"Down" week done...
August 10 - 16:
Sun - 8 on Phil Eight Me route (Phil was our big half-miler in college...raised on a farm on goat's milk...always told us to eat something)
Mon - 10 on Michigan (named after the route on which I lost my Michigan baseball hat one fated winter run) with Cam....last run in Milwaukee and in regular fashion Cam hauled us around at a quick pace
*left WI around 4pm in the afternoon
Tues - 4 in Colorado at grandparent's place (good to get some of grandma's cookin' and a nap as well)
*arrived here after 23 hours of driving/gas stops/bano stops/staying awake stops
Wed - 7 in Reno (was going to do an old high school route through hills behind high school but everyone is building something crazy so I ended up running UP and then UP some more)
*pulled into town after another 11 hours from CO to NV
Thur - 9 on Geoff's Helly Hill (went to high school with Geoff...ran to his neighborhood and then UP for an entire mile and change...I stopped at the very top so my lungs wouldn't explode)
Fri - Gimpy 7 (ran from Micah's house....he got hit by an SUV on his bike a few weeks ago and is now two weeks away from getting out of his wheelchair and onto crutches)
Sat - 9.5 at Galena Creek Park with Roanld and Brian who are my coach's oldest and youngest sons (the park starts at 6,000 feet and then climbs UP...Ron has a few years on me and is rolling 100 mile weeks right now so I was afraid he was going to roll me...we just ran normal but the consistent UP of the run killed me)
WEEK: Miles at 54.5. The goal was 50-55 with the travels so that turned out just fine plus I got in a double digit run as well. The reentry to Reno running has proved tough. I am living behind my old high school (props to the Geib family for opening their door!) and forgot how HILLY every run turns out. If I want a flat run I drive somewhere. I also forgot how bumpy the trails run. It will be some time for my ankle and feet muscles to adjust. In the mean time I need to work on my balance and use bocce balls (it is a secret I got from an Irishman...just ask). Never really felt good on any run, but I am just chalking that up to the transitioning.
A LARGE thanks to Neal for driving back with me. Although at 4am on Tuesday Neal downed caffeine pills using Coke. A few hours later we were stopped at McDonalds with Neal shaking and trying to get some food in his stomach to settle things. Besides this small incident Neal proved an excellent copilot. Within three hours we were not on the mapped course and as we proceeded through Illinois Neal used an Iowa map to chart our course. I'm also pretty sure that around midnight on Monday I thought I went past a semi, but as I checked in my review mirror a few seconds later it did not appear. Not sure if that Monsoon energy drink was a good idea.
UP NEXT: more running. I just need to run and get the legs/lungs adjusted to the UP and lack of O2. Also need to find a job. Domingo (coach) and I are also working out a time to sit down and chart out the fall's training plan. More on that once things are set.
*Neal motions to a truck driver to honk: "No, don't scratch your nose!"
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Packing sucks...
So this whole throw-my-crap-in-my-car-and-drive-to-Reno-to-run-for-a-few-years thing is encompassing way more work than I thought. My roomate and I spent the past three days packing and cleaning and cleaning and packing. Oh, and moving his stuff to his new place. And then hauling his couches up the 180 degree turn that leads to his new second floor apartment. And then after that I looked over all my stuff and asked, "Now what do I really need for the next two years?" So as I type this a bunch of duffle bags, a Memphis State University "Joggers and Walks: Please Stay On Outside 3 Lanes" sign, and some odds and ends sit ready to move. Moral of the story I'm ready to throw all this in my car and start driving. But that will come soon enough (aka Monday)...
