Everyone should have goals.

I started this blog several years ago in an attempt to chronicle my efforts at running the Marine Corps Marathon. What I found out was that training for a marathon is hard, maybe even harder than the race itself, though I wouldn't know since I have yet to complete the 26.2 miles. Depending on one's pace, at the height of the training program, one could spend seven or more hours a week pounding the pavement. If you have a full-time job and a couple of side jobs, running for the equivalent of a workday can be a little hard to accommodate.

Training time for the half marathon is much shorter, the longest runs are around 10 miles, which is eight-plus miles less than most marathon plans' longer runs. At nine minutes a mile, that's only 90 minutes of running, plus cooldown. Doable.

From what I've read, just the physical toll that the marathon takes on a body is another reason to pick a shorter distance. If the marathoner is walking a little slower and missing a couple of toenails, the half-marathoner, by comparison, is kicking up his heels, ready to go out dancing.

So, I am changing my goal to the half. I was signed up for the Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon, but it's a spring race and I hadn't been training during the winter, which is an absolute necessity. I'll focus on building up my distance and strength over the summer, and maybe pick a 13.1 miler in the fall, and combine that with a couple days away with my wife.

Of course, I'm not doing this just to run a half marathon. The overarching goal is weight loss

In a nod that being over-40 means I'm not as flexible as I was in my 20s or 30s, I am also exploring other ways to get in shape. Never a gym rat, I'm not a fan of the lift-things-up-and-put-them-down way of exercising. It works for other people, just not me. What has piqued my curiosity is the disciplines that focus on strength and flexibility, and yoga seems to offer both. I have picked up a copy of Sage Rountree's The Runner's Guide to Yoga. A friend of mine, also a firefighter and an avid runner, says it helped him with flexibility and balance while running.

In the days ahead, I'll try and post every run, on the same day if possible. I welcome any comments and helpful hints, particularly on what apps and training gear people use. I'm always on the lookout for better ways to do things.

Let's try this again, shall we?

For the first time in a very long time (six months? A year?) I got out the door to run this morning. 

Actually, "run" is a rather grandiose term for what I did, but the point is I put one foot in front of the other and had both feet off the ground at the same time for a large part of a-mile-and-change. 

The other day, I posted in my personal journal how I had had enough of a number of negative things, and I decided that my outlook would be more positive. My thinking is that if I am positive in the way I view things, then things will be more positive. This isn't a new concept, though I'll admit it is new to me. 

One of my more critical ways I look at myself is my physical appearance. I'm overweight - though not nearly as heavy as I was when I got on the fire department - and my cardiovascular endurance is terrible. The fact that I'm 46 and all that implies in terms of metabolism is not helpful. Something had to be done. 

I've never been the kind of person to keep at something when I've experienced significant setbacks (a personal failing), and trying to bang out two miles or more, only to hit the proverbial wall at half a mile, does not lend itself to repeat performances. I need to enter this stuff gradually. 

One of the apps on my phone is Runkeeper, and it comes with various training plans, so I selected the Jeff Galloway run/walk method. Only had to do ten minutes or so this morning, and I did it so that I completed a mile. I did a local route that started and ended at my driveway. The only hiccup was trying to get the music to function properly, which didn't occur until I was done with the running portions. Also, I'll need to look into a different carrier for my phone. the one I have is for the bulkier iPhone 6, and I have the iPhone 7.

The weather largely cooperated and didn't drizzle until I got home and was stretching on my front steps, though the humidity was a little much. Took me about 14 minutes, and I felt pretty good afterward.

I've set a goal of losing 25 pounds by the end of July, which is doable, as long as I get my diet under control, not an easy feat. 

But, one step at a time.

Back at it...Again

It seems a bit like Groundhog Day, but once again I'm trying to get back into a regular routine of running. Only this time, I've actually gotten out there, four times in the past week.

It hasn't been much, a mile and three-quarters in the longest one. And it hasn't been easy, which makes me a bit wistful of the way I was running last summer, a time when five-miles was a breeze. Of course, I realize that getting out there regularly will eventually get me back to that point, but in the interests of instant gratification...I want to be there now. (In a small indication that I'm progressing, I have lowered my average pace on the 1.25 mile course by 40 seconds or so, from 10'34" to 9'51". It didn't feel that way, though.)

