December 2013 Summary

Runs - 23
Running Days - 22
Weightlifting Days - 8
Average Miles per Running Day - 9.9
Vertical Feet Ran - 29,000
Push Ups per Day for Mth - 147
Push Ups per Day for Year - 111.03 or 40,525 Total Push Ups

Too keep a theme going that many of my friends back home in San Francisco had going on, my top 3 moments at Candlestick Park.  Candlestick Park is where I had my first job.  It's where I feel in love with the game of baseball.  It's where I watched literally hundreds of baseball games between 1978 and 1999. Another 50 football games.  An absolute dump that I loved since I spent so much of my childhood there.

#3 - Sneaking into the stadium and onto the field as a 14 year old.  It was baseball season and the Giants were away.  We played catch on the infield for roughly 15 minutes till getting kick out of the stadium.

#2 - Roughly 12 years old and attending one of the lonely weekday night games.  Stadium crowd around 2,000 folks.  Hanging out with a few of my friends near the Giants bullpen and chatting with Vida Blue.  Vida Blue threatening to throw a baseball at a bobblehead roaming the seats nearby.  The bobblehead was my buddies little brother who was maybe 6 years old and wore a baseball cap that was meant for a teenage. Early 80s, 6 kids between the ages of 6 and 13 going to a baseball game in the hood via public transportation without any parental guidance.  I loved growing up in the Four One Five!

#1 - Game 3 of the 1989 World Series.  I was working there selling hot dogs and I was situated right where the opposing team entered/exited the field.  Jose Canseco had just entered the playing field.  The whole section was booing and flipping him off.  Then the earth shock. 

Funny how scared to death I was of reliving the first few months of a newborn.  Yeah, sleepless nights, rocking the little one to sleep at 11pm and changing way to many diapers can be rough.  Hell, being completely cashed by days end is rough.  Once reality hit, I was excited (not scared) to be dealing with a newborn, my son.  It's actually pretty amazing.  I mean, how often does one get to experience the first months of someones life?  I now have amazing memories of walking in circles around my basement of trying to get both my daughter and son to sleep.  I know, far from glamorous, but it's some of my fondest memories of being able to hold either of my kids in just one arm.          

The rest of my selfish activities were done when it impacted the family least.  Taking advantage of any window I had.  Sometimes it was before the sun rose, other times during naps.  When all said and done, I gave the month a good run.

Running happened surprisingly frequently this month.  Instead of running around town for 13 miles while the family napped, I took the December Mt Falcon Challenge instead.  No established "challenge", just me punishing myself with a lot of Mt Falcon as much.  10 visits total for the month.  The result was me posting a big climbing month.  You exclude out my Run Rabbit Run 100 Miler, and I ran as much vert in 5 weeks of December as I have in the previous 14 weeks. Ended up being one of my better running months of the year and best since August!

(Stupid toe nails)

My weightlifting is still going strong but I've hit the same crossroads I always do with lifting.  I can either do more (like say increase my weekly visits to the gym to 3 or 4) or stick to what I'm doing now.  Doing more would result in getting much stronger while sacrificing running.   Sticking to my current plan would yield positive results but at a much slower rate then I've seen over the past 3 months.

Running is still my passion and I've hit my goal winter weight of 185, but a part of me would like to push my weight up to 190 while maintaining 50 miles a week.  Time will dictate how much I focus on gaining another 5 pounds of muscle.  

The Push Up Challenge.  What started out as a challenged ended as a routine.  One that I did without putting much thought into.  Most days, I simply woke up and knocked out push ups. Sometimes 0. Sometimes 200. Most days somewhere that got me to over 100 push ups a day.

At the end of the day, running is going to put you in great running shape.  But I swear that all the weightlifting and push ups I've done over the past year has made me a much better runner.

Lastly, excited to enter a new Age Group and duke it out with my fellow Master Runners!  Which basically means I'll continue to get smoked by those around me.  

LOOKING FORWARD

There will be little focus on a training routine right now.  Simply sticking with staying in shape and building a strong base.  I literally will be taking it day by day and hoping to replicate December as much as possible (which will be tough due to less time off).

My next race will be the Salida Marathon in March. I won't be in any racing shape but I plan to be in strong running shape.

March will also mean the little one is 4 months old, that spring is near and the start of me getting 100% focused for the San Juan Solstice 50 Miler in June!  I'm already very excited for this race and have started putting down splits and figuring out what I need to do to get in 10 hours flat shape.  I won't even think about training for the Bear till early July.      

Kind of Looking Back at 2013

I wasn't planning on discussing anything regarding the past year till I read PGs honest reflection of his 2013.

I'm still reluctant to post much as I'd rather talk about stuff that's important.  Family, friends, the ups and downs we all go through in life and THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF ALL THIS LOOKING BACK IS how we are better for it...but I have no interest in discussing that on this forum. I'd rather discuss those items during a nice long trail run or over a few beers. 

In all aspects of my life, I strive to be the best I can be. I'm pretty hard on myself and believe I have a lot to figure out still.  Hell, I mess up enough to consider myself a fuck up a times.  But I do care.  A lot.  When it comes to running, I care about performing to the best of my running ability without it ever impacting those things that are most important to me.

