Today is a very special day. It was one year ago yesterday that I said to my wife, “I’m going to start running.” She gave me a look like, “Oh yeah? OK.” That was Sunday. I tweeted my intentions so that my friends would give me hell if I didn’t do it. I had some shorts and plenty of tshirts, and an old pair of sneakers kicking around somewhere – I thought. To get ready Sunday night I went to look for them. I found one. Just one.

Monday morning I got up. What to do, what to do??? Well, I was starting the Couch to 5K. Day one has you running just 60 seconds at a shot. I hit the trail in jeans and street shoes. It was early enough that I hardly encountered anyone on the trail and never while running. Mission accomplished. Monday after work I went and bought a pair of Nike’s. No idea what I was getting. They were labeled running shoes and they seemed to fit my feet. Good enough. Not really, but who knew?

I made it through week 1 and actually even got out there and made it through week 2! I started week 3 but then was off to England for 10 days. I considered bringing along my running shoes and continuing while I was there, but in the end decided to take a break. When I got back I re-started week 3 and made it all the way through the whole 12 week program without missing a single workout. Once or twice I shifted over a day, but I got every run in. I finished in mid-November, a changed person.

During those 13 1/2 weeks, I had acquired a real, professionally fitted pair of Asics shoes, a bunch of new running clothes, a subscription to Runners World Magazine and an addiction. To award myself for finishing, I bought myself a Garmin 305 watch. As happy as I was that I had finished, I was a bit worried about my persistence to carry on through the winter. While in a local sporting goods store, I saw a treadmill at clearance price. Home it came with me. As much as I hated running on it, there were days that I just wasn’t going out, and it kept me going.

The C25K ends with you running 30 minutes 3 times a week. After that I started the One Hour Runner program which starts right where C25K left off. After 3 weeks of running 30 minutes 3 times a week though, I was getting pretty bored. I started a program I found in a heart rate training book. This took me from doing about 9 miles a week, to doing about 18. From 3 days a week to 5. I got burnt out on that pretty quickly, but realized what was going on and switched to my own home grown program of 4 days a week.

Right around that time I joined a site called Daily Mile. After my shoes and maybe my Garmin, I’d say that Daily Mile has been the best thing I’ve done yet for my running. It’s an amazingly supportive, friendly and helpful community. I’ve been part of various on line communities for many years now. They usually start out well, but before long, cliques start to form and infighting, flame wars, trolls, etc. But in the 9 months or so that I’ve been on Daily Mile pretty much daily, I honestly can’t recall observing a single negative incident. It’s uncanny. Well, I guess you could say that occasionally people get negative about themselves. And then the rest of the place comes out and encourages them. I’ve made some good friends there, a few of whom I’ve managed to meet and even run with in real life, and gotten tons of encouragement and great advice. I can only hope that I’ve given back a portion of what I’ve gotten out of it.

In February of this year was my first race, a very chilly 5K. I did it in 25:48 which I was absolutely thrilled with. My main goal was under 30:00, and my secret goal was under 27:00. In March I did a 5 mile race, recovering from a bad cold, and running a slight fever. I got through it, let’s just say that, and without walking. The end of May saw my first half marathon, the Boston’s Run to Remember. It was hot and humid and it wasn’t pretty. I was shooting for under 2 hours but had to take so many walk breaks I came in at 2:13:43. A week later I finished my second 5K, taking almost a minute off my first time, coming in at 24:56, just under my goal of 25:00. My next 5K is less than 2 weeks away. If I can get into the 23′s with that, I’ll be a very happy camper. And in October, I have my second half marathon planned. sub-2 or bust!

Although my first half marathon didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, the training for it was amazing! I did the Hal Higdon Intermediate Half Marathon Plan. This got me doing a nice structured program of long runs, pace runs, tempo runs, and intervals. Hal has been coaching for a long time and really knows what he’s doing. When he gives you a day off, you really feel you need a day off. When he gives you two off, same thing. He brings you up through steps getting you to do things you didn’t know you could do. I found that I really loved the speed work, and always saw an amazing improvement in my pace after doing those workouts. I’m re-doing the program now for my second half marathon. I’ve upped some of the miles a bit, increased the speed, and cut back on the recovery intervals. It’s challenging, but I’m really enjoying it.

