Victory Is Mine!

I made it!

For once in my life, I actually achieved something I set out to achieve.  It doesn't happen all that often, so it feels kind of good.  It went a lot better than my utter failure at NaNoWriMo anyway.

The sad thing, though, is that it only feels kind of good.  Not great.  After all that, I'm just so damned tired.  All I want to do is rest.  This month really took it out of me.

I barely made the five miles today.  It took me longer than any other day so far.  Luckily, I got up good and early, so I had the extra time, but man am I beat.  I'm really glad that there's no onus on me to get up at 6:00 AM tomorrow to run.

I think I'm going to take a week or two off from running, to see how well my shins can heal up before I get training in earnest for the marathon I want to run this year.  Jeez, if I think I'm tired now...

One More And I'm Done

Ran another five today.  Only one more to go.  Five that is not just one...you know what I mean.

Now my total is:

495

I admit that I'm pretty glad that I'm almost done.  I'm tired.  I'd like to take a little rest, maybe let my shin splints heal, and build my strength back up.  Been wearing myself down so much this month.

Of course I can only rest for so long, because I'm supposed to start training for the marathon that I'm planning on running on April 19.  Doesn't give me much time to rest.  Maybe I should pick a different marathon, but I keep doing that, so maybe I shouldn't. 

After all, I was supposed to have run a marathon back in September, and if I'd really gone for it, I wouldn't have been here doing this desperate dash toward 500 miles on the last week of the year, because I would have made it to 500 right about the time I got to race day.

I Can Taste It

So close!

I did another five miles this morning.  So I am at:

490

Two more times should do it.  Meaning Saturday, and then Monday.  I should be able to get there before New Year's Eve.  Which is not how I expected it to work out.  I figured it would be 11:59 on New Year's Eve, and I would be out desperately trying to get in that last mile, and I'd hear people counting down from inside their homes, "5...4...3...2..." and I'd be out there screaming, "NO!  I only have 500 more yards!"  And I'd start sprinting, trying to beat the countdown.

Then I'd get on here, and tell you all that I'd made it, not even mentioning that the last 500 yards were actually done in 2014.

But it looks like I won't have to lie after all.  Unless things go really badly, like I get hit by a car or something, then I should make it.  I'll knock on wood right now.  Talk to you later.

Day After And Back To It

I took Christmas Day off, mostly because I figured I needed to with the shin splints bugging me so much. Today, I got up early and got back to it. I had to go back to work today too, so I had to be up first thing.

I made it five miles, despite the shin pain.  That puts me at:

485

So damn close I can taste it.

But it tastes bad...like sweat.  Smells bad too, like gym socks.  Maybe I shouldn't have struggled so much to get to it.  Heh heh.

Eve Of Destruction

Today was a little tough.  My shin splints were killing me, and I probably walked for half the time.  I was destroyed this Christmas eve.

I have no shame, however.  I stuck it out for four miles, despite the pain, and now I am at:

480

Which leaves me with only twenty miles to go.  I should be able to handle that.  That's only four times if I can manage five miles each time.  I think I can even take Christmas day off it's going well enough.

Thanks to everyone for cheering me on...except Rish, who tells I'll never make it...never...cackle, cackle, cackle.

But merry Christmas to all of you, even Rish.

Closing In

Ran five miles today. That puts me at:

476

Less than 25 miles to go.

I'm gonna make it.  Just barely, but I will make it.

Snowman

It snowed the other day, and I pulled into a parking lot, and saw this:

At first, I thought it was just a big pile of snow.  When there's big snowstorms, they often bring plows into parking lots to clear them out so that people can use them safely.  The plows have to move the snow somewhere, so they usually pick a spot, and push it all to that one spot.  It looked like one of those places, until I noticed the side mirror sticking out from under the snow.

Somebody had had themselves a real good time completely burying someone's car.

I like that you can see the antenna sticking up through the packed on snow.  This crap reminds me of when I was in college.  We would have done something like this if someone suggested it.

I just hope the poor guy who owns the car had a friend or two to help him clean it off when he went out to use it and found it like this.

Setback And Perseverance

Thursday morning, I woke up feeling pretty poorly.  I had run Monday through Wednesday, and was pretty proud of that fact, but Wednesday night, I could feel a twinge in my back when I went to bed.  Thursday morning, after a good night's rest, it felt worse.

