficult. Going up to 60 was a challenge. I'm going to take a day or two off and then try some more. I might go for a lower total with higher reps in each set. Maybe shoot for a few sets mixed up of 60 ~75 or so if I can. I definitely see 1,000 as an attainable number now, just need a little more time. I think an even tougher challenge would be 10 sets of 100 in a day.

I'm going to bed now.

An audience

I just checked the stats on my blog.

Woah!!!

I actually have an audience!

I thought only maybe 5 people actually occasionally read this major load of bovine excrement that I write and post up here;

My perfect wife.
My awesome sister.
My amazing aunt, who is also my biggest inspiration and is one of the most amazing humans I have Everhart l ever met.
Rob.
Dave.

... and that's it...

but it turns out I was wrong!

Just yesterday I had 20 views! So either those 5 people kept coming back several times, or there are other random peoples visiting.

Seeing that there actually people taking the time to read my thoughts and idea makes me think I need to be posting better quality stuff on here rather than my typical "I'm fat and I ran 2 miles today" crap.

So, if your reading this, thank you! I'm not sure how you came across my blog as I don't have any social media outlets like one of them FaceBooks or a Tweaker thing. Just this blog.

If you find something entertaining, helpful or interesting please feel free to share it where ever you like, and then go have a mental evaluation performed on yourself...

Avocado tree, revisited!

A long long time ago I made a post about Avocados, and how much I enjoy eating them. I did get to the point to where I can eat an avocado straight, no seasonings needed, and find it very enjoyable!

Here's the link to the original post. Hopefully that link actually works...

In that post I put up some pictures of my avocado trees as I was growing them. Well it dawned on me today that I haven't made a follow up post to that original post, and my avocado tree has grown... immensely!!!

Below are some pictures of growth of the tree, and is current residence in the corner of the back yard. I waited until we were settled in some where to put it on the ground. It's still a little skinny, and the leaves at the top are huge, so it's a little top heavy and flimsy.

Finally, another run!

It's funny, just when you think your in some type of control over the smallest of things, life comes around to screw it all up.

After being out last week sick, I decided to start back this week.... WRONG! Instead of waking up at 4 in the morning to go for a nice little stroll around the old neighborhood, I'm now walking up at 4 to go to work an hour earlier than normal because we got put back on extended hours temporarily. Yay...

So yesterday (Tuesday for those of you playing along at home) I decided that I was going to shoot for 400+ pushups throughout the day. I got to 200 while at work and suddenly came down with something terrible. I kept coming to the point of near vomiting where your hunched over pathetically half ass gagging and wishing you would go ahead and puke. I also had a splitting headache, chills, I felt very weak and dizzy, and I had the shakes. I also got extremely sleepy. So I came home and passed out in the bed for 4 and a half hours only to wake up drenched in sweat.

Luckily today I felt fine and decided to go for a night time run. So after tucking Preston in to bed (Izzy is on a 2 week vacation with my mom, it's very odd without her around... very quiet too!) I headed out the door for a nice 3.95 miles. Saw lots of deer, has a kamikaze June bug try to take out my right eye, and inhaled a few pounds of gnats. But it was great to be out there running again!

Damn Sinuses...

I had to take this entire last week off due to sinus issues. I managed to get in a whopping 300 pushups for the whole week and I didn't run a lick...

BOOOO!!!!!

But I am feeling better now. Starting tomorrow morning I will be resuming my running and push up routine.

I'm not going to set any particular goals for this week. Instead I'm going to start focusing more on getting in a higher volume of pushups in fewer days. So instead of shooting for 250 or 300 in one day, I'll shoot for 500 in one day, then take the next day off and try to repeat that. I think doing them everyday is a good routine, but I think I might benefit more from giving myself rest days.

On the running front, I don't have any goals there other than just to get my fat ass out the damn door and go running.

Friday my son graduates from Kindergarten... How did this happen?

