It feels sad that 42 miles is my highest month, but I’m glad to be running virtually pain free.  August was about 50% lower biking mileage than July, but we were travelling for almost half the month and since I wasn’t bike commuting that really cut down on my mileage.  The same with swimming.  Though the group is getting going again until the water get too cold.

Last year at this time I’d run the Rochester Half-Marathon and set a PR.

Here is a look at the goals I set at the beginning of the year:

Run Around All Named Bodies of Water in Minneapolis

Being gone didn’t add any new lakes. My Ragnar group run was at Lake Calhoun so I did it again, though most of my running has been from home still.

Read the Entire Bible in a Year

I got really far behind, my bag for Rhode Island didn’t have room for my Bible, the whole paying to check luggage thing made us pack very carefully.  But I was able to finish up, using the “extra” days that are built into the schedule.

Read a Book a Month

I finally finished In A Sunburned Country and wouldn’t recommend it.  I didn’t look forward to picking it up, but vacation was a great time to finish it off.  It is more or less a travel diary with random factoids that may or may not be interesting.  At the Cleveland Airport I picked up John Grisham’s  The Associate and had it finished by the end of the week. I find Grisham very captivating and easy to read.  I also started The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be so I can find out how to be the best father ever, or something…
Blog Regularly

I continue to do well here and on my Project 365 blog.  My personal blog has fallen way behind and I’m not please with my hyperlocal blog.  Such is life though.

There is still time visit my fundraising page for Team World Vision providing clean water to a village in Kenya.

I got $100 from Google AdWords so I promoted my  Curing Plantar Fasciitis post, so it was no surprise to see it the most viewed one in August.  Treatments for Plantar Fasciitis was in second and my review of the Strassburg Sock was right behind.

How was your August? Are your kids starting back to school?

The basics of a relay race is that you split up the 193 mile race into more doable segments.  Ragnar’s Great River Relay is broken into 36 legs which get split up between 12 runners (or 6 in the Ultra division). The average runner ran 16 miles over 3 runs.  I personally ran 13 miles.  At least one person ran in the 20′s.   Several people in my van were in marathon training and this is good timing for “long runs.” The 12 runners are split into 2 vans of who leap frog each other throughout the overnight relay.

I was in Van 1 which was “on” first.  I was runner number 3 which meant I ran leg 3, 15, and 27.

Leg 3 was fairly flat and on wide-open road. I ran on the shoulder as much as possible. The route took a turn off WI-35 (which the runners saw, but many vans missed) onto a country road in corn fields! I had seen a bank sign that said 85 degrees and there was no doubt that the humidity was quite high, but it was very cloudy. This leg had non-supported sections, which meant that in places my van could give me water. I misunderstood the wording of the Race Bible -- legs that were “non-supported” would have water stops if they were over 4 miles. I assumed I’d have a water stop, so I was disappointed after the half-way mark when there weren’t any. With about 1.5 miles to go my van caught up to me (they missed the turn) and gave me some water! I finished the 5.3 miles in 46:56 or 8:52 pace.

The great thing about Ragnar is that you run through the night! Any runner on the road after 7:30pm had to have a reflective vest, a head light, and a tail light on. Any member of the team outside the van after 7:30pm had to wear a reflective vest. After relaxing at Major Exchange 12 in Stockholm, WI our van took back over for our night leg. I didn’t end up running until after 11pm. I woke up at 5am on Friday to finish getting ready and to pick up the van, etc. I was surprised that I didn’t feel too bad -- though there was lots of adrenaline. It was in the mid 70′s and still quite humid, though there was no sun since it was dark!

