Posts Tagged ‘Lynchburg College’

I don’t have much to say about a 5k I did yesterday … one of the steepest hills I’ve encountered in a 5k absolutely killed my time. That being said, I ran a solid 25:12 in the first-ever 5k at Lynchburg College’s Homecoming.

I was on target for about 24 minutes until the route came back onto campus. Apparently the entrance has a name that didn’t exist when I went to school there — Entrance Hill. According to my Garmin, just after mile 2 I was at an elevation of 629 feet; at the peak of this hill just past 2.5 miles, I was at an elevation of 791 feet. The race had a total elevation gain of 367 feet.

To show at that hill killed my time, my splits were 7:28, 8:10 (which included a nice uphill of Faculty Drive in Lynchburg) and 9:33 in the final 1.1 miles. It was my slowest 5k in almost 5 years.

I’m certainly not complaining or disappointed. I’m happy with how things went and would not do anything different. It was awesome to have a race at my alma mater with about 40 other alumni, many of them former track stars in NCAA Division III athletics. And if they keep doing this every year, I have a new course record to break.

This weekend is homecoming weekend at Lynchburg College, marking a celebration of 10 years since I graduated from there. I’m not really getting caught up in the “I can’t believe it’s been 10 years” thing, but I have thought a lot this week of how so many things are different now. Besides the obvious personal things of getting married and having a family, running is a big part of why things aren’t anything like they were back in 2000.

In the year 2000 …

• I’m not sure how much I weighed.
• I drank a lot of beer and created “Chug Fest 2000.” You had to be there.
• I wasn’t completely inactive — I did play tennis once or twice a week. And then drank a lot of beer.
• I had a minor role in “Diary of Anne Frank.”
• My roommates and I created the most symmetrical beeramyid EVER, complete with probably 10 different types of beers. I have photos, somewhere, to prove it.
• My first job out of college was at large credit card company. I worked there less than two weeks and then worked at a golf course for about three months before getting my first real job in my career field.
• I drove a light blue 1990 Ford Escort.
• Did I mention that I drank a lot?

Of course as we age and mature, the beer drinking goes away, we get better cars and many people stop taking care of themselves. I feel fortunate that I’ve gotten a grip on my life and can go to my 10-year reunion 30-plus pounds lighter, along with what I think is a stable job and my lovely wife and son.

Five years ago when I went to homecoming, things were definitely different than from five years before, but five years later things are even more different. I’ve ran 10 half marathons, I’ve tackled one marathon and am close to being in the best shape of my life.

A decade is a long time for people to have ups and downs and go through drastic changes, and I couldn’t be happier with where my life right now. Homecoming is an awesome time to reflect on these things and give my confidence another boost as training for the Richmond Marathon draws to an end in a few weeks.

* After such an awesome April, May has very much started ho-hum. Not that I didn’t need it — the first four months of the year were so good that I didn’t have a chance to slow down. And my blogging has slowed too. There’s nothing wrong going on — I’m just easing back on the gas pedal for a short time.

* Ten years ago yesterday I graduated from Lynchburg College. I actually had a good post typed up yesterday about where I’ve been since that time and how I want to surprise people at my 10-year reunion at Homecoming in October, but my computer literally ate what I typed. Disappeared. Gone. Maybe by October I’ll get around to putting those thoughts together again.

* When a run goes bad, get out and run the next day. On Wednesday, I had a horrible run. It just felt bad; it was hot; I felt slow; my breathing felt totally off; I felt like I had taken a shower with my clothes on. Then on Thursday, I had a great run. Take the bad things that happened the night before and reverse them. A key to bad runs is to bounce back like that and forget about them. Consider it forgotten.

* I really, really, really need to get my nutrition in check. This whole losing 5 pounds in May thing isn’t going anywhere. The scale says what it did two weeks ago, and I have no one to blame but myself. After a bad dinner tonight, I’m mad at myself. And, usually, if I get mad at myself, I can turn it around. It’s worked with running this year. Now I just have to get the other half of the puzzle done.

I’m not sure if there’s anything more chilling than hearing “Amazing Grace” on bagpipes. Especially live. Check out a clip from last night’s Relay for Life at Lynchburg College:

As promised, I ran 10 miles after raising $500 through 4 p.m. yesterday. It was very interesting to run customized loop after loop to do it, but as I ran I thought about all the people in my life who have been impacted by cancer. An inconvenient run is simple; battling cancer is not. But thanks to the many people who donated to this effort, we’re perhaps one day closer to winning the battle.

After participating last night, I realized that this is something I have to do again. I already have some ideas in my head that I’ll keep to myself right now, but running to raise money to fight cancer is at the top of my list of things to continue doing.

A while back I mentioned how this run would be part of my streak of running every day in April. I ran 5.6 miles before midnight. I started around 10:30 p.m. and took a few breaks up to that point. I then ran 4.4 miles after midnight. I had to veer off the loop that was created for the event. The loop created in LC’s Dell was just under two-tenths of a mile and very crowded with the teams of students — those of us with the Central Virginia Alumni Club were certainly much older than most everyone else around there with the exception of a few faculty and staff.