So where has all this brought me? I started running for health reasons. Multiple problems all going back to weight. I was heading towards high blood pressure, diabetes, and liver problems. My doctor urged me to lose weight or I was going to have to go on medication for at least the first two. But he was confident that if I took off the pounds, there was a good chance everything else would clear right up. My last visit was last October, not too long after I started running. There was some change, but not huge. My next appointment is scheduled for this October. I’m looking forward to it. Here’s my weight starting exactly one year ago and continuing up to Sunday.

Not bad. I’m sure my blood pressure is in a pretty good range as well. I don’t check it regularly, but when I do, it’s pretty much right where it should be. Beyond the direct physical benefits, it’s a huge ego boost. I’ve gone from being the overweight, out of shape guy to someone who is actually in better shape than most of the people I work or hang around with. That’s just amazing to me. And the running itself does amazing things for your mind. The time alone to think, and the blowing through barriers consistently, despite pain or discomfort, does tremendous things for you personally.

A quick diversion for some numbers: In the last year, I’ve run 921.24 miles in 156 hours, supposedly burning somewhere around 138,000 calories. My longest single run was the half marathon at 13.1 miles. Best week was 32.76 miles in June/July. Best month was May of this year, where I did 125 miles.

Another fantastic thing about running is that when people see the changes I’ve been through, it inspires them to start. I have a number of friends and colleagues who have begun running and say they did it because they were inspired by me. And best of all, my wife and daughter have finally caught the bug and have been running together. They both got through the C25K and are now on a 10K program. They both have races scheduled in the next few months.

And so begins year two. I know I’m still relatively new to this running thing, but I think I’ve earned my rights to the title of “runner”. I’m really looking forward to this coming year and seeing how much I can accomplish this time.

While not the case with everything, there are certain subjects on which I can become a perfectionist, even to the point of obsession. Finding a good pair of running headphones has been one of those subjects. All the pictures in this post are links to Amazon product pages, in case you are interested.

When I first started running last year, I used my regular old Sony earphones like these:

I love these headphones. Every few years I’ll get a new set of the latest updated models. They are essentially the same over time, sound great, very comfortable. But they aren’t really great for running. While they seem pretty snug at first, once you are bouncing around, they slowly start creeping out.

Back then I was using an iPhone C25K program that told me when to run and walk, and then started doing my own mixes with audio cues. After the C25K was done though, I started running without music. I did that for most of the winter, but this spring, I started listening to podcasts more regularly as well as some audio books. I wanted to continue to listen to some of these while running.

So, knowing I needed a set of headphones designed for running, on an acquaintance’s suggestion, I checked out the Arriva sports headphones:

These are quite bendable and you can shape them however you want. Me, I just couldn’t get them configured the way I wanted them. No matter what I did, they’d be popping out just as often as the regular Sonys. This was no good.

Next up, I tried out these babies:

These are made by Phillips for Nike. Up to now, these have been my favorite, but still leave something to be desired. I’d say they stay in place about 80-90%. Occasionally they’ll need a little nudge to get back in place. But not bad. Mostly I’m not happy about the volume of these. If I were listening to music, it might be OK, but when I’m listening to spoken voice, and I’m on a busy street, the traffic can almost drown out what I’m listening to at times. These are not in-the-ear type headphones. But again, overall not too bad. I wanted better though.

I dug around Amazon’s reviews and eventually settled on these for my next pair:

These are Sennheisers. Obviously a good brand. And pretty highly rated on Amazon. However, I couldn’t stand them. They wrap around behind your head and the tension of the band pushes the buds into your ears, holding them tight. Very tight. Really tight. Painfully tight in my case. I think the first run I did with them was 30-40 minutes or so. At the end of that, my ears were a bit uncomfortable. The next run was a long run of an hour or so. By the end of that my ears were in serious pain and I was ripping the headphones off. I never wore them again. My ears hurt the rest of the day. They might be good if you have a small head. Or you might be able to heat them up and bend them, but my efforts at bending to reduce the tension didn’t amount to much and I was scared I’d break them anyway. So it was back to the Phillips.

