SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 15, 2012
Another great week in the running for eighty saga.
I ran 30 miles last Monday. It was an out and back route. I left home at 7:15 am. It was cloudy and about 56 degrees. The wind was blowing about 5 to 8 miles per hour which made it a great day to go this distance. I ran out of water about 3 miles from home and had to beg some from a home along the route. The people were very kind to me and kept a watchful eye on me when they found out how far I had run. I think that they suspected a little bit of insanity. But I made it home without any further episodes.
My time for the run was 6 hours and 51 minutes and 50 seconds. I was very surprised at my time and how good I felt when I finished.
My good wife Shirley had hot soup and chocolate ready for me when I got home.
I ran 13 minutes and 36 seconds per mile. My marathon distance pace for this run was 5 hour and 59 minutes.
Every day of September has been clear and sunny with the temperature in the 70's. It has been a great month.
I was thinking about my training and the distances that I have been running and it is strange that now 1/2 marathon and even a marathon seem like a short distance.
My hard day last week was on Tuesday. I walked most of the time for the distance. It was a hard training day. But I felt good for the run on Thursday and decided to run 6 miles instead of running the 4 miles according to my schedule. I ran a little bit to hard for my 6 miles and paid for it the next morning for my 15 mile run. I ran out of gas my last 2 miles. And that is partly why I ran only 3.2 miles on Saturday.
I feel great about my total miles for the week. :)  :)

My daily total miles:
     Monday                              30.1
     Tuesday                               4.4 supposed to run 15  :(
     Wednesday                         rest day
     Thursday                               6.0
     Friday                                  15.6
     Saturday                                 3.2
                                                                        59.3

Total from June 1, 2012                                                      558.5

SATURDAY 09, SEPTEMBER 2012
Another week closer to my 80 mile run. It is getting scary!!!!
I ran 10 miles Monday at 6:00 am, 8 miles Tuesday at 6:00 am. And on Thursday I ran 4 miles in 43 minutes and 43 sec.
The weather has been very hot. In the day it is at least 75 degrees or higher. Cooler weather is coming Monday. The weather report said that we will be cloudy and in the 60's. That is OK because I am running 30 miles on Monday.. :)
I did not run on Friday. I was feeling tired and I guess lazy.
But today, Saturday,  I got up at 7:00 am and ran 6 miles.

      This is my 6-6 foot vault at the Senior Meet at Port Angeles in August. first place in the 80-84 age division. I did vault 7-0 on my next attempt.

Shirley and I put up 13 packages of spinach from our garden and then I cut wood with a chain saw for about 3 hours.  So I guess I did a little bit of exercising for the day.
My weekly totals for September
   Monday               10
   Tuesday                8
   Wednesday         -0-    rest day
   Thursday              4
   Friday             no run :(   :(
   Saturday               6
Total                                                28

Total since June 1,2012                              499.2

Sunday September 1, 2012
Can anyone tell me where the month of August 2012 went???
HMMMMM.... Well back to my running.
As I said in my blog of last week I was fighting the demons of anti-running in my mind. Monday was a hard day and then Tuesday was not too bad but Friday was a bummer again and I did not run.
But I made up my mind that I would run 12 miles on Saturday and so..... I was up at 6:00 am and out on the road. I started out by walking for about a minute and then a slight jog for about a minute and then I began my 10 minutes jogging and 5 minutes of walking. I finished my run 12.2 miles in 2 hours and 50 minutes. I was happy with my effort.

      This is me putting on my attire at the Mallow Family Reunion!
Marylin is helping me. We had a scavenger hunt and I had to wear all the items that were on the scavenger hunt list.

The weather has been perfect for my morning runs. It was 49 degrees when I started Saturday morning. If it gets much colder I am going to have to wear a light pair of gloves. I guess that fall is coming soon so will have to get used to the colder weather.
Does anyone have any good ideas about always having a good mental attitude for grinding out long training runs back to back???? I know, besides not running long distance training runs...
Any next week is an easy week, 36 miles in total. I can use the rest because on Monday the 10th  I have a 30 mile training run!!!!!!