After a few laps, I always stayed within distance of hearing the music, speakers and seeing everyone else walking. It was quite a site. All told the 36 teams raised nearly $30,000. My team was No. 4 overall and I was actually the No. 3 fundraiser with $550 — $50 coming after my mileage cut-off. To hit 110 percent of my goal is just awesome. I can’t say thank you enough to everyone who helped out.

Just before I made the switch to this site I wrote about running in Relay for Life at Lynchburg College. Well, that is tonight! As of 9 a.m. I have $345 raised - just $5 short of running 7 miles.

My plan is this: for every $50 I will run a mile up to $500, or 10 miles. If the donations go beyond that, I will run a mile for every $100, up to 15 miles or $1,000. My personal cutoff time for my challenge is 4 p.m. today. Of course, additional donations after that time are welcome.

To donate to my efforts, click here. As of this hour, the Central Virginia Alumni Club - the team I am on - is No. 5 in online fundraising out of 36 teams, and I am No. 5 overall out of 530 participants. So far all the Lynchburg College-related teams have raised more than $21,000.

11:10 a.m. update: The total is now $430!
12:15 p.m. update: Just $45 to go to my goal of $500.
3:30 p.m. update: $25 more and I’ll run 10 miles tonight. $475. Who has $25?

GOAL MET!
Less than 5 minutes after my last update, I had a $25 donation to get me to $500. I’m blown away with all the support I have received today. Words cannot express how grateful I am for people stepping up for such a great cause. Now I have to run 10 miles tonight … that’s a lot of circles in the Lynchburg College Dell, but it will be very much worth it. Thank you so much!

Today I got in a good 6.4-mile run, with much of it coming in a group of Lynchburg College alumni who are getting ready for the Monument Avenue 10k. It was a fitting close to a month that for the most part has been very good to me. As I continue to adjust to life with a baby, there were certainly times in which I wish I could have made it to the gym, even for just a quick workout, but I’m not really complaining. A four-day trip to Ohio in the coldest part of the month also put a small dent into things.

For the month I ran 59 miles. With last year still on my mind a bit, this is great. I’m kicking myself just a bit for not hitting 60. This is better than all but four months from last year, including the just over 40-mile start in January ’08. But this month is so much different than a year ago in the fact that I also logged 15.6 biking miles and 17.3 miles on various elliptical machines. Add in 14.5 walking miles and I have 106.4 total miles for this month.

I’m a bit disappointed that I haven’t been able to shed much weight, but I can only blame myself for what goes in my mouth. Overall I haven’t been eating that bad, but this small snacking at work when people bring in food has got to stop.

As I look ahead to February, my goals are simple - do more and do it with more intensity. With running, I want my long run at the end of the month to be 10 miles. After what I did today, I’m pretty confident that a 10 miler on Feb. 28 won’t be a problem (weather permitting). On Feb. 14 I’ll be running in the Sweetheart 8k. My goal for that is to beat last year’s time of 38:26. That race will be a good test to see where I’m at with being in racing shape. I’m just not looking forward to that damn hill at the beginning.

Lastly, I just want to say: Go Cards! I’ll be an Arizona fan tomorrow, if only for a day.

Now that we’re a few weeks into the new year, I’d really like to get a regular schedule going. But a weekend trip last week to Ohio kind of threw me off, mainly due to weather too cold to run. So this week sort of feels like I’ve been catching up, but my personal schedule led to not being able to do much on Thursday or Friday.

So today I set out to meet a group of Lynchburg College alumni for a group run - they’re getting ready for the Monument Avenue 10k at the end of March. I ran to the park near my house where the group was supposed to meet, but once I got there and there were only a couple of cars, I realized that I read my e-mail wrong - the group run is NEXT week. While I was mad at myself, I went ahead and got in my planned 5-mile run with the last 1.25 of it with my dog.

That makes two 5-mile runs this week, with another 3-plus miler mixed in. I’ll get in some kind of workout tomorrow. What exactly I’ll do is something I’m not decided on. Getting two 5-mile runs in a week’s span makes me feel good with my training. As of tomorrow there are 8 weeks to the (sold out) Shamrock Half Marathon. I feel a bit behind, but physically I feel like I’m in a good spot. I just have to get up tomorrow and do something, and then go 110 percent next week for 8 straight weeks. I’m in a better place than I was last year, that’s for sure.

One of my favorite places to run is at my alma mater - Lynchburg College. It’s easily to log several miles on the campus by running on the roads within the school, running along College Drive behind the school and running on the many sidewalks within the Dell. And there’s also the renovated track at Shellenberger Field where you can throw a few laps down. In the early morning before the students rise, or during the summer months when many students are away, it’s a very peaceful place to run. Even when the students are there it’s a great place to go, but you just have to be more aware of the traffic.

It’s also a very challenging place to run. There’s really nowhere flat, so be prepared to do battle with the hills. (I guess this is true of just about everywhere in Lynchburg!) Another nice thing about running there is the endless routes. I’ve rarely done the same route twice.