New Land Distance Record

Alright, so today was a long one.  I meant to be out for 2:30, but it took 2:42 to go 18.3 miles:


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Now before I get all sorts of "you're nuts!" about this, I thought I'd throw some numbers out here:

• a basketball player runs about 2-3 miles during a game
• a golfer walks about 4 miles playing 18 holes
• a soccer player runs about 5-6 miles during a game
• one walks about 8-12 miles at an amusement park in a day

And if you still think what I do is crazy, think about this:

• at my half-marathon mark today the best runners in the world would've been nearly done with a full marathon
• I was still almost eight miles short of a a full marathon today
• a full marathon is short in the world of ultrarunning, which consists of 50, 100, or more mile races

After all, the point of the name of my blog is not that I think what I do is crazy, but rather I'm crazy about it.

All that said and done, 18 miles felt like a very long way!  But it's only about twice the distance you'd walk at Disney over a day.  Everything's relative.

More (non-facial) Bruising

Got home early enough to do 11.6 today.  It seemed short!


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I entertained myself by having an imaginary interview for a new job once I get out of the military.  It turns out I have a surprising amount of experiences, but I need to shorten my stories.


So I've been nursing a bruise on the bottom of my left foot since before vacation last week. Usually there's no outward bruising, so you would expect that the bruise you didn't even notice getting today wouldn't have any outward marking considering the still painful bruise on the other foot is just a subcutaneous lump.

Where did you come from?

Maybe it's some of that herpes of the foot my wife thinks I'm bound to contract.

"Hill" Repeats

So there's not much in the way of hills in this part of Ohio, so what do we do?  We go up and down and up and down.  Even by way of a hill for repeats this one was far too small, but it was something.

Epically nonepic

I ran up the hill to start, across the top, down one side, around part of the bicycle trail, and back up the hill again for one repeat.  The second time up the hill I slowed down at the top, went down the hill, around the trail, and started again before going back up the hill.


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Each fast part of the repeat was about 1/3 of a mile.  I did four of these, but I should've quit while I was ahead.  I was planning on taking it back from the park faster than I took it out, but instead I thought I was going to have to stop for a while...see my previous post on Runner's Trot.  I blame the heap of fruit salad I ate yesterday containing APPLES.

Damn you delicious deciduous fruit of dysentery and death!

Which is Hotter: North Carolina or Ohio?

Here was my last short run on the beach.  For some speed work, I tried to stay as close as I could to the surf on the way back, running in and out with the waves.

Now, you wouldn't think that Ohio would be hotter than the beach, but it was quite toasty today.  Look, I tried to fry an egg on the asphalt and it just evaporated.

That's damn hot

The heat index was about 100...my bad for waiting until 11:00 to start, but still, that's just silly.  I think I have a headache from being dehydrated.

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The Outer Banks Forest

I didn't end up going across the bridge for my run.  I decided to run through the more residential area of Kitty Hawk.  Maybe tomorrow morning, but I wasn't planning on going that far (if at all).  We'll see how early I'm up.


Anyway, don't be afraid to get off the shoreline if you ever go to the Outer Banks.  There's some parks and things on the back roads and some non-waterfowl some wildlife.



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Mamma Doe and Bambi

And this run was just a quick one this morning.  I ran a 1.5 mile in 9:18, which was pretty easy even after my 11.5 the day before.


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High-Risk Activities

Yesterday I wanted to go up that little finger of land on the west side of the island, but it turned out to be a gated community so I just went up to the bridge and turned around.  As it turns out, running across the bridge is possible and I may make it my next run, but I don't know.  We all know how much I dislike out-and-backs...especially really long out-and-backs...but I may make an exception so that I can say I've done it.


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I witnessed something kind of scary on Croatan Highway:

I look for sexual overtones in my christian childcare You hire priests, you say?  Sign my kid up!

I have a story.  I've never been very good at sports like football and basketball partly because my catching and throwing skills aren't amazing, and partly because I'm not good at providing or evading one-on-one coverage.  Mentally the strategy escapes me of where best to position my body in different situations, which for some people seems to come naturally.  I'm sure some of that comes with practice, but I don't think I'd ever be great at it.


The other reason I've never been very good at sports like football and basketball is I've never been particularly quick.  Even on the rare occasion when I'm in the right spot at the right time and know where someone is going, I often miss the play because I'm not fast enough.  So when my father-in-law decided he was going to challenge the sixteen year-olds on the beach to a game of touch football, I started wondering if I would be any better given that I'm faster now than I've ever been.


I tried matching myself up with the guy on the other team who was doing the most juking and running to test that out.  I was doing alright against him, but he got past me on one play and was about to get a touchdown.  I made a kind of mad dash and a lunge for him, fully expecting to miss because he had an open lane to the end zone, but this kid really liked to juke and inexplicably did it right into me.

Cut me, Mick!

I saw stars and was a little dizzy, but I told the coach to put me back in.  The kid was NOT happy that I hit him that hard, but it's not my fault that he decided to get run over.  I think I got him in the mouth because I saw him spit on the ground and then tell one of his buddies, "Look at that!"  I assume it was bloody.

Yeah, but you should see the other guy!

I'm happy with the magnitude of my first black eye

I Mean I'm Sitting Here on the Bench

Today I started my run off in the residential part of the Outer Banks.  There's a bike path that kind of meanders through the trees and houses.

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Today I found one of those hidden gems that connects you and another part of the world.  I was running by the following bench and happened to take a glance over as I went past:

Now that is awesome.  Also, weirdly enough, my father-in-law and brother-in-law did a few minutes of this song last night.  I got a picture of me sitting on the Group W bench and continued on.

