Not a great week.

After two days off (thanks, Hal), I woke up Sunday morning and started getting dressed for my long run – 11 miles. Made it as far as my left sock when I noticed a little spot floating in front of my eyes. This could mean one of two possibilities: either I inadvertently looked into a bright light, or it was the start of a migraine aura. I sat there with one sock on, one sock off and waited. Within a couple of minutes, I knew a migraine was on the way.

I’ve gotten migraines since I was 16 or 17 years old. It starts with the aura – first a small spot exactly as if you looked into a small bright light. Barely noticeable, but slightly annoying, especially if you are trying to read something. Slowly, it grows and starts forming an abstract shape. The edges start to shimmer. It grows and grows over the next half hour or so until it fills a large percentage of my field of vision. For me, it’s usually the left side. At its peak, I may lose 40-60% of my vision. Driving would be impossible. So would reading. Usually, after almost precisely 30 minutes, the aura suddenly disappears completely. Then the migraine itself begins. i.e. pain. Actually, my migraines aren’t so painful compared to many of the people I know who get them. They aren’t exactly enjoyable, but it’s not the debilitating, hide-in-a-dark-quiet-room kind of pain. In fact, for several years I would usually just get the aura and then no pain at all. However, pain or not, it leaves me in a very out-of-it, spacey, hungover state for the rest of the day, often into the next day.

Anyway, as soon as I realized this was a migraine I was having, I knew a run was out of the question. I changed out of my running clothes, popped a few Advil, and went back to bed. The pain never got too bad, but I never got out for my long run that Sunday either.

Monday I woke up and felt better, and as it was Labor Day and I had the day off, it was perfect to make up the long run. I did 11 miles at an average pace of 8:58 per mile. A really rocking run. I felt great, and strong. Had a nice pleasant burn going in my legs, other than that, no pain.

Tuesday had a 4.5 mile run in store. Accomplished that without any problems, but the rest of the day, I definitely noticed that my legs were feeling the need for a day off. But it wasn’t in the schedule, so I got up this morning for my speed work: 8 x 400 meters. 200 meter jog in between each set, with a mile warm up and mile cool down.

In recent weeks I’ve been doing the 400′s at a pace of between 7:00 and 7:15. Today, I was struggling. Some of them were OK, several of them it was all I could do to keep it under 7:30. And even then I needed to walk for up to half of the rest interval. I got to the last one and thought, “OK, last lap, let’s just kick it out and end on a win.”

Cruising along, tough but dealing with it OK, checking the Garmin. 0.22 miles to go, 0.12, 500 feet, 450, 400, 350… pace holding steady at 7:00 or just under…

SPROING!

I swear it was like a tightly stretched spring in my hamstring, just above the back of the knee, had just snapped. There was no conscious thought about whether or not I should stop or just finish up the lap. The brakes were locked and I bounced to a standstill. I knew the run was essentially over. I walked in the rest of the 400. When I had my breath back, I tried a slow jog. I made it 2 steps. Walked a few more minutes. Tried to jog again, a bit slower. Ouch. Waited a bit longer and tried jogging as slow as I possibly could. Thought it might be OK, but after half a dozen steps, I knew it was not to be. I walked home the last cool down mile.

It wasn’t that bad all day. Didn’t really hurt, and in general walking was not a problem. But by quitting time, it was starting to flare up. Got home and have been RICEing. At this point I’m 90% sure that I’m out of the running for this Sunday’s 5K. I’m going to take a couple of days off and see how it feels on Saturday. Maybe try an easy run and decide what to do from there. But I have no real interest in running a crappy 5K, scoring my first DNF, or worse yet, injuring myself more and endangering my half marathon in October. In fact, while writing this, I think my certainty about not racing went up to 95%.

On the plus side, looks like I’ll be getting back to my core workouts this week!

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.

I’d been thinking of another half marathon this fall and had my eyes set on the BAA Half Marathon on October 10. Registration opened while I was in Japan. I made it a point to be at an Internet cafe that day, but with the time difference, by the time I got on line, the race was sold out. I didn’t think it would go that fast.

So I looked around for another one and found the Sun Half Marathon on the same day and location as the Bay State Marathon. This is just a week later than the BAA, on October 17. So I counted back 12 weeks and started my training just about 4 weeks ago. I’m doing Hal Higdon’s Intermediate Half Marathon plan again, but beefing up a few parts of it.

