Short Term

• More focus on speed work.  I think I would have enjoyed my marathon more had I been able to do it in about an hour less.  Okay, that is sort of a joke…but the faster I get, the quicker I can get the 26.2 miles over with.  More importantly I have PR’d all races I’ve ran this year, and I want to keep that going.  When it comes to the Bluegrass 10,000 I want to cut off SIGNIFICANT time.  Last year it took me over an hour and six minutes to complete…that was a 10:39/mi pace.  This year I want to get that down below 9:00/mi.  That is a lofty goal, but since I was able to do 5 miles at an 8:23/mi pace last month I am pretty sure I can do this.  I have 7 weeks to get ready.
• More strength training.  I really need to diversify my workouts.  For the past… who knows how long all I’ve done is run.  No strength, no flexibility, no other cross training…just running.  While that isn’t always a bad thing, if I really want to finish losing weight I’m going to have to diversify.
• Hit my weight goal.  I had hoped to hit 140 pounds lost by my 2 year anniversary of starting (which I don’t remember an exact date, but am celebrating it as May 31st).  Marathon training makes it almost impossible to lose lots of weight.   I did manage to lose 7.2 pounds from the start to the end of my training, which I’ll consider a victory… but to really switch it up a gear it is time to get with it.  I have came to terms that I won’t hit my goal by that date (that’d take 8.2 lbs in 17 days), but the sooner I hit it the better.  Maybe by vacation? (which gives me 39 days).  Probably still a stretch, but I can hope.

Long Term

• Next Half.  I am already registered for another half-marathon (the Iron Horse in Midway in October).   Last year I ran it as my first half and put up a respectable 2:11:28.  This year I want to break 2 hours.
• Next Full. Hahaha… maybe never.
• Duathlon.  This is something that I may work on.  First thing is I’d have to get a bike, learn how to ride it and learn how to ride it well.  This is a likely next step.
• Triathlon. This is a lofty goal, of which I may never get to.  If I can achieve the duathlon then I still have to worry about learning to swim.  Yes… I don’t know how to swim.  Most adults can do this, but not me.  I guess maybe it is time to learn?
• What else?  Chime in and let me know what I should try next?

* Editors Note:  I started on this post a week ago, worked on it on and off for 7 days and as usual I have not proofread it.  Things may be disjointed, illogical, etc. but it is what it is   

Never.  Ever.  Again.  That is my initial thought as I finished my first marathon on Sunday. I can’t say that will be true, nor can I say it will be a lie… but it was an experience that I’m glad is now over with.

I’ve been struggling the last few days on how to put this into words.  Despite reading blogs from some of my friends who also conquered the Flying Pig, I still haven’t really found my flow on how I want this to go.

For the most part leading up to this race my nerves had been pretty calm.  I wasn’t worrying about things, no anxiety, no problems… until Friday afternoon.  The more I started thinking about it the more I started to worry.  Luckily, I have the attention span of a snickerdoodle, so I was able to forget it pretty quickly.   The interesting thing to me is that I had no anxiety at all.  For both of my half-marathons I always had anxiety dreams leading up to them.. sometimes weeks or more out.  I would dream things like I forgot to set my alarm, or I was in a building talking and forgot to start… I always made it to the start line, but sometimes it was 2-3 hours late.  This time I didn’t have any of that… maybe it was the tiredness of all the training that made me have a deeper sleep and thus preventing such dreams, or perhaps it is because I trained hard and had confidence in myself?

Let’s fast forward to race day.  I keep wanting to type lots of stuff here that isn’t relevant at all to the race, and since this is a race recap lets try to stay on pace.

Saturday night I only had mild trouble sleeping.  And by mild I mean I woke up about  half a dozen times.  Only once, though, was a direct result of a 10 month old screaming.  The other times may have been an indirect result of the same 10 month old sleeping cuddled up to me.  I had my alarm set for 5, and when 5 came I sprang out of bed to turn it off so it didn’t disturb anyone else.  I got up, got dressed, then sat in the chair and wrote a blog post before the race.  During this fun time I almost forgot to eat the breakfast I bought the night before:  a blueberry muffin and a banananana.  I wanted to make sure I had that down at least 30-45 minutes before the race, and luckily I somehow remembered.  I must have been a fun sight me randomly sprinting to the bathroom at 5:40am.  (I did this so I didn’t wake anyone up when I was opening the wrapper of the muffin).

