Baby steps

Starting over sucks!

It really really sucks hard...

Last month I slacked my way to a whopping total of 23 miles. My longest run was only 7 miles, and I only ran a few times. 23 miles! How can I expect to be a ultramarathoner when I dont even run the equalivent of a normal marathon in a months time?

As if that wasnt bad enough, my love of food collided head on with my lack of physical exertion and the two equated in an additional 15 pounds being spackled onto my midsection. Gross!

Then, ontop of all of that, just when I start TRYING to hit the ground running again, my damn calves decide that they havent been used in so long that they dont remember how to properly function longer than a mile without locking up on me. Geez, thanks alot calves! If I try to push through it my calf muscles get so tight that it cuts off circulation to my feet, causing them to get that numb / tingly feeling of being asleep. Every step feels like Im running on the roughest chip seal Ive ever encountered. So I have to stop and releve pressure from my feet (aka, sit my fat ass down) and loosen the calves up.

This has happened before. When I first started running barefoot my calves took awhile to get used to it. What worked then was a few things...

A) I removed all inserts from my shoes so that everything was as zero dropped as possiblle. Now I own several pair of zero drop shoes (Merrells), and with my new positiok at work I hardly ever wear my work boots since Im stuck at a desk all day.

B) Stopped stretching. I think this made the largest impact out of anything. I believe that yor muscles require a certain amount of elasticity, and that stretching as we have all been taught to do it only serves to remove that elasticity. This seemed to resolve the issue almost overnight for me back then.

C) Slow and small increases. I wasnt going out for 20+ mole training runs back then. Hell, I was barely going out for 1 and 2 mile training runs. Things are different now, so Ive just gotta take it easy...

4) Loose some damn weight! I dont need to be over 180, let alone 195 almost 200... Thats just me being a lazy ass and not eating how I know that I should.


So, in summary, I need to dial it down for a few weeks till the calves start cooperating with what the rest of my body wants to do, which blows...

posted from Bloggeroid

Oh Snap!

Boy, I got the suprise of my life this evening!

While drying off in the bathroom after showering I heard some strange noises in the bedroom, so I cautiously opened the door and was shocked!



Muther Freaking SPIDERMAN!!!!

I could scarcely believe my eyes! Spiderman was in my bedroom ready to rumble with Dr Octopus (aka daddy)...

So after wrestling for a few minutes (yes, I did put clothes on before commencing to wrestling) he wanted to show me how he could jump like in his movies.

Due to Spidermans lightning quick speed, my camera couldnt keep up. Peter Parker must have one helluva nice Cannon to catch his shots so good!



You can clearly see he is getting ready to fire off his web and swing into action!



Here he is again, quick on the move!

Spiderman then displayed some pretty sweet floor acrobatics which consisted of lots of spins and flips and twists...







One things for certain, the Williams household will sleep soundly tonight knowing that Spiderman is on watch!

posted from Bloggeroid

Running in Minnesota

I have the joy of spending some time in beautiful Minneapolis Minnesota this week while training for a new position at work. I hadnt been to Minnesota as an adult. The last time I was here, I was probablly sportin some Huggies and a colorfull bib as to keep my onezie somewhat clean.

The first thing I noticed upon my arrival was all the Dandelion fluff looking white things floating through the air. Its almost as if it is snowing dry snow. Crazy! And its EVRRYWHERE!!!! Some waiter at a resturant informed us that its actually produced from Cotttonwood trees. I think its more than likley millions of baby aliens, in their larve stage, that were sent here to attempt to rule the planet and claim it as their own... Well Ive got news for them. That shit aint gunna fly once they start getting south of the Mason Dixon line.

But anyways, Ive had the pleasure of getting a few runs in while up here. Unfortunately I havent been running with my cell phone, so I have no photographic evidence of the events Im going to attempt to relay to you here, so you will just have to take my words for it.