1. On the intervals, I’m cutting the rest periods in half. I was doing 400 meters fast with 400 meters jog between. Cutting that back to 200 meters jog.

2. On all the speed work I’m increasing the speed from last time. On the intervals last time I was going for 7:45 – 8:00 pace. Now I’m shooting for 7:00 – 7:15. Pace runs I was doing around 9:00, which was my goal race pace. Going to cut that down to maybe 8:45.

3. I don’t like the way Hal describes tempo runs. He has you ramping up gradually over the first 2/3 of the run, holding a peak for 2 minutes and ramping back down. He calls it a “thinking runner’s workout” and it certainly is that. I have a hard time constantly checking my pace and interpolating what my current pace should be based on the ramp up / ramp down time and always tend to peak too soon and burn out. So I read up a lot on tempo runs and it seems the goal is really to run just at your anaerobic threshold. I did this in San Francisco last week and averaged 7:57 for 4.39 miles. One of the most awesome training runs I’ve had, though I did rest for a minute or two at the turnaround point. Had I not stopped, I might have been able to claim an unofficial 5K PR.

4. I’m adding some miles to the long runs. Doing 3 miles more than scheduled for now, but per my schedule I’ll peak at 14 miles where the official plan peaks at 12. The 14 will be a distance record for me.

I’ve also signed up for another 5K a month before the half on September 12. Info here. I’m hoping to break 24:00 in this one, which means running just under 7:43. I have a couple more intervals and a couple more tempo runs before then, so I think I just might be able to pull that off. It’s a nice challenge – really on the edge of what I think I’m capable of. Potentially doable, but I’ll have to give it all I have.

In related news, I hit two personal milestones the other week.

1. I’ve now run over 700 miles for the year. Well ahead of schedule for 1000 for the year. In fact, my projections have me doing close to 1200.

2. My weight hit a low of 194. This number is significant because in the beginning of 2008, it hit an all time high of 234. So this number marks a net loss of 40 lbs. Actually, in 2008, through diet alone, I made it down below 200 – to about 198. Then stopped starving myself and went back up to the 220′s. Throughout most of 2009 I was on the weight roller coaster. I’d lose 5-10 lbs and gain it back. When I started running in August, I was in the 215 – 220 range.

So all is going well. Another thing I’ve noticed is that my body has kind of settled down in terms of its running associated aches and pains. Since I’ve been running, I’ve gone through phases of problems with my ankles, shins, quads, calves, ITB, lower back. But the last couple of months, it’s all gone quiet. Even after a long run or a hard speed workout, I might be tired or stiff or sore for a day, as you’d expect, but nothing at all lingering these days. It’s a nice feeling.

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.

After yesterday’s run we chilled out for a while until Kris’s tummy felt better. Then we ran around town doing some errands and a bit of shopping. For lunch we went to a kaitenzushi shop – aka “merry go round” sushi, where the dishes go past your table on a conveyer belt and you grab what you want. Great thing about this one was above the regular belt there was another glass track. On the table was a touch screen where you coule place special orders. These would be delivered to your table on a shinkansen (bullet train) running on the upper glass track. Fun stuff! From there we dropped Kris and Obaachan at home. Miranda and I went out to an Internet cafe to catch up on four days of email, check twitter, and do a couple of blog posts. Then Miranda’s favorite book store, “Book Off”. Hung out for a while at home but by 7:00 p.m. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I finally gave up and crashed.

Woke up at 1:00 a.m. Read and programmed for a couple hours and tried to get back to sleep. But the body clock said no, so finally I got up, got geared up, and went for a run.

I was hoping for at least 7-8 miles. I went out to the main highway the way we usually drive, and ran along the highway until I hit another road that I knew would loop me through the back way to home. I underestimated two things: 1. the length of the loop – only 6 miles. 2. How depleted of energy I was.

When I crashed the night before, it was before dinner. I’d had some chips before sleeping, and a few more after I woke up, but this was hardly the fuel needed for a long run. I also thought that there was a sidewalk along the highway. There was not. And not much of an edge there either. Had to stop often to let trucks go by. It’s also unsettling to run along the right side of the road and hear a truck barrelling up behind you. Of course it’s coming up on the left side of the road, but it never failed to scare me.