Sunday I picked up what I hoped would be the perfect pair:

First of all, they are Sonys! Yay! Sony in-ear headphones too, pretty similar to my favs. But they also have the over the ear hook thing like the Phillips. In fact, they come with three sets of replaceable hooks – small, medium and large. So you can choose the one that fits best. Also, three sized of rubber in-the-ear buds. If you can’t get a good fit with these, I’m not sure what to tell you. Initial reaction was that they sound great and stay in well. Went for the first run with them, and was disappointed. The right hear kept falling out. But, kept testing with different size buds and hooks. Finally settled on the large buds with large hooks. Also, VERY important is that there’s a clip that goes on the wire and clips to your shirt. the headphones themselves have a very short cord meant to attach to a device strapped to your arm or whatever. Since I keep my player clipped to my pants pocket or waist, I use the included extension cord. The weight of this was pulling the buds out. With the right size clips, buds, and using the clip, these things are PERFECT! Sound great, good volume, completely comfortable, and don’t budge. I did a 2-hour run with them yesterday without a single complaint.

So last we heard of our brave hero…

Yeah, we were in Japan for two whole weeks. We barely had any Internet access so I was pre-writing posts, putting them on a thumb drive, and then uploading them when we hit up an Internet cafe, which I think we only did twice.

As for the trip, we spent the first part at Miranda’s mom’s house in Tado, then drove out to Kyoto. It’s about a 2 hour drive. Some beautiful scenery. I’d wanted to go there fore ages, so I was really glad we finally made it. We stayed in a hotel there for two nights and explored the city for 3 days. I got in one run in Kyoto, ran down along the river and then back through the city, getting pretty lost, but relying on my Garmin to get back to the start. We were there during the rainy season, so that one run started out with a drizzle and ended in the biggest downpour I’ve ever run in. I felt more like I was swimming than running. But it was so hot and humid in Kyoto that it was a welcome relief.

The rain was pretty bad in general a lot of the time we were there. On our last day in Kyoto, we headed over to Kinkaku-ji, the famous Golden Temple, but just as we arrived, they were closing it down due to the rain. On tv, there were constant reports of really bad flash floods. One lifted up 6 tractor trailers out of a parking lot and washed them into a nearby river. One stranded a family of 3 in a car. They apparently left the car to get help and were missing. At the time we left, they had found one body.

When we got back to Tado, it started drying up a bit. One day I tackled that mountain again and made it to the top! I ran / walked about half way up and just walked the rest. It’s about 1300 feet high and a bit over 3 km in distance from the point where I left off the last time I went part way up. You move laterally along the side of the mountain til you hit the eastern ridge, then up a series of about 20 switchbacks to the top. Some really amazing views on the way up, but the top was completely enveloped in fog, so I was rewarded for my efforts with a blank, white view. Close to the top, I heard the screaming of monkeys all around me in the woods. I started to get a little nervous. Would monkeys attack me? If so, how does one best handle a monkey attack? I remember reading that with gorillas, you should stand your ground and not look them in the eye. The strategy I was slowly forming in my head was more of the run-away-screaming variety. As I reached the peak, proud of my accomplishment, I met an older couple – probably in their 70′s – heading down! They had a radio with them and I later saw them doing stretching exercises to the music. On the way down, I encountered another older couple and three older women on their way up. A bit later I went past a solitary dog on his way up the mountain. He was too far behind the other people going up to be with them, and I never saw anyone else after him, so it pretty much appears that he was climbing the mountain on his own. Curiouser and curiouser.

A pictorial of my climb up the mountain is here.

Later the same day as climbing the mountain, we drove down to “Sea Paradise”, an aquarium / sea show in the southern part of Ise Bay. It was super hot and humid. Walking around there, already tired after my mountain run/climb, I ran into a bit of heat exhaustion. Drank a lot of fluid and rested a while in the shade and felt better. Nearby the aquarium is Meoto-Iwa, “the wedded rocks”. I’d seen postcard/calendar shots of this landmark plenty of times, but had a Spinal Tap stonehenge moment when I saw the actual size of them. Not that they are tiny, but in my mind they were a lot larger. Still, it was a nice surprise, as I did not know we’d be seeing them that day.

Our flight home was at 7:00 a.m. but the rental car office of the airport wouldn’t open by then, so we went back to Nagoya the day before and stayed in a hotel in the airport the last night. Overall this was better than trying to get up and drive to the airport by 5:00 a.m. anyway. Nagoya airport is like a big mall. Plenty of shopping and eating there. From there, a quick stop to Tokyo, switch planes and a long flight to Washington DC Dulles airport, then another quick jump back to Boston. Took a couple of weeks to really get over the jet lag. I kept waking up in the early morning, but this slowly moved from 1 a.m. through 3 and 4 a.m. and finally came the day when the alarm clock actually woke me up. I still feel a little homesick for Japan. I really get used to being there. I would love to live there for at least a couple of years some time. We’ll see.