Mileage for the week:
      Monday                            14.2
      Tuesday                            17.3
      Wednesday rest day
      Thursday                             4.0
       Friday                                 0.0  :(        
       Saturday                            12.2

Total weekly mileage                                             44.7

Total to date from June 1, 2012                                              451.2          

Wednesday August 29, 2012

Since my last post I have done some track and field events.
Sunday I Pole Vaulted  7 feet, Long Jumped 9 ft. 10 inches, High Jumped 3 feet 6 inches, Standing Long Jump 5 feet 5 inches, 50 meters 8 plus ? hundreds of  seconds, 100 meters 18 plus ? hundreds of seconds.
On Monday I ran just 4.4 miles. Tuesday 2.0 and 5 miles on Thursday.
Rested Friday and Saturday for the Sunday events.
I was supposed to run 28 miles on Monday the 27th. I got up at 6:00 am to run but my mind rebelled I had started out with good purpose ??  I jogged for 15 minutes and walked for 5 minutes I did fairly well until about 4 miles and the effects of Sunday or my mind went South and I started walking a LOT. I struggled along and finally managed to run??? walk for 14.1 miles.  My time was 3 hours and 40 minutes. What a struggle.....
Tuesday I slept in because Shirley had her pool therapy at 11:30 am. This was my excuse for not getting up at 6:00 am and I am going to stick to it.
Anyway I ran in the afternoon. I started out at Carrie Blake Park at 3:55 pm. I ran 17.2 mile in 4 hours and 5 minutes. I ran 10 minutes and walked 5 minutes for the run. I felt good after the run and am back to normal today ? I did not run today, it is my rest day.
I will give my mileage total on Sunday of this week. September 2!!!

Continued

AUGUST 22, 2012

My goodness I am getting lazy. Eleven days since my last blog.
I ran 2 miles on Monday, 2 miles on Tuesday and walked 2.5 miles on Friday. Recovering from the 40 mile 2 weeks ago.
I am trying to get back into a regular schedule again. This weekend I am doing some track events.
 my total for the month:
       Monday                   2 miles
      Tuesday                   2 miles
       Friday                     2.5 miles
Total for the week                               6.5 miles

Total miles to date from June 1                               406.5 miles

SATURDAY 11, 2012
This was a different week in my training. I ran 10 miles on Monday, 8 miles on Tuesday and then, then, then, then,
No running until Friday evening. I was entered in and ran 40 miles for the "Cancer  Relay for Life" in Sequim for Anytime Fitness. The relay started at 6:00 pm on Friday evening. I started at about 6:22 pm. I should have started at 6:00 pm but I was waiting for the official start. But a person was on their own and I started at the above time when it was pointed out to me that I had better start running:)

                         This was the finish at 6:27 am on Saturday morning. Taken after 12 hours and 5 minutes. If you count the laps it does not add up to 160 or 40 miles. But I ran 149 laps on the 8th or outside lane and I gained .1 every lap that I ran.
All of this adds up to 160 laps or 40 miles.
  

I started out much too fast for the run. I was running about 13 minutes per mile for the first hour and half. My friend Jay and owner of Anytime Fitness talked to me and suggested that I should try running 3 laps and walk 1. I did this or otherwise I may not have made it to 40 miles.

But this was a good training run for my eighty miler coming up in November.
This is Sunday evening and I am feeling fine. No aches and pain.
Thank God.

When I began to get dark at about 8:45 pm the luminaries were put around the track in memory of those who have cancer or who have survived cancer.

The above pictures were luminaries that had been placed in the seats of the bleachers to spell hope.

I ran 2 miles counter clock wise, and then 2 miles clock wise for most of the run. 

In the early hours of running I was not interfered with nor did I interfere with other walkers and runners. It did not seem too hard to keep my focus on the 

run as 

           I circled 

                          and circled 

                                               and circled 

                                                                    and circled 

the track for 12 hours and 5 minutes.