Next I met up with the Strider’s in the lobby.  We had a great turnout, with Uncle Estrada (or more commonly known as Ernie, the mentor of the group) being one of the first to arrive despite waking up at 3am to drive up from Lexington.  After a few minutes of chatting, some pictures, etc. I said farewell to the group as they walked down while I waited on my wife to come down to the lobby with some pins.  I had bought a nice race belt that held up to 10 gel’s, had a little pouch for stuff and had a place to strap your race bib to.  Unfortunately, I strapped it too tight and before I even made it down the elevator it snapped, breaking the hole on one side.  I had to get some pins to pin it to my bib or look weird running around with it dangling by 1 corner.

Once my lovely wife (and my now wide-awake 10 month old) got to the lobby we got a few more pics and took off.  I was advised to go down 5th and turn onto Central as it’d be less crowded.  While walking I had guy getting out of my car ask if we knew where we were going, so he followed us since he didn’t know.

While walking down Central Ave we ended up coming in behind the corrals.  There were 8 total this year, with each being set for a certain range of anticipated finish times.  Based on my anticipated finish time I was put into corral “E”.  As we approached the corrals we came in behind “H”… and after walking for a while we were still behind “H”.  I won’t lie, I started fretting a bit that I wouldn’t make it to mine in time.  After some walking we got past “G” then came to an intersection.  From that intersection and my perspective there was a “T” made with the runners.  To my left was “A”, “B” and “C”, to my right was “D”, “E”, and “F” and behind me was “G” and “H”.  I still had a long walk ahead of me.  Luckily I made it to my corral with a few minutes to spare, kissed my wife and baby boy bye and slipped in to the corral…though not sure it was an official entrance.  I moved my way forward a bit to find my pace group and waited.

At this point I geared up my phone… turned on my music, got my GPS app ready, and was set.  When the race started I stayed to the left, casually strolling along until I reached the start line.  I was not going to spend any extra energy on running until my foot hit that start line.  Once started I saw Ernie again, then my wife and was off.  GPS started, “Get the Party Started” by Pink was playing, quickly followed by a very appropriate “Highway to Hell.”

Even though there was thousands of people I never felt cramped.  I felt like I had my own space, which was pretty cool.  To have so many people around me, yet still kind of be by myself was a nice thing.  As I passed Mehring & Pete Rose Way I noticed one of my Tweeps holding the “#RunKY” sign with, amongst others, my twitter handle on it.  This was an awesome thing to see early on!

I held my own for a while… staying right with my pace group.  The pace group was very noticeable as they were holding a stick with pink balloons on it that said “4:30″.  Most of the time I was within 10 yards of them, just staying there.

As we neared mile 5 there was some very nice people handing out bottles of water.  I graciously took it as it was somewhat easier to drink than the paper cups they had each mile.

Once we reached mile 5 I was anxiously looking for my lovely wife and kids.  Before I saw them I saw a cute baby girl wearing a piglet outfit…very cute.  Then I saw Uncle Estrada again and got a high five from him.  Then a few yards later I heard my name and saw my wife and baby boy…on the wrong side of the road.  We had anticipated staying to the right, and she got trapped on the other side and couldn’t get over.  Likewise, I was surrounded by people and couldn’t get over in time so I got to throw them a wave then go on.

Shortly thereafter began The Climb.  This is the notorious part of the race that has a big elevation shift from around the 5 mile mark to over the 8 mile mark.  And amazingly for myself, with the exception of 1 small, steep, stretch I handled it better than I anticipated.

Once we got to the top of the hill I received a High-Five from Who Dey (the mascot of the Cincinnati Bengals).  Then we rounded the corner to hear music coming from a lovely group of older gentlemen, who also sang the national anthem before the start.  Along with them was a very pleasant view from high above of the Ohio river with the sun still coming up.

As the race progressed the heat started to creep up on us.  It was a cool, but humid, start.. which didn’t last long enough.  Even early on I knew it was going to get bad.  Even as we hit the split for the half marathoners (around mile 8.5) the heat was slowly starting to bug me.  This caused for a bunch of manageable issues.

