On the Road Again...

Got outside with all my spiffy new winter running gear. All I can say is...the gear held up great! Other than that...not so much. At about mile 2 I got lung locked and it hurt so much that I had to walk for a 1/4 mile before starting back up slowly. Same thing happened again at around mile 4. Walked another 1/4 mile and was able to back going with no other occurrences. In total I got 9 miles in, another disapointment. Condition-wise it was around 38 degree's with wind gust up to 25-30mph, not ideal conditions, but I should have been okay...not sure what happened...ugh. Very frustrated at the moment and being only 11 days out doesn't help matters. Just seems that I need to get more work in here prior to leaving next week than I wanted to. :-( As I had mentioned previously, the couple of pounds I gained this past week hasn't helped matters either.

Even though I'm frustrated right now, I'm still optimistic that I'll be good for the race. The other positive being that I'm guessing the temp won't dip lower than the 40's (my lungs will like that!). With withhold judgement on my actual condition till early next week.

Here's to hoping that everyone else is on track and ready to go for this thing!

So much to do, so little time..

Boy, I let myself go a bit over the past couple of weeks. I've done okay on the running end of things, but not on the food (not going to say how much weight...oy). The good news is that my metabolism is on my side, and have had a couple of days eating better on the road to recovery. I'm not sure that my time goals are in reach just yet, but will assess by this weekend and adjust the pace as necessary. The one thing I don't want to do out there is hurt myself. Anyhoo, I'm pretty psyched at this point for the trip. Didn't realize that I'd be back to work two days and then off to Florida, not sure how that snuck up on me. Not to mention that my MBA program kicks back in on Jan 5 with Quantitative Analysis/Statistics, fun fun! Will have some reading to bring with me for sure.

Haven't put in my second long run for December yet and looks like I'll be doing it in the snow tomorrow or Wednesday. Not a big deal, might cut back on the pace and up the miles as an adjustment.

More fantasy football stuff.... Won a league championship in one of the leagues I play in and will be putting that money into the 2010 Marathon weekend trip. Kinda psyched about that. :-)

Sorry for the hiatus

I'm back! Sort of! This week has been nuts with year end closeout projects at work..."landing the plane" as our finance folks call it, takes a bit more work than we originally anticipated. Also, it appears they want us to "take off" our financial plane for 2009, so that took a good amount of budget work as well. Throw in the final class for this segment (Marketing) for my MBA program and I had a nice work/school sandwich going on! Anyhoo, all my year end closeout, year beginning budget/renewal, etc., and Marketing work is done! Got an A in Marketing to boot!

Thank you all for your kind comments on the B-day and the unfortunate incident that happend! Window was fixed last Tuesday, so everything is back to normal, sort of.

Training has been treadmill based as of late due to the activites mentioned above. Snowing and 27 degrees here today, looks like we're forcasted for 8-12 inches, fun fun. Anyhoo, I'm off from work till Jan 5 and will hopefully have some outdoor runs during that span! Haven't had a good food week or two which is disasterous given that I've been scraping by on the running. :-( Injury to insult, I've had this pain in my lower leg for two weeks now. Seems to pop up when I use the treadmill more...I'm sure it'll be fine though.

It's getting late early! Up and at'em T.V.

Fantasy Football...for those who care... I fell short in the MouseGuest fantasy football league this past week. Was the #2 seed in the playoffs and bounced in the semi's...considering that my team was autodrafted for me...I'm actually happy that I made it that far. I'm in the finals of my "money" league and hoping to bring home a championship. So, for all you football fans...let's root for the following players! Donovan McNabb (Go Eagles!), Thomas Jones, Maurice Jones-Drew (had a good game last night), Pierre Thomas, Larry Fitzgerald, Brandon Marshall, Lance Moore, Seattles own John Carlson ;-), Eagles Defense, and some kicker dude...forgot who I have....

Smash and Grab...

