I ate my Wheaties!

So I ran a personal best tonight. I wish I would have taken the video camera with me. 4.5 miles in 42 min.! My lower back didn't hurt after the first mile and my lungs felt GREAT! I have to than my friend Chad for his advice. I ended up walking for 30 seconds at mile 2.3 and it gave me a second wind to keep going. I have to agree with my wife though, running Nyack is getting a bit boring. (Not that it is easy, just monotonous.)

I think I will take the next few days off and then run again on Sunday.


On a side note, One of my favorite places to get unrestricted pictures to use in publications and presentations is www.sxc.hu I have been posting my work on this site for almost 7 years. My pictures have been downloaded over 111,000 times! Look under my user name nem_youth.

Recovery

I think I got enough sleep in the past few days in order for me to have a good run tonight. I am running with an app on my i-touch. It's Nike plus GPS. It tracks my pace and my goals. I like it.

Ouch, My Feet Hurt!

 

Another run tonight and I still don't feel 100%. I debated if I should have even gotten out of my chair to go. Sigh, I am in need of motivation! I did a 5k on the Nyack hills tonight in just under 30 minutes. It's not the 5k I'm worried about. It's moving past the 4 mile mark and making progress toward the 1/2 marathon.

On a side note, I'm down almost 10lbs. from when I started this adventure back in July.

God Encounter

So I went out to do my run tonight (I planned on running nothing but the stairs between Mosely and Shuman).  I started out with my I-pod and was excited to do some cross training. The thing is I got a new I-pod and loaded up all of the audio off my computer. I started out and just as I began to hit the stairs, I heard my voice speaking. Turns out I had forgotten that I recorded all of my youth group messages while I was in Ohio. As soon as it started I remembered the night. I spoke on Paul's "Thorn in the flesh". It was a night one of my students accepted Christ. As far as structure is concerned, the message sucked. It was illustration after illustration with a bit of exposition thrown in. But God showed up in a powerful way.
I'm actually listening to the end of it right not and some powerful stuff is coming out of my mouth. It took 20 minutes of talking for me to move out of the way so God could speak. As I become a better communicator, I pray the time it takes me to move out of the way would continue to decrease.
As far as the run is concerned... I did a few rounds of the stairs and ran a mile and a half. I have this pinching pain in my lower back that seems to keep coming back when I run now. Heck, I might need some Divine Healing :)

Tonight @ Chili's

This post has nothing to do with running. I just thought I'd vent. I went into work tonight at 4:30 and was cut at 6:30. I had one table and made $4.05. (It was on a $60 check... a bad tip would have been $6 but lucky me got $4.05! It normally doesn't matter but it was my only table)

Rain?

So I ended up running last night after class. I wasn't highly motivated but I still made it out. I only ran my 2.5 mile route tonight because my legs just felt too stiff. The rain had stopped before I began but I did manage to soak my left foot by running through a puddle.

I had to laugh because as I ran up to Simpson I came across a group of young guys. When I ran past them, one of the took off running by me as if to say, "Ha, I can run faster!" I kept my pace and ran behind Christy. As I came to the front, there were 3 other guys running with the first. I fell into file behind the group as I came out behind Christy. Keeping the same pace, I ended up passing them just behind Boon. It was then that they all stopped running. I did my lap and ran back up to Simpson and then down to Mosely. It was there in front of the gym that I passed them again.

My legs still feel kind of tight. I am going to just do stair sprints on Friday instead of my run to build up muscle strength. We'll see how it goes.

it's raining!

I am supposed to run tonight and it's raining! Hmmm... am I going to run in the rain? We shall see.

Sunday's Run

I was very excited on Sunday to run the track at Nyack High School for the first time... that is until I got there. As I parked and walked down to the track to stretch, I came across a young lady who just finished. She was covered in sweat and dead gnats! For some reason, the gnats were swarming around the track. I decided to go for it anyway. I ran my first mile at a nice pace and finished it in 8:37. After 4 laps around the track I had to stop to get the gnats out of my eyes. I kept the stopwatch going and kicked the next mile into high gear. The problem is I have no idea how long I stopped. I finished the whole thing in 18:37. I will have to go back and do another time trial when the gnats are gone. My desire was to run 3-4 miles but I was just too annoyed.
On a side note, I checked to see how my time lined up with the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) standards for my age group. From what I remember, you need to score a 60 in order to pass. For my age group (27-31) I needed to run the two miles in 17:00min. Had I kept my pace from the first mile I would have had a final time of 17:14. Not too shabby. When I was in basic, my best 2mile time was 13:06!
If you are interested, the APFT standards for 2 mile run / push-ups / and sit-ups are posted here...
http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/Prep_For_Basic_Training/Prep_for_basic_pt/apft-male-2mile-run-stand.shtml

I am supposed to run tonight after class. Miriam will probably get her run in after she gets home from work. Super Captain Daddy Pants is cooking supper tonight too :)

Tonight I ran with a video camera

I started out tonight hoping to hit 4 miles. I came close but misjudged it by about .4 miles. Still, I ran further than I have in a very long time. My lungs felt great and my body could have kept going... but the biggest thing is that my mind could have kept going too. Running is 90% mental (in my personal opinion). Two weeks ago I ran a similar route and my mind pooped out on me at mile 2.5. Running 2-3 times a week helps give your body muscle memory and I think it has the same affect on your brain.

This video was about 1/2 way through my run... (1.8 miles to be exact which helps explain why when I finished I thought it was 4 miles... 1.8 x 1.8 = 3.6)

Here is my attempt at being motivational... Would have helped if I had actually run the 4 miles. **Note to self, don't make any proclamations until you check the facts**

One of my favorites...

I sure hope you all can enjoy this.

Last Night's Run

Last night I went out at 9:30pm for my run. Miriam and I try to run every other day (3x's a week) We have been consistently running 6-10 miles a week. I haven't run like this since Basic Training over 10 years ago! (I went to basic Aug.-Dec 1999). I ran the campus of Nyack college www.nyack.edu which I have been running for the past few months. But last night I ran my furthest distance yet (on the campus) 3.2 miles. The elevation changes over 260 feet from top to bottom.

We use google pedometer to track out distance http://www.trails.com/googlemap.aspx. My next run I am hoping to hit 4 miles. My goal for the next 30 days is to be running 5 miles consistently. (I'd love to do it in 45 minutes)

The Beginnings

This is the first time I have ever considered blogging. My brother has a great blog where he talks about youth ministry and where he does book reviews. You should check it out http://youthmaster.blogspot.com/. Here is Marv feeding some seagulls on vacation this past August. As for me, I really just wanted a new forum to talk about life and give the world a little window into my soul. Plus, I love adding pictures of my family and events that I take pictures of. 

This is my brother-in-law Brooke Roberts and I at the Pittsburgh Thanksgiving day 5K. I put this here because I am currently training with my wife for the Pittsburgh 1/2 marathon May 2011. Right now I can manage about 3 miles at a time and hoping to expand in the next coming weeks to 5 and then to 7 and so on. After the Pittsburgh 5K I stopped running and just picked it up again a month ago. I wish I had kept up with it but starting over isn't that bad either. I will continue to update my running progress here as well. (Like tonight I went for a run, should have done 3 miles but ate only a few hours before the run, puked a bit at 1.5 and called it quits for the night.)

Hope all is well.

-Jason