Team Cross Runs

Thoughts on February

Where did January go?  31 days into 2010 and it is just starting to feel normal to write 2010.

February was a better month for running.  While generally I struggle with the motivation to get up and run, especially in the morning, I doubled my monthly mileage from January.  February saw 35.4 miles added to my shoes.  I hit double digits for weekly mileage at 11.9.  March should be a good month to continue ramping up the mileage.  My longest run was 6.5 miles with the guys on a sunny, Sunday morning.  February also marked the one-year anniversary of having Plantar Fasciitis, check out my 18 steps to try to get rid of it.

I’ve set a few random goals for the year:

Run Around All Named Bodies of Water in Minneapolis

I didn’t add any new bodies of water, though I did run the Get in Gear loop two times which takes out a section of the Mississippi River.

Read the Entire Bible in a Year

This was tough this month.  Partly because February only has 28 days, but also because this month included reading the entire books of Exodus and Leviticus. Luckily, the legalism of the Old Testament is balanced with reading from Matthew and the grace found in Jesus.

Read a Book a Month

I failed on this one.  I picked a small book called Enjoying Prayer. It is only 140 pages long, but the format and topic made it a little hard to finish.  Its setup to read a chapter at a time with thought provoking questions, not like a novel. I should finish it soon and get a book for March.

Blog Regularly

I only posted 4 times at my personal blog, oops.  I posted regularly on here and that’s more important for you!  I did make some updates to my blog theme.  What do you think? I continue to do well on my Project 365 (taking and posting 1 picture a day).

Other things of note… February was a busy month all around.  It seemed like there was something going on almost every night.  I’m on the board of the Young Non-Profit Network for the Twin Cities (YNPN-TC) and we had a busy month welcoming new board members.

One Post this week is about Running Groups, I really enjoy the group I run with.

The most popular post in February was Treatments of Plantar Fasciitis, again!

Thoughts on January

Where did January go?  31 days into 2010 and it is just starting to feel normal to write 2010.

It was great that I was finally able to start running again.  I ran for a total of 17.8 miles this past month, a far cry from previous year’s (86 in 2009), but much better than all of the 0’s from previous months!  I still have plantar fasciitis and will soon be celebrating the one-year anniversary of its onset (2/24).  I’m confident in the weeks ahead that it will disappear!

I’ve set a few random goals for the year

Run Around All Named Bodies of Water in Minneapolis

Check off Lake Calhoun.  I didn’t have a camera and I’ll be running there more this year so stay tuned for more information about it.

Read the Entire Bible in a Year

I’m following a plan that only makes you read 25 days out of the month, which is pretty nice and I succeeded in accomplishing that this month.  This includes the entire Book of  Genesis.

Read a Book a Month

I’m cutting it close, but will finish Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, which I got as a Christmas present.

Blog Regularly

I didn’t make this goal.  I skipped at least one post here and haven’t been consistent on my personal blog.  Though I am succeeding on my Project 365 (taking and posting 1 picture a day).

Other things of note… I’ll start co-teaching a leadership class for 6th graders today!! It should be fun and we are using a curriculum developed by the school district called Peace Lead.  It should be a great experience.

We continue to piddle around our house and get lots of little things done.  I finished painting the bathrooms over Christmas break and we got some new couches this month which had some extra comfort to the living room!

One Post this week has to be the Week of Garmin series from 2008 after I got my Garmin Forerunner 205.

The most popular post in January was Treatments of Plantar Fasciitis.

Weekly Highlights

Still haven’t run. Foot goes off and on from hurting. I’ve also had some IT and hip pain lingering from the marathon. I wondered why everything still hurt so much then I realized it has only been two weeks!! We’ve been doing a lot of work on our house so it hasn’t all been lazing around on that front either.

Previous Posts

This comes a little late for most of us, but some of you are in the midst of a taper.  Have you heard about Bad Ben? He’s stopped writing much on his blog but he has some crazy stories.  Green this and Green that – what about Eco Gyms.  I was amazed and pleased that last year I surpassed my fundraising goal for Team World Vision.  I wrote up a final sumamry. Foto Friday was of my first recovery run post marathon on the Mississippi River.

Here is a random update on the catheter story.  My wife, the nurse, informed me that my picture on my previous post about the story was incorrect. Here is a more accurate picture.

Post- Marathon Update

In case you were wondering, I haven’t run since the marathon.  I don’t plan on running again for awhile.  The problem with an early fall marathon is that you miss out on a lot of great running weather.  Especially when you have a nagging injury for almost 9 months.  I have biked to work 2 x’s since the marathon though and gone to stretch out and use the foam roller at the gym once.  This training cycle really burned me out.  I am excited for many of my friends who set great PR’s and BQed.  Congratulations!!!