What a lovely birthday it turned out to be. The plan, go out to dinner and then to a showing of "Bolt". Well, dinner went okay, but when we went out to the car....smashed drivers side window and the GPS unit..gone.gotta love people.... I'm sure it's societies fault, right? Anyhoo, no Bolt, happy B-day.. :-(

Happened to me 10 years ago with my in dash radio in broad daylight...It's the time that it takes to get it all fixed and such that I'm more angry about. What can ya do.


Hope all y'all that are down at the Mousefest meets (Florida and northwest) are having a great day! Have a drink for me!

In the Long Run...

Great Eagles tune....

Put 12 miles in today for my long run. Almost thought I wasn't going to get them in this weekend due to work schedules, but my lovely wife got up early today so I could get out. Thanks honey! :-)

35 degree's, seeing my breath, etc. Not too much wind, so it was actually kinda nice. Ran a little slower than normal as I didn't really want to push my lungs coming off the chest cold I had. Was a little tight in the lungs after, but feel good now. Ran around 8:20's on average, which isn't too bad on this route with all the hills.

Anyhoo, one more long run on the 27th o r 28th prior to the race.

The Great Outdoors

No, no John Candy or Dan Ackroyd...Just me on the open road jog'n right along. First run outside for me in a couple of weeks, so it's sort of an accomplishment. Working from home today, so it made it very easy to get one in. 4.51 miles total at an average pace of 8:04. Not bad, thought I'd be slower as I wanted to warm my lungs up for the first mile (8:16). Did feel a little pain as my lungs expanded on the first monster hill which is only .3 miles from my start. Settled in though and felt okay the rest of the way. Still, a balmy 45 degrees and wearing shorts and short sleeves! Gotta love it.

This blog was almost entitled "Throw me a fricken bonus", but I like the other better. Totally unexpectedly my boss hands me a letter stating that I recieved some kind of team award and would receive a cash bonus, woohoo! Really just happy to have a job given the economy and all....but this was really nice as it's been insane lately... Sooooo, not worrying about getting the annual pass or spending money while down in the World anymore! Not exactly "drinks on me" money, but perhaps if y'all show up to the Rant-meet I might be persuaded...

One more thing. My daughter bought me the coolest gift ever today! My wife took her to the Disney store and she told her they had to buy me this Perry the Platypus stuffed animal. It growls like Perry and everything! Best Gift EVER! am I looney or what? ;-)

Are we there yet?

Almost asked myself that question today when I saw the mail. A nice neat little letter package was in there with the words "Disney Magical Express" on the cover. Then it hit me, my luggage tags and such, ahhhhh. First time for me using magical express, so it was a little exciting to see. :-)

Feeling a little bit better today, well enough to tough out a 5k on the mill just now (not too much hacking afterwards). Looking forward to getting outside for this weekends run...it's been too long since I ran outside. Feel like I'm in confession or something "So my son, how long has it been since your last outdoor run?" TOO LONG! I'm learning that it's not only the desire to get out there when the temps dip to a ripe temp of 30'ish, but its other stuff too! Like, it gets dark around 4p, so there goes the after work run (too many nutty drivers...and other nutty things...people..etc...wouldn't feel safe). Would run during my lunch, but I've been working straight through lunch and it doesn't appear to be letting up (I know, I know, be thankful I've got a job! or that I'm not run down by a mob of Christmas shoppers...jeez that a sad story and state of affairs....:-(.....)

Anyhow, enough of my bitching! Happy to at least have the treadmill outlet when life gets in the way of nice fulfilling outdoor runs! The plan is to get a long run of 12.5 in this weekend and do one final long run in two weeks (probably on my birthday, the 13th...gives me good leverage to take a couple hour run!) I'll be thinking of all your Mousefesters enjoying your meets on the 13th, wishing I was there.... Perhaps next year as I'll have that annual pass burning a whole in my pocket!

How's everyone else doing? Rae, you still with us? We NEED ya! :-) Looks like Heath is back in action, woohoo! Deb has been kicking tail for like 12 months...Mike-speed is priming his jets...Jeff is...well...I dunno...tending to the corn?... Jonathan sounded in good spirits last show.... Dare I say it...Team Voice is primed and ready to roll through WDW? I know there are plenty more T.V'ers out there too!