All geared up I ran Leg 15′s 5.22 miles in 45 minutes for an 8:38 pace. This route ended up being hillier than I had expected it to be. I knew there was one hill towards the beginning, but it seemed like there were more noticeable hills. I could have also just been getting tired! Running in the dark was quite interesting. You couldn’t see very far ahead, behind, or around you and all you could see in the distance was little red flashing lights of runners and Ragnar signs. I did have a water stop this time! The dark also made it quite hard for vans to figure out if you were their runner or not, but mine did find me and cheer me on. As I got closer to the exchange area, I started to see lots of headlights and a glow so I knew I was getting close. On each leg Ragnar posts a sign that says “One Mile to Go” but on this particular leg it seemed to take forever for that last mile. I got 8 “road kills” on this section. In Ragnar language a road kill is a person that you pass from another team. I only got passed by one guy. For whatever reason, the headlamp I was wearing gave the weird sensation of wearing sunglasses. It was something to do with how the light was shaped. It was fun running in the dark!

We were able to shower and eat spaghetti sauce (they ran out of noodles) at Prescott High School (Major Exchange 18) before driving through some very dense fog to get to Stillwater, MN. It was 2 or 3am and I was driving. It was a little nerve racking because there were runners and lots of vans on the road, though fortunately, not many other cars. We decided to stop in Hudson for breakfast at Denny’s. I’m pretty sure I was the only person awake in the van (don’t tell Ragnar that my Safety Officer fell asleep!) After Denny’s we drove to Major Exchange 24 in Stillwater, just North of the Liftbridge. I had to sleep in the driver’s seat of the van and maybe got 30 minutes of real sleep. We had miscalculated our timing and I started waking up the van around 5:45 to get ready. After 6:30am runners and support people were no longer required to be illuminated.

My last leg was 27. Now in Minnesota we switched to more suburban areas for most of the run. Just an FYI that this exchange didn’t have port-a-potties, good thing I didn’t need one. This leg started out on the road and went under I-94 before running on a paved trail next to the roads. This felt like a long steady uphill, but I’m sure my legs were completely exhausted at this point. I’m not sure of the temperature, but it was very overcast and very humid. The fog actually almost felt like a mist at points. I got at least 8 more road kills on this leg. Some guy passed me, which made me mad, then I realized he wasn’t wearing the Ragnar Wrist Band (the baton) so I didn’t feel quite as bad! I got a couple of road kills at the very end and set Mike up to get a few himself! I did the 3.38 miles in 27:15 or 8:04 pace. (Note: each leg was faster than the last!) It felt really good to be done. We didn’t have a lot of time to sit around though, because most of these legs were fairly short. So I stretched a little and off we went.

You can kind of see an exchange in this video.  This is me running into my final exchange handing off to Mike:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYMv3YzUEzs

After my final leg I was triumphant, as seen in this short video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8H90mIVhtU

After arriving at Major Exchange 30 at Lifetime in Woodbury our team started to break apart.  Our van was done with running and a few people needed to head out so we sorted out the van, drove some people to their cars, and ended up with only 2 of us waiting around at the Boom Island finish area.  We got massages, ate some pizza, and tried to relax.  My body was so worn out that it didn’t like the idea of laying down on the grass.  Several hours later I got the call -- we are dropping off the last runner.  A 3rd teammate rejoined us and 7 of us waited anxiously for the final runner to come down the trail.  We joined her about 100 yards from the finish and ran triumphantly across the finish line!! We had done it!

Team Hodge Podge finished 169th out of 286 teams for a total time of 29:46:15 which is an average 9:19 pace! Well done ! (full results)

What a fun experience!! I’m going to be posting more about Ragnar as time permits, but it was an experience of a lifetime! I’m definitely sore and tired but it was a great adventure.   We finished in just under 30 hours for the 193 mile journey!

I ran 3 legs.  At 12:03pm on Friday I ran 5.3 miles in about 47 minutes.  Mostly flat, but lots of humidity and near 85.  At 11:19pm I ran 5.25 miles in 45 minutes on a dark and hillier road, still humid but cooler.  And at 8:08am I ran almost 3.4 miles in 28 minutes on a trail next to the road on an overcast and humid morning.

Those three runs plus an easy 3 miler in Ohio earlier in the week equaled my highest mileage week of the fall for 17 miles of running!!