Not that he's not a smart kid, luckily he took after his momma in the brains department! But I don't understand how he's old enough to be at this point already. It feels like just yesterday I was having to wipe his ass for him, now he's graduating from Kindergarten and developing into a great swimmer. Both of these things make me a very very happy and proud father.

My daughter will be gone for almost 2 weeks on a vacation with my mom and some of the extended family. I almost cried after dropping her off with my mother... She also took ate l after my wife and is intelligent on a scary level.

1040!

I hit one goal already. Just did my 1040th pushup of the week. Hit my goal 2 days early. Nice!

Unfortunately I don't think I will hit my 10 mile goal this week... half way through the day today my throat started feeling funny. Now I've damn near lost my voice, and my throat is killing me!

I was planning on going for a 8~10 mile run tomorrow morning, but with my throat feeling like this I just don't think it's a very good idea.

Oh well! Just gives me a few rest days to come back and start up with the Maffetone method. I'm very excited, although I think it will cause my daily mileage to do considerably. It cant get worse than 6 miles a week, AND maybe I will actually LOSE weight rather than gain it.

5-22-2014.... Almost There...!

Managed to get 300 pushups today.

That's a total of 950 for the week. Only 50 away from my goal of 1,000!!!

No running today, so I'm about 4.25 miles from my pathetic goal of 10 for the week. I think I will hit that mark and go beyond it Saturday morning.

My diet wasn't that great today. I had Freebirds (yummy!!!) For lunch and a bar b q sandwich with fries for dinner. Not terrible... but not great.

I was also up another pound today. Wtf?

I think the reason I haven't been losing weight is because I'm not running right. I've been running hard, not easy. I haven't been running of heart rate. Starting next week I will be doing all my runs based off heart rate. Since I'm a year older, fatter and out of shape I will be running at an even lower heart rate. 145 will be my cap.

5-21-2014

Woke up a pound heavier again at 196. Something.

Hit a total of 200 pushups via 4 sets of 50. They seem to be getting both easier and harderat the same time.

Easier in that the first 30 go by quickly and aren't putting up much difficulty. Even up to 40 still feels OK.

However, around 44 they are getting harder and harder. I think this is because I'm getting stronger, but at the same time my muscles are getting tired. I haven't taken a break day yet. I think if I hit my 1000 early then I will take a day off. I'm pretty sure I will hit 1000 by Saturday night, if not Friday night. So I will take a day of to recoop.

I also ran 3.75ish miles yesterday morning and had a major scare when I discovered a skunk assuming their defensive position with 3 feet from me. The stinch that followed wasn't from the skunk... it was from me evacuating my bowels.

Diet wise I ate great all day.... Then nose dived at dinner.

I had a veggie and fruit smoothie for brekky,  some tuna fish for lunch, then a big greasy heavy patty melt with fries fir dinner followed up with some Blue Bell Ice-cream...

Would have been a great day if it wasn't for ruining my diet at the end of it.

5-20-2014

I can't remember if I did another set of pushups last night before bed or not, so I'm just going to say I didn't.

200 pushups.

No running.

Breakfast was a tube of Siggis blueberry yogurt and 3 bottles of water. Followed a few hours later by a bag of trail mix consisting of nuts and dehydrated fruits.

Lunch found me eating some grilled salmon with steamed broccoli and a nice side salad.

Dinner.... wasn't quite as healthy. I had 2 plates of trailer park nachos (that's where you cover the plate in chips, then cover the chips in grated cheese and microwave until the cheese is melted), but they were on corn chips!

I somehow went up a pound from the day before. I know it's not added muscle,  yet my waistline is looking a wee bit smaller.

5-19-2014

Woke up this morning and knocked out 40 pushups.

Weighed myself,  194.7

Ran a hair over 2 miles. First mile was relatively easy,  2nd mile was a gradual build up in pace. Almost saw a baby deer get creamed by a Uhaul truck. Since it was Monday morning I would have called it in to The Rod Ryan Show for his "Blood, Sex, Jail or Fame" segment, but I don't think that's quite the type of bloody story he's after...

Got back home and knocked out another 40 pushups.