At the moment, I'm concentrating on running just in the local neighborhood, either Old Freehold Road through the Walnut Street School yard, then Walnut Street back to OFR, or up to the High School and back. The weather has been largely cooperative, but we are getting towards the winter months, so I'd like to establish a regular routine before then, because I'm not going to be wanting to get out there when the temperatures are at freezing or below if I haven't.

I'm aiming for a near-term goal of five miles per run, which I should get to by December 1st if I keep this up. Last year, while training for the marathon I didn't run (yet...someday I will, when I can devote four hours on a Saturday to training), I found out about the Manasquan Reservoir, which has a beautiful 5-mile perimeter course around the water. Now, if one could only do it without the assorted other walkers, runners, and bicyclists, it would be perfect. In late spring, I'm going to try again for the Historic Half Marathon, and by try, I mean run the whole thing.

I'm still using Nike+, which seems to be pretty accurate. I've thought about trying one of the other apps, such as RunKeeper, but if it works, why change it. My Nike-sponsored cheerleaders for the first couple of runs have either been Shalane Flanagan or Sanya Richards-Ross.

For a little bit different take on things, check out my friend Roseanne Rappoccio's blog. She's a fellow never-was-a-runner, and has really gotten into it. She says she still doesn't like it, but I'm not quite sure I believe her.

Finally, I've changed up my playlist, too, trying to get a fresh start.

First five songs, old and new playlists:

·         “Armageddon It”, Def Leppard	·         “Out of Our Heads”, Dropkick Murphys
·         “Already Gone”, The Eagles	·         “Sing the Changes”, The Fireman
·         “I Want It All”, Queen	·         “Danger Zone”, Kenny Loggins
·         “She’s A Rebel”, Green Day	·         "If I Should Fall From Grace With God”, The Pogues
·         “Back In The Saddle”, Aerosmith	·         “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, Billy Joel

Baby Steps.

It's been several months, but I finally got out there. Just 1.3-and-change miles (a far cry from the five or six miles I did with ease just a year ago) and it was tough. And in a summer of moderate temperatures and low humidity, I pick the muggiest morning in weeks to go out.

Still, it was something. Now, the challenge is to turn this something into more somethings, at least a couple times per week.

I have a couple of motivations for doing this.

The first, and foremost, is to be healthy. When I was running last summer, I was in the best shape in years, and likely my life. My resting heart rate was in the mid-60s (unheard of for me before then), and my weight got as low as 189 pounds, where I hadn't been since high school. Predictably, a lot of the clothing and uniforms I had either didn't fit well, or actually fit better, though more (much more) the former than the latter. I actually downsized my turnout gear in the firehouse.

Now, I'm back up to 207 pounds (still a lot lower than the 244 I was sworn in at nine-plus years ago), and items that fit much better are getting a little - in some cases more than a little - tight again. I've reached the comfort limit of my turnout gear, and there isn't really an option to upsize the gear again, especially since the fire department is about to put seven new members through the academy, and they'll be taking the spare gear.

I have a goal of running the entire Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon. I've done the race once, but only ran about half of it, with not a lot of training. I want to do the whole thing, and the goal for that is next May.

Another reason is to make studying easier. I'm doing a lot of reading and note-taking in preparation for the Captain's test, tentatively scheduled for mid-November. I'm hoping that by getting in shape now, I'll study better. After all, just about every study out there says your brain functions better when the rest of the body does.

And finally, I'm no spring chicken. Everything hurts a little bit each day, some more than others, and it will only get worse. I don't want to put myself in a position to be hurt at work because I pre-hurt myself by letting things go. Getting into shape, and maybe doing a bit of yoga here or there, might help to forestall that.

http://t.co/9EeTZYabOQ. Sanya Richards-Ross was my post-run motivator.

Then Again, Maybe Not.

This wasn't, exactly, the post I had hoped to write after the Marine Corps Marathon. I thought it would go something along the lines of my finishing time, the experience around the event itself, maybe include a couple of pictures I had taken along the route. Perhaps include a list of damaged body parts that every long distance runner at times has to contend with. (Let's just say that Vaseline and/or bandaids are a handy tool to have.)

Instead, my line of thinking lately has been taking one of two paths: either "Making progress! Last year I signed up, this year I signed up and trained, next year I'm gonna sign up, train, AND run it!" or "maybe the half-marathon is more my speed." It can vary from hour-to-hour.