Are you saying I might not be moral enough?

Go Pound Sand

Guess where I am?

Yes, the beach, but which one?


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Los Outer Bankstros, yes.  I went running this morning after inexplicably waking up at 6 am on my vacation.  Where we always rent a house, there's always the same pier off in the northern distance.  It belongs to the Corps of Engineers, who have a research and preserve area on the island.  Part of the reason for the reserve is we polluted the Outer Banks with unexploded ordnance by having a bombing range on the island...oops.

The Crab They roll this guy out into the ocean during hurricanes to do research

The pier turned out to be 4.6ish miles from our house, so I figured I may as well finish out the last little bit to make it an even five.  When I did, I found something I've never seen here before:  a puffer fish!



I always feel a little morbid taking pictures of dead things, but this fascinated me.  I didn't realize they were found this far north.  Apparently the Outer Banks is the very northern edge of their range.


I saw another rarish sight around where I found the blowfish:




I believe they usually put these signs up when they spot a rip tide.  This bodes well for my surf aspirations.

Mac and Cheese: Superfood?

Here's something I haven't done for a while:

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That track is 1/3 of a mile.  I did a couple of repeats on it, with the fast laps coming in at 1:59, 1:54, 1:55, and 1:53, so a little faster than my (apparently) 10k pace.

Looking at the Field House where the cadets do morning PT

When I was on one of my slow laps three guys were walking on the track between the parking lot and the gym (the big building to the south), taking up the whole track, and SMOKING.  I said something snide to them as I ran past on the grass.  Seriously...I don't get on people for smoking outside, but on a fitness track?  Come on.

Yesterday I got a little lost.  I meant to stay on my side of the Ohio Turnpike (80), but it didn't make my run too much longer:

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Three Meadows Park Who knew there was a beach there?

Yesterday was a long, slow slog of a run.  My legs haven't been recovering well since last weekend's 10k.  Oddly enough, my legs feel pretty great today.  Sometimes going for a run really does help your legs feel better after...running.

Oh, I think the mac and cheese helped, too.  Sara and I had dinner guests so I made Alton Brown's baked mac and cheese.  When I'm cooking for newer acquaintances I don't use whole grain and low-fat ingredients to minimize the damage.  I don't eat a lot of white pastas and breads these days but my legs like it when I do.

Poor Little Guy

I took a day off after the 10k.  My legs were still pretty sore, but I felt like I needed to get out on the fourth:

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You know how our toys just get bigger and bigger as we get older?  Bikes become cars and motorcycles, tree forts become apartments and houses, fun dip becomes heroine and cocaine...well, I like to think of where I run as my playground:

My playground is regularly a few square miles Look how fun!

Unfortunately, a thing happened on my playground...

Poor little guy, he was just trying to cross the street with his brother... =(

This was one of the saddest things I've ever seen.  That little raccoon was curled up next to the dead one in the road, and he barely noticed me at all.  When I stopped to take a picture he got a little wary (that's his backing up, I'm aggressive don't mess with me pose).  I went back later in my car with a shovel to move the dead guy off the road so he wouldn't come back and hang out there again.  There was no sign of the live one when I returned so that was a good.

I ran again today.  Nothing significant to report.  You can see that I made a wrong turn coming back, though, and had to cut through some yards to get to Coe Ct, lolz.


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I See Your 5000...and Raise You 5000 More

After putting up a decent time doing a 5k on my own, I remembered that I'd been meaning to run some road races.  Sara and I are in Butler for the long weekend, and I took the opportunity to find one close by.  There were several 5ks, but there was also a 10k and that sounded more my speed. Pre-Race Registration/Mingling

Pre-Race Me Some Dude Apparently in Awe at Self-Timer Technology

I won't put up the map of the warm-up or cool-down (about two miles each), but here's a picture from the warm-up.  The race went over this bridge at the start and then back across the creek further downstream:

This wasn't quite the epic shot of all the people lined up before the race that I envisioned when I held my camera up over my head and took a picture, but it sort of gets the point across.  Oh, do you see #211 on the left?  I was determined not to let anyone on that team beat me...something about them bugged me.  One of their ilk passed me early in the race, but he must have taken it out way too fast because I quickly overtook him and didn't see any of them again:
Shortly after that picture we were off.  My original, tentative plan was to hang back for the first half and build through the middle, but when the race got going the second pack from the lead seemed like a good pace.  In fact, after about a half-mile or so they seemed too slow, so I got strung out with a few others between the 3-5 leaders and the next pack back, probably around 15th place.  I spent the majority of the race in 10th place.



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The second time across the river was the halfway point.  It was then a timer told me, "Three miles--17:44."  My eyes got wide and I said, "Oops!"  The guy hanging out with the timer laughed.  Extrapolating that out a tenth of a mile, I had just ran a better 5k than I ever did during Cross Country in high school.  That was cool, but I wasn't sure it wasn't a mistake.


Fortunately, I was able to hold on pretty well.  My second 5k was around a 19:40, which isn't ideal but the drop-off could've been far worse.


I lost a place around mile four when a guy named Ben came up.  We chatted for about a half-mile and then he took off.  End result:

11th Overall Out of 246

No swag from the race, but it was a lot of fun and I beat my last official 10k time by several minutes.  My wife and mother-in-law thought I deserved something, though, so when I got back they had this waiting for me:

Does that Make Her a Trophy Wife?

They're slightly out of control, but I love them.