I needed a rest anyway, so I didn't run that morning.

Friday, after another night's rest, it felt twice as bad.  Seriously, I couldn't relax my back at all, because of the pain that would hit if I did.  I tried to stretch, but that hurt too.  So, I didn't run Friday either.

Through the day, my back loosened up, and I realized that I just needed to let it do that first before running.  So, this morning, after being up and dorking around for a few hours, I started into another five mile run.

My back was a little sore when I finished, but not as much as I expected.  Maybe the run might help.  I don't know.  All I know is that I can't take any extra days off anymore, or I won't make it.

As of now, I'm at:

471

I still believe that I'll make it.  We'll have to see though.

Moving Along

It was a good morning today. I managed to get up and get going on time. Because of that, despite the fact that I was tired, I had plenty of time to mosey my way to five miles. I didn't push it. I ran slow, but I made it five miles anyway.

 So, now my total is:

466

That still leaves 34 miles to go, and not a whole lot of time to do it in, but I'm not going to quit.

I'm going to make it all the way.  I plan to run on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week, which will get me to something like 480 by the end of the week.  Then I'll have a week and a half to get 20.  I still got time.

Resolution and Temptation

On Saturday, I took my kids skating for the first time this year. I gave my phone to my daughter, and told her to take some video of me skating. Not sure why. Usually, I never appear on video, because I'm the one behind the camera. You can understand why, when you see my daughter's finger partially obscuring the upper right hand side of the picture.

Anyway, here's the video:

   

To you, it's probably totally innocuous stuff. A guy skating around. To me it was a huge eye opener.

You know how, you look in a mirror, and you don't get an actual exact vision of yourself.  You see yourself the way your mind sees you, and not exact.  And even when you see a picture of yourself, your mind manages to skew it to what you think you look like instead of what you really look like.  But, for some reason, video is not that way.  Maybe there's just too many pictures for your mind to adjust or something, but when you're on video, you see yourself as you really are.

Well, I hadn't seen myself as I really am for some time.  Sadly, I didn't really like what I saw.  Was that sweater really that tight on me?  And the pants that I'm wearing...they're my fat pants.  I can't fit my other pants, so I have these ones until I get back to a good weight.  The pants look friggin terrible.

And now I know that that is what I look like when others see me too.

It was a wake up call for me.  I needed to pull the reins on this runaway stagecoach that is my eating habits.

I'm running, so that's a good start.  That burns a lot of calories each day.  Which, sadly, means I was eating a damn lot of calories to outpace that.  But now it was time to cut that crap out.

So, yesterday, I started in on being good.  I know, most people wait until after the holidays are over to do that, but my stagecoach would probably have plunged off a cliff by then.  I didn't want to wait.  Dr. Seuss said the waiting place is no good in, "Oh The Places You'll Go" after all.

I was awesome yesterday.  Thee were a few temptations, and I sneered at them.  No, I did not eat the cookies that someone brought in to work to share with people...they looked pretty nasty anyway.  And I even turned down the guy who offered to buy me candy or a soda as thanks for helping him get his sportscast together.

I did really good, and wanted to do the same again today.  But then I came in to work and found this in the break room:

I think that's the biggest spread we've had at work all year, and it's nothing but cookies and brownies and garbage.  Stuff I love to death.  Like a vampire facing a cross, I hissed and ran for it.  But that spread is so big, it's going to be there all day.  Dammit.  Will I be able to resist it that long?

I ate a grape from the fruit tray.  Maybe I'll eat some veggies from that tray too.  But I don't want the extra calories.

And another thing, why does this always happen on day two of a healthy eating regimen?  Why didn't this come in to work last week, when I would have gladly gobbled it all?

Anyway.  I'm still running.  This morning, I ran four miles.  I was a little tired from running yesterday, so I didn't make it five.  But four is respectable.  Now my mileage total is:

461

If I keep after it, I'll make it.  And if I keep eating well, even through this season of temptation, I'll maybe fit that sweater better when I get there.

Today Was A Good Day

I got out there and went for it, and managed to get in five miles this morning. That means my total is:

457

I did it at a record pace today too.  I've been trying to push myself to go faster for longer periods of time, because it gets me done quicker, and it seems to help keep the shin splints at bay. Today, I did my five miles at a PR pace of 11:38 per mile.  That's a full two seconds below last week's 11:40 PR.  That's cool right?  If I don't make it to 500, at least I did something good, right?