Among other things, it came down to $10. I'm not kidding. After getting back from vacation in the Outer Banks at the end of September, I had one shift at one of the side jobs, and the take-home (after taxes and paying a pension loan) was a little over $10. Like everybody else, I've got certain bills that have to be paid, and a $200-400 weekend in Washington, DC, wasn't going to improve that balance sheet, and in fact, exacerbate it. And that's after figuring in that we weren't staying in a hotel, but rather with friends from my wife's high school days, and whom I worked with way back in the day. The hotel would have been another $350.

One of the ironies of training for a marathon is that you really need to have time to devote to proper training for the race, which doesn't leave you a lot of time to work to pay your bills. In the latter half of the schedule, when long runs were in the 14-18 mile range, that's 3 to 4 hours of running. Unless I really wanted to get up at 1 in the morning before work, or be out til 1 in the morning after work (and after sitting in a car for an hour or so each way, and 12 hour shifts in between), I made sure to take at least one day off each weekend for those runs. Unfortunately, the way EMS schedules work, folks like to be off on the weekends to spend with their families, so per-diems work a lot of weekend shifts.

Cutting out 50% of your potential opportunities to work is no way to make sure those bills are paid.

I'd be lying if I said that the training didn't start to suffer long before the marathon, though. Something was always getting in the way. Soccer, school events, work. In my increasingly undisciplined mind, it was getting easier and easier to justify cutting short a long run here, or skipping a short run there. The end result was that I had run just 15 miles in October, and none after the second week.

A couple other small issues popped up that had to be taken care of which, if they had happened without the other stuff, would not have been a problem, but in the end just made the decision to skip the MCM that much easier.

There have been upsides to the training, which a couple of people, including one of the Marathon Jims, had pointed out, and is that the training is never "for nothing". I'm down to a couple pounds over what has been my lowest weight in probably 25 years, and I now know that I can run at least three miles non-stop, at a pace of around 8 minutes and change per mile, without killing myself (well, maybe not in the last month, but I did, and can get back there again). I've learned to run without music in my ears, since over those longer runs the battery on my (former) iPhone 4 didn't hold up to simultaneous use of the GPS and iPod functions for more than two or three hours. (Though I do wonder how much better those longer long runs would have been, since running for that long is dreadfully boring.) And without music, you are left to your own thoughts, which admittedly I can't say that I have much opportunity otherwise to just think.

And perhaps the most heartening of all is that my nine-year-old asked my wife the other day how old you had to be to run in a marathon. Maybe the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all, and I have a future running partner in the family.

So, what to do now? Well, the other day, a colleague of mine from UH-EMS had told me that several members of NorthSTAR were planning a group entry in to the New Jersey Half Marathon in Long Branch, NJ in April 2014, and would I like to join them. Having actually completed the Historic Half this year, and the training for a half marathon is much simpler than for the full, I'm inclined to say yes.

As to a full marathon, like I mentioned before, I'm of two minds. Lately, it's been all half-marathon, all the time...but then I was watching coverage of the NYC Marathon this morning and started to think, "well...." If I do register for the marathon, it'd likely be for the fall (since I have to work - a lot - over the next few months to pay some bills, and we know where that leads), and I'd like another shot at the MCM. Given the popularity of the MCM, I'd have to run in the Spring race, the 17.75K, in mid-April to get an automatic qualifier. On the other hand, that's a lot of running in a month and a half, between the 17.75K, the Long Branch Half, and the Historic Half, which I'm likely going to do again.

Decisions, decisions....

Finally, thanks to all who have offered words of support, encouragement, or just plan "just do it." They were all appreciated, and in each way helped me a little farther along. I'm going to keep contributing to this blog, posting updates on what I'm doing, and how I'm doing it, if for no other reason than to get the jumble of thoughts in my head out in the open, so everybody can see just how disorganized my brain is at times.

Days, and Weeks, Lost

I was hoping to get through this training program with little or no hitches in getting out there in doing the actual runs. Naive, perhaps, but it still is an improvement over last year, when signing up for the Marine Marathon itself ran headlong into the fact that I was utterly unprepared for sixteen weeks or thereabouts of running. At least this year, I knew there was going to be a lot of mileage put on my increasingly well-worn pair of New Balance shoes.

This year's problem isn't so much the running. I am - or I was - getting out there, four (or at least three) times a week, following the short-medium-short-long plan of training. At the beginning of the sixteen weeks, a run of three miles, even at 11 minutes per mile, meant I was done in a half hour. The long run could still be done in under an hour.