As for the week's running:
Sun - 7 in the AM the day after Zach's wedding with Cam (former roomate in college)...drove from MN back to WI
Mon - 9 in the real early AM with Blake....took Zach and Beth to airport afterwards
Tues - 13 at Whitall Park (good mix of roads and trails) with Cam on a flippin' humid and warm morning...halfway through my feet were saturated to the point that an audible "squish" occured with every step....and the horseflies decided to swarm as we ran through the trails (they made me angry)
Wed - 8.5 with run on Bandana Trail with Cam and eight strides at Warrior Fields afterwards...weather a bit drier
Thur - 11 at the Bugline with Cam on a much nicer morning (much less moisture in the air)
Fri - 8 in the AM by myself...kept things real slow....after packing and moving all day I went to Cam's new apartment to help him move a couch which all turned out to be a big lie and instead a bunch of friends were waiting and we had a "going away" shindig...I ate four hamburgers
Sat - Easy Ten route with Cam and Blake for 11 total (the route is nither ten miles nor easy)
Miles = 67.5 in singles. This is my highest mileage week in over a year (if not more). Guess the past school year of working 5:30am - 5:30pm kind of limited all that. It feels real good to log multiple runs over ten. The start of the week kicked my butt in terms of hot and humid WI weather. The rest of the week cooled off which really helped. Felt kind of average all week, but Saturday's run felt way above par. Last week I also kept Friday's run real easy and Saturday turned out real nice. I think I found a trend for the future. I also got into a good routine this week of going to bed about the same time and running earlier in the morning.
Worked in some solid abs and stretching throughout the week. I also did pushups! On Thursday I did 20-15-10. After that my elbows were real wobbly. As Cam once said (I believe after one of the girl's on the team out did my pushup max), "Tim, God did not create you to do pushups."
In two days the move goes down. I'm using this upcoming week as a down week. This should help keep things fresh going into the start of real training with Domingo (coach in NV). It will also help take off the stress of I-need-my-miles-even-though-I'm-driving-2,000-miles-in-three-days. Thinking about the trip and settling into the upcoming life makes me nervous. It is like a thousand details need to line up. I'm also not a fan of being unsettled. If anything, this time is providing a chance to just trust God.
"I'm out of energy from sniffing tub cleaner and scrubbing floors all day" ~ former roomate towards end of day's work
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Another week in the books...
I spent the past week at home in small town Minnesota with my family. The moms and pops are still doing well and my little brothers are just growing like crazy! The oldest little guy is almost as tall as me and outweighs me. Needless to say he is skipping distance running and going out for football this fall. Best part is that even before high school he is reading the Lord of the Rings series.
I was also in Minnesota for a real good friend's wedding where I got to play the role of best man. The wedding occured only fifteen minutes from home so that worked out real well.
SUN - 7 (flew home to WI from x-c camp on a red eye...slept it off all day and ran after evening church)
MON - 10 (attempted twelve, but the "Welcome Home!" from the humidity crushed that...felt crappy)
TUES - 10 in the evening after driving home to MN (at 8pm it was still 80 degrees and humid)
WED - 10 in evening (humid enough to feel the sweat squishing between my toes by the end of the run...felt so-so)
THUR - 7 in early afternoon = bad idea with weather (also woke up today with a really, really tight and sore left achillies. it hurt to walk up and down stairs. not sure where this came from. stretched it before and after run)
FRI - an easy 6 in the morning with the guy's from school who came out for the wedding
SAT - 10 and a quarter in 66+ in the AM (kept with tradition and ran ten miles the morning of our friend's wedding. the tradition started last summer when my roomate of four years got married. went out with a decent group of guys and felt real good!)
WEEK: 60 on the week. A lot of humid runs. Didn't feel that good on any run until Saturday. Very positive to hit a sixty mile week in singles. Also positive to log the four double digit runs...a necessary step forward.
UPCOMING: Plan is to hit at least sixty-five this coming week (in singles). This is my final week in Milwaukee. Honestly, I can't wait to be out of the humidity. The whole trip and transition and settling process won't provide the most fun...I'm not a big fan of being "unsettled." I am thankful, though, for the family in Reno who has happily opened their house as living space.
"Hey, put some clothes on!" ~ my mom Saturday morning as we finished the run (she was out shopping and we ran past her on the other side of the street.....thanks mom)
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One adventure to the next...
As I sit in my living room in Milwaukee, reflections from the past two weeks continue through my head. I spent those past fourteen days in Washington at the Clear Lake/White Pass X-C Camp. My high school coach from Washington puts on the camp each summer, with each session lasting a week. High school kids come up, learn tons, and stay at the condos at White Pass. I recieve the privilidge of serving as a counselor. Basically this means I am in charge of a dozen or so kids for the week. As group leader I make sure everyone is chill for the week, lead the team in volleyball/four square/eating contests, and basically just hang out with these kids and give them some mad skills. Running wise it means I get to train at 4500 feet on some flippin' sweet trails AND smell pine trees and fresh air every day!