Had a 28 ounce Spinach, Kale, Strawberry, Pineapple, Blue Berry, Celery, Carrot, Honey, Coconut Oil and Vanilla flavored Skyr Yogurt smoothie for breakfast. Yum yum!

For lunch I had chicken fajitas on corn tortillas. Not to bad!

Upon returning home I dropped down and did 40 pushups.

Then did 50 by accident. ..

So I was at 170 at this point.

So I did another 40...

Then another 40......

So 250 pushups and a hair over 2 miles. Not a bad start! Only 750 more pushups and 8 miles to reach this week's goal!

Goodnight!

1000 pushups and 32 miles!

Those are the 2 goals I'm currently working towards.

Starting tomorrow (well... sort of today to) I'm going to start training with these 2 goals in mind.

Next goal for next week is to run a minimum of 10 miles, and do a minimum of 1,000 push ups.

That's an average of 143 push ups and 1.5 miles a day.

This should be a cakewalk... but to ensure that my fat ass actually follows through with this, I will be posting daily updates on my progress along with what my diet consisted of everyday.

I'm also a little upset about my lack of blogging lately, and the lack of quality when I do blog. I miss my creative writing sessions, so maybe I will try to incorporate some of that as well!

Goals and motivation.

I've never had a problem with setting goals. Well... I guess that isn't entirely true.

I have lots of goals. Some are even quite lofty you could say.

Run a 100 mile ultra marathon. Barefoot. Duh.

Run a 100K ultra marathon. Barefoot.

Run a 50 mile ultra marathon. Barefoot. DONE!!!

Run a 50K ultra marathon. Barefoot.

Run a marathon. Barefoot.
-The catch to this one is that I won't run a marathon until I feel that I have a chance at debuting under 3 hours...

Run a sub 1:20 half marathon. Barefoot.

Run a sub 18:00 5K again. This time barefoot.

I also have goals that aren't necessarily running related, but go hand in hand.

Maintain a weight under 180 pounds.

Maintain an improved state of health.

Feel comfortable going shirtless in a public pool. Barefoot.

But as of lately I haven't had much motivation helping to push me towards these goals. I think that's because I haven't had a specific target in mind.

Well now I do!

The Wild Hare 50K / 50 Mile Ultra Marathon, is held by Tejas Trails and takes place on November 22nd in Warda Texas. It's a very twisted course that looks like a lot of fun. I'm not sure how barefootable it is, but I'm sure I could find out.

I want to register for the 50K, but train like I'm running the 50 mile. This way if I get closer and feel confident that I could run the 50 mile, I could just move up!

This gives me a target in sight. And yes, it's a long long way off, but that's not a bad thing! I'm essentially going to be coming from nothing to hopefully running a 50 mile race... I need ample training time to get there.

I haven't registered yet. I'm going to wait until I'm under 185 pounds (about 7-10 pounds down) and have a half way decent mileage base, but now that I have something to train for it should provide just enough motivation to stop me from being a lard ass!

Junebugs

It's been awhile since I last posted, so I would like to apologize to the 2.5 people that actually take the time to sift through my ramblings in hopes that something will eventually make sense. I've been busy lately, but what's new?

Since moving to the new house I've been trying to get back into the habit of waking up hours before most of humanity even starts hitting their snooze buttons and getting a few miles in. It's been working for the most part, but if I eat something I know I shouldn't in the evening, I can count out running the next day for fear of defication action while on the run.

But I did manage to grab 3.9 this morning. It felt good! I learned 2 things this morning. The first of which is that the community pool isn't locked up at 4 in the morning, so I can start running to the pool (1.5 miles away), going for a quick swim, then run back home. This is great! I love swimming, but I currently loathe removing my shirt in public.

The second thing I learned this morning is that Junebugs have a very distinct crunch when you run across them. I probably massacred around 50 dazed Junebugs this morning. They were every damn where!!! I probably have some Junebug guts caked in between my toes right now. Yummy.

Something else pretty cool is that this neighborhood has a lot of elevation changes! How exciting!!! The graph below is of this morning's run. Ignore the pace and such, I was handicapped by several pounds of Junebug innards...