There is still time to support my efforts to raise money for Team World Vision’s Clean Water projects in Kenya.

Like I said, it was a lot of fun and I’ll do a longer post later!  I’m still tired and catching up on sleep and eating!! Plus I go back to work this week part-time and then full-time next week.

A hard choice for One Post so here are three:

Product Review of the Strassburg Sock, a Book Review of Once a Runner, and an idea about Twitter Tagging.

Steadily running! I got 3 runs in this week for almost 10 miles!  This was my first week of not working in between my summer job and the school year starting back up. I return to work on the 23rd.  It is amazing how undisciplined I can become when there isn’t a time line or schedule to follow!

I got a half-mile swim in on Tuesday at the YWCA.  All of my open-water friends were out of town.  Without having to commute I didn’t really rack up that many bike miles either.  For my 2 evening meetings I was able to use Christy’s car. We bought an older Burley off Craigslist which takes us one step closer to being able to function with only one car!!  Actually my VW has become a place to store all of my bike gear and accessories on.  I was able to put all the canning supplies I bought at the Seward Coop into the Burley and bring them home to can 25 lbs of peaches!!  It was a lot of hot but fun work to can them!

On Friday I finally got to meet the Ragnar team that I’m leading and running with in a few short weeks.  We went for an easy run around Lake Calhoun before enjoying an excellent dinner at Punch Pizza!

Saturday morning I picked up my friend Tim who is  slowly becoming a runner! We ran together last weekend while camping too.  We ran Pike Island on a muggy morning with sprinkles at the end! We saw 3 deer and at least 4 turkeys on the island.  Last week I introduced him to trail running and this week expanded that horizon.  With 3 kids he isn’t able to travel to run much, but we have so many great places around.

Sunday morning a friend invited me to ride 20 miles with him at 6am.  I balked and we rode at 6:30, I invited another friend and the 3 of us had a great ride that totaled 25 miles for me.  It was in the mid 70′s with 90% humidity but it didn’t feel too bad on the bike.  It was nice to have them push and pull me along for a relatively fast pace.  It was a great way to start an otherwise HOT & HUMID day.  This was art fair weekend and we are looking for some to finish decorating our house.  We decided to hit up the Powderhorn Art Fair because the 111 heat index didn’t make going to Uptown sound exciting.  We sweated a ton in the short time we where out.  We didn’t buy any art but check out this guy, he prints some of his pictures on metal!

Here is the overall stats:

Bike: 44.6 Miles

Run: 9.8 Miles

Swim: 0.5 Miles

This week’s ONE POST is 3 Types of Rest.

Some links to checkout:

Run to Win posted a video which tried to figure out if cyclists or runners were tougher.

Running Times posted 10 Tips for Distance Relay events, which I hope will make the upcoming Ragnar a success!

I was sent a link to the Top 50 Twitter Feeds for Runners.   Another place to go to find tweeting runners is Tim Wilson’s post from the fall of 2008.  It now has 154 people listed.   One last place to find tweeting runners is my Twitter List which has 243 people on it.  That’s a lot of people!! There are some duplicates and maybe even some triplicates.  WHY TWITTER?

I’ve finally been able to run with some consistency.  This last week I ran a whopping 10 miles over 3 runs.  Slowly but surely.  It is feeling good, especially the 4 miler I did at Wild River State Park over the weekend. At the same park I swam across the St Croix River to Wisconsin and back which was a pretty tough swim, which I’m estimating at 400 meters.  My knee pain continues to lessen and was virtually non-existent during the trail run.

This week’s ONE POST is about Fartleking Fun!! Fartlek’s are the funnest way to incorporate speedwork into your training!

Only 3 weeks until Ragnar!!

Here is a look at the goals I set at the beginning of the year.

Run Around All Named Bodies of Water in Minneapolis

Most of my running has been on the Greenway.