No, this year, the problem is everything else. As John Lennon said, life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans. There had already been one lost day out of four, due to the way my fire department schedule worked. Last week, though, everything went completely awry. It all started with buying a car on Monday, from Auto Lenders in Lakewood.  But we couldn't get there before 5PM-ish, and didn't get out until close to 8PM. So there went that day. The next day was the firehouse on limited sleep, and then Newark the next day, which killed the first half of the week. After than, in my undisciplined mind, what was the point?

I had asked that of one of the Marathon Jims, who said, "it happens. Pick up where you left off." So initially, the entire program got shifted forward one week, which meant that I would be short either a sixteen mile run or an eighteen mile run, since it's important to taper properly before the Marathon itself. Now, after reviewing the schedule in the The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer again, I may have miscalculated the start date of the program by a week, or just simply didn't enter it into my calendar as accurately as I thought I had: according to the plan, I'm supposed to have three weeks of 16-mile long runs and two of 18-miles, and my schedule as I originally had constructed it only has me doing two 16s. So, do I drop a 16 and an 18, or two of three 16s?

One of the factors I want to avoid is overtraining. "Ha!", you say, "you're already undertraining, how much do you have to do to overtrain?" Well, it's not so simple. Conventional wisdom has it that one should not increase one's mileage by more than 10% over the previous week. If I calculate wrong (why wouldn't I?) by dropping a week I shouldn't, I could well be adding more than 10% from one week to the next. And that can lead to injury.

On a programming note, Regular readers of this blog - if I might be so presumptuous as to believe that I have regular readers - will note missing entries, especially if you've been following my Twitter feed. I will be correcting that soon enough by adding the entries over the past week or so that I have completed, but not yet documented. To avoid any confusion, the posts themselves will have the date that they should have been written, in addition to the dates that the runs actually occurred. Got that?

Week Six - Day Four, Saturday, August 24th

A scheduled 11-mile run, and a decent evening to run it. Reasonably low temperatures, and fairly low humidity. Because of the length, I decided to largely follow the first part of last weeks run, and eliminated the second half, due to construction and a lack of illumination along Whitty Road and North Bay Avenue.

This route took me up OFR to Todd Road, and I traveled the entire length of Todd, instead of turning onto Church. (The upper part of Todd Road is littered with some really spectacular properties, including, presumably, the one I couldn't see, because it was hidden behind stone walls and an imposing iron gate, complete with one of those remote call boxes so the dark-suited, sunglassed security could scrutinize you via CCTV before they permitted you entry.) Then I hung a left onto Silverton over to New Hampshire to White Oak Bottom (where do they get these names?), left onto OFR, and back down past the Parkway. Once past Whitty Road, made a left onto Vincenzo, where I gawked at even more impressive homes (think Italian Villa on 1/100th the land) - one of whom was reportedly owned at one time by Michael Ritacco, the recently (ahem) retired superintendent of the Toms River Regional Schools. Then I looped around on Vincenzo, and continued onto OFR back home.

Once again, I went out with water and nourishment handy, which helped in the later stages. I am finding that being hydrated prior to running is important, but it's a bit of a delicate balance, since options to use a bathroom are somewhat limited. At the same time, one can't depend on just the water brought for the run itself, because that's not enough on these longer runs. Runners World suggests a solution in breaking up the route into, say, five mile loops, starting and ending in a familiar place, like your house, thereby providing a handy place to get water and take advantage of the facilities. Sounds nice, but gets boring after awhile.

Speaking of boring, the playlist really needs updating. I'm just skipping the Nickleback songs entirely - way too angry - and the rest of the selections get played completely almost twice. On these long runs, I can probably add a couple of mellower songs, since I'm just trying to maintain a decent pace, without going all-out. It is a marathon, after all.

I managed to keep most of my breaks to less than two minutes, but now that I'm drinking and eating, which takes a few extra seconds to accomplish, two minutes seems to be the new normal. Until the last mile, I had virtually no complaints, and actually felt pretty strong around mile 7. This is encouraging.