I decided early on, knowing the heat would get to us, to hydrate at every stop.  Whether I felt like I needed it or not at the time, I was going to drink something.  My problem because that I couldn’t stomach water or the Gatorade.  I couldn’t handle water, as it was hot and I was hot and we didn’t agree.  For the most part, I went with Gatorade.  Unfortunately, the Gatorade was the regular kind of which I hadn’t had in ages.  To better understand, let me explain this:  I gave up sugared drinks almost 2 years ago.  Aside from “light” frappaccino’s at Starbucks, I do not drink calories..period.  I have not had a sugary drink in so long that when I drank the first cup of Gatorade, I felt like I was drinking pure sugar.  Not just the first drink, but every drink.

I completed the first “segment” in 1:12:38 seconds at a pace of 10:35/mi.  This was the 6.8MI point.  Within about 30 seconds of passing by there I got a text from the marathon letting me know where I was.  Obviously, I knew..but I signed up to receive them anyway just to get some info.  At that point it projected my finish time to be 11:16 am.

By mile 10 my stomach began cramping.  It didn’t matter whether I had water or Gatorade, it wasn’t happy. I battled through the stomach discomfort on and off for the rest of the race, but for the most part it went away pretty easily.  (Luckily I did not have the issues that some poor lady had around mile 22… not going into details,lets just say I respect her for her determination).  I was stuck in a quandary though…do I drink water, knowing it will upset my stomach as well as not provide me electrolytes or do I drink Gatorade knowing the sugar isn’t something I’m used to and thus making me sick?  Well, I stuck with Gatorade 80% of the time.  Towards the end I was getting Gatorade to drink, and water to poor over my head.

I completed the halfway mark at 2:16:10 for a pace of 10:24/mi.  Over the last 6.3 miles I cut my pace by 11 seconds/mi.  I’ll take that considering most of the elevation change was in this section.  The problem is that 10:24/mi is still about 7 seconds above my desired pace.

I did stay true to my training plan for the most part with nutrition.  I planned to ingest a GU gel about every 45 minutes or 4.5 miles… whichever reminded me first.  By the time I got to what would have been the last fuel up the Gatorade/water/heat had gotten to me and the thought of eating anything made me nauseous – so I skipped the GU…but did find some gummy bears that seemed tasty.  It was a bit difficult to eat gummy bears while running, but by golly they were gummy bears.. you don’t pass up on free gummy bears for any reason.

I finished the “third” segment (19.8MI) at 3:24:21 for a pace of 10:23/mi.  Again, I cut my time, but it was above where I wanted.  So through almost 20 miles I was fairly close to my target.

Around mile 21 I ran into my pal Eric.  Eric is either brave or stupid, I haven’t figured out which.  He decided on a whim to run this race less than 36 hours before the start.  That isn’t why he is brave/stupid… he is brave/stupid because he ran the Big Sur Marathon the previous weekend.  It was nice to run with him for a little bit.. since misery likes company I believe it was good for both of us.  We also had the chance to witness the mile 22 incident I mentioned above… and I still wont’ go into details on that.  I last saw him stopping at a Gatorade station and getting 3  cups of Gatorade.  I was barely able to hold down a small one ,he was gulping them like they were going out of style.

By this point my pace had tanked.  I was holding my own for the longest time but the head/stomach cramps/sugar crash/lack of fuel started catching up to me.  I started thinking “only 4 miles to go’… which doesn’t sound bad.  Then I realized at my current speed that is like saying “only 45+ minutes to go”… that is when it sucked.  The heat was hitting me, the sweat was everywhere…and I just held on.  I take solace in knowing that down the stretch I was passing people because most everyone was walking.  I. DID. NOT. WALK.  The closest I came to walking was during water stops when I had to weave in and out of traffic, but I did not quit.

With about 3 miles to go someone said “The river is just ahead”… so I knew we must be getting close.  When I came around a clearing and saw the city skyline I was more deflated..what was only 3 miles looked like 100.  By this point I was doing a fast-shuffle.