WEEK 1 (July 13 - 19):
Sun - Dark Meadows for 7
Mon - 4.5 in AM
-7.5 in PM on Yellowjacket (down for 1/2 a mile before climbing up a dirt service road)
Tues - 9 in AM on Yellowjacket and extra
- 3 in PM with relay with kids and short shake out
Wed - 5.5 UP the ski mountain (2 mile run up in 22:22...it climbs 1500 feet)
- 4.5 around Dog Lake (although I never saw the lake)
Thur - 7.5 in AM up Yellowjacket
- small shakeout in PM (not counting miles)
Fri - 7.5 in AM up Yellowjacket
*by this point (the last day of camp) all the counselors sleep little and still run so getting this one in at 6:30am is tough, but very rewarding. best part is that we ran right to the dining hall in the main ski lodge and i totally owned some belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream and bacon!
Sat - 8 in afternoon in Yakima (city I stayed in during breaks in camp)
*so the truck I rode in to this run didn't start after the run. so the driver and i ended up running to my old coach's house (the one who is camp director) and asked him to give us a ride back. i planned five or six and got eight. oh well.
MILES: 64
WEEK 2 (July 20 - 26)
Sun - 7 around Dark Meadows
Mon - 4.5 in AM
- 9 in PM on Yellowjacket and extra - got dropped going up by a few guys from the u. of michigan who were also counselors. at least it wasn't by my grandma
Tues - 7.5 in AM up Yellowjacket
- relay with kids plus Dog Lake for 5
Wed - 7 total with the run back up the mountain (this time in 21:08!)
- 6 total around Dog Lake (which ends up also having some "nice" climbs)
Thur - 7.5 in AM up Yellowjacket (blasted the last 1/2 mile up the hill we run down at the start)
- small shake out in PM (not counting for miles)
Fri - 9 in AM on Yellowjacket and extra
Sat - 4.5 around Seattle on a calm evening
MILES: 67
Reflections:
-Finally have a month's worth of regular training under my belt (54, 53.5, 64, 67). I've also worked in weights and strides to this, as well as regular stretching and abs.
-Having meals and runs regimented (aka camp) is just the best ever. So props to the kitchen staff for having my eggs, bacon, and biscuits every morning!
-Altitude and soft trails are also the best ever. Milwaukee is tons different, weather wise, than camp. Last night (Sunday) after travelling all day I finally got in my run. Only seven miles later my shorts again were saturated. Today I planned twelve, but made it ten. By the end my shoulders had shriveled into dinosaur arms, it looked like I just got out of a pool, and someone took Peter Griffin's sweat towel and wrung it out in my shoes! Gross. My roomate of four years always says, "Humidity is poor man's altitude." I think he is right. After today's run I felt poor....like someone kicked me in the crotch and stole my good training.
-The letdown of such a fun time sucks. At least I go through this kind of high and low as opposed to drugs. I guess a project is to work on seeing it all as a blessing and not something I'm missing out on.
-If a large guy from the University of Michigan (who ran a 1:48 this past spring) finds you and tells you he sucks at running hills, don't believe him! He sucked at the hills for the first day. Then he pushed the hills.
-Check out the band Throw Me The Statue. I saw them in Seattle the day before coming back to Milwaukee.
-Never underestimate how cool it is to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones. The other counselors (Blount, Charles, Justin C, Marcie, G-Braith, Justin S, Brandon, Big-M, Nick, Trish, Uli, Freker, Steve, Tyler, Will, Alderson, and Tae) made the past two weeks all that. Those that threw down Friday night made the best memory of the entire two weeks.
-Special thanks to all those involved in the transportation and living situations during the two weeks. Without the trips to and from airports and extra couches and beds, this would never work out.
UPCOMING:
-Now that I'm home for a day and doing laundry it is time to pack again and drive to Minnesota to visit my family for a few days. After that I'm my friend Zach's wedding. The wedding is only fifteen minutes from home so that helps lump everything together. After all that I'm back in Milwaukee for a week before the move to Reno goes down. Hot dang.