We're in!

We're finally at the move in stage at the new house, and I can't wait until it's all said and done!!!

We've moved all but one of the big items, abd the one that's left is going to be a major bitch!

We have a king size mattress, and we wanted to build a platform bed to go with it. So I built a very sturdy, strong, solid, heavy platform for the bed to go on. The problem is that I built it in our bedroom at our old house, and it doesn't come apart.

So imagine a platform that's the size of a king mattress that has no flex to it that sits about 6"off the ground supported by 4"x4" posts to hold it up. Now imagine that it's upstairs, and that the stairs double back on themselves, then have a 45° turn, with a banister on one side and a sheetrock wall on the other...

That's what I'll be dealing with today.

But, that is the last big item! After that there's only a few things left that aren't that important to daily life, mainly the kids toys, our tv, and some other random crap.

So starting tomorrow morning I will begin running consistently again. And next weekend I will start weekend runs as well! I'm also going to clean my diet back up and try to get back under 185, if not under 180.

Wish me luck!!

Thinking of changing things up.

For the last few years my training has centered around ultras. So in the afternoons when I could go running for and hour or so, I would only get in 5 or 6 miles because I was running at a slower pace. My weekend mornings were spent running for 4~6 hours in the wee hours before the sun started showing its face.

But now that my kids are getting older and getting more involved with sports and other extra curricular activities I want to spend more time with the family than I do beating feet on the pavement.

That's not too say I'm done running. Oh no! Far from it in fact! Just that I'm going to change the way I run to better suit my current lifestyle.

I think I'm going to center my training around running faster. There's no way to run 6 hours in any time shorter than 6 hours without approaching the speed of light (the speed of gravity), and I'm no Usain Bolt so I don't see that happening any time soon.

But I can run more miles in what time I do have by running at a faster pace.

If I have an hour's worth of time to train in, then I should be able to get to the point to where I can run 8 miles relatively comfortably within a few months and eventually work myself up to 10 miss within that hour.

...

My old hometown just had its local marathon (The Gusher Marathon) and the winning time was a 3:00:57... Don't take that the wrong way, that's a very fast time for sure... But it shouldn't be fast enough to WIN a marathon in my opinion. I made a deal with myself a long long time ago that I wouldn't run a marathon until I was confident that I could debut under the coveted 3 hour mark.

So I think that in order to get there I will need to be able to go sub 1:20 in a half marathon a few times, and have a good endurance base set up as well.

I want to start winning races and not just in my age group.

Now, I'm not giving up on ultras. I still want to try to get in 2 or 3 weekend morning long runs per month. Just a few hours of a nice leisurely pace down some old county roads is just what the doctor ordered some times.

A bit of an epiphany!

Since Rocky Raccoon in 2012, my training has been all over the place. I've been 200+ pounds and out if shape after 4 months off from training due to a turnaround at work, to feeling like I was in my true prime after being on the Makers Diet for 3 months and weighing in under 180 for the first time in over 10 years.

The only thing I haven't been is consistent.

When I was working in the plants back in Southeast Texas, I would work 5-8's one week, then turn around and work 16's until I would throw in the towel. Then we had the nightmare 4 month long turnaround. And all of that started for me after running RR50 in 2012.

Then, when things finally settled down and I had time to train, we started the Makers Diet and things were going GREAT! The speed of my progression and recovery during that time period still blows me away!

But then we were told that we were being relocated to the Conroe area. Great! We had always wanted to move, and what better opportunity is there than when your wife's company PAYS you to move?

The only downside was that we had to finish remodeling our halfway remodeled house. So all dieting and training and running got put on hold.

Then we moved and I had to look for employment. Plus it's hard to try to train when you have to try to follow a schedule that works for 6 people, 4 of which are adults with full time jobs.

So I haven't been doing much in the way of training lately, and I'm feeling it.

Now we have been house hunting, looking for just the right one.

And we found it!

So after moving into our new home and getting settled in, I hope to resume training.