I finally finished in 4:38:42.  This was a pace of 10:39, which shows my last 6.4 miles really tanked.  I had a 10:23/mi pace after about 20, and dropped 16 seconds a mile over the last segment.  Not a good finish, but I finished and that is what matters.  My final mile was a horrible 11:40…ouch.

When I finished I was elated.  I couldn’t stop, but I was elated.  When I put on the brakes and tried to go to a walk, it wasn’t very easy to do.  My muscles kept wanting to go.  I was finally able to convince them to cooperate with me so I grabbed my finisher’s medal(!) and slowly walked under the bridge.  The bridge was like an arctic shelf.  Once I got under there I didn’t want to move.  I walked over to a rail, leaned up against it for a while and didn’t move.  I probably spent a good 15-20 minutes just standing there.  I was eager to get to my family, but at the same time I wasn’t eager to move.

After a while I finally got the muscle strength to get up and go find them.  I walked through the rest of the recovery area, really hoping for a big ice-cold chocolate milk…to much disappointment.  They had water, gatorade, bananas, go-gurt, oranges, fruit snacks, etc. but the only thing I wanted was a chocolate milk.

I proceeded to get a banana and try to eat it…but my stomach said no.  I ended up throwing half of it away.  I was able to eventually eat a go-gurt and drink some water, but not much else worked for me.  I also got my picture at the “finishers” area and then went on to my family.

Luckily they were waiting right outside the recovery area for me…and luckily they had a chair.  Once the baby was done eating I sat down for a bit to recover, enjoying the sights of fellow marathoner’s walking around.

After a few minutes I was able to get up and walk around..relatively pain free.  I saw someone holding a printout of their race so I sought out that tent and surprisingly there was no line at all.  I was able to walk up, get my printout and go on.   That was awesome.  I spent a few more minutes at the race party before starting the walk back to the hotel.  They offered shuttles to the hotels but I thought the walking would be good to stretch my muscles.  It must have helped as I was not in much pain at all the days after the race.

Once I got back to my hotel I quickly went to the vending machine to retrieve an ice cold chocolate milk.  Unfortunately it only lasted about 5 seconds, but it was well worth it.

A shower later, we were out the door and on to lunch… we stopped at Outback and since I decided nothing sounded good to either my mood or stomach, I got a Bloomin’ Burger and sweet potato fries.  No significance in them but they were really good.  The day was capped off with a Frappuccino from Starbucks…oh yeah, and then I went to Kroger and did my shopping.  Just another Sunday, right?

Be sure to also read the race recaps from some of my tweeps:

• Erin
• Krissie
• Lesli
• Who did I miss??

Had a genie told me 2 years ago that I’d be here, my response would have had to have been “who am I cheering for?”. There is no way it could have been me.  Two years ago I had never ran a mile in my life.

If you had asked me a year ago I would have assumed it was to run the half….even that was a stretch.  But here I am, primed and ready to Bring It!

I have my 26.2 magnet ready to go on the truck when I finish.  Last year I thought about getting one after finishing my first 5k.  I realized that anyone can do a 5k.  I’m not meaning to  diminish the accomplishments of finishing a 5k, but millions of people complete those each year.  How many people can actually say they finished a Marathon?  Less than 1%.  So, instead of staging protests against me, help me celebrate…for I am the 1%….or will be in a few hours at least

A big thanks to my wife and kids…I didn’t realize what I was getting you all in to when doing this….thank you for supporting me and loving me…I love you all so much.

• Am I really ready for this?
• I am confident that I have trained enough, but not confident in my confidence
• Maybe I shouldn’t have had so much for dinner last night during our family birthday party?
• I definitely shouldn’t have had that piece of pie for breakfast
• What if it rains?  I don’t want to ruin my running shoes.
• Am I insane for doing 26.2 miles?  (Yes)
• Where do I go next?
• The training has been long and hard, will it be worth it?
• Will I be able to walk after the race?
• Will I be able to walk the day after the race?
• What should I eat today?
• What should I drink today?  Perhaps only water?
• What time should I wake up tomorrow?
• What should I drink/eat before the race?
• What should I have a celebratory dinner?
• Will I feel like eating a celebratory dinner?
• Why does typing this list make me hungry?
• Will I be able to hit my target pace?
• Should I even try to hit my target pace?
• Should I get with a pace group?
• Am I too nervous right now?
• Maybe I’m not nervous enough?
• Maybe I should stop worrying about this list and just get ready to run

75 tracks in playlist, average track length: 4:03
Playlist length: 5 hours 4 minutes 16 seconds
Right-click here to save this HTML file.

