Sig Epps Golf Outing

My Dad was in the Sig Epps fraternity during his time at Central Michigan University. Every year, they have a golf outing, where all of the brothers get together to play golf and raise money for Arthritis. Many of the attendees knew my father personally, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to raise money for our team. I played last year for the first time, and enjoyed it and decided to play again this year.

My Uncles sponsor a longest drive hole (#17), and the "Terry Moore Cup" is presented to the longest drive. After talking with my sister, we decided this would be a good place to raise funds. To accomplish this, I put up together a letter with an envelop on a wooden stake so people could donate to Team TPM. My Uncle Denny helped coordinate with the course, and I found the following site when I arrived at the 17th tee.

At the end of the day, we raised $39!! Coupled with all of our donations from the past week, our total is now over $300! Fundraising is going well.

As for the longest drive, I put my ball in the tall grass, so I guess I'll have to go back and chase that trophy next year!

Kalamazoo Klassic

Saturday was the 31st annual Kalamazoo Klassic. There is a 5K run, and a 10K run. Last year, the 10K was the official start of my training for Detroit. This year, I signed up for the 10K.

At the start of the morning, it was 68F, and a beautiful morning for a run. It started at the Maple St. YMCA, at the top of the hill (more about that later). The local weatherman, Keith Thompson was the starter/marshall, which was neat. I was feeling good, but tried to be controlled with my pace. Unfortunately, that didn't work. I ran the first mile in 8 minutes flat, good for a 5K, but a little fast for a 10K. I worked to slow down my pace, and turned up Maple St., with Metallica's "Enter Sandman" blasting through my iPod.

Maple St. contains a long tough hill, and is halfway through the race. I picked up speed through the hill, lowered my head, and worked my way up it. I admit, I did have to walk a bit up it as well. Once at the top, it was back to the same loop I had just run. At about Mile 4.25, I had a Gu, with the water provided, giving me enough of a burst of energy to get to the finish. As I rounded the corner to finish on the football field, I picked up speed into the finish. My time: 53:38, almost 10 minutes faster than last year.

Having run 7 miles last week, 6.2 miles was less than that, so I decided to join the 5K run as well. After grabbing some gatorade and fruit, I climbed up the Maple St. Hill to the start, and took off for the 5K. I ran a steady 9:00/mile pace, and pulled out at the 3 mile mark, as I did not register for the finish.

Finally, after 9.2 miles, I was tired, and felt good about my workouts.

Need for Speed

This morning, I returned to the WMU track, where I left much sweat last summer. It is time for speed workouts! I learned to love these last year, even though they left me tired and hungry throughout the day.

Track workouts typically start at 5:45 am, but today they didn't start until 6:00 am, as they were going through some information regarding them. Good thing, because I accidently set my alarm for 5:15 pm, not am, and awoke at 5:49 am. I threw on some clothes and contacts, and headed to the track. I made it just as they were finishing the orientation.

I found some of the people I ran with last year, and we took off on our mile warmup run. We chatted, and caught up on each other's races of the last 8 months. After the warmup, we hit the track.

Today's workout was short, but the objectives were clear:

Enable you to run further at or near your lactate threshold running speed

Improve the speed (raise the ceiling) at which your lactate threshold occurs

Run more comfortably at marathon or goal marathon pace

Improve running efficiency

Help prevent overtraining

We had to run 2 X 1/2 mile with 1/4 mile recovery in between (1 track lap = 1/4 mile). We completed the run, in awe of how many people joined this week (we'll see if that sticks next week), and talked about other things. We finally ended with a mile cooldown, in which we ran to the nearby Dairy Queen and back.

Sunday consisted of a 3 mile recovery run, and yesterday was a round of golf and lifting weights. I'm feeling pretty good phsyically, just tired.

A curve ball I may have to deal with this summer is traveling. I'm scheduled to travel either to Columbus, OH or Bordentown, NJ next week. Travel presents 2 obsticals: running and eating. For the running, I typically walk around all day, and won't run in the morning. The evenings, I am typically tired, and have other work items to deal with. As for eating, I have to make smart choices to keep my body going, and not overeat either. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll know where I'm headed.

"Official" Start of Training

Although I've been working out and training in the 8 months since the Detroit Marathon, today was the "official" start of training. I started off my weekend with a nap after work, followed by some carbohydrate loading for dinner on Friday night. I typically make spaghetti, but have been experimenting with different sauces, meats, etc. with Emily the last few months. Friday's meal consisted of wheat pasta (a new thing!), Prego Mini Meatball Sauce, and Garlic bread. It may or may not have looked something like this:

To do so, I awoke at 6 am and made 4 scrambled egg whites, and 1 piece of toast (my typical pre-run meal). I then headed out to the meeting spot, our local running store Gazelle Sports for the 7 am run.

I had a feeling this was going to be a good run. My legs felt fresh, and it was cool out (60F), with a little rain. Perfect running weather. Arriving, I saw a few people that I knew from training last summer, which is always fun.

When I arrived, we went through preparations for the upcoming training season. We divided into pace groups, which they recommended to run between 45 seconds and 2 minutes slower than the race pace. So I elected to run in the 9:30-10:00 pace group (per mile).