That said, random observations from my 2013 races:

Moab Red Hot 55K - A race where I learned the so much about myself as a runner.  Learning that I can still run even when it hurts.  Running when I least want to.  Gaining so much confidence for the remainder of the year.  

Collegiate Peaks 25M - A race that I simply didn't need to do.  That signing up for one to many races can negatively impact future races.  Yes, I hung out with a lot of friends that weekend and loved every aspect of that. However I didn't hold back as much as I should have during this race and it cost me to perform at levels I expected to in the following 2 races due to an injury and fatigue I incurred during the race.    

Sun Mountain 50K - When on a family vacation, schedule the race at the start of it.  Not at the end of one. Combine that with being off my game since CP25 and I missed out on a great opportunity of performing really well here.

Running highlight of my year being a 1K kids trail race I shared with my beautiful daughter.

  (Running Highlight Of The Year Captured in Photo: Credit to Tachiyama)

San Juan Solstice 50M - My all time favorite race.  One that I executed nicely on considering the injuries and inconsistent training over the past month plus. This was an A goal race for me so to not be 100% prepared was a real downer.  

It's also the race where I thought I was a total fuck up. Mile 35 running mad and focused and I thought of my daughter and how badly I just wanted to be with her instead.  For a moment I just lost it.  How horrible of a dad I was by running a race instead of chasing her around at the park.  

I gathered myself rather quickly and put everything into perspective but not a run goes by today without me thinking of my 2 kids.  About what I might be sacrificing.  That at the end of the day, I'm a better father and husband because of running but it still doesn't make being away from them any easier.    

Run Rabbit Run 100M - I have a whole other post drafted regarding this race that I'll put up some other time. For now, months after the race has ended, I still have incredible memories of spending so much time with family and friends. 

Reflecting on the past is fun and all but at times, there needs to be some kind of purpose in doing so.  I've made many positive strides as a person...as a runner in the past year.  Yet this fight to be better father, husband, runner continues. It's a very frustrating fight because it's one I will never win regardless of how hard I try.

Reality is I'll never be happy with the end result (even the best for my family isn't good enough in my eyes). But thankfully that's all on me and I wouldn't want it any other way.  

         

    

November 2013 Summary

Thanksgiving Morning:

Woken up at 3:45am and my wife alerted me she's in labor but not to far along. Thinking a lunch time baby. Wait, ain't this baby due in 10 days and not now?
Fast forward 45 minutes and she's going to have our son any moment. Thankfully already packed.  
Realizing we don't have a game plan for anyone to watch our daughter.
Running red lights along Downing on the way to the hospital. Now that was fun.
Explaining to my daughter how babies are really delivered and getting this reaction:

Actually that reaction is more from the lack of sleep combined with the sugar rush of a 6am popsicle!

6:30am baby boy born.  

So what did you do for Thanksgiving?

Now on to lesser important running related items.....

Runs - 22
Running Days - 22
Weightlifting Days - 11
Avg Miles per Running Day - 8.5
Vertical Feet Ran - 14,000
Injured - 0
Push Ups per Day/Month - 156
Push Ups per Day/Year - 108

I'll start with my Weightlifting first yet again as it's been my main focus for a few months now.  I had a goal of hitting the weight room 12 times this month but had to adjust to baby boys schedule.  Still, the progress I've made since making the weights a focus has been great.

Focus is still on every body part.  One of the biggest improvements I've noticed over the past few months is finding that muscle balance between the right and left side of the body.  For example, I noticed on my dumbbell lunges, my right leg was weaker then my left.  I've noticed slight muscle imbalances all over the place and I've made it a goal to even them out as much as possible...specifically the legs.  

Hitting the weights pretty frequently rarely left me fresh when it came to Running.  Squats, lunges, calf raises take their toll when trying to run a 8 miler around the hood or up Mt Morrison later that same day or the next.  Or even a few days later.  

But whatever.  I'm not training for anything and enjoying the simple act of running.  And this past month has been very enjoyable!  3 random summits, 2 short races in one day, 1 twenty mile pancake run.  All with friends who share the same passion of running and breakfast beers!  While the weights have rarely left me fresh, the focus on balancing out the muscle strength has been very noticeable as of late.  Hard to explain but the simple act of running has felt its smoothest in months.  I am sure this is also a sign of being fully recovered from all the races I've done since February.

(Santa Fe has many fun trail running options!)

Speaking of being recovered, it's funny how ones mind quickly shifts to "now what!".  Part of me really wants to start up a new training cycle for an upcoming race but thankfully there is nothing on the race radar till March.  As for the month end numbers, I was hoping for slightly more but baby boy altered plans during the last long weekend of the month.

Push Up Challenge. The stats are now up above.  I made a huge push this past month thinking time would be limited with baby boy's arrival in early December.  What resulted was my best number of push ups in one month.

Looking Forward

Finding that sweet balance of family with a new born, work and running.  It won't be easy, especially with such short cold days in the immediate future.  But the challenge in finding that balance is all the motivation I need to get after it with all I got.  I already see a lot of 4am wake up calls for my week day runs.

I won't make a separate post for my 2014 schedule, but for now I'm looking at the following - Salida, Colorado in March. Lake City, Colorado in June.  Logan, Utah in September.  Many mountain adventures in between.