To progress in life you must give up the things you do not like. Give up doing the things that you do not like to do. You must find the things that you do like. The things that are acceptable to your mind.

- Agnes Martin

You could take this a number of ways. Irresponsible, hedonistic, etc. But really, do you want to go through your whole life doing things you hate, never doing what you want? I might phrase it more like, find your purpose and give up the things that do not align with it.

Listening to “The Wind Up Bird Chronicle” on Audible. Been so long since I read this the first time, I might as well be reading it for the first time. I only very vaguely remember any of the story. Anyway, there’s this one line, from Mr. Honda, the spiritual advisor that Toru and Kumiko visit at the beginning of their marriage.

“The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you’re supposed to go up and down when you’re supposed to go down. When you’re supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you’re supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there’s no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.”

This just reminded me a lot of my favorite quote from the Sheep Man.

Words to live by, if they mean anything at all to you. Otherwise, ignore.

Last week, Tuesday through Thursday, I ran 5, 6.25 and 5 miles. A decent mid-week base. The weekend was supposed to be hot, but hotter on Sunday than Saturday, so Saturday I went out for a long run. I’m still running without a plan, so I wasn’t sure how much I’d do. Maybe 8. Maybe 10. 13, 15??? Well, it may have been the cooler of the two days, but it was still hot, so I when I got to Pond Road on the Natick/Wellesley border, I decided to turn there and make it a 10 miler. Besides, Pond Road is one of my favorite streets to run on. You get about a mile or so of this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/saltygal/2883035800/ (Photo has all rights reserved so I can’t post it here, but I’ll link to it.) All in all, the run went really well. I was tired by the end, but felt good.

Sunday I woke up feeling pretty tired. I put off running until later in the day, when it was about 90° with high humidity. When I set out, I thought, “How awesome would it be to do 10 and 10, back to back? A 20 mile weekend!” Alas, it was not in the cards. I headed down Commonwealth Ave. on the Newton Hills. First 3 miles, my pace was just over 9:00. I was winded but felt good and strong. Then everything left me. I had to stop and walk for a couple of minutes. Turned around at 3.25. Took a few more walk breaks on the way back. Pace for the last 3 miles was over 11:00. Blah! But I did manage an 8:30 pace last half mile. That allowed me to come home with some pride.

Total for the week, 32.76 miles. A new record!

Today’s Monday. I took the day off. I’ll run in the morning, but not sure what’s up after that. Wednesday, we leave on a 6:00 a.m. flight to Japan. Actually, it’s a flight to Chicago, then Tokyo, then Nagoya, where we rent a car and drive about an hour or so to Tado-cho. We’ll arrive Thursday evening (damn date line!) so I have no idea if I’ll be running Friday. All depends on how I feel. I’m shooting for at least a short one some time during the day. Generally I’m up at some ungodly hour in the morning anyway due to jet-lag, waiting for the sun to come up and wandering around the rice fields or the temple up on the mountain behind the house. This time I might as well take advantage of my early wakefulness to get in some runs. Mostly I’m scared of getting lost. Hoping my Garmin works well there, and may have to test the “navigate back to start” function on it, which supposedly will tell you which way to go to return to the point where you started the current workout.

No idea what my Internet connectivity is going to be like. Generally, it’s been non-existent other than an occasional trip to an Internet Café to rent time on a pc. We’ll see if public wifi has made it to the town yet. I’ll try to post updates and some pics while I’m there, but not sure how regularly.

Last I wrote, I had just finished 500 miles. A day or so after that I was off to Minneapolis to speak at the Flashbelt conference. I knew that at least a few people at the conference were runners, so I sent out the word to organize a group run. I wasn’t sure how many would show up for a 7:00 a.m. run, but if nothing else, I had planned to run with Jeni, who I’ve known for several months on DailyMile.com, a MN native. As it turned out we had 5 runners, plus 2 who biked along with us. Jeni took us down along the Mississippi River a couple of miles or so, across and back partway on the other side, for just over four and a half miles. It was great.

Here’s Jeni and I on the bridge on the way back:

And me with the rest of the runners…

The next day I went out again, unfortunately alone. Did approximately the same route. Running with the group was awesome, but it was also nice to take in the scenery in solitude.

