Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday, so I of course had to post so as to memorialize this day in Internet history forever. I am still 25 for the time being, though, as my actual birth time is 11:33 PM. I was born on my due date, because even in the womb I had respect for other people’s time.

Anyway, I am still undecided whether I will run tonight or not. On the one hand, I have to go to Annie’s opera tomorrow night, which means no time to run tomorrow after work. However, today is my birthday and I ran the last two nights. Also, because I didn’t rest two full days (Monday and Tuesday), my calf has been slower to recover and is still just the slightest bit tight. And, if I am really set on running, I can always wake up early tomorrow and do it so as to rest tonight. Or I could just run tonight and have two days off before Sunday’s long run of 9 miles.

Tuesday night I ran the usual 4.5-mile easy run, although my easy pace is much slower than what I usually run at. I know the experts say to run at a slow, conversational pace, but I hate shuffling along on the treadmill like that. If I can safely and relatively comfortably shuffle along at a slightly faster pace, I’ll do that instead. My calf and leg muscles were really tight the first mile or so, but loosened up nicely after that. No real issues to report there.

Yesterday I did a short 3-mile tempo run. Again, the calf and leg were tight for about 1.5 miles but loosened up afterwards. This has been happening more often lately, and leads me to believe that my usual warm up is no longer adequate. Once the muscles are warmed up, they’re fine and I feel much better. However, the pain and discomfort that I have to endure before that point saps a lot of valuable energy that I’d like to use to run better and improve my efficiency.

So, I am going to start working on a new warm up process that will get my legs warmed up more thoroughly. Maybe a 10-minute job followed by some stretching. This sort of segues into another topic for this post: the future indoor/outdoor ratio of y running.

As you can see from my online training log, approximately 100% of my training runs have taken place indoors on a treadmill since June. As the months have gone on, I have gotten progressively more bored with this arrangement but have been faced with several impediments to running including:

1. Baltimore is full of nut jobs.
2. I have no desire to run outside after work because of traffic, aforementioned nut jobs, and pedestrians messing up my groove
3. No way of monitoring my pace, direction, distance, time, etc.

I’m sure there are other obstacles, but these are the three biggies. However, I have reason to believe that the biggest factor, #3, will be remedied shortly. I have a wishlist on Amazon that I have compiled as I have found books that I want to read. The beauty of Amazon is that they sell everything so I was able to also add the Garmin Forerunner 305 , the Porsche of the GPS sports training products. I have reason to believe that I will be receiving this for my birthday this weekend, which would be awesome. This would greatly improve my chances of significantly reducing my indoor running time. By being able to monitor every stat possible regarding my training away from the treadmill, I will be free to run wherever I want, whenever I want.

As a result, if obstacle #3 is resolved, numbers 1 and 2 will quickly fall as well because I will have the motivation to get up early in the morning, when there is no traffic, pedestrian interference and the nut jobs are still passed out in their lairs. Plus I don’t like going anywhere and not knowing where I am, how far I am from home, etc. The Forerunner 305 will do all of that, and more.

Now, it’s possible that I won’t receive this until Christmas, which I am OK with, of course. But it would be sweet to have it now because I have wanted it since I laid eyes on it several months ago. Sure, I could have asked for the 205 model, but really, why bother if I’m getting it as a gift? Am I spoiled by my family? Yes. Will I run an awesome half marathon in March? Absolutely. Will I have my Forerunner with me when I do? Hopefully!