Playlist files:

1. Pink – Get The Party Started (3:12)
2. AC/DC – Highway To Hell (3:28)
3. House Of Pain – Jump Around (3:32)
4. Ludacris – Roll Out (4:56)
5. Pitbull feat. Chris Brown – International Love (3:29)
6. Queen – We Will Rock You (2:02)
7. Michael Jackson – Beat It (4:18)
8. Maroon 5 – Moves Like Jagger (feat. Christina Aguilera) (3:21)
9. Styx – Mr. Roboto (4:50)
10. K7 – Come Baby Come (3:55)
11. Run DMC – Its Tricky (3:04)
12. Various Artists – Espn Presents The Jock Jam (3:16)
13. Nicki Minaj – Starships [Explicit] (3:30)
14. Linkin Park/Jay Z – Numb Encore (3:23)
15. Lady Gaga – Poker Face (3:57)
16. Pussycat Dolls – Don’t Cha (4:03)
17. LMFAO – Sexy And I Know It (3:19)
18. Queen – Another One Bites The Dust (3:36)
19. Metallica – Enter Sandman (5:31)
20. Michael Jackson – Thriller (5:57)
21. All-4-One – (She’s Got) Skillz (Club Remix) (5:17)
22. 3 Doors Down – Kryptonite (3:54)
23. Puddle Of Mudd – She Hates Me (3:36)
24. Foreigner – Juke Box Hero (4:19)
25. dc Talk – Jesus Freak (4:49)
26. Weird Al Yankovic – It’s All About The Pentiums (An Adaptation Of “It’s All About The Benjamins” By Puff Daddy) (3:37)
27. Taio Cruz – Dynamite (3:23)
28. Michael Jackson – Bad (4:07)
29. Blink-182 – What’s My Age Again? (2:28)
30. Tone Loc – Wild Thing (4:25)
31. Weird Al Yankovic – Gump (Parody Of “Lump” By The Presidents Of The United States) (2:12)
32. Nelly – Number One (3:18)
33. Green Day – Holiday (3:52)
34. Walk This Way (5:10)
35. Snoop Doggy Dogg – Gin And Juice (Remix) (5:02)
36. 2Pac – California Love (4:01)
37. Limp Bizkit – Rollin (3:38)
38. Alien Ant Farm – Smooth Criminal (3:31)
39. Will Smith – Men In Black (3:53)
40. Nelly Furtado – Promiscuous (4:02)
41. Carl Douglas – Kung Fu Fighting (3:17)
42. American Hi-Fi – Geeks get the Girls (2:51)
43. Michael Jackson – Billie Jean (4:54)
44. Devo – Whip It (2:39)
45. Queen – We Are The Champions (3:01)
46. Linkin Park – Bleed It Out (2:46)
47. D12 – My Band (4:57)
48. Gym Class Heroes – Ass Back Home (feat. Neon Hitch) (3:42)
49. Mötley Crüe – Dr. Feelgood (4:50)
50. Lil Jon And The East Side Boyz F – Get Low (4:29)
51. Vanilla Ice – Ice, Ice, Baby (4:30)
52. LL Cool J – Mama Said Knock You Out (4:49)
53. The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony (5:57)
54. The Black Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow (4:11)
55. Pitbull – Back In Time (3:26)
56. Ludacris – Whats Your Fantasy (4:35)
57. Lil’ Kim Feat. 50 Cent – Magic Stick (5:59)
58. Metallica – Turn The Page (6:06)
59. Mumford And Sons – Little Lion Man (4:07)
60. Missy Elliott – Work It Remix Ft 50 Cent (4:59)
61. Miley Cyrus – See You Again (3:07)
62. J-Kwon – Tipsy (4:03)
63. Marilyn Manson – Beautiful.People (3:35)
64. The Wanted – Glad you came (3:11)
65. Puddle Of Mudd – Blurry (4:57)
66. Maroon 5 – Makes Me Wonder (3:31)
67. POD – Alive (3:23)
68. Jet – Are You Gonna Be My Girl (3:34)
69. Eminem – Lose Yourself (5:20)
70. The Killers – Mr. Brightside (3:43)
71. Fergie – London Bridge (3:27)
72. Black Sabbath – War Pigs (7:56)
73. Will Smith – Gettin´ jiggy wit it (3:47)
74. Eminem – Cleanin’ Out My Closet (4:57)
75. Justin Timberlake – Rock Your Body (4:27)

