Team Cross Runs

October Highlights

This really should be titled “Marathon Highlights” since most of the month this year and last was talking about marathons!  Did I talk too much about it this year? Well it was a major highlight of the year and I spent plenty of weeks training, thinking, and focusing on it (read: obsessing), so you shouldn’t be too surprised.

Last Year though I didn’t talk too much about marathons, but I did share my experiences volunteering at the Chicago Marathon. Here are pictures I took after I was done passing out water.  I wrote about some Last Minute Marathon Tips.  Maybe I should have read these before my race! Following Chicago there was a lot of talk about Race Directors and marathon planning, so I highlighted a blog directed at Race Directors from the Association of Running Event Directors.

Continuing with the marathon theme I gave a preview of the Men’s Marathon Olympic Trials at New York and wrote about the Marathon Challenge, a PBS special.

I ran the Turn Up the Volume 4Mi race in Indianapolis and felt really good! I began tapering for my Indianapolis Half Marathon, which didn’t go very well for me.

I shared some highlights from a very funny post about t-shirt etiquette.  Bad Ben posted it at his site: Bad Ben’s Ramblings which I highlighted.  I ended the month on a somber note talking about Indiana’s high obesity rate.

This year my marathon was October 5, so I laid out my race plan and graded it afterwards. I did write a more traditional race review for you before bombarding you with a lot of random charts and graphs.  In the following weeks I shared some of my thoughts on post-marathon life, a little like depression and generally lacking motivation.  In a final hat tip to the marathon I did some linking to other people’s thoughts and impressions.

I wrapped up my Team World Vision fundraising by talking about my experience in South Africa and finally wrapping it all up. It is so exciting to have surpassed the fundraising goal of $2,000.  THANK YOU again to everyone who donated and supported me!

Ok, so there aren’t many non-marathon posts, but here they are: A look at eco-friendly gyms.  Protecting our ears from hearing loss by taking care of our buds. I submitted that post to the Running Carnival.  I thought these were 5 good tips for fall running.

Monthly Mileage -(as of 10/29)

Running - 75 miles

Biking - 90 miles

September Highlights

I probably say that every month seems to fly by, well September was no different.  The middle school I work at started right after Labor Day and it has meant some busy weeks. It is good to have the students back though, they help give purpose to my work - since my job is focused on finding opportunities for volunteers and community organizations to engage them, this makes sense! I also celebrated my second anniversary!!

It is a little odd to interrupt the flow of marathon related posts considering that the marathon is a few short days away, but it is good to look back on the month while I still have it fresh in my mind.  As you know marathon training has been going well and weeks 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 were successfully completed!

If I wasn’t out running a long run, it seemed like I was racing and happily setting PRs. This month I just raced the City of Lakes 25K - my furthest race distance and left feeling super excited. I really enjoy running in Minneapolis because there are so many different place to go running.  I just wish there was more dirt trails near my house! Some of my favorite places to run include the Minneapolis Riverfront and Pike Island.

I continued sharing about my experiences in Africa and different programs of World Vision.  I wrote about Hurricane Relief, making Caregiver Kits with Cindy McCain and Laura Bush, the World Vision Experience, and I shared from my journal some of my initial thoughts about Ghana.

Blogging is fun, so I’m glad to see that the new USATF CEO has started his own blog.

Last Year a friend wrote a guest review of the Lewis and Clark Marathon, it was much better than this year’s rain soaked affair.  My blog last year was called Run Central Indiana and it was the featured blog of the week over at the Phedippidations podcast.  Two important but often forgot about training tools are accellerations and strides.  I ran a DINO Series race (15K trail races) and wrote a nice review and had fun despite the muddy conditions. Finally, I shared what was currently on my mp3 player.  The list has changed some but some of the shows are still there!