Read the Entire Bible in a Year

Continue to do well on this, though I use the extra few days at the end of the month to catch up.  It is odd but it seems easier to remember to read it on the weekdays than the weekends when my schedule isn’t as ordered. I have finished reading Psalms which took 7 months to read!

Read a Book a Month

Even with a somewhat consistent reading time I didn’t get a book finished.  During our summer program we spent 20 minutes each day reading, this often was a great time for my co-leader and I to finish prepping for the day or do some administrative stuff so I didn’t always get to read, plus I often forgot In A Sunburned Country at home or at school and so didn’t always have it to read.  Plus it is a little long and not that exciting.  I’m over 1/2 way so hopefully I’ll finish it and another in August!

Blog Regularly

I’ve done fairly well on here, missing a few times.  Sadly I had the first day I missed taking a picture for my Project 365 blog.  I just didn’t take a picture at all.  While I sometimes miss getting the picture posted on the right day, one day I just completely forgot to take a picture!

Please take a minute and visit my fundraising page for Team World Vision and my Ragnar Relay.

In the past month my Treatments for Plantar Fasciitis and Curing Plantar Fasciitis have continued to be at the top of my most viewed posts. Meanwhile Minnesota Marathon hangs in for a close third.  There are still 3 left!

I hope you had a good July and are looking forward to August.  I know that I am looking forward to pretty much not working the entire month.

I’ve been swimming with a group of triathletes, and my friend who organizes the swims made it fairly clear she wants me to give triathlons a tri, so I’ve been thinking about it more.  A recent Runners World cover story on switching from running to triathlon also got me thinking.  Swimming is the hardest ( have I mentioned that?) and this week I only got out once for 600 yards.

The biggest problem is that I can’t run – at least not any distance or with any speed.  I mean seriously, I only ran 4 miles last week! And that was my highest mileage since March!!  I was thinking about doing the Minneapolis Duathlon when I remembered that the second discipline in a duathlon is running, oops.

As I’ve been increasing my bike mileage both commuting and “training” I’ve also been contemplating a nicer bike for the training parts of life.  It seems crazy to drop a couple of thousand on a super nice bike that would only get ridden a few times a week, but it is very tempting. I’ve started looking at craigslist and need to start trying to figure out how much I’m willing/able to spend on a new toy. This week I did 50 miles of just commuting and errands – way more than I drove!

So I maybe looking at a late summer/early fall triathlon.  On Thursday I actually ran in the morning, did my normal bike commuting, and swam in the evening.  I was quite tired, but it was the first time I’d done all 3 at once.  We’ll see how the running goes, especially after Ragnar.

The most notable thing though is that when I was recently getting some bike shorts, I made sure to buy a pair of tri shorts.

What do you think? Should I tri it?

This week’s One Post is a guest post from Coach Mike aka Rocco about Tune Up Races.

It has been easy to get these short runs in during the morning, but has been harder to keep up the other workouts.  Though I did do almost 83 miles on the bike.  25 of that was a fairly hard ride on the Greenway to the West ending up at Bryant Lake Regional Park and hitting some quality miles.  I averaged over 16 mph for the ride which did include some stop and go in the Hopkins area, plus getting a little lost and riding on some chipped limestone that was only a little above mountain bike trails (Lone Lake Park).

I wasn’t able to make the group swim this week so I did 650 yards on my own at the YWCA on Friday.  I did them nice and slow.  I noticed that my form wasn’t as good during the slow parts, but I did a fast 50 towards the end and felt like my form improved considerably.  I guess that is similar to running, sometimes your best form is when you are running faster.

We also went camping which was a relaxing way to end the week, though we only hiked a few flat miles on Sunday and survived some crazy Saturday night storms.

Things are coming together nicely for the Ragnar Relay in a few weeks.  I guess I need to figure out how I want to promote my fundraising, if I’m still going to do it.  I know that the kids in Africa would appreciate clean water to drink, so I guess I better work on that!

This week I’m teaching Bike Maintenance and Exploration!

