Goals

Just a list; that's all.

1. Run two more 8k races before the end of the year in under 60 min. (Al's Run and Turkey Trot)
2. Run a 10k
3. Finish the short story I started in August
4. Get the hell back to Chicago
5. Only drink coffee in the morning; no more than two "cups."
6. Make it to at least 5 Sox games, not counting Opening Day.

And now some words of wisdom from the White Sox.

Grinder Ball Rule 17: Never be satisfied with what you have achieved. It pales in comparison to what you can achieve.

Tramps like us, baby we were born to run

Not only am I going to write about running, but that title is also a nod to the Boss and his performance tonight at half time. Anyways, onto the real entry.

This morning I ran the InStep 5K for Childhood Cancer (or something like that) with my friend Claire and Mike. I mostly did it because Claire is training for a half marathon and needs to get some other races in before hand. Plus, I figure I need the motivation to help me not die during the Shamrock Shuffle in March. I enjoy races, but I would never go as far to say that I actually enjoy running. I don't know that I've ever experienced the so called "runner's high." Scratch that, maybe I did once. There was a time during the summer before maybe junior year of high school when I was doing one of our summer work outs for cross country conditioning and I ran for what seemed like forever. To this day it probably sticks out in my memory as the best run of my life. I no longer remember how far I ran nor how long, but I definitely ended up down near East Avenue and not particularly sure how I got there or how to get to a less sketchy stretch of road. Anyways, that is neither here nor there and not part of my point at all.

I was reading an article in Rolling Stone the other night about Bruce Springsteen and the song Born to Run popped into my head. The song got me thinking about my running "career," and I laughed to myself because I certainly was not born to run. I'm not build to be a runner, but I keep putting myself through the torture of it. A sprained ankle during freshman year cross country left me with a bad ankle and tendinitis in my heal. An injury senior year left me with a bad knee that has never fully recovered. Over the course of running on and off in college I've got myself a second bad knee. I've recently developed a hip problem, and my physical therapist pointed out that my right hip is considerably weaker than the left. Wonderful. Oh, and did I mention I'm asthmatic? So add all those variables up, and your answer is not a runner. The smart thing to do would be to find an alternative style of exercise, but for some reason I always come back to running. While I'm running, I generally just want to kill myself. I keep going (clearly I'm not post-humanously writing this) but generally just because I don't want the people around me to think I'm pathetic at the gym. Plus, I beat myself up about not doing well.

However, there was a time when I loved to run. In grade school my favorite days of gym class were when we did relay races. Races on the playground were another favorite activity of mine. I loved it. Tag was my sort of game because you were running around. And then of course, I was that kid in 7th grade who actually told our basketball coach I really thought he should be making us run. Who tells their coach they should be running? Only a crazy child. Then, again I so badly wanted our team not to suck. Too bad that dream never came true. Oh well.

On an unrelated noted: Marquette beat Georgetown last night and is now 8-0 in the Big East. This is their best start in something like 30 years....you know what was 30 years ago? I'm not even going to tell you in fear of jinxing the team.

Shape up, or ship out!

The gym I go to is having a 30 day shape up challenge. For every 30 minute workout you complete you get to move your piece up one space on the game board, but you can't move more that two spaces a day. I haven't actually created a game piece because I can't figure out where to make one, and since it is a 24 hour gym, there is rarely an employee around to ask. If you complete the challenge, you are entered into a drawing and can win a vacation among other prizes. I'm not entirely interested in winning anything, but being held accountable helps me stay motivated. Basically, I'm guilting myself into shape. Here's the problem. The challenge started on the 26th, which is still within a month of New Year's resolution season. Consequently, the gym has been packed the past two days. Sure, I haven't shown my face there all month until now, but I miss the days of the fall and early winter when there was hardly anyone there. Yesterday I showed up shortly after 6 and end up using the lower bike. I really didn't enjoy it. I did that for about 20 minutes and then after standing around for a little bit was able to get on an elliptical. Ever since my knees have been able to handle running on a treadmill again, I've come to really dislike ellipticals. So, that only last about 1o minutes. At least I got my 3o minutes in. Today, Erin and I left work early because she was feeling sick. Perfect I thought; I'll be home before 5 and can beat everyone there! Wrongo! I got home, changed, ate a quick snack and was at the gym by 4:45. I didn't even go in because it was so packed. However, I returned around 8:45 and it was like the days of old. I was able to peacefully get my workout in and actually felt very good about my run. After running I decided to give the bike a try because I was trying to fill in 2 work out spaces worth tonight. I only did that for 5 minutes. Exercise bikes are horrible. I couldn't get the seat really where I needed it, and was just uncomfortable the whole time. I made up the extra time doing my physical therapy exercises.