I reached the highway turnoff at 3 miles. I’d actually kept a pretty good pace up to that point – sub 9:00 for miles 2 and 3. That’s when I ran out of fuel. I walked a bit then started running again. But before long, I was getting dizzy and lightheaded. I know this feeling well from when I skip breakfast or take a late lunch. Low blood sugar. Not a great thing to have happen when you have 3 miles of hills between you and home. So from there on, it was about 50/50 walk/run. I’d walk up the hills and run down them.

As walks go though, it was pretty awesome. First up a steep winding hill lined with huge bamboo and pines so thickly they darkened the whole street. Then through a brief factory area and into the rice fields. Again, the Garmin map feature helped me quite a bit. Although you don’t see streets or anything, you do see where you started, each mile marker, and the path you took, as well as an indicator for North, and your own current heading. So you go in a direction that makes your heading point towards the starting point and choose your turns accordingly. Worked like a charm.

After breakfast, we drove out to a track, where Kris and Miranda both ran 20 minutes without stopping, to finish Week 5 of the Couch to 5K! I’m so proud of them. The rest of today is going to be mostly a stay at home and chill out day, which is totally fine with me. Miranda’s getting her hair done, then maybe doing some grocery shopping.

Tomorrow (Monday), bright and early, we drive to Kyoto, where we’ll be staying through Wednesday! Very psyched for that.

Friday, Miranda and I spent the day in Nagoya, which is about an hour and a half drive away. She spent most of her adult life there before moving to the states, so there were a few places she wanted to go and see and do some shopping etc. Kris stayed at home with Obaachan (Grandma).

We stopped for a late lunch and made a few other stops at some stores on the way back. We were both completely beat by the time we got back around 4:00 p.m. but said we were going to try to stay up and beat the jet lag. But when we got back, Kris was struggling to stay awake herself. We got some food in her then she crashed. Miranda was out like a light by 5:00 p.m. and Obaachan had retreated to her room to let us rest. I held out until around 7:00 p.m. doing some reading and recreational coding, but finally gave up and went to sleep too. At around 10 p.m. Kris woke up with a bloody nose. We took care of that and the girls went back to sleep. I stayed up until around 1:00 a.m. and then hit the sack for the second time, hoping to sleep past 4:00 a.m. By 4:20, Miranda and I were all wide awake. Kris stayed sleeping. I went out running at 5.

For this run, I went in the opposite direction, towards the mountains to the north. Where we are staying is on the western edge of a foothill to the south of the mountain range. Running north for a quarter mile up hill got me over that hill, where I could then go down into the valley between it and the southernmost mountain. Running through the village of the main street of the valley, I finally found a break in the houses which led to a path into the mountain. It was paved, but narrow and very steep. A lot of runoff also made it very slick and slippery. I ran a good ways up, but obviously needed to stop and walk quite a bit. Took a few side paths, but these all eventually ended in very tight paths overgrown with bamboo. Huge spiderwebs blocked the way in spots, and I was worried about wild monkeys (no lie), so I turned back and kept going up.

Eventually, the narrow path gave way to an actual street. I kept going up and at the peak of the slope of that street there was an opening in the trees and I was awarded with a stunning view of the valley and plain of the town below. It seemed like I was about half way up the slope of the mountain, but I have to guess that it was significantly less than that.

After the peak, it was a serious downhill run back into the valley. Even trying to brake myself, I hit a 6:30 pace. Then back out of the valley and to the old homestead. It was only 4 miles – I had planned on doing 5 or 6. But it was such an awesome run overall that I felt I had done much more than that.

When I got back home, I found that Kris had finally woken up but was not feeling well. Thirteen hour jet lag has a way of doing bad things to your stomach. At least that’s my experience. Seems to be the case with Kris as well. She’s doing better now, but we postponed our plans to go to “Sea Paradise” today. Will just do some stuff around the town.

Pics from the run:

After 29 hours door-to-door, we have arrived at the old homestead in Japan. Called a taxi at 3:00 a.m. Wednesday, got to the airport around 3:30ish. Amazingly, there was already a crowd at check in, so it’s a good thing we arrived a bit early. First leg of the journey was a 6:00 a.m. flight to Chicago. A three-hour layover turned into a four-hour layover, but we finally got on the next flight to Tokyo. A thirteen hour interminable ride across Canada, Alaska, Russia, the Sea of Okhotsk, across Hokkaido and down into central Japan. Some amazing views of mountains in eastern Russia.