After they told us the course, we headed out. At this point, the rain had stopped, it was lighter out, and it felt great. We ran through Western Michigan University's campus, which is uphill followed by a downhill, and ran on part of my normal running course.

Water was provided at mile 1.5, and again at mile 3. I ran another half mile past the second water stop, and turned around, collecting water once again. I also had a GU, which is a 100 calorie gel filled with caffiene and other nutrients to replace what the body is burning. My rule of thumb is to take one every 4-5 miles (depending on water stations). I went through 6 of them for the Detroit Marathon last year.

The GU shot was as much of a mental burst of energy as it was full of nutrients, and I felt great heading back to Gazelle. I grabbed some water at the last water station, and when I hit 1 mile left, I turned it up a notch. With .5 miles left, I found another gear. I finished back at Gazelle with the following (downloaded from my Garmin running watch):

- 7 miles

- 1 hour 8 minutes

- 9:45/mile pace

I'm very happy with those statistics. It feels great to be training with a goal in mind, and its easier to focus and now have all my running and lifting go toward a goal.

I'm off to cook some more eggs to eat for the day and some coffee to keep me going!

Getting Ready!!

I'm getting ready to train. I can feel it in my body. In my mind. I'm like a kid a few days before Christmas, when you know exactly the presents Santa's going to bring you.

I picked up my training packet to, which I have been awaiting since I signed up for training a few weeks ago. Its exciting, to see how the summer is going to pan out for training, and what mileage I'll run when I'm traveling/on vacation. This Saturday calls for 7 miles, which I completed 2 weeks ago, so I'm feeling good about it.

It's been a pretty busy week. I played golf on Monday (I call that my cross training), and lifted weights Tuesday morning. Then, I ran 4.25 miles after work. I had a great run, attacking hills, and running a good pace, possibly the best time for that route.

Wednesday morning, I forced myself to get up and run 3 miles. I had no legs, but wanted to get some miles in before I started training. In addition, I had meetings at work with a catered lunch and going out for dinner with co-workers, so I wanted to burn some calories before intaking some.

This morning, I got up and ran 4.5 miles. I had more legs than yesterday, but was still feeling it, and go through the run. This was important to me because during training, I won't feel good every day for running, but its important to power from, and keep running.

Some of my co-workers are biking in to work tomorrow, but given the amount of working out I've done, I plan to just hit the gym and rest up for Saturday!

5K4TJ

It's been a while since I posted, so here's an update.

I was in Okemos last week, and ran a little under 5 on Thursday. My legs were tired from Fort Custer and golf earlier in the week, but I had a great run. I was going to run the Cooley 5K, but I decided to play golf instead. On saturday, I ran the 5K4TJ, which is memory of a fellow OHS Class of 2002 member, TJ, who died 2 years ago of an eating disorder. The event was very well done for the first annual, and there were many members of my class there as well. On a running note, I ran my best 5K since high school, 23:50, taking 2nd place in my age group.

After the race, I decided to go for a bike ride (my sister Emily was surprised I would bike after running the race). I headed out to Lake Lansing, but the road I usually bike around was closed, so I ended up just doing an out and back. In the end, I did 20 miles.

Today, I couldn't decide whether to run or bike, so my mom made the decision for me. I joined her for pilates. It was a combination of weight and resistance training and was fun and intense. I was dripping with sweat after I was done! The best part was that it included 3o minutes of abs!

I start my running group on Saturday, so this is my last week of pre-marathon training training!

Last week and Weekend

After redeeming myself on Tuesday evening, I struggled to get running the rest of the week. I committed to take Wednesday off running (and watch the Wings!), and Thursday I didn't have the energy. In spite of not running, I did hit the gym 4 days last week (Tuesday-Friday) to lift weights.

Finally, Friday evening, I went running. Sometimes, I have my best runs on Fridays, as I seem to have all the stress from the week off my shoulders, and can just run. The 4.5 miles felt good, and I was rested from my days off. I enjoyed my typical Friday dinner of spaghetti (with mini meatballs), and ended up going to bed early. I planned to get up and go running early Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, I planned a 7 mile run. It was a 5 mile loop, and I added a mile out and back from the loop. The morning was beautiful, and I had a pretty good run, especially considering I had run on Friday evening. I had to walk a bit, but I expected that with slightly tired legs. The best part about running early Saturday is getting to enjoy the rest of the day, knowing you have already worked out!

On Sunday, I decided to change it up, and head to Fort Custer (http://www.michigandnr.com/parksandtrails/Details.aspx?id=448&type=SPRK) for some Mountain Biking. I've probably been there a dozen times over the past 4 years for biking. There's a nice 7-mile loop I like to do (not too hard, but still challenging). I started slow at first, to concentrate on the course, and make sure that I didn't hurt myself. Halfway through, I had a lot of confidence, which carried into the second time I did the loop. Every other time I'd ben to Fort Custer, I only had the energy to do the loop once, so that speaks to my conditioning now.

All in all, it was a good 3 days of training, and I feel like I'm really getting ready to train hard, starting in 2 weeks for Chicago.