This week’s One Post is about the Midtown Greenway.

Bike: 82.7 Mi

Run: 3.2 Mi

Swim: 0.4 Mi

It was a good week, busy but good.  I worked out 4 of the 7 days, sadly I had to drive my car for work every day. I was teaching a carpentry for kids class and needed to be able to transport lumber and tools.  If you want to purchase a trailer for me that’d be awesome! Especially since this winter we’ll be dropping to 1 car, about the same time as the kid pops out!  My bike numbers were down, but my running was up (to 2)!

Bike: 21.1 Miles

Run: 2 Miles plus 30 minutes of aqua jogging

Swim: 0.7 Miles

The one day I ran on the track in the YWCA for a mile with a little knee pain.  Unfortunately, it was the wrong direction (turning into my bad knee) but I survived the 6 laps and the pain slowly went away.  The pain appears to be on the outside in the area where they stuck the needle in to drain the fluid.  This was followed by 30 minutes of aqua jogging.

My other run was at Pike Island and was pretty much a brick workout, I rode 7 miles on my bike to get there.  I walked from the parking lot to the island and then ran a mile, walked back to my bike and proceeded to ride 14 miles home.  I obviously took a different route and found a great place to hammer it on the bike.  The roads around the airport are quite flat, wide, and not heavily traveled.  I’d recommend it for a 3 or 4 mile stretch of hard riding.

The only other notable event was that it stormed as we arrived at Nokomis and cleared up into a perfect evening for swimming.

I’m optimistic about my knee and hope to be able to slowly build up my miles so that Ragnar won’t be too much of a shock to my system. I’m planning on picking one of the shortest legs and surviving! I go next week to the Infectious Disease Specialist!

This week’s One Post is an older post about Running Logs. I continue to use Running Ahead and am quite happy with it.  You can always click on the blue “R” at the top of my site to check out my running log or they get posted to my Facebook Wall.

I hope you have a great week!

It was a pretty good week, busy as usual. I’m enjoying my summer job working with kids.  Last week was water week which included a water balloon fight and a trip to a local water park! The heat isn’t fun since the school isn’t air conditioned but we manage!

The best news of my week was that I ran! Only about a mile and while my knee hurt there was no swelling during or after the run! So that is a good sign.  I might take it out for a spin again this week and see how it goes!  I’ve been biking and swimming so hopefully I’m getting into/staying in some level of fitness.   I also aqua jogged again this week. I did 30 minutes with my shoes on (which is a nice added challenge).

My weekly activity summary looks like this:

Bike: 53.8 Miles

Run: 1.5 Miles

Swim: 0.5 Miles

This week’s ONE POST is last year’s post about Minneapolis being one of the best biking cities in the World!

Did you have a good week?

Here is my mileage for the month:

Running – 4.7 miles (over 3 runs)

Biking – 257 miles (as of last night)

Swimming – 1.6 miles

Aqua Jogging – 3 sessions

Here is a look at the goals I set at the beginning of the year.

Run Around All Named Bodies of Water in Minneapolis

Ugh.

Read the Entire Bible in a Year

Staying on track to complete it in a year.  Half -way!

Read a Book a Month

I finished an amazing retelling of the battle for the first 4-minute mile.  The Perfect Mile chronicles the journeys of Landy, Santee, and of course Bannister as they try to be the first one to crack the 4 minute barrier.  It also includes some bonus coverage of the lead up to the “Mile of the Century”.

Blog Regularly

Well as you’ve noticed this hasn’t been going too well.  It has been hard to think or write much about running when I can’t run.  It has helped to read The Perfect Mile and relish in the delight of being an athlete and the reminder of my college days.

Treatments for Plantar Fasciitis has stayed at the number one spot, however this month Minnesota Marathons has moved into a close second. (too bad I won’t be able to run one)

This week’s ONE POST is a tie.  Relieving IT Band Pain and a story from 2008 about sportsmanship at the high school level.