Arrived in Tokyo about 2:30 p.m. local time Thursday. It took two hours to get through customs, immigration, re-check in, etc. Then another two hour wait for our final flight to Nagoya. Arriving there, we rented our car and finished the final one-hour drive into Tado-cho at 9:30 p.m. ・29.5 hours from when we left home. Ouch.

Some drinks, some snacks, catching up with Grandma and exchanging news , presents, and plans for the next two weeks, and we池e ready to hit the hay. Or the futon anyway. It was a rough day, but very happy to be here.

Friday Morning

Got to bed about 11:00 p.m. Slept on thin futons on the tatami floor. Not as uncomfortable as it sounds. I slept soundly, but at 4:00 a.m. I woke up and realized that was it for me. I rolled over and Miranda asked me what time it was. She was wide awake too. Within seconds we noticed that Kris was up too. Lounged around for a bit and when I noticed dawn was breaking, I geared up and went out for a run. That was about 5:00 a.m.

I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go. I figured if I could take the back roads south to the main highway, I could come back to the house via the route I was familiar with. While I didn’t quite get lost, I never made it to the highway either. I wound up in a loop around mile three that took me back to the main road I’d been on. At that point I decided to turn back. Things started looking a bit unfamiliar, so I turned on the map feature of my Garmin 305 and verified I was on the correct route back. In fact, that even helped me find a shortcut back. Total was 6 miles at a decent pace of 9:15/mi. Decent especially considering it wound up being a pretty hilly route – we are in the foothills of a mountain range, so there’s not much chance of avoiding hills. I had to stop and walk briefly 2-3 times to recover from hills.

It’s a very rural area, all rice fields, and bamboo and pine covered slopes. No sidewalks to speak of, and and 18-inch deep runoff channels on each side of most roads. Had to be really careful with oncoming traffic. One wrong step to avoid a car and you face a near certain broken ankle. At one point where I stopped to let some trucks go by, I looked down and saw a bunch of stuff on the side of the road – a lighter, some pens, some baggies with nuts and bolts in them, and a couple handfuls of coins. I quickly scooped up the coins, not realizing until I got back that they were mostly tokens of some kind – probably for pachinko or video games or something.

The rurality gave way to an industrial area filled with factories around the area where I turned back. There were no other runners out, but a few factory workers were getting off of the night shift and heading back to their cars. And encountered one guy on a bike, probably heading to work. I gave a few cheery “Ohayou Gozaimasu”s, but mostly I think people were wondering who this crazy gaijin out running at dawn was.

The plan for the rest of today is to drive back to Nagoya to do some shopping. Not sure why we’re going all the way there, but apparently there are some places Miranda wants to go there.

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.

Well, the year is half over. Let’s check the scoreboard.

I’ve done 110 runs this year, for a total of 555.41 miles. That’s 55 miles over my half-way-to-1000 mark. So doing great there. Average miles per run is 5.05. Here’s my graph of miles per day:

Pretty plain to see where my half marathon training started and ended. I suspect there’ll be another similar trend between the end of July and the beginning of October, as I plan for my next half marathon.

As for races, I did two 5Ks, a 5 miler, and a half marathon. Very happy with the 5Ks. I was sick with a fever during the 5 mile race so just finishing was good enough. And on the half marathon, I missed my target of sub 2:00 due to the unexpected toll the heat took on me. I fully intend to meet that goal this October.

What has all this meant in physical terms? Well, here’s my weight for the year:

Not a spectacular loss, but relatively stable over long term. Slow and steady, right?

One of the coolest things is how many people I think I’ve influenced to start running and getting into shape. I blog about my running here and there and tweet about it occasionally, hopefully just under the annoying level. But every time I go to a conference or meet a group of friends, a few people will come up to me and ask how the running is going, and tell me how they started running too. Best of all is that my wife and daughter have started running. They are doing the Couch to 5K together and are now half way through week 4. My wife has watched me running for many months now, perplexed at why I get up at 5:45 a.m. each day and complain about this pain or that, yet keep running. But after going to two of my races in a week, and having my daughter run her first race and get a medal, she has fully caught the running bug and is scouting out her own first 5K.