Below are some old highlights from past years for the past few weeks.  The last highlight reel was Sept 21.

I obviously talked about the marathon last year!  I wrote about a 2 minute video preview of the course. This year was a pictorial preview. Here is last year’s race plan and then my grading of it.  That was followed by a more thorough race review and chart-filled post. As part of last year’s race I raised money for Team World Vision.  In this time span I wrote about my first impressions in Ghana and a brief reflection on my time in South Africa.

Foto Friday’s for this time period included a beautiful lake scene, my trip odometer hitting 26.2 miles and my 2008 TCM race shwag.

In 2007 I wrote about the importance of adding accelerations into your training. I was also the featured blog of the week on Phedippidations. A friend chimed in with a guest review about the Lewis & Clark Marathon, not the flooded out one though.  While he was running 26.2 I had a great 4 mile race to fight Ovarian Cancer.  Hands down, one of my all time favorite posts is about t-shirt ettiqute.  Remember the dreadful day in October 2007 when it was in the 90’s for Chicago and TCM marathons?  I was a volunteer at Chicago and got cussed at because our water stop (mile 2) was out of water.  Not a fun day for anyone. Here are some pictures.  I found a great list of last minute marathon tips.  I started a series where I wrote about the blogs I read.  The first stop was one about race directing.

Thanks for hanging out.  I did find my camera cord, so I’ll eventually get some pictures up here.

Happy 2nd Blogiversary!!

Happy Blogiversary!! Hard to believe that it has been 2 years of blogging about my running adventures.  Thank you for making it possible.  I appreciate your comments, feedback, and thoughts throughout the journey.

As a treat I’ve picked 5 highlights/blog posts from the last two years (out of almost 500) to share with you as a special present.  This was no easy task so I hope you appreciate them!

1) Completing my first marathon and dedicating it to my African friends by raising money for World Vision. 

2) I also enjoyed reading and sharing thoughts from the Sacred Art of Running. 

3) Being in Minneapolis wouldn’t be complete without winter running (almost getting hypothermia) and running along the Minneapolis Riverfront. 

4) A delicious post about running strategies. 

5) Who doesnt like the idea of ruining their next race? 

Finally, a must read post that I stole from someone else talks about proper t-shirt etiquette.

November Highlights

Sign at hotel in Wynne, AK

It is a little hard to believe that I am recapping November already.  Last year at this time we were finalizing our decision to move to Minneapolis and beginning the process of saying goodbye.  This year we are enjoying our life in Minneapolis, wondering what the next year will bring – but it doesn’t seem like a year has passed.

Last Year I traveled with friends to Arkansas for the Midsouth Marathon.  I ran the 1/2 and they did the full. After the race getting ready to head home we saw the recap of the Men’s Olympic Marathon trials and the roller coaster of emotions that day brought as Ryan Hall had an amazing performace while his friend Ryan Shay had run his last miles.

Later I ran the last of the year’s DINO 15K trail races and it was quite cold! It was a lot of fun though running through the hills and creeks of Fort Harrison State Park.   I also ran in my first Thanksgiving Day race – the Drumstick Dash. Wray Jean, one of the friends I went to Arkansas with, went to Tennessee to knock off another state’s marathon and ran the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon.

With most of my racing out of the way for the year, I began to look back on analyze my training plans for the 3 major races.  First up was the Indianapolis Mini Marathon.  My second major race and analysis was for the Bears of the Blue River 10k.

I was also going through my RSS feeds and highlighting some of the blogs I read.  These included Martin Dugard’s Paper Kenyan, Cool Running’s blog, and the Phedipidations Blog.  Also at the end of November Dr Cade, the inventor of Gatorade passed away at 80 years old. I started a feature that continues today – Foto Friday!

For November 2007 my monthly mileage was 52 miles!

This year was a lot different my monthly mileage was double that of 113.6 miles.

I raced quite a few times this month, which helped keep my mileage up.  I ran in the USATF-MN XC Series.  Completing the Rocky’s Run 8k and the USATF-MN XC Championship 10k.  With those races out of the way I began contemplating what the off-season might have in store. It includes another round of the 100 push up challenge.

I finally finished a book called The Sacred Art of Running and started a series taking an in-depth look at the book. The first part was Foundations of a Spiritual Runner, which laid a lot of ground work for the rest of the book.  Next came Spirituality: A Running Definition,  which defined what spirituality means (to the author and the book) and what that had to do with running.

Of course November means Thanksgiving and offering thanks for the many blessings in our life. It also marks the anniversary of Foto Friday!

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