The next two weeks look a bit more problematic. I'm working the overnight on Sunday, which eliminates an early Monday run, since I will not run when I'm tired. A scheduled obligation on Monday evening rules out a run then that day, altogether. Early Tuesday, I'm giving a lift to a friend from the firehouse to work, so I have to leave earlier, then it's straight to Newark on Wednesday. At this point, running looks like it will be confined to Thursday and Friday, since Saturday is a firehouse day. Sunday next week will be this week's long run, to allow for the days off before and after and another missed run.

I'm not terribly worried, though, as long as I continue to get in these longer ones. I just want to finish the marathon, I'm not looking to break any records. At least, not this time.

Ellie Goulding was back as the Nike Pep-talker, recycling the you-did-more-miles-than-last-week bit.

The run.

Week Six - Day Three, Thursday, August 22nd

Much better today than Tuesday. Instead of doing the scheduled short run, I did the medium 5-mile run I was supposed to complete on Tuesday, which didn't work out so well. If total mileage is an important consideration, by swapping the two runs, I figure my total deficit is a manageable two miles.

Today's run was straight up OFR to just below Whitty Road, made a U-turn, and then went down Lilac back up to Mapletree. Nice and simple. Had two forced breaks, less than a minute each, at OFR and Bey Lea, which was a better idea than playing Frogger. Just about made the whole way, a first at that distance, and pushed it a little bit to get up the hill on Lilac to Mapletree.

Some observations on the non-running public:

• Folks making right turns onto major roads invariably do not look to their right, either for pedestrians on sidewalks or people like me running against traffic on the shoulder. My second interesting action with a motorist in two weeks.
• People making left turns turn into the far lane of traffic of the road they are entering, then have to over correct to stay in the lane that they're going into.
• Saw more than one person on a bicycle reading their email or something on their cell phone.

I'm also finding that I shouldn't train for a marathon and work a bunch of night shifts at the same time. My days are all screwed up when I sleep the next day normally, and really affects my running if I have to do that in the same 24-hour period.

Tonight's run. And again, no Pep-talker.

Week Six - Day Two, Tuesday, August 20th

I've come to the inescapable conclusion that if the sun is more than 10 degrees above the horizon and the humidity is more than 80%…I shouldn't be running.

Got out from the firehouse and headed to Gregg Park for my scheduled five-mile medium run. Right from the start, it was apparent that this was going to take an extraordinary effort just to make one loop of about a mile and a half. This was clearly my worst run, and my breathing was getting worse, not better, as I have been finding is usually the case in the middle of a workout. (Why that is, I don't know. It seems that it takes a mile or so for my lungs to realize they're going to be doing some work, after which the breathing is usually far ahead the legs.)

So I shut it down. Instead if doing four miles Thursday, perhaps I'll do the five then, and my overall deficit for the week will be just a couple miles. 

Very disappointed, considering that yesterday's four-mile was comparatively a great run, considering my lack of sleep.

The debacle by the Bay.

Week Six - Day One, Monday, August 19th

First four-mile short run, again in the neighborhood, but to liven it up a little bit (if you could say such a thing at 0430 in the morning), I went all the way down Walnut to the last left on Vauxhall, then made my way back, before heading up to Chestnut. On the final leg, I cut through the Walnut School yard on a sprint. A little humid, but temperatures were nice and cool, so I have no complaints.

Lately, I've been purposely taking it easy in the early stages of a run, and increasing the effort towards the end, which seems to allow me to finish runs a little easier.

No Pep-talker, as usual. Today's run.

Playing Catch-up

If you notice, the last four posts all have the same published date. That's because I've been playing catch-up, trying to get these out. They were all in draft form for awhile, but trying to tweak them here and there made them all delayed. I'll try to get back to getting them out in a timely fashion again.

Week Five - Day Three, Saturday, August 17th

I woke up on Thursday morning, the 15th and my left hip flexor - actually, my whole left leg - was absolutely killing me.  Didn't see much point in going out for the short run and putting it completely out of its misery, and me out of the Marathon. Two days and a significant amount of ibuprofen later, and it felt much better that I decided to tackle my next long run of 10 miles. Good decision on my part, if I do say so myself.

Changed up the course quite a bit. Instead of doing the serpentine course through local streets, which was getting pretty boring (and increasingly difficult to remember where I had to turn at what time), my wife suggested a longer, straighter run, one that she had done while getting ready for the Jersey Girl Triathlon. This one took my straight up OFR past the split with New Hampshire, to Church Road, then over to Todd Road, which brought me back to OFR. Down to Whitty Road, then North Bay to Bey Lea, through the campus of High School North, and back on OFR again. Took a side trip down Lilac, which is familiar territory, to Mapletree, then OFR to home. Nice and simple.