But I'm going to make it.  So there!

Still Going

Today I ran four more miles, bringing my total to:

452

That leaves less than fifty miles to go.

My alarm didn't go off when it was supposed to this morning (or else it did, and I shut it off and was back to sleep without even realizing I'd done so), so I almost didn't get to run.  My daughter had a piano recital at 10:30, and I'd promised the kids I'd take them ice skating after that, so if I didn't do it first thing in the morning, it wasn't going to happen.

I hurried as fast as I could, especially that last mile, running at a higher speed than I usually do for a longer period of time than I usually do.  But I made four, and felt glad that I did.  If I do less than that, I feel a bit like a slouch.  Especially with my deadline breathing down my neck.

Anyway, I'm still at it, and I have less than fifty to go.  Yeehaw.  If I did five miles every time I ran, I'd be done in ten days...not counting the rest days in between.

Let's see...I've got eleven possible days left.  Looks like I've pretty much run out of wiggle room.  I might have to start doing some really long runs on Saturdays or something.  Can't even budge to let Christmas or New Year's Eve get in the way.  Yikes!

Four Miles Today

Mile count:

448 

Only four miles today. I meant to get in five or maybe even six, but I goofed around too long before starting my run, and didn't have time to do them all. I have to finish by 8:00 or I don't have enough time to get the kids ready for school and myself ready for work.

The shin splints are still bugging me. I think I'm just going to have to hobble the last 52 miles to my goal. They started hurting at around the 1.5 mile mark today. But I've found that the more I run with a full stride, the less pain I get. Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to jog slowly than to run hard. I get tired and worn out when running fast, as you might imagine. So, what I've been trying is to run fast for a minute, walk for 30 seconds, and jog for 30 seconds, then repeat that throughout my run.

It's been good so far. Hopefully it continues.

444

Okay, so I took...shoot, I nearly took two weeks off to let my shins heal and make running the last bit of this slog bearable. This morning I got out and ran another five miles. I am now at:

444 

Gooooo me!

Unfortunately, about three and a half miles in I started feeling a little pain in my shins again. Maybe I wasted those two weeks, because they're just not going to get better.

Also, I've been overcome by a stuffy/runny nose and sneezing ever since I finished running this morning. If I get sick, then I'm sunk.

I've only got 54 miles to go, which I can totally do, as long as everything goes well. If I have to take more time off, I might find myself having to run 10 miles a day there at the end, and that's probably beyond my ability.

I'm going to win though. Like Metallica once said back when they still hadn't sold out yet, "Listen, dammit, we will win!"

WriMo Over RuMo Just Began

So, I didn't win NaNoWriMo, because I didn't make the target word count for the month. I only wrote just over 5,000 words, when I was supposed to write 50,000. I'm not disappointed in myself though, because I did write. Sounds like one of those tee ball, we-all-win kind of cop outs, but I wrote 5,000 more words than I usually write last month, so I count it a success. I'll build on it however I can, and keep moving forward.

So, that's that for the Wrimo. I'll keep writing this month, and every month. They'll all be WriMos now.

However, I have a new challenge for myself. RuMo. Or Running Month.

You see, at the start of the year, I made a goal for myself to run 500 miles on the year. To further document that, I started taking a video of myself each day as I ran. I produced two YouTube videos of my progress towards my ultimate goal. The first when I made it to 100 miles.

The second when I made it to 250 miles.

Like writing, running is easy to slack off on. It's kind of hard and physical and exerting and all that crap. So, I've been a little slow on my final 250 miles.

And here we are with only one month left in the year, and I haven't quite made it to my goal. As of today, I have run 439 miles on the year. Which means I have 61 miles left. If my calculations are correct, the most I can possibly run in the next month is exactly 100 miles.

So, it should be easy, right?

Unfortunately, I've been having a really big problem with shin splints in the last few weeks. I've been hobbling my way through my runs, but it has been nearly unbearable. I'm going to take the next week or so off from running, to give them time to heal up. Hopefully, that will make future runs less agony-ridden. But that will take 20-25 miles off of my possible total. Meaning it will be a much closer thing.

I'm going to post after each of my runs, so you can follow my progress towards the finale of RuMo.

This picture is from Saturday. I was halfway into a five mile run, and all I wanted to do was sit down...and cry.

But I managed to finish it out, and so now my total is:

439 MILES