Two Weeks To Go!

Two weeks from today and I’ll be running my second Half Marathon.  Today’s run was the first run in months that I actually kept track of my timing.  I averaged an 11:04.  At that pace, I’ll PR by nearly 10 minutes.  However, the first 3-4 miles I was at a much slower pace than the rest of the run.  I’m fairly confident that come race day, I’ll be down around a 10:45 pace.

I’m behind on some blog writing.  Over the last few weeks, I’ve gotten in some great runs.  I’ll post them soon.  Last week, I was in Kentucky for work.  I found and ran a hellacious trail run.  It was so tough, It took me about 45 minutes just to go 2 miles!  Plus, I had a bit of an accident, nothing major though.  I’m 95% better, just some slight tenderness in my left ankle occasionally, when I walking down steps.  I’ll wait to share the specifics. 

In other news, I’m still eating a whole foods plant based lifestyle.  It’s been about two weeks without eating meat, but I have had some fish here and there.  My blood pressure has been below the hypertension level, not perfect, but technically not hypertension.  I’ve not had any acid reflux in several weeks, and haven’t had a pill in roughly a month.  My weight is hovering just above 200 lbs for the last week.  That’s about a 16-17 lb drop in two months.  Heck yeah!  I’m hoping that tomorrow mornings weigh in will have me below the 200lb mark. 

Well that’s about it for now.  As I mentioned before, I’ll post some experiential run reports soon!

Saturday Sixer

No, not that kind of Sixer!   I got in six miles out the at NCR Trail today.  The weather out was nice with a brisk breeze, sunny skies, and a relatively warm temperature out (They were salting the highway in anticipation of snow and ice tomorrow!). 

I’ve mentioned the NCR Trail many times on here, but I can’t help but give it praise again.  I just LOVE this trail.  Today it was not as crowded as I anticipated it to be.  Still, there were quite a few people out, and one of my favorite things to do is people watch while running. I got plenty of it today, minus the hassle of dodging them all. 

The run itself was nothing spectacular, a simple long run in preparation for my impromptu half marathon next month.  But the combination of weather, trail condition, and having a race goal, made for a wonderful run. 

I'm Registered

I came across a local half marathon that is run on my favorite trail, the NCR Trail. What a great way to kick start some running motivation, right? Well, unfortunately it's in less than 7 weeks. I debated over it. Could I vamp up in time? After playing with some training schedules, I decided to go for it. After all, I ran a half marathon only 4 months ago. I should be fine right? I guess we'll see! It's the 3rd Annual Back on My Feet Nikia's Nippy Nor'easter Half Marathon & Relay. Last year there were a total of 124 finishers.


While I'm not one to suck money from others, since this race is a fundraising event, they automatically created a personalize donation site.  If you're feeling generous, have at it.  I won't mind either way...

My Fundraising Site.

Happy 2nd Blogoversary

I'm late by a few days, but February 10th made it two years that I've been blogging about running, life, and such. 

It's been a great experiment and I hope to continue to blog/run indefinitely.

Oh, and I'm thinking of signing up for another half marathon soon.  I think I need a race goal to motivate me.  :)

Monthly Catch-Up

If I have any readers left, welcome.  It's been nearly a month of silence, so I figured I need to update everyone.

A.  I've been on a CPAP/BiPAP for a month now and I'm still fighting to get affective therapy.  The good news is I took to the machine easily.  I have no trouble sleeping with it on, and actually find it soothing in the mornings.  The unit I have tracks all my data and stores it on an SD card.  The resourceful me found some software that can read this data, so I'm tracking my daily progress.  Also, I'm feeling much better.  I wake more refreshed, rarely take naps during the day, and overall feeling better.

Now for the bad news.  It's not adequately controlling my apneas.  I have central sleep apnea, meaning the somewhere along the link between my brain and lungs, the signal to breath sometimes stops. I typically have 2-3 periods of time where there is a start stop interval of about 15-20 seconds.  I recently moved to a BiPAP, which is supposed to help, but thus far, it's not much better.

B.  Our 10 day juice fast was condensed to a 7 day fast.  It was going well and I was feeling great, but the taste of green juices started getting nauseating to both of us.  I still enjoy the morning juice a few times a week, and am considering doing another 7-10 days, but modifying it with a lunch salad.

The good news, I lost nearly 10 lbs, and have only gained about 2 back since stopping the fast.  I've cut out coffee/tea, fast food, and donuts.  I'd say that I've been a vegetarian for about 85-90% of my meals, and many times, I'm eating vegan.  I still like and have the occasional meat, but only sparingly.

The great news, my blood pressure has dropped significantly.  Most of the time, I'm in a normal range, and that's with stopping the meds.  Yep, I've been sans medications for nearly a month.  If I have a fairly high sodium meal, then I've noticed it creep back up, but not to high numbers.  I'm hoping that as I continue down this path, hopefully get the sleep apnea better controlled, and loose some additional weight, that my numbers will drop even more.  Wahoo!

C.  Now for the topic everyone *snickers, as I don't think hardly anyone but Jen reads this* comes here for.. running.  Let's just say I've been keeping a minimum base going, and when I say minimum, I mean 1-2 runs per week.  Things have been busy, it's been cold, and I've got no races on the schedule.  Yup, I'm slacking it.  There is no excuses, I've just been lazy.

When I do get out there, save for the cold weather, my runs have been going well.  I'm still not tracking time, but I know I'm slower than normal.  Mostly, my running has been leisurely jogging.

I so can not wait for spring to get here!