I must say, it has it all: wide shoulders in most places, narrow shoulders in a few areas, no shoulder at all in a couple of spots, which made for a couple of death-defying interactions with the motoring public. Passed lots of houses of worship, which you don't really notice all the time when you're in a car, starting with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, right across Intermediate North Way from the Ocean County Baptist Church. Then right before you get to the Parkway overpass, is Congregation B'Nai Israel, a Conservative congregation. Across the street is, I believe, their former temple, now occupied by Messiah Bible Church at the corner of Whitty Road.

On the other side of the Parkway is the Church of Grace and Peace, one of the larger churches in Toms River. (If you need a cop outside to direct traffic when services get out, you have a large church.) Up a little farther, after the split with New Hampshire, is St. Luke's Roman Catholic Church, which is the parish we thought we were going to attend when we moved to Toms River. (But no! Did you know that you are supposed to go to the parish in your specific geographic area? Neither did we. Instead we go to St. Joe's across town. But that's another hyperlink altogether.)

Making the turn onto Church Road (appropriately named for all the houses of worship that are located along it), I crossed New Hampshire, and passed St. Andrew's United Methodist Church, then hung the right onto Todd Road, with it's impressive selection of McMansions. Back down OFR, passing Grace and Peace again, to Whitty Road. That was not a good idea, since it was getting dark, and the construction made for some interesting moments with cars. Getting to the corner of North Bay, across from the Toms River Veterans Recreation Complex (built on the site of what was the last poultry farm in Toms River) is Trinity Fellowship Church.

What struck me about almost all of these houses of worship is that they all look like they went to the same architect when designing their buildings...very modern, with soaring roofs differing only in where they placed the cross, except the Mormons, who don't put crosses on their buildings. The only exceptions were St. Andrew's, which is a bit older, and Congregation B'Nai Israel, which looks a lot like other temples of their size: brick building, very simple.

For this run, I borrowed the belt that Kim bought before the Historic Half last year. Had space for two small water bottles, and a small pouch, into which I put a copy of my license and a small packet of "Extreme Sport Beans", made by Jelly Belly, which promises "quick energy for sports performance", and contains "carbs, electrolytes, and vitamins B & C." All I know is that they tasted good and seemed to work. During almost all my breaks, except for the first one, I made sure to have a couple of sips of water, and I had a portion of the beans every half hour.

Except for the hip flexor, which actually didn't bother me til about mile four or five, this was a pretty good run, much better than last week. Low humidity, and a slight breeze. I hope next week's run of 11 miles is just as good. But it's still August.

Today's Nike Pep-talker was Ellie Goulding, who congratulated me on doing more miles this week than last.

Week Five - Day Two, Wednesday, August 14th

Today was, as a captain I once worked for would say, "a BEEEYOOUUTiful day" for running. Relatively low humidity - in the 50s - and temperatures in the upper 60s. A bit windy though, and it always seemed (as I'm sure is the case with most runners when they're working at it) to be blowing in my face, no matter the direction I was running.

I got outside later than I had planned, which wasn't altogether a bad thing, since intellicast.com says the humidity was steadily falling during the day today. My original thought was to be out around six or seven this morning. Sleep seemed like a much better idea, considering I got home last night from Newark around 10 after working a 24-hour shift, and then picking up my son at the in-laws.

Today's route incorporated the first part of this past Saturday's long run, down and around Walnut Street, then up OFR to Chestnut, and off into side streets there, then back home. I took one break, about two minutes, at the forty-minute mark. I have to keep reminding myself that short breaks are not bad, but it's hard when you look at your mileage and see that you had a little more than three-quarters of a mile to go. Still, it allowed me to finish strong.

The Nike Pep-talker is back, though I was a little disappointed in that it was Tim Tebow, who was impressed with the way I got out there to grind it, and because of that, might let me hold his Heisman Trophy. I'm not sure that I would want to.

Today's run.

Week Five - Day One, Monday, August 12th

Officially past the one-quarter mark. Four weeks down, 12 to go to the Marathon.

Short run of three miles, coming out of the firehouse. And yet another humid day, although I am catching on to the fact that when I run down in Gregg Park, it's just that way, since it is hard alongside Newark Bay. Nice breezes off the water, but not enough to counteract the humidity, and sometimes makes it worse, if it's blowing hard enough.