-Running wise, I want to log mid-60's for the next two weeks. That will be a good time to lower the miles for a week which will fit with the 2,000 mile drive to Reno. Hopefully it will also give the body a good break from a month and a half of sustained miles. I also want the next few weeks of running to get done with longer miles, but less number of runs. The build over the past two weeks went well, but running twice a day for a few days obviously helps that. The body needs to readjust to logging those miles with longer runs.
-EAT.....A LOT! Part of the reason camp went so well is that I was indeed able to consume copious amounts of calories (also quality calories). Making my own meals sucks time, but oh well. Much love to the moms back in high school. Miss her cooking and effort on those meals.
AC/DC said it best: Its a long way to the top if you wanna' rock and roll.
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And life begins...
Hi. I'm Tim. I'm a year out of college and returning to competitive running. The "why" is a bit harder to answer. I'll still try though...
-Delved into running in high school
+two years in WA and two in NV
+served as captain of x-c and track state champ teams senior year in NV
+4:27 mile and 9:51 deuce (happened in same meet...also turned me into a believe of
bacon cheeseburgers over pasta the night before races)
-Continued at a DIII Lutheran school in Milwaukee to major in U.S. History and Secondary Education
+won conference x-c three of four years
+established a number of school records (which are now gone...tear)
+built to being able to log 70 miles a week
+25:31 x-c 8k, 9:08 indoor 3k, 15:30 outdoor 5k
Moral of the story, I've been blessed with a certain level of running talent.
Then came student teaching. All along I planned to finish college, earn my certification, and move back to NV and train under my old h.s. coach. A higher power held different plans and I found myself in the world of urban education. I taught at an inner-city Christian middle school. Basically I showed up at 5:30am and left at about the same time each afternoon (which turned out to be just amazing...ask about it sometime!). During this I kept running and even got close to sixty miles/week in the fall. However, both teaching and running felt like they took away from the other.
Furthermore, the first year granted me a time of amazing personal growth. About a quarter of the way into this year my mentor teacher asked, "Now that you are about to take on more of a teaching load, do you realize you are going to need to cut back on running?" THAT hit like a ton of bricks. Up to this point in life running has always measured a close second to school. I thought the same could occur while teaching. Turns out otherwise. I really didn't see the purpose in kicking my own tail each afternoon after kicking it all day at school (but don't get me wrong, the kids I worked with are awesome). Plus my legs never felt the same once the school year started. Personally, standing all day in dress shoes just shot everything to crap. Most days my legs felt pretty wobbly and the quads never really had any lift. "So why build more stress after an already stressful day?" I thought.
I've struggled with letting running take too much time and energy in the past. My moms used to chew me out in high school. She also spent a gazillions dollars at Costco buying food and made me drink whole milk. She's hip. Anyways, one of the big reasons I chose teaching over running at the end of student teaching occured because running felt like too much of a selfish choice. Teaching felt like a better use of my gifts. So I taught. Things started to change after having a conversation with a really good friend about Ryan Hall, a strong Christian. Thing is, I've never known how to make running fit with my faith. This friend and I started to hammer out our thoughts and questions. Keeping a longer story only kind of long, I'm just starting to figure out that running can be used to praise Christ.
At the end of the day, teaching and running "matched." In each I found myself blessed with gifts. In each I found the chance to use those gifts for a higher purpose. With that said, the time to run is now. My principal was very, very supportive through this whole process (which started in September and finished up about a month ago) and said I could come back when running finished. I'm not going to teach for five years and then get back into running. Gots to use the legs as they are still young and vivacious.
THE plan:
+move back to NV later this summer
+train under old h.s. coach for at least two years
THE goals:
+grow in my relationship with Christ through the use of my running ability
+conquer the mental demons of training, and more importantly racing
+sub 29:30 10K
+return to urban teaching knowing the opportunity no longer exists
So that's that. I'm pretty pumped about sharing training and life in this blog. I'm also looking forward to sharing thoughts and questions with ya'll. Feel free to question and comment.
"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." ~ mentor teacher from past year
How do you take on competitive running? One bite at a time.
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