The Most Comfortable Shoes Ever

I picked up a pair of Sanuk shoes for half price at a ski store a couple weeks ago.  I am wearing them all day for the first time.  They are no doubt, the most comfortable shoes ever created.  They are so comfortable, they really promote a happier attitude when walking around doing your daily business.  If everyone on Wall Street was wearing them, they would make the Dow soar!

Workouts: September 29 - October 5, 2008

I am kinda disappointed in my running mileage this week.  I need to do more long runs in preparation for the Philadelphia Marathon.  I have not done anything remotely "long" since last Sunday's half marathon.  It took me until about Thursday to feel recovered from that effort.  I needed to do a long run on the weekend.   Waited too long, as usual, thinking I could do it after the race I volunteered at on Sunday - but the post-race visit to The Grove dimished my motivation to do that.  Hopefully I can get two long runs in during this week.  That is my goal - along with increasing sleep.  So here are the workouts -

By the way, I have been creating these workout summaries by taking screen captures of the Zelky Workout Tracker application on Facebook.  I wish there was a way to load them right into blogs via a web widget.

Training is Cheap, & The Last Miles of Newport-Liberty Half Marathon

I have been riding my bike a lot, and I should do a duathlon or triathlon, but every time I look for one to put on my calendar, I say to myself, I can go out and run and bike farther by myself on that day, have a great time, and save myself a couple hundred bucks! I would have much rather gone running in the woods today than in Jersey City. A couple of weeks ago in Watchung Reservation I ran about 1/4 mile behind a fox.

Speaking of which, in today's Newport-Liberty Half Marathon, I finished the race with Laura S., who caught me with a 1.5 miles to go. What a racing animal - I had no clue she was so focused and she was catching me. I must have been slowing down and she probably ran negative splits. She said, "We are going to catch that guy in yellow!" OK, motivation for me besides thinking I had to run fast so the RVRR women wouldn't beat this old guy. The guy in yellow was about 50 yards ahead of us, with some others between us and him. Well, in the next mile we reeled in the others, but not the guy in yellow. With a bit less than a half mile left, I went harder to catch the guy in yellow, and I also wanted to make Laura run faster. I caught the yellow guy, and have a story to tell too. Races are cool like that sometimes. I ran 1:32:01 - about seven minutes slower than I ran just three years ago, but about seven faster than last year. Races are cool like that sometimes, too. I have learned in my old age not to take them as seriously as I used to. I like to think that any day I am out there running, I am one of the luckiest guys in the world.

Training: September 22-28, 2008

Workouts: September 15-21, 2008

Genetics

My son was 4th man in his first high school cross-country meet.  Not too bad for a freshman, but his high school isn't exactly an XC power.  It was a double dual meet, and they lost against both teams.  He ran 22-something.  Better than he was running this summer at the summer series XC races.  There his best time was 24:57.  I ran about the course barefoot, taking photos of the team.  Any similarities in the photos below?

My Son, September 17, 2008

Me, H.S. Senior, Fall of 1976