HALLELUJAH

Yesterday morning as Jakeb and I ran in the dark we passed a guy on Azalea who was seeing his wife off for whatever she had to do that day. That is not all that unusual. What was funny though is that he was over 300 pounds and was wearing nothing but a pair of white boxers. As she pulled out of the driveway, he raised his hands in the air and shook his hips like a person trying to hoola hoop. While he did his dance he kept yelling “HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH!”

I don’t know if he was trying to embarrass the poor woman but he was embarrassing me. Jakeb asked, “Is he drunk?” He was either drunk or odd for God. It was funny to watch and our whole family had a good laugh about it as we ate dinner last night.

This morning Jakeb and I rode our bikes to the track. He ran two and went home. I did ladders.

2x200
400
800
1 mile
800
400
2x200

I didn’t start my watch so I don’t know how fast I ran. The rate of perceived exertion was “painful” towards the end. It felt good to finish though.

Long runs and new shoes

I ran 14 yesterday and felt pretty good. This morning I ran three with Jakeb and it went so well I tacked on two more after he finished.

My forefoot on the right side has been hurting lately. I got a new pair of shoes Sunday and I think it helped. My foot doesn’t hurt near as bad today as it has the last couple of weeks the day after my long run. I bought some Brooks Adrenaline GTS-6.

Jakeb told me a couple of mornings ago that running is getting easier for him. I feel the same way. The weather this morning sure helped.

"In-Training" motivation

Yesterday we loaded up in the Explorer and Jakeb, my wife Andrea, her sister Gwen, our nephew Matthew and I headed to Memorial Park for the Marathon kick-off party. We registered for the half-marathon in January. Jakeb and I are running it and Andrea and Gwen plan to walk it.

There were vendors and charities there and you could sign-up for other races as well. I want to run “10 for Texas” in October. We’ll see if the family schedule will allow it.

I plan to run White Rock in December. I want to be like EQ.

The party was good motivation and today Jakeb, Andrea, and I are wearing our “In Training” t-shirts.

Accomplishment of the week

Jakeb and I took off in the muggy overcast morning for what was supposed to be a four miler. We hit about a mile and a half and I felt good so I asked Jakeb how he was doing.

He said, “I feel good.”

“Good enough to run five?”

“Sure, I’ll try it”, he said.

So we stretched our four miles into five. At about 3 and a half it started to rain which made the run much nicer since it was hot.

Toward the end Jakeb said, “This is my accomplishment of the week.”

I asked, “Are you ready to run eight more?”

To which he replied, “I will be in January.”

Good answer.

Full Track Workout

I finished my first full track workout of this season. I’ve stopped short of what my training schedule called for me to run on every other track workout so far. I felt much better this morning. I think the main reason I finished this workout was because I recently got an iPod and it sure helped me keep running to have music in my head.

The Brazoswood High School drill team showed up about half-way through my workout and decided the best place to meet before they started practice was on the track. They left half of the outside lane for runners and walkers to pass through. It’s their world … we just take up space in it.

Jakeb made the trip to the track with me. He ran two and then went home on his bike ahead of me.

800 warm-up
1 mile (400 recovery)
800 (400 recovery)
2x400 (400 recovery)
4x200 (200 recovery)
800 cool-down

All of the blue stuff was at about 7:00 per mile pace

Lake Conroe

I spent the last four days on Lake Conroe at a Leadership Team Retreat for our church. The last two days of running in the morning were great as the weather cooled down to something pleasant rather than the hot humidity that is the norm. I am used to running on the completely flat Lake Jackson roads so the “hills” around Lake Conroe at the beginning of every run were somewhat of a challenge.

It is good to be back home with the fam and running where running is familiar.