Monthly Mileage

Running - 160 miles

Biking - 146 miles

Technorati Tags: Highlights

August Highlights

I can’t believe that it is already September.  The summer has flown by and school is getting ready to start back up.  Yikes! I think I joined with everybody else out there in throwing off my sleep schedule to watch the Olympics - including an amazing marathon performance, lots of new world records, and some great examples of the true Olympic spirit. Watching the Olympics raised the question in my mind, do I have what it takes?  Despite adding on 4 more weeks of marathon training I doubt I’ll run anywhere close to a 2:06, at least not for the full distance anyways.  Weeks 9 10 11 12 are all in the bag.  I’ve now run increased my longest run ever to about 21 miles and I’ve done the distance twice now!

When I wasn’t busy increasing my long runs I threw in some races.  I almost got a 10K PR while running the Hennepin Lakes Classic.  I managed to get a 15K PR two weeks later in the MDRA 15K.  Two weeks and a 20 miler later I set a new PR in the half-marathon distance, by a minute and a half at the Rochester Half Marathon.

I’ve been meeting and getting to know a lot of runners through a tool called Twitter.  It has been a fun way to connect and share about running and other random bit of life.  I even introduced the idea of tagging runs in Twitter so we can see each other’s better.

I am almost a 1/4 of the way to my goal for raising $2,000 to support the great work of World Vision around the world.  This month’s related posts included:

• Mixing Passion with Change,
• Money Well Spent,
• a look at my Running in Africa, and
• a look at what athletes and World Vision are doing in Darfur.

August 2008/2007 Monthly Mileage

Running - 175.5 / 123.26

Biking - 184.1 / 25.3

Swimming - 700 / 0

Last year was an eventful month as well.  I raced a few times, not doing as well as I did this year.  It was also extremely hot last year in Indiana, while my summer here in Minneapolis hasn’t been too bad! So to help deal with the heat I offered some tips to avoid the inferno. I raced a 5K and a 10K. I got a Sansa MP3 player and talked about the other “equipment” I used to run in.  This was pre-Garmin days! In the Olympic build-up year I took a look at an unusual banned substance - Caffeine. Yes, in high enough quantities, caffeine is considered illegal. A fun and popular post that I wrote was titled “Ways to Ruin Your Next Race.”

I hope you had a good August and are looking forward to fall coming!

Technorati Tags: Highlights

Best of Team Cross for July

What a month! Summer months seem to go by so fast! It seems that we were gone pretty much every weekend this month.  2 of the weekends were at weddings, we should have gone to 2 more weddings and then celebrating my birthday!

Training continues to go well for Twin Cities Marathon.  Weeks 5, 6, 7, 8. Part of my marathon training is raising support for Team World Vision and their great work in developing countries, but specifically in Africa.  I continue to share about my experiences sharing the beauty of Africa, sharing a slideshow of pictures from my 8 weeks in Ghana, the importance of education, the hope and joy found in Africa, and talked about Ryan and Sara Hall.

I reviewed a couple of different things this month, including Blaine Moore’s book on Marathon Preperation and Recovery, running on the Midtown Greenway, Pearl Izumi’s Go Running Shorts, and the Hundred Push-Up Challenge.  Not really a review but I talked about recent research showing that wearing flip-flops can be bad for your legs and feet. And mentioning research, there is a lot of research being conducted on runners right now, find out if you are eligible.

Last Year was a good month of racing for me. I raced a 5K - which turned out much shorter - and a 10K.  I wrote about the infamous and fun to say fartlek run and runners obessions with keeping detailed running logs.

Monthly Mileage: (2008/2007)

Running - 152 miles/143.4 miles

Biking - 85.5 miles/20.4 miles

Swimming - 300 yds

June Highlights

I really can’t belive it is the beginning of July already! Where has time gone?

Highlights from last year include:

Race Reviews from races I ran in Indiana, including Jennifer’s Run 5K and the Buzzards Roost 10K.

I talked about the USATF decision to ban headphones at races and gave some safety tips for running with them in your ears.