Took it relatively slow, since the left hip flexor is giving me problems again. I am trying to manage it with a bit of stretching, though not nearly enough, and ibuprofen, which does help, but that is also something that I don't take as consistently as a I should. And like all such medications, you can't just take one dose and be done with it. You have to build it up to keep the inflammation at bay and make it work over time.

This is the last week of the three-mile short run. Starting next week, the short runs are four minutes, which was the medium run a few weeks ago.

No Nike Pep-talker again.

The run.

Week Four - Day Three, Saturday, August 10th

Well, that sucked.

I know I complain about the humidity a wee bit (okay, a little more than that), but this was just ridiculous. Got out a little after 0700, and already that was too late. The sun was already out and wreaking havoc on my effort. Of course, had I actually hydrated myself properly beforehand, and brought along some water, maybe the result would have been slightly different.

Anyway, today's course took me in a slightly different direction at first. Instead of making my usual right hand turn on to OFR, I went left, to go down Walnut Street, looping around the school, then through the streets on the left side, before coming back down to OFR. Added about two miles, and changed the scenery a little bit. From there, I went to my usual segments on Chestnut and Mapletree.

Regular readers will know that I insert a one-minute walk break for every 10 of running. I'm not looking to set any speed records here, nor am I looking to prove something by running constantly on the longer trips. I'm simply trying to build endurance as economically as possible while avoiding over-use injury.

Today was one of those days where one-minute breaks - which I held to until about mile four - deteriorate into two-, then three-, then four-minutes sabbaticals. It was either that or drop from exhaustion. Maybe that's hyperbole, but it was that bad out.

Again, I fault myself for this. Hydration goes a long way, and I didn't this time.

This was actually the fourth day of the week I got out, but I only consider it the third run. Last Sunday's run was put off a day to allow for a day off before, and because it was a Sunday, I was looking at three runs in a row this week before today. Something had to go. One of the Marathon Jim's said it's best to get rid of a short day.

No Nike Pep-talker today, but the way I did it, I don't think I deserved one.

Today's tortured effort.

Week Four - Day Two, Thursday, August 8th

Since I had cancelled my first short run this week, because I was looking at three consecutive days of running, this was actually the middle run of this week, only three miles. For this run, for whatever reason, I decided to push the envelope a bit, and give it 80% or more of maximum exertion for better than half the course, including close to 100% for the last mile.

The result? My best mile time of 8:48 (on the last mile!) and my best overall time of less than 28 minutes for the whole three.

The course was in and around Chestnut Street, with some detours into side street, and two trips past the Ocean County vehicle maintenance yard, where 16 employees split a share of the most recent lottery winnings from the Powerball. Good for them.

Again, no Nike Pep-talker.

The run.

Week Four - Day One, Wednesday, August 7th

A medium run today of five miles, after skipping the first short three-miler. After moving last week's long run to this past Sunday, I was looking at three consecutive days of running this week, allowing for a day off after the seven miles of Sunday, and a day off before the eight miles on Saturday. Since I am most definitely NOT an elite runner, and my body is still getting used to all this distance running, 11 miles in three days seemed a bit much.

Another local trip around the neighborhood, effectively doing loops in some developments, to make up the five miles without having to actually travel that far. Got out around 0415, so traffic wasn't much of an issue, though I much prefer to run in daylight. I can't wait for the days when running in daylight is more comfortable, in terms of temperature and humidity, than running in the dark.

Because of the hip-flexor pain, I took a two-minute break around the four-mile mark, and that seemed to help. Finished the last mile in good shape, with a pretty quick pace, though the data says it was the slowest mile, but only because the break came after mile four.

No Nike Pep-Talker again, and strangely, that's starting to irritate me.

The run.

Week Three - Day Four, Sunday, August 4th

Because the training program calls for a day off before and after my long runs, and my last run was Friday, I had to move the long run for the third week to Sunday from Saturday. And fortuitous timing it was: Temperatures in the sixties, and low humidity. Perfect.

As has been the case with long previous runs, and in keeping with my intended strategy for the marathon, I inserted a one-minute break after every 10 minutes of running, even when I knew I could go past the ten minutes without stopping. My course stayed very local, no more than a mile or so at any time between any two points, but because the folks who laid out the neighborhood seemed to be allergic to straight lines, by taking several streets within a given development, I was able to reach the goal with ease.