The last full day I was there I went for a walk down to a mountaineering shop a couple of blocks from the hotel. I noticed they had Vibram Five Fingers. I’ve been wanting to try them out for a while, but wanted to wait until my last two races were done. So on a whim I got fitted for a pair. The next day I got up early and went out for a mile and a half in them. I knew better than to do too much all at once. Didn’t feel bad, a bit of tightness in my calves later, but not bad. By noon I was in the air on my way back home.

I got back home Thursday. Friday I went out for a five miler in my regular shoes. It was a pretty fast one – almost 5K pace for the first four miles. I wound up burning out after that and had to walk a bit and came home with just 4.75. The next day, Saturday, I did a 2 miler in the VFFs. When I got back, I spent the next several hours doing heavy duty yard work, including carrying 16x16x2 inch concrete tiles from the front of the house, up the steps and into the back yard, leveling the ground and putting them in place.

Somewhere between the really fast run on Friday, the 2 mile VFF run, and the heavy lifting, I did some damage. Sunday I went for a 3 miler in the VFFs and had a really sharp pain deep in the right glute. Probably the piriformis muscle. But after about a mile into the run it eased up a bit. More lifting and carrying on Sunday.

It was pretty painful on Monday, but I took a day off running and stretched and iced.  Tuesday I went out for what planned to be 5 miles, but wound up in such pain that I had to stop and walk, limping for several minutes. Came home with only three.

So yes, an official injury I think. I took the next two days off, stretched, foam rolled, and iced. Friday I tentatively went out for a nice slow one. The rest, ice, stretching, rolling had apparently done its job. I took home 4 miles with some sensation back there, but no pain. Over the weekend I did another 6 and 8, feeling pretty good. So as injuries go, I think I got off pretty easy.

But now I’m pretty skittish about the VFFs. I’m pretty sure the injury was not related to them, but it’s hard not to connect them. My guess is it had a lot more to do with the fast run and the heavy lifting and carrying two days straight. At any rate, there’s still some very minor discomfort back there. So I’m going to wait until it feels 100% before I go back on the minimal shoes again.

Last we saw our intrepid hero, he was running along the banks of Lake Ontario in Toronto and breaking PRs. But what since then?

I returned home from that trip a run short and skipped a day after I got home. This left me at Friday still not having done my intervals. So Friday morning I did a 40 minute tempo run. Saturday I did a 5 mile race pace run, and Sunday I did another 10 miles. Monday, I just hurt. I got through my weekday runs, which included a 9×400 meter repeat session, and then thankfully had both Friday and Saturday off. This was especially good because I spent the latter half of Friday and the beginning of Saturday on a plane to Belgium.

I was in Belgium speaking at the Multi-Mania conference. This is put on by a good friend of mine, Koen, who has been asking me to come out for a few years. I finally gave in and accepted his all expense paid trip to Kortrijk, Belgium. I arrived Saturday morning, seriously jetlagged, rested a bit, explored the city, and got some food. Later, Koen and some friends fetched me from the hotel and we did a tour of the local pubs trying to sample as many Belgian beers as we could. We did pretty well, I must say, finishing up at around 4 a.m. I slept until noon and woke up feeling rather under the weather. By about 2 p.m. I was able to drag myself down to go for a bit of a walk and get some food. After that, I felt vaguely human again. I knew I had an 11 mile run ahead of me and though I didn’t believe I could do it, I finally got the courage to at least try at around 3:30.

The hotel is right on a canal, right next to these two ancient towers, one on each side of the canal, with this cobblestone bridge between them. I figured that running along the canal would be a great way to go for a long run in a city and country I didn’t know. On the map, the canal was the only one around and went a good way in either direction. You run along it for as long as you want, turn around and run back. So off I went.

Amazingly, despite the jetlag, despite the hangover, I found myself running along at 9:00 per mile. This is my projected half marathon race pace. But it felt comfortable. So I kept going. Within a mile, I was out of the city and running along farms. Huge pastures filled with cows, horses, sheep, goats, ducks, geese, chickens, rabbits, and magpies. The highlight was seeing a mare and her colt, the colt galloping in circles around its mother, just celebrating the joy of running. How can that not inspire you??? On I went.

At just about the 5.5 turnaround mark (still averaging 8:57 – 9:07) I stopped and took some photos of these horses, which were right on the edge of their field, next to the canal.

I continued right around half marathon pace for the first 7 miles. At 6.55, which would be the halfway point of a half marathon, I was at 59:21. Pretty much on target for a two hour marathon. What really excited me was that I wasn’t really even trying hard, I was not really tired, and I was hungover from being up til 4:00 a.m. drinking Belgian beer! I can only imagine that I’ll be in much better shape on race day!

