Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!: January 2019

Longest Treadmill Run in YEARS!

>> Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Yesterday I hit the treadmill on campus for 11 miles. (I know I've done 12 or 13 on a treadmill before, but that was probably 9-10 years ago.) It was my longest run since September when I was training for the TC 10 Mile - I had just 1 run that was 11 miles or more in 2018. We had just gotten 4-5 inches of snow on Sunday night, and if you haven't heard, we're in the middle of a deep freeze up here right now. (It was -10 when I did the run [-25 with windchill], and it's around -25 now [-50 to -58 with windchill] - both of my boys have the day off from school, as does most of the state.)

The treadmill went up to 60 minutes before "cooling down" for 10 minutes, and then it wouldn't let me run after that. So here's my first 70 minutes at exactly 10 miles:

And after resetting the treadmill, I ran another 1 mile for 11 total in 1:17:22.

I warmed up for 2 miles, descended the middle 6 miles by 0.1 mph every half mile (started at 8.7 mph and worked my way up to 9.8 mph), and then cooled down for 3 more miles. My middle 6 were ran in 39:03, or 6:30/mile pace. That took effort, but wasn't TOO hard. (I noted in this post 2 weeks ago that I did 4.5 miles of a long run WITH CHARLIE with a 6:24 average pace, so 6:30 pace without a stroller on a treadmill wasn't KILLER.)

Oh really?...

... I hadn't noticed! My treadmill was sneaking WAY forward from the wall (which you can't even
see on the far right of this pic). College students had to walk around me by the end of this. Sorry!

Soaked through, obviously. (This was while I was doing my heel exercises 2 minutes later.)

Back with vacation pics and vacation workouts shortly (probably next Monday). I finally nearly have all the photos fixed up!

Back from Mexico!!

>> Monday, January 28, 2019

Last week, my family spent some good time together in Mexico! I'll be back with more photos at some point, and some details on some halfway decent workouts (well, some failed run workouts, but I can blame my unacclimated body). In the meantime, here are 4 photos I posted on Instagram and 2 more for good measure:

Family dinner over the ocean!

We got to watch the sun go down behind Ixtapa Island during our meal.

My folks and their 4 grandkids before dinner.

A sleepy, cozy boy on a long plane ride home.

Two of the best things about this trip were:

Seeing my cutie in a bikini (or bikini cover-up) for a week straight.

And showing my boys the ocean for the first time.

Back with more soon!

Incentive to Race Harder from Brooks

>> Saturday, January 26, 2019

Brooks did something a few years ago at the TC Marathon where if you were faster during a late mile of the race (like mile 22) than your overall marathon average, you’d be put in a drawing to win some Brooks swag. I thought that was a fun idea.

This year, they did something like that for the Marathon called “Outrun Yourself” when you tried to beat last year’s time. What I didn’t realize is that they were also doing it for TC 10 Mile. If you ran the TC 10 Mile in 2017 and then ran it FASTER in 2018, you’d be entered. Well, I qualified by 18 seconds: 1:01:59 in 2017, and 1:01:41 in 2018. So I received an email saying I’d already won:

- 25 GRAND PRIZE winners would get free marathon entry for 2019, a VIP package, a pair of Brooks running shoes, and 2 other Brooks apparel items.
- 125 FIRST PRIZE winners would get free marathon entry for 2019.
- And EVERYONE ELSE would get a running hat from Brooks.

When I got my postcard notice in the mail a month ago, I was one of the “everyone else.” So I stopped by Running Room to claim my free hat: