Yay, JANATHON, and New Year’s Double

Off to a great start. Janathon, two half marathons. (win!)

A nice blogger lady who I don’t really know very well hosted a New Year’s Double event in Texas. The idea was that you run a race (distances varied) on New Year’s Eve AND New Year’s Day, and you got an awesome medal for each event, and then if you did BOTH days, you got this nifty-neato thing that held them together, kinda like those “best/friend” necklaces that all the cool girls wore back in the 80’s. (Do they still do that, of just get matching tramp stamps? I dunno…) Anyway…I really love the concept, but as we live NOWHERE NEAR Allen, Texas (north and slightly east of Dallas), I decided that I would try to complete my own New Year’s Double. On the treadmill.

Yesterday I didn’t eat much for breakfast (actually, I ate nothing. I had a cup of coffee). After a wonderful conversation with T about working out, nutrition, hydration, and us trying a schedule so that each of us could actually benefit from the treadmill, I set off to run a half marathon. Earlier in the week I did a half marathon for Operation Jack, even thought I had to split it into two runs (see posting below). How hard could it be, right? T had gone shopping and B and I were home alone. We’d been playing video games a bit earlier in the day, and he wanted to play some more by himself. He said to me, “Dad, today I want to beat ModernWarfare3.” I told him to go for it as I got my GenUcan, Nuun, and water ready. I also had some shot bloks and Honey Stingers ready to eat. I set off at a nice, manageable pace that I figured I could maintain for the duration: 6~6.5mph. The plan was that I would have enough in the tank to be able to do it again the next day. I plugged my headphones in to AudioFuel’s two hour long run tracks Run Wild 1&2. I said to B, “I’m going to have headphones on and won’t be able to hear you very well, so jump up and down in front of me if you NEED something, ok?” What I think he heard was, “Now would be a good time for you to try to talk to me about random things that aren’t very important to humans,” because I wasn’t ten seconds into the run when he started blabbing about something. So I stopped to listen. And then started running again. This went on for about 10 minutes until I finally gave up and got off the treadmill. I tried to explain to him what I was doing, and that I really needed to not be bugged for ‘silly’ things.

We compromised, and I used the treadmill’s speakers to hear the music and coaching. It worked out fine, and I only had to take a few potty breaks along the way. I finished up the 13.1 miles by doing the last mile as 2x6.5mph laps + 1 @ 7.5 and then the final lap and a half at 8mph. That made my last mile the fasted mile of the day. “Result”

Quite interestingly, at mile 8.7 the belt stopped (suddenly!) and the timer reset itself to zero. The mileage and calories stayed correct (thankfully!), but the time was off. Same exact thing happened on Sunday’s run, too. Any ideas?

See all those burnt calories? Yea. WELL….I didn’t replace them. After the run I ate a Clif Builder Bar and then some string cheese, and lotsa water. For dinner I ate 2 small-ish lobsters and a small piece of steak. NOT NEARLY enough calories to replace what I spent. I ended yesterday with almost 2400 calories in the bank still to spend. I didn’t. DUMB!

Today I ate some pancakes for breakfast with B, then some American Chop Suey for lunch, about 45 minutes before my run (I’ll bet some of you know where this is going….). I hydrated well, and set out to run at the beginning of the Patriot’s game. Not really a big fan of football, but I was luck to meet Rob Gronkowski early this fall, so I have been trying to watch him play. He’s set some pretty good records this year. Great to have him part of the ArcticEase family, which I also enjoy being a foster kid to. (hahahahaha….)

[Click here to watch an ArcticEase commercial featuring the GRONK. If you pay close attention, you can see ME tossing him the football. Yep. YAY!]

So today’s run wasn’t nearly as ‘easy’ as yesterday’s half. Wow. About 3 miles in my legs felt like cement. My mind just wasn’t into it, and after 8 miles I was mentally ready to check out. The glitch at 8.7miles surprised me, and I ALMOST finished the run after 9. But I was watching the CROSSFIT reruns on ESPN2. Man. Those ladies never quit. Not just in the competition, but in their training and contest prep. You CAN’T QUIT when it gets tough or you get BORED and still expect to attain your goals.

I didn’t quit. I kept on pluggin’ along and finished the 13.1 in 2 hours and 20 minutes. The last few miles were ugly, but I still managed to run the last mile as my fastest mile, redoing the speeds that I did yesterday.

So there it is, my own New Year’s Double and my FIRST run of JANATHON 2012 sorted. Short recovery run planned for tomorrow, then who knows after that? Not I. Now off I go to EAT SOMETHING. Wow….

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