Being home before 5 p.m. is a wonderful lifestyle, and I am now substantially jealous of the rest of the general population who has this luxury. Tonight I made a real dinner (I used two pots and a pan) and ate it calmly because I wasn't so hungry I wanted to chew my arm off before my meal was even ready. After that I went downstairs to give my neighbor some of their mail that had been put in my mailbox and talked to him for maybe 20 minutes. Then, I did some dishes and cleaned my kitchen up a little, read part of a magazine, fooled around on the Internet and finally went and worked out. I look forward to the day when this can just be a regular day for me and not so monumental.

Oh, and happy bubble wrap appreciation day! I hope you celebrated in an appropriate manner.

Resolutions

This year I actually came up with a few resolutions and I think they are things that are totally doable if I just stay focused. Plus, they will help me in varies areas of life, so that's a plus.

1. Stick to a budget better/save money to replace the savings I spent on Ireland

2. E-mail or call Beth once a week like I used to. After seeing Beth and Bill for New Years, I realized that I have really slipped up in keeping in contact with them over the last year or so. Life with your best friends so far away is rough. Perhaps add to this list of people to keep in touch with. But, let's just take baby steps. I don't want to freak people out who never used to get e-mails from me.

3. Keep running/working out. The holidays and getting sick and hurt sort of threw this new aspect of my life awry, but I'm serious about getting back in the habit. The Sampson Romp & Stomp in January and the Shamrock Shuffle in March hopefully should be motivation enough...then there are those 10 more pounds that would be nice to lose.

4. Read and write more. Reading and writing are two of my favorite things to do, yet I rarely actually do it. So if I stick with this resolution, at the very least you should be seeing more frequent updates. They might be about random stuff, but it's better than nothing. I also have a bookshelf full of books just waiting to be read. My mom gave me this really neat book that has a trivia entry for every day of the year, so at the very least I'll be reading that each day.

All the best in 2009!

Turkey Trot trot trot across the lot lot lot, feeling fine fine fine until...

about a mile and a half into the 8k. Yeah yeah, I know it's supposed to actually go "until Thanksgiving time."

On Thanksgiving morning I woke up before the sun was out and headed to the city with Mike and Rob. Caught up in the excitement of Mike's marathon accomplishments back in October, I agreed to run the Turkey Trot, an 8K race through Lincoln Park. Two weeks before the big day I got a horrible cold that lingered right up until race day. I had been on a pretty good running regiment (and by pretty good I mean for a couple weeks I had started running again every other day...not bad for someone who hasn't tried to run seriously in at least 3 years), but the cold hit me fast and hit me hard and I was out of commission. Needless to say, by the time race day came I wasn't exactly looking forward to running 4.8 miles. I knew for sure I could run 2.5, but the second half of the race I was nervous about.

The combination of the cold weather, my poor training and my poor health resulted in a fairly miserable 63 minutes. I'm happy to say I finished, and like we said walking over to the starting area finishing is a PR since I had never run an 8K before this. I probably only ran half of the race, but you would have thought I ran a marathon. My hip basically stopped working, old knee pains were back and I basically couldn't move. The running in the cold morning air cleared up the congestion at least.

On a positive note, as I was approaching the finish line, maybe 100m to go, people were lining the street. As you made the turn into the home stretch there were two guys there cheering people on. As soon as I heard the familiar "finish strong" from my cross country and track days, I kicked it into gear. Some how the pain in my hip didn't matter. I know I wasn't sprinting by any means, but I was going to finish strong if it killed me. I'd like to think that back when I ran in high school even though I was never all that good, I gave it my all. I didn't leave anything on the course. I sort of feel that's how this race went for me too. I wasn't breaking any records and was slightly disappointed in myself, but I put my heart in it and gave it all I could. I still won't say that I like running, but I do like racing.

Shamrock Shuffle training started today. Hopefully I can turn my disappointment into motivation and keep up the training and finish the next race in closer to 55 minutes. Someone remind me in March what I said my goal was.