I was expecting there to be massive hills that borderlined mountains. I was hoping to have inclines so damn steep that I would be almost scared by their stature. What I got instead was a gently rolling landscape with a few somewhat steep hills and some long gradual climbs / descents. The side walk system here is amazing. You could drive an 18 wheeler (or 2 Lotus Elises side by side) down these sidewalks. Their huge! Plenty of room for 2 way traffic, which was nice due to the high population of cyclists. It was almost like being in a slightly cooler and less humid Austin Texas, just not nearly as awesome.

I got in a nice 7.75 miles yesterday evening. It felt great! There were soo many of the alien larve in some areas that it was like running on top of a few down pillows. They would be wisked away by the wind under my feet. It was almost like I was running on the alien's home planet, Im sure of it.

It was also the first time Ive ever seen a wild beaver, or an Otter... It was definately one of the two small critters, just not sure which one. It was down a little gravel side road hidden off in the high grass to the side. Pretty cool looking! Whatever it was, it had built a few Beaver dams, which I understand that both animals build so it doesnt narrow it down any. Either way, pretty freakin sweet!!!!

Another point of interest was when I passrd older gentelman going the opposite direction. He smiled and asked me about how far I can go now, while motioning to my unshod feet. I replied and said "Pretty much as long as I want!" "good for you!" He says back and gives a quality thumbs up.

Pretty cool guy... For a Minnesotian... Lol.

posted from Bloggeroid

Lunges!

All Ive been doing for the past 2 years is running.

I havent strayed far from it because, well, I love it! I keep saying Im going to hop on the old Trek and ride for a few hours, but it never happens. Why would I ride my bike if I could be running instead? I mean, Im trying to be a better runner, not a better triathlete after all.

But Monday I found myself doing things a little... Different.

Rather than going to the track and running 5~6 miles at a nice and easy pace, I decided to time myself in an all out mile. I havent done any speedwork in about 7 months, but yet I somehow managed to shave 13 seconds off my previous post highschool PR and came in at 6:00.42.

Afterwards I was beat, but I didnt want to waste valuable training time. So i decided to do 100 yards worth of lunges!

OUCH!!!!

Here it is, 2 days later, and every muscle below my hips are still screaming at me with every move I make. Obvisouly my legs arent nearly as strong as I had previsouly thought.

So, with that said, I think Im going to start doing 1 day of speed work and add some lunges and other types of movements into the mix. Since I dont have alot of options for elevation changes around here with it being flatter than a pancake, I think (read hope) this will help out when it does come time for me to tackle some elevation changes.

posted from Bloggeroid

The Barkley Marathons...

Very few people in the world are aware of the existence of ultra marathons. They think that the normal 26.2 mile marathon is the longest running race out there. I myself was one of these people untill about 2 years ago when I read "Born to Run" which is basically a story about ultra running.

The thought of running long distances had always fascinated me. Something in my little pea sized brain clicks with running. As a punk highschool kid my favorite sport was Cross Country, and my favorite workouts were the few occasional long runs that coach would have us do. Before I started running again as an "adult", I would often fantasize about running across the great state of Texas, not aware that there were actual organized races that did almost this exact thing!

After learning about ultras, which come in "normal" flavors of 50k (32 miles), 50 mile, 100k (you guessed it! 62 miles!) To the coveted 100 mile. Of course theres races of all different types of distances, and even timed events ranging from 6 hours all the way up to multi day, even multi week, events. These are ran on every surface imaginable. Some, like the Rocky Racoon 50 miler I ran in Feburary, are ran on very easy, non technical trails. Others are on more technical trails held at higher elevations while climbing the sides of mountains such as the Leadville Trail 100. Theres even Badwater, which is a 135 mile death march down a paved road through Death Valley where the road gets so hot it melts your shoes.

All of these races are enough to make the average human cringe in fear. But for some, thats not good enough. Theres a small percentage of the population that wants to be pushed to the extreme limit of what is humanely possible. Both mentally, physically, and emotionally.

For these sick twisted individuals, theres the Barkley Marathons.

The Barkley Marathons is the bastard child of one Gary Cantrell, aka Lazarus Lake. It's called the Barkley Marathons because theres no exact distance of the race. In fact, theres not even an exact course. And it's not even really a race. It's basically hell on earth.

