Monthly Archives: September 2009
Random Thoughts to Close September
* If you missed my comment, I did go to the doctor on Tuesday. I have no damage to the eye, but I am currently using some eye drops that are like pouring salt onto an open wound … in my eye. I still have some blurry vision, but at least it looks better. It looks like three days after getting punched in the eye instead one day later. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here to read about the incident.
* This fourth week of 100 push-ups is tough. Very tough. Like “girl” push-up tough. But I like the new phrasing — “alternative” push-ups. I would say in my two workouts this week 80 percent of the push-ups have been “good form,” but I’ve had to drop to my knees for some. It’s still one hell of a workout though. I closed out tonight with 30 good-form push-ups and felt great. All told I did 115 push-ups tonight.
* Speaking of 100 push-ups, do a search on Twitter for #100pushupsrva - I’ve started a movement in Richmond. More details on that soon, I hope.
* I haven’t had a solid run in Bedford for almost a year. I’ll get that opportunity this weekend. Looking forward to the “loop” and then some.
* I’m done with monthly roundups. At least for now. I’m tired of focusing on numbers and that’s what monthly roundups were becoming. Looking ahead to 2010, my goals need to become more focused than gathering up a lot of miles. I’m going to miss my mileage goals for this year and I’m really fine with that. Unless I set out to 1,000 running miles in a year, I don’t see why I need to get caught up in all that. Simple numbers don’t reflect how successful I feel. I’ll probably still report out at the end of the year what my mileage numbers were, and I’ll continue to log every little tenth of a mile, but I just don’t want it to be a focus anymore. I want to pay more attention to numbers with speed or tempo runs or long runs.
* Speaking of speed, I had a pretty good session tonight at the gym. Two half-mile intervals that started at an 8-minute mile pace and ended at a 7:30 pace and a 1-mile interval/tempo run at 7:30. It felt great to push myself for that mile and to have a speed workout for a third straight week.
Stung in the eye
I was trying to think of a funny headline for this post or a long bizarre introduction to tell this story, but I can’t. I’ll just come out and tell you the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me while running — I got stung in the eye last night. It wasn’t one of those deals where a bug flies in your eye and you rub it for a minute and it’s gone — I literally got stung in the eye.
I was just starting off with my dog when all of a sudden it felt like someone stuck a knife in my eye. It hurt so bad. I rubbed it for a while and it got a little better, but didn’t quite feel right. I started heading back toward my house, but it felt good enough to continue. So I ran with Duke for a little while longer, dropped him off and then ran a little bit more. When I came home to look at my eye it was red, but when I pulled at my eye a little bit I saw that the bug was still in my eye.
That’s when it hurt again. This story isn’t complete without telling you that I HATE sticking things in my eye. Hate it. You know that little air puff thing at an eye exam? It takes me forever to do because I move too quick. Anyway, I worked this thing out of my eye, tried to squish it and realized it was hard. And it had a little stinger on it. A hard bug with a stinger.
So last night I washed it out a bit and all seemed fine. Then in the middle of the night I woke up and my eye was crusted shut. It was pretty gross. And this morning it’s quite puffy. There’s a nice little white spot inside my eye where I apparently got stung. Looking at this computer screen is like having bad eye sight with one contact in my eye. It sort of feels like something is just stuck in my eye and I can’t get it out.
I’ve had some weird things happen when running, but I can’t think of anything that tops this. As long as things get better within the next day, this will just be a funny story down the road. Right now, though, it’s pretty annoying …
Details, please
One of the unexpected things to come out of doing the 100 push-ups program is how much more it is making me pay attention to my other workouts. I’ve admittedly been frustrated with myself for getting into a dull routine of things this summer, but now that I’ve put the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half behind me and moved on to something new, I feel more focused. Perhaps it’s a quality vs. quantity thing … or maybe it’s a quality AND quantity thing. Whatever it is, each workout feels like it has a meaning to it and I feel like making each workout different from the previous one. And I feel like writing more about each workout too. I feel like I’m holding myself more accountable when I do this.