The two straight roads I used, Chestnut and Mapletree, are almost a mile in length each, and the far ends of both have smaller streets off them, so I could avoid Hooper Avenue, and then return. I took a turn into Lilac, then a couple streets off Lilac. Crossing OFR, I went into a much older section, probably built in the Sixties or Seventies, and took a tour through there, then ended by where I started.

Conditioning must be getting better. Just a few months or even weeks ago, a break after running for ten minutes would have been something closer to ten more minutes, for it would have taken that long for my breathing to return to normal. Now, I wasn't even winded, and my legs felt great, at least in first half. After my last break, I felt good enough that I gave extra effort for the final mile or so, and cut off more than a minute in time from the previous mile.

I am noticing that my breathing is still much better than the fatigue in my legs. I'm not sure if this is something that will correct itself, but in time, the legs did seem to relax, though the left hip flexor seems to get irritated pretty quickly. I haven't been stretching, though I know I should.

One of the Marathon Jims I work with lent me a book of Yoga for runners. I had been considering taking a yoga, but my schedule is tight enough to fit in some runs, I'm not sure how I'm going to get yoga classes in.

For the upcoming week, I had to drop one of the scheduled short runs of three miles, because of Sunday's long run, and getting the long run back to Saturday for the next week, I'm looking at three consecutive days of running. So, on the advice of the other Marathon Jim, I felt it better to cut out a short run.

No Nike Pep-Talker today, and no records broken. Humbug

Week Three - Day Three, Friday, August 2nd.

Two days in a row, this time a short run following a long run. And it felt worse. The weather was quite a bit warmer - I was off for the day, so I allowed myself to sleep in a little later, which means I went out when the sun was already up. And, as I mentioned in a previous post, so was the traffic, so I had to confine myself to the sidewalk for a good portion of the run. I took one of my usual routes into one of the local developments, and on the return leg I decided to take another detour to a different section of my neighborhood. This section had more shade, but also gave me a monster hill at the end, which I wasn't unhappy to climb...gotta get used to them. At the end of my scheduled three miles, there was absolutely nothing left.

Tomorrow is a scheduled seven miles, which - again - will have some breaks worked into it. I did find some validation in Runner's World, which said breaks are NOT cheating, and still allows one to build endurance.

Sanya Richards-Ross was the Nike Pep-Talker, who congratulated me on my effort.

Week Three - Day Two, Thursday, August 1st.

Under threatening skies, I headed out not long after seven AM for today's four-miler. I'm not a fan of getting out after six in the morning, since the streets around here get busy early on weekdays. It's either take your chances on the shoulder of the road with some knucklehead who isn't paying attention or run on the concrete sidewalk, which is sometimes uneven, and in many cases non-existent altogether, depending on where I'm running.

On these shorter routes, I don't plan out where I'm going, so much as I make corrections as I go along. Do I go this way, and run a couple of hills? Or that way with less traffic, where I can run towards the middle of the road? The Nike app has a feature that if you set a distance, or a time, it will tell you the halfway point, so sometimes I just find a place to turn around and head back the way I came, or I'll keep going a little farther, maybe an additional half mile before making a turn back in the other direction, so I have a chance to walk and cool down before I get home. If I'm really pressed for time, I'll just retrace my route, with a reasonable expectation that I will make it home around the time I need to be there.

Today was a make-it-up-as-I-go-along kind of day. I headed up OFR to Chestnut, the next traffic light up, then down that toward Hooper. There's a small development on the left that I ran into, since it was off the busier Chestnut, and offered me a way to get out without having to make a U-turn in a cul-de-sac. Back down Chestnut to OFR, then up to Mapletree, where I made a turn into a condo complex to avoid the steep hill before Hooper.

About halfway back along Mapletree, I came to the realization that my breathing wasn't all that difficult, that my legs were more fatigued than my lungs were. So, I figured that if I pushed a little faster, I could probably make the last mile in pretty good time, and my legs wouldn't be all that worse, which did turn out to be the case. Have to remember that for tomorrow's three-mile short run. Still strategizing Sunday's upcoming seven miles.

And finally, just when I was beginning to despair, the Nike Pep-talkers are back. Today was decathlete Ashton Eaton, who told me that "yesterday was good, but today is great".

Got in just before the rain, I did.