My epiphany though, is this...

There are no looming things hanging over us after we move. No more turnarounds that take me out for 4 months. No remodeling, no moving, no crazy hectic work schedule, and no crazy extended family schedule. Just the 4 of us (me, wife, son, daughter) and the dog! Not only should I be able to resume my training, but I shouldn't have any major interruptions for years to come! (Barring unforeseen events of course...)

It never ends..

"It never end, and so therefore it never starts."

-my head just now.

I haven't been running. I haven't been cycling. I haven't been eating right...

But I also haven't been gaining weight! I'm somehow all under 195, yet my gut has enlarged so it doesn't really come across as a positive.

Life never shows down. I thought once we moved to Conroe I could start running because we wouldn't be remodeling a house. WRONG! I moved here and started at a job working crazy hours, then I got a job with steady hours, and we start house shopping, the kids start playing sports, and we start "training" for the MS150.

On top of that, my little cousin Spencer passed away last week. It's something that didn't really come as a surprise, but it still wasn't easy... I know he's better off now, and he's not suffering anymore, but I still took it really hard and still haven't fully recovered. It's never easy when some one so young and so full of life passes on.

Well, we've found a house! We're in a contract pending inspection, and it's in a great neighborhood too! Every time we've driven into the neighborhood I've seen a handful of people out jogging / running! And our house is right next to the sidewalk that runs down the main road. I'm not sure how long the side walk is, but I would guess a round trip would be something like 4~5 miles.

So hopefully the combination of being in our own house, on our own schedule, with our own groceries and our own space in a beautiful neighborhood watching people running around will inspire me to get off my fat lazy ass and do something again!

Switching Gears

I'm changing things up a little bit right now. My focus right now is on cycling.

My wife and I signed up for the BP MS150 the other day. For those unfamiliar with the MS150, it's a charity race to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis that goes from Houston to Austin, which is approximately 150 miles. I did get a new bike a few months ago, a Quintanna Roo Caliente tri bike. I've ridden it twice...

We also just purchased a Cannondale Synapse road bike for my wife, and it's pretty freaking sweet!

The ride isn't until April, so we've got 3 months to prepare to cover 150ish miles in just 2 days.

I'm excited!

Not running yet.

Thanks to this inner cleanse that I'm currently taking, I'm holding off on running until after its finished running its own course.

It's a 15 day cleanse. 6 pills in the morning, 6 pills in the evening, and a lot of shitting everywhere in between... A lot...

And it's not like your everyday "Oh, I need to go poop!" It's more like "I think I need to fart, but I'm not trusting it. I better get to a bathroom NOW!"

AND I'M ONLY ON DAY FIVE!!!!

At least I'm over half way. I've lost a good amount of weight. Somewhere around 8 pounds since the start. I've also started back on the Makers Diet in combination with the cleanse, so it's sort of a double whammy right now to my gastro intestinal track.

But as soon as this is all over, and my daily bowel movements are back to normal (or at least controllable!!!) I plan on running my not so fat ass off again! Weekend long runs included!

2014 Resolutions

I've come up with a small list of "resolutions" for the new year.

1)  Be a better father to my children.

2)  Be a better husband to my wife.

I don't feel like I'm a bad husband or father, I just want better for my family!

3)  Keep running. After remodeling our old house, moving, and changing jobs 3 times last year I spent a lot of time not being active, and that Shit SUCKS!!!

4)  Run another ultra. I don't care if it's a 50K, I want to run another ultra.

5)  Lose weight, and don't find it again. I'm already down 6.something pounds this year thanks to eating right again. Hopefully after getting our own place we will be able to keep eating right and keep the weight off long term. I'm tired of people giving me funny, disbelieving looks when I tell them I enjoy going for 20 Mile runs on the weekends because I have a pronounced gut.

6)  Ride my new bike more. Hell, ride my new bike period! I'm wanting to ride in the MS150 this year, and I want to do an Iron Man at some point, so cycling and swimming are a must!

7)  Meh... 6 Resolutions are good enough I guess.