The race is held in "Frozen Head"state park in Tennessee on the weekend of April Fools. The "course" is through the park on a few marked trails, under an abandoned prison, up impossibly steep mountains, and across tench like ditches and bush whacking sans a machete your way through for 5 loops of approximately 20 miles each. The only way to validate that you have indeed ran the "course" is by visiting each of the 7~11 books places at random though the park and ripping out the page corresponding to your bib number. This works because there are no aid stations nor volunteers to be found at the Barkley. To make this even tougher, your surrounded by since of the creepiest looking woods found on this planet. To male that even more worse, the entire area is overran with "saw briars" which are essentially long branch looking plants covered in razor blades...

Sound bad? It gets worse.

The entire 100ish mile "course" contains 54,900 feet of climb and 54,900 feet of decent... Thats the equivalent of climbing and descending Mt. Everest... twice...

This is regarded by many as the toughest ultra marathon in the world. Need proof? It's been ran for 25 years, and still has over a 99% failure rate. In fact, only 12 people have ever conquered the entire 100 miles. To further reveal the true evil that is the Barkley, runners are given 60 hours to complete it, although I dont think most people have made it past the first 20 mile loop. Even fewer have completed the "fun run" which is 3 full loops. And the only 12 have completed the entire 5 loops.

This year history was made at the Barkley, and in a big BIG way.

This year not only was the old course record broken by several hours!!! But 3 people completed all 5 loops... The record setting Matt Mahoney is also the only person to have competed it twice! But dont let that fool you. Every year the race gets harder and harder. Lazarus Lake doesn't seem to be a big fan of people defeating the Barkley. So every year the course gets tougher. Every year he scoures the park, looking for something on the edge of impossible and adds it to the race. His goal with this race is to truely test the capability of the human being. Id say hes done a damn good job of it too!

...Does this race speak to me?

HELLS YES IT DOES!!!!

posted from Bloggeroid

Negative Splits

Yes, the infamous "Negative Split" that is oh so elusive to many distance runners.

I've been trying to train myself to run negative splits in the majority of my training runs lately for a few reasons.

It helps simulate running on tired legs, but really, what doesn't? More so, it simulates running faster after running at a decent pace for awhile. This helps with the final kick in a race.


The main reason for this is because it seems to take my body a good mile or so before its warmed up. So the first mile is usually slowest. Then I gradually pick up the pace and finish with a good strong mile.

I have been using this on shorter runs (10 miles and under), but for the first time this weekend I used it on a 20 miler! It was a BLAST! My last 10 miles were ran over 6 minutes faster than my first 10, and all 20 were way faster than I normally run for that long of a distance.

On my shorter runs I will progressively run every mile dater and faster, with the last mile usually coming in somewhere under 7 minutes.

Not sure how this will help me accomplish most of my goals since they dont require running that fast. But theres 2 or 3 on the list that will benifit tremendously from this.

posted from Bloggeroid

Why hello there!

Ok, so its been awhile since my last blog post. So to start off, I'd like to apologize to everyone that reads this. Thats right, all 6 of you, I'm sorry...

Ok, now that thats out of the way, heres what I've been up to since my last post about being stuck on 7-12s at work...

I worked alot. We found a few more issues that had to be attended to before things could be fired up and go back into full swing. I think I was on 12's for almost 20 days straight. The money was good, but I never got to get any runs in. Even worse was that I got to see my family very little.

After the 12's ended we had plans every weekend up untill this upcoming weekend when I will finally be able to get some decently long runs in.

I got a membership at the gym again, so I've been working on getting stronger. I know that I dont need an immense amount of upper body strength to run Ultra Marathons, but I have been feeling very weak as of lately, and I miss the feeling of strength.

I signed up for another Ultra. This one is a 50k. More on that later.

I've got a few topics to blabber on about, but im a bit sleepy, so they will have to wait another month or two until I blog again. Lol!

posted from Bloggeroid