So that leads me to last night. I wouldn’t exactly call it a speed workout, but in a roundabout way it was. I headed over to the gym, hopped on the treadmill and started off at a leisurely 10-minute mile pace - 6 mph. My goal for the workout was simple - run 2 miles and increase my speed by 0.1 mph each tenth of a mile. That meant slowly increasing my speed to 8 mph, a 7:30-minute mile pace. While this was a relatively short run, this was a high quality run. My main goal was to push myself and run faster, but do it in a comfortable way. A treadmill allows me to do such a thing, even if I really don’t like it. It was a good transition run to get used to the treadmill again and it was nice to have that steady increase.
As far as the quantity side of things went last night, I then got off the treadmill after a cool down of about a quarter mile and then got on the bike for an easy 5 mile ride.
***
Tonight my focus once again turned to the 100 push-ups challenge. I did sets of 14, 19, 14, 14 and a max of 20, and sweated like I ran 5 miles. All in all it went pretty well. It is amazing to me to think that not even a month ago I could only do 15 push-ups — 15 that weren’t even that good — and tonight I did 81 total. I’m not one to pat myself on the back, but I love this program. I’ve also managed to get a few virtual friends on Twitter to do this too — I’ll have a blog entry on that soon. So … what’s your excuse to not do it? 
Pushing through it
Tonight I had another tough workout with the 100 push-up challenge, but this wasn’t like the bad one last week. Last week was a sense of dread; tonight was the first time I really had to push through my final set. I didn’t know if it was going to happen or not.
The week 3, day 1 workout seemed like quite a step up from week 2. But if I’m ever going to make it to 100 straight push-ups, then I guess that’s what has to happen. Tonight’s sets up push-ups were 12, 17, 13, 13 and a max of 17. With my arms already feeling like they were on fire, the final set was kind of a blur. And the final two in that last set were … well, I can’t really put words to it. Tough doesn’t quite describe it. But I did it and a half hour later everything feels great.
* * *
Last night I did a fairly small speed workout — 5 tenth of a mile intervals in the middle of a 3.6-mile run. My splits were 43 seconds, 40, 38, 41 and 44. It wasn’t much, but it was the second week in a row of doing some type of speed work. It felt good to push myself a little harder than usual and I continue to kick myself for lacking in the speed department for the past few months. I’ve learned than lesson and it’s time for me to move forward and focus on getting faster.
From a push-up low to a push-up high
In my last post, I talked about how bad the workout was that day in the 100 push-up challenge. Well, on Friday the drastic opposite happened. I felt strong and ready to take on the world. I was kind of amazed at how different I felt from just two days before. On Friday, my sets were 12, 13, 10, 10 and a max of 18.
Today I performed an exhaustion test to determine which column to do for weeks 3 and 4. To put it simply, an exhaustion test is to do as many push-ups in a row as possible. I pulled out 25, so that keeps me in column 2, which has been good to me so far (minus one day).
It’s almost hard for me to believe that I did 25 consecutive push-ups today. When I first started this a few weeks ago, I did 30 total for the workout. In a very short time, this program has given me an unbelievable feeling of strength that I haven’t felt in a long time. Honestly, right now, it’s hard to put into words.
Tales on the 100 push-up journey
When training for a race, seven weeks can often seem like forever. With a half marathon, it can often mean the different of a 6-mile long run and a 12-mile long run. When I have seven weeks to go for a race, I never feel anxious about it. So why does doing the 100 push-up challenge make me feel different? Perhaps because it’s such a unique challenge.
The first full week was surprisingly easy. Sure it was different, but it made me feel great. But today — week 2, day 2 — I suddenly had a sense of dread before doing it. It was like a long run I didn’t really want to do, but had to do it anyway. With this program, I can’t really miss a day, especially on week 2 that calls for an exhaustion test before starting week 3. And, unlike running, I can’t really take it easy. Push-ups are push-ups … running can be as slow or fast as I want it to be.
So tonight was just tough for some reason, but I pulled out sets of 10, 12, 9, 9 and 15 for a total of 55. By set No. 2 I wanted to stop. I tried giving myself extra time between sets, but that didn’t really help. My arms just felt on fire tonight. I’m not sure how I even maxed out at 15 for the last set. When I went for a 16th, my arms had nothing else to do with me. Two hours later, they feel like they’re going to fall off my body.
But I did it and I’m stronger because of it …
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