After mile 7, I slowed down a bit and finished up the last four between 9:30 and 10:00. Part of it was a strong headwind on the way back. That wind was probably pushing me forward during the first few miles.

Anyway, a fantastic run. Possibly one of my best. total time for 11 miles was 1:42:03, for a 9:17 average pace. Not bad at all! That was also my highest mileage for a single run. Then, after I was back in and uploaded the data from my Garmin to my pc, I checked out the map:

If you drag that up a bit and to the right, you’ll see a dark gray line on the bottom left. That’s the French border. Had I only known, I would have gone the extra mile or so. Not sure if I could get through without a passport, but it would have been great to say I ran to France. Oh well, probably for the best. I’m not sure how I pulled off 11 miles that day. 13+ would have been pushing it.

Tuesday I got out again for a slower 5 miler. I was tired, but pulled it off. Had to get up early to get that in before I made it to the conference venue to do my talk. And yes, more beers were consumed the previous evening, though not to the extent of the first night. Wednesday I was flying home so missed my speed work day, but made up for it on Thursday, and this morning did 3 slow.

So yes, still on track. Tomorrow’s run should break 400 miles for the year, which is just amazing to me. And I’m more than 30 miles ahead of schedule for my 1000 for the year.

Sara reminded me of one of my favorite books of all time, A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. I read this book quite a few years ago and followed it up with “Dance, Dance, Dance”, the sequel. In it, the main character is going through some rough times, and a mystical character called the Sheep Man (who talks without spaces between his words) appears and kind of helps him through it. I was going through a really rough point in my own life at that time, and this speech by the Sheep Man became my mantra. I knew that no matter how hopeless things seemed at the time, I had to keep “dancing” and eventually things would get better. If I gave up, I’d be stuck.

“Dance,” said the Sheep Man. “Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougottadance. Don’teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you’restuck. Sodon’tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou’retired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon’tletyourfeetstop.”

Well things did get better. A LOT better. I no longer need to keep this quote in my wallet to look at daily. But I just looked it up again and realized it’s a great running quote as well. Especially during a race: Justdon’tletyourfeetstop!

Today: 9.0 miles
Week: 23.0 miles
February: 54.52 miles
2010: 132.59 miles

I have an awesome 10 mile course mapped out, going straight down Route 16, around Wellesley College via Pond Rd. and straight back. But I wasn’t quite ready to jump to 10 miles. Wanted to do 9. If I cut through the college itself, that would take off two whole miles, putting me at 8. So I added an extra detour to the beginning of the route, which put one more mile back on. Perfect.

Wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It’s a mile more than I’ve gone before. OK. 0.8 miles longer. Temp was 34ºF. Would I need food? Water/Gatorade? It didn’t seem like an extra 0.8 miles was going to break the camel’s back, so I just drank a bit before I left, and took some Clif bars along as usual on my long runs, though I’ve never felt the need to eat them on the run, and didn’t today. I will say that at around mile 7.5, a swig or two of Gatorade would have been very nice, but it wasn’t any kind of strong craving. I think when I go up to 10 miles, some mobile hydration will be in order. And of course, when it starts getting warmer around here, as rumor has it it will, I imagine I’ll need something on even shorter runs.

Also listened to some podcasts today, from “Hardcore History” available on iTunes. Pretty interesting stuff.

I’m pretty amazed by my body’s adaptation so far. Cardio in particular is so much improved. Average pace was 10:40, and average heart rate was 142. Only got up to 153 max and that was on some fairly significant hills. My first 8 miler was just over a month ago, with a pace of 11:12 and average/max heart rate of 144/157. So I added a mile, cut off 30 seconds per mile, and did it all with less effort. I’m not bragging, just amazed to see the body adapt and improve so well in a relatively short time. I guess it shouldn’t be amazing – that’s what’s supposed to happen, but after years of failed diets and half hearted attempts at “getting in shape”, it’s just really nice to see something working exactly like it’s supposed to.

I think next week I’m going to cut back a little bit and thank the body for its hard work the last few weeks – a great 5k race, and two highest ever mileage weeks. The following week I’m going to shoot for that 10 miler. That will conclude my 4 weeks of “anything goes” running. Then, on March 8, I start the Hal Higdon Half Marathon Intermediate plan.