99 Days of a Training is a 99-part series that I will document my daily progress towards my first marathon. Each day I plan on recognizing a word or phrase that corresponds with that day’™s training. This series will conclude on May 6th, 2012 when I toe the start line (or somewhere in the back of the pack) at the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, OH

Wow.. I let the ball drop on this, didn’t I?  I was on a roll for a long time and now it has been 12 days since my last update.  Sorry to both of my followers for the laziness.

Well, here we are… 2 days from the culmination of this training.  To keep with the theme of this blog post (training), I’ll just give you a recap of the training.  I’ll write another post later about the rest.

Today I got in a “shake out” run.  A short, 1.85 mile, very slow run.  I didn’t put much energy into it, I just got out and loosened up my legs.  I’m ready to go.

With training almost done I just have to remember that I’ve trained, I’m ready, it is time to go.

99 Days of a Training is a 99-part series that I will document my daily progress towards my first marathon. Each day I plan on recognizing a word or phrase that corresponds with that day’™s training. This series will conclude on May 6th, 2012 when I toe the start line (or somewhere in the back of the pack) at the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, OH

Today’s run was brought to you by the word: hill.

I thought I knew hills.  I was wrong.  I ran up a few today that made even the RunTheBluegrass course look timid.  You can see the elevation map on by looking at my RunKeeper data for today.  My low point on the run was at 0 ft. above sea level, with a peak at 186 ft.   I was scheduled for 12 yesterday, but that didn’t happen due to work.  Since I did 6 yesterday I debated about how many to do today.  Since this was my last scheduled double-digit run, I decided to get in 10  (that and my co-worker was at the hotel waiting on me to get back so we could venture out in LA).

For my run I started at my hotel in El Segundo, CA and ran to the beach (2.7 miles there).  I had to run through downtown El Segundo, which was a pretty little town.  The only problem is there were many stop signs, traffic signals, slanted sidewalks, etc.  The good thing is there was a sidewalk the entire time.  I scoped this out yesterday when on my way to the beach for a run, so I knew I’d be good.

I started out feeling great, running a quick pace.  Too quick, perhaps. My first mile was a 9:19.  By the time I got to the beach it was beginning to sink.  It wasn’t so much that I ran too quick too early, but the hills that they have leading to the beach.  It was pretty brutal.

Once I made it to the beach I proceeded down about 2.3 miles along the road, then onto the Strand.  The Strand is a beautiful area of multi-million dollar houses along the beach, with a running trail.  The problem is the hill going down to the Strand (see pic on right) was a big ‘en.  To the point that at the bottom I was having to slow down to avoid falling.  The thing was insane.  Even more insane than running down it was I tried to run up it.  I made it, but it drained me for the rest of the trip.  By that point I had already put in 6.5 miles, so this made the last 3.5 miles a real challenge.

I ended up with a bleak 10:42 pace, which wasn’t bad considering how bad the hills were.  I’m happy with that.  This was my last double-digit run of the marathon training…. eek.  It just hit me that I have less than 14 days until I run my first marathon.  A year ago it seemed unfathomable to me that I’d even run a half marathon, but here I am about to be a marathoner.

Nutritionally I did good today… thanks to the run.  With food and exercise factored in I took in 3,046 calories with a ‘budget’ of 3,697, thus a 651 calorie surplus.  This was due to a healthier breakfast and splitting my lunch between lunch and dinner.  Oh, and leftover cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory last night.

Speaking of lunch, I had lunch today at a restaurant in which the movie Rush Hour was filmed.   Since I am a big fan of that movie I had to visit it once I saw the discrete sign stating their fame.