Every lap was a challenge for the people in the Anytime Fitness tent to keep track of my laps. We worked out a system that when I had run a lap I would shout out LAP and hope someone would mark my lap on the sheet for me.

This seemed to work out for me most of the time???????

Once in a while later, in the night I had to start marking my own laps. I marked every other one or every 2nd lap on the sheet myself! 

My helper Cooper who is about 10 years old was going to mark my laps for me. It was about 1:00 am. He was one of the few people who were still awake in the Anytime Fitness tent. He lasted for two of my laps and then disappeared in his bed.  

I drank a lot of water and powerade the first 4 hours then just water for the rest of the running. I should have drunk more powerade because it had 80 calories per 16 0z bottle or at least drink 4 oz of water and then 4 oz of powerade.

I will have to start making a hard effort to do this in my training and the run :)

The temp when I started was in the low 70's. I changed my t-shirt about every hour because of the sweat. Jay brought me a hamburger at about 9:30 pm. And then Philip brought me my extra pair of running shoes and also brought 6 doughnuts. I ate 3 of these and beside the Gu, ShotBlocks and 2 Clifbars that was all of the food that I ate for the 12 hours. If the calorie count is right I used 4000 for the run.

I weighed when I got home and I was still the same weight as before I ran 160. 

I learned two things on my this ultra distance. First don't start out too fast and second eat more solid food. In other words don't depend upon just the fast energy foods??? They are OK for their place but I should have eaten more carbs.

My observation about the night as I ran for hours in the dark. The big dipper does not change very much in the Northern sky! It was always there in the same place as I ran around and around the track. 

And saw only 1 shooting star for the night.

I did not think the morning would ever come because the moon seemed to be hung up on the top of a fir tree!!! But finally started to rise up in the sky. There were no lights turned on at the track for the run and walk hours but it was light enough to see OK. 

There were several bands playing on the south end of the track. It was very,  very loud when I ran on the outside lane past that point.

A hard mental rock band played on the stage for about an hour. Full blast and singing at the top of their lungs. Singing? I kept hoping and praying that they or he would loose his voice after about a half hour of noise.

There were about a dozen belly dancers performing but I could not take time out to watch them. They weren't that interesting anyway. Laura, you could do a better job.!!!!!

All in all it was a great experience.

TOTAL MILES FOR THE WEEK

          Monday                             10

          Tuesday                              8

          Wednesday                         0

          Thursday                             4

          Friday & Sat,                     40

                                                                     62

Total From June 1, 2012                                                  400

                                                                        

   

TUESDAY AUGUST 7, 2012

Still chugging along with my training. This was supposed to be a 58 mile week but I had to reduce the mileage.

Monday  was 16 miles. Tuesday just 2 and then with Wednesday off it was 4 miles on Thursday, 10 on Friday 10 miles and Saturday 6 miles for a total of 38 miles.
I am holding up fairly well physically. I have been having a battle in my mind to put in the miles that I am supposed to be doing.
The body is OK but the mind is playing games with me and my training. I think that I am going to have to change my routes and see if that makes a difference in my attitude.
I have been getting up at 6:00 am and it seems to be working out OK. I catch a nap in the morning at about 10:00 am to 11:30 am.on most days.
My nutrition is working out very good for me in my training. Just eating normal foods, nothing exotic. Drinking a lot of water on my runs. I drink 3 ounces every 15 to 20 minutes. I also am taking a tablet for electrolytes plus shot blocks every hour. I will have too be upping my calory intake as I do my 50 to 70 miles weeks in September.
This week I am feeling GREAT. My first two days were done without incident. My 10 miler Monday was done in 2 hours and 15 minutes. And today my 8 miler today was run in 96 minutes. 

Week total:
   Monday                  16
  Tuesday                     2
  Wednesday              rest
  Thursday                   4
  Friday                       10
  Saturday                     6
       Total                                 38

Total from June 1, to date                        338 miles