I shared about a recent running experience at Westwood Park which is near New Castle, Indiana which has a really nice moutain bike trail perfect for running!  Charitable running is a fairly important part of the sport so I highlighted some of the local opportunities for Indiana runners to support charities and actually this year I have dedicated my first marathon to supporting World Vision’s work around the world.

I finished out the month last year talking about Mounds State Park which was definitely my favorite place to run while living in Anderson. A huge percentage of my runs were done on the variety of hilly trails offered at Indiana’s smallest State Park!

Jumping back to this year:

I started training for the Twin Cities Marathon this fall and have finished weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4!  I ran a couple of races this month including the USATF 5000m Championship on the track and the Karate Kickin’ Cancer 5K. I wrote about the state track meet from Washington, you’ll have to read it to remember why!

The Brooks Running company has decided that they want your shoes to disintegrate; but not while you run.  They are introducing BioMoGo.  Meanwhile, an article in the New York Times wrote about research into post-run/phyiscal activity nutrition; none of the researcher advocated sports drinks!

Finally, I was tagged, but I survived to share my running story with you;  hope you enjoyed it!

Monthly (Yearly) Totals:

Running - 112 miles 588 miles

Biking - 221 miles 442 miles

Swimming - 0.9 miles 1.3 miles

Happy July!!

May Highlights

As I mentioned previously, the end of May marks the anniversary of run blogging! It is great. But from now on, these monthly highlights will include a look back to a year ago as well as the past month.

Since the blog didn’t start until the end of the month I only made one post worth highlighting - Chart & Map Your Favorite Course. When I was blogging as Run Central Indiana each week had a very similar schedule, Monday was a race review, something random, or nothing, Tuesday was a look at the last weekend’s race results, Wednesday was a major post about running, Thursday was a look at the upcoming weekend’s races, and Friday was something random which eventually became Foto Friday.

During May I started wearing my new Mizunos. They are still treating me pretty well! The Twin Cities Marathon closed, while the inaugural Indianapolis Monumental Marathon opened registration. Author Martin Dugard shared his review of the Tough Guy race in Great Britain. If you get hungry out on the trails and want to know what the professional athletes enjoy cooking then you need to check out the Elite Running Cookbook. In an Olympic Year I posed a simple question about medal counts and character. And on a related note the poll on the right sidebar is still open. I wrote about the USATF’s review of running stores across America which featured two Indianapolis area stores.

Continuing to report the news, Oscar Pistorius will be allowed to compete with able bodied athletes and the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon ended in a tie. ESPN made a great tribute for Ryan Shay. I didn’t get to make it to Boston this year (maybe because I haven’t ran a marathon yet!) but a teacher from my Mom’s high school did and the local newspaper wrote a nice piece on it.

I raced my first mile in a very long time at the TC 1 Mile and no one won the $10,000 bonus.

It was a busy month! My total mileage for the month is 56.4 miles for 6 hours of running and 108 miles of biking.

April Highlights

I can’t believe it is May already. 5 months in the Twin Cities and we are enjoying it all (except for the endless bouts of snow!)

April was a busy month with two races, the Earth Day Half-Marathon and the Get in Gear 10K. I also decided to step up and register for a marathon - Medtronic’s Twin Cities Marathon in October.

I started a new feature highlighting all the different style race numbers that we get.

Some random running news included a marathoner who captured a thief, a study about detraining, another study about running preventing dementia, the Chicago Marathon hits capacity, the autopsy report for Adam Nickel, the Wisconsin runner who died at Little Rock, and the Massai took on the London Marathon. Other running news included a bomb exploding in Sri Lanka during a marathon and a swarm of bees attacked runners in Japan.

I was able to find some humor and found two must read lists for runners.

At the beginning of the month I decided to upgrade my blog and almost had a major disaster. I think everything is fixed now but it was almost painful. UGH!!!

Shew it was a busy month - also don’t forget to check out Foto Fridays!