The food was great… a bowl of wonton soup and a huge plate of General Tao’s chicken.  I was only able to eat about half of it, so I took the other half back to the hotel and had it for dinner.  Combine some General Tao’s chicken with the included veggies and 2/3 slice of leftover cheesecake, it was an awesome dinner.

14 more days peeps… 14 days….

99 Days of a Training is a 99-part series that I will document my daily progress towards my first marathon. Each day I plan on recognizing a word or phrase that corresponds with that day’™s training. This series will conclude on May 6th, 2012 when I toe the start line (or somewhere in the back of the pack) at the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, OH

What a fun day.   Despite working from 3am until about 12:30pm, I still got in an amazing run.  For this run I drove to the beach, scoped out the path and set off on what ended up being a 6 mile run running parallel to the beach.   Here is the view of the running/bike path that goes along the beach.  It is a gorgeous route that I may have to hit up a lot more.  Overall I put up 6.15 miles at a blazing (for me) 9:43 pace.  It was relatively flat, so that aided in this.  My low point was zero feet above sea level, with a peak at 65ft up.

Nutritionally I pretty much broke even.  I took in an estimated 2,954 calories and with exercise factored in I had an allotment of 2,974.   The biggest issue on the day was my breakfast at McDonalds.  I had to be at work around 5am here in LA and the only option was Mickey D’s.  It is amazing something so simple was 660 calories.  And then to finish off with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  That would have went well, as they now have a healthy menu (called the Skinnylicious menu), but the bread they brought out was too tempting.

Tomorrow should be a better day.  Not sure how many miles I’ll get in, but I’ll try to get in double-digits.  I was scheduled for 12 today, but with work that didn’t happen.  The 6 was a nice experience though.

Until tomorrow…

99 Days of a Training is a 99-part series that I will document my daily progress towards my first marathon. Each day I plan on recognizing a word or phrase that corresponds with that day’€™s training. This series will conclude on May 6th, 2012 when I toe the start line (or somewhere in the back of the pack) at the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, OH

Today was a rest day, but that didn’t necessarily meant I rested.  No running today, but I did spend most of the day walking around Hollywood.  Very interesting place… reminds me a bit of Times Square in New York, with a bit of Chinatown mixed in.  Seeing the stars on the walk of fame was pretty cool, as was seeing the big Hollywood sign.  Luckily I probably burned a decent amount of calories walking around.

Unfortunately, my diet was pretty blah.  I went over by about 850 on the day since I didn’t have any true exercise.  I’d say my net calorie intake was substantially less since I did spend many hours walking around, but I have no real way of measuring that.

My work for tonight got postponed until the morning, so hopefully that’ll help me to have a better day eating tomorrow.  I still have to be up at 3am PST, so it will be a long day.  Luckily this shouldn’t be too hard and then I’ll have the next few days to do nothing but explore.  Night 2/10 is about over here in Los Angeles, but it has been fun.  The challenge tomorrow will be to find a good place to run.  I have a 12 mile long run to get in, and with as much as I ate today I may have to do more than that to make up for it.  Okay, I won’t.

99 Days of a Training is a 99-part series that I will document my daily progress towards my first marathon. Each day I plan on recognizing a word or phrase that corresponds with that day’€™s training. This series will conclude on May 6th, 2012 when I toe the start line (or somewhere in the back of the pack) at the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, OH.

Fun time today!  I got in 4 solid miles (at a 10:03 pace), and that was after waking up at 6am, changing the sheets on the guest bed for my mom, cleaning out the litter box, vacuuming upstairs, making lunch for the big boy & his momma, getting them out the door, shopping at Wal-Mart (in my house shoes might I add) for stuff for them for the next week and a half.

The rest of the day was mostly spent in an airport or airplane.  I left Lexington for LA at 11, had a 2.5 hour layover in Detroit and finally got to LA around 5 PST.  In a fun 8+ hours of traveling, I actually didn’t eat a lot of junk food.  A package of Biscoff cookies, 2 packages of peanuts and a package of pistachio’s throughout both flights, with lunch at Chili’s in the middle.

Nutritionally I was good.  Even with some dessert (a small cup of Ben & Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream, which was AMAZING) I had a surplus of about 400 calories.  Tomorrow will probably be a challenge though, as I’ll be touring around LA and working late at night.