Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas!

Not too much time to blog with Christmas festivities upon us, however this will be my last/best opportunity to post for the year, so here it goes...

My last entry talked about the massage I won in a drawing from the Jingle Bell Run.  Well, I'm happy to report I got my rub down a couple days ago and it was great.  Turns out the masseur instructs massage at a local college, and he gave out 2 massages from the drawing.  His rates are pretty reasonable, so I might be seeing him again.  The only interesting thing I might add about the experience is that this was the first time I  decided strip down butt ass naked (for a massage) mainly so that I could get some quality work done on my glutes.


Back to my running.  I signed up for the local "Frosty 5k" on New Years Day, so my next blog entry will be the race report.  However, my main focus has been increasing my mileage base so that I can have a quality month of marathon training for January.  Here are my stats for the last 7 days:

12/18/2010 Weekly Mileage
Sat.178.5 min/mi on treadmill
Sun.0rest
Mon.107 - 1 mile intervals
Tue.118.4 min/mi
Wed.118.25 min/mi
Thur.48.4 min/mi
Fri.198 min/mi on treadmill
TOTAL73


My final piece of running news:  I'm looking forward to the next week.  I'll be heading South to Houston for a few days, so I should get to run in some nice 70 degree weather.


Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

Friday, December 10, 2010

I Won Something!

Wow!  I won something by running, but it wasn't from crossing a finish line before anybody else.  Remember that Jingle Bell Run I just blogged about?  Well, I didn't really mention the nice 10 minute massage I got afterward at the finish area.  But last night I got a call from the masseuse who did the masseusing telling me I won a hour and a half full body massage from the drawing I entered.

I've won drawings before, but I didn't even take this guy's company card thinking I wasn't going to win, but that he would most likely spam my email for the rest of my life.

So he told me I won, but to call him back when I figure out a time for the appointment.  One piece of background info:  He has odd hours of operation after 6pm weeknights, and on the weekends which adds to my skepticism that this is a 'too good to be true' prize (not really, but play along with me here).  This leaves me to ponder a few options about my recent luck.

  1. This is all legitimate, and I am a lucky SOB who gets an awesome free rub down.
  2. There were many 'winners' of the drawing, and in order to get my massage, I have to sit through a seminar/sales pitch like those for timeshare vacations.
  3. There is fine print, like I have to pay for the oils and creams, or commit to a pay massage in the future.
  4. The massage business is a front for a prostitution/escort service.
  5. Not that I'm a homophobe, but the male masseuse is gay, and he turns creepy and horny while I'm all but naked.

Any other crazy scenario I might be missing?  Did I hit the nail on the head or what?  Ha!  Now that my imagination is done running away from me, I'll be sure and post how it all turns out.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Jingle Bell Run

Not only am I a Jingle Bell Run virgin, but I am also a 4 mile race virgin.  I wasn't really looking forward to this race which is sandwiched in between the Turkey Trot and the New Year's race called the Frosty 5k.  I am starting to go into marathon training mode, and substituting a 4 mile race with a taper for my distance running leaves me feeling guilty.  However, I've been skipping this event for several years now, and the local Jingle Bell Run is a popular race, so I wanted to give it a try.

The morning started out colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra.  Although Kansas can get a lot colder, my body hasn't acclimated to Winter weather yet, and there was a stiff wind from the North that caused the wind chill to be about 17 degrees.  I made it to the start area about an hour early.  At this point, I was debating how hard I was wanting to run this race since I was already guaranteed a PR, and I wasn't feeling in top form.  Having decided this race wasn't that important to me, I went ahead and partook in a free doughnut and hot chocolate, and mingled around trying to kill some time.

Skipping ahead, about a half mile into the race, we turned into that North wind running along the Arkansas River.  Right before mile 2, a gust of wind came up and blew off my cap.  I made a quick decision, did a 180 and ran back after my hat.  Luckily another runner saw me chasing after it and picked it up while it was still being blown the opposite way.  My snafu probably cost me a good 10 seconds.  But as I was retrieving my hat, Mr. Murphy's Law (look it up if you haven't heard of him) must have run past me cause no more than a minute later, the runner right in front of me lost his cap too.  Now I had another decision to make.  Do I pay it forward and retrieve that guy's cap that's blowing right towards me thereby slowing me down again, or do I say screw him, I've got to make up some time.  Well, let's just say there's probably some homeless guy down by the river who has a warm head now.  The rest of the race was unmemorable other than I did more passing than getting passed, and I finished in a disappointing official time of 28:46.  I was shooting for sub 28 minutes.

I planned on hanging around long enough to eat more food, and catch the results.  I was in a little bit of shock when the results were posted.  My name was on the first page of results.  Turns out I did well enough to finish 37th out of 687 runners, and bring home a 3rd place age group award.  I've never placed that high before in anything over a 5k.  I've done some race timing for the race director, so when he called my name for the 3rd place award, he had to mention to the crowd that I didn't even have to fix the results.  I'm sure no one else there knew what he was talking about, but he thought he was being funny, so it was more of an inside joke I guess.

Age Group Award with Shirt Logo Backdrop



My New Hamstring Fashion Accessory



My left hamstring was a little tight before the race, and afterwards it was worse, so now I've got a compression sleeve to wear on my leg for the next few days.  Hopefully with a little TLC it can feel normal again within a week.






A footnote on that guy's cap I failed to get:  Now that I have you thinking I'm an A**Hole, or as self-centered as Paris Hilton.  He was close enough to me when he lost it that I didn't have time to react and grab it, but I did try and stop it with my foot.  He didn't attempt to turn around or come back for it, so I kinda just kept going, but not without feeling bad for the next mile that I didn't have better reflexes.