Tag: Running

July 15 – Three Runs in One Week! Yeah Me! Life’s Little Victories!

The Run

Ah, this morning temperatures were in the low 70s and it was cloudy a good morning for a run. And it was,but there was one thing that I forgot! That one thing was that the relative humidity was relatively high! That for someone like me who sweats at the drop of a heat is not a good thing. My first thoughts about the run were that I would run my most hilly four mile run. But that thought went out the window after the first mile. May second, thought was maybe I’d run my four mile Creek out and back 4 mile run.

As I got hotter and hotter that run did not appeal to me. So I finally, settled on my 3.1 loop that includes the out part of the Creek Out and Back run. But instead of turning around at the 2 mile mark I just keep going straight and loop around and come back home. As I ran down along the Rancocas Creek I thought maybe I would alter the run a little and make it a four mile loop.

Point of run going uphill the building on left is the Watchcase Bldg where I work for like 25 years!

Then I hit the slight hill at the railroad tracks and as I struggled up that hill I thought the hell with it lets just get a 3.1 plus mile in today! The final length of the run turned out to be 3.30 miles as I ran just a little past our house.

Post-Run Walk

When I finished I started my usual cool-down walk around the block. I got a little past halfway around the block, when I thought about increasing the length of my walk. It would only take .70 of mile to make the overall workout four miles. Then I thought how about I go down to the high school track and see how accurate the GPS is on a walk around the track.  The answer was pretty much dead on. When I started around the track I was at .52 miles and at the end of the lap .77, which makes one lap .25 miles!

I momentarily contemplated running some intervals. However, on the walk to the track I couldn’t see because of the sweat in my eyes.  I could just see it. Well maybe not! I figured on the quarter lap after a full lap, I i would be blind! Anyway, I’ll save intervals for another day or night!

So the question of the day what’s worse : Sunny and low humidity or cloudy and high humidity. My vote goes to the later. Any thoughts?

the results of the run……..

Mile Splits: Mile 1 10:37  min/mile – Mile 2 10:56 min/mile – Mile 3 11:24 min/mile – 0.30 mile – 11:20   Totals 3.30 miles – 36:24 min – 11:01 min/mile

Average Heart Rate : 142 beats per min (bpm)  Max 154 bpm  Calories Burned: 464 cal

Soundtrack of the Run: Behind Our Eyes (Live 2014) from the Prog Rock band  Anu]bis.

Here’s a Track from the Album. And once again I will try to write about the album later to day……

Featured Image: looking down Bridgeboro Street at the point where i cross it. Many times when I run down this street I think that the first time I ran down this street was as a member of the Burlington City Cross Country team in either 1968 or 1969? So I’ve almost been running down this road for 50 years! Oh  My!

July 12 th – A Three – Mile Morning  Run Because It’s Hot and I’m Old!

Ok so this morning when I checked the weather it was sunny and almost 80 degrees. The forecast is that temperatures will climb into the low 90s today. It would not have taken much to convince myself not to run! But I fought the impulse to do that. Rather I decided that the best idea was to shorten my run to around three miles. Additionally, I decided to plot out a course that would maximize shade! The final thing I needed to do was to tell myself to take it easy!

The Run

So with all that in mind I set out.The first half-mile was fairly easy some clouds blocked the direct sunlight so it wasn’t too hot. By the time the sun did come out I was almost to shade. I reached that shade just a little before the first mile mark. I reached that Mile mark at 11:03 into the run.. Ah, shade and I was almost to the high point of the run. I reached that high point in another few minutes

Photo 1 – Going Up Oak Towards that Shade!

Photo 2 – The Shade Along Moreland Ave. Heading towards the Highpoint along Fairview St.

Ah, now it was downhill in the shade for most of the decent. I was in and out of the sun for the second half of that mile. Again I had planned the course to maximize the shade and it worked. I ran the second mile in 10:39. Again most of it was downhill.

Photo 3 – Along the downhill on Pancoast Ave.

Now all I had to do was make it through the last mile. Most of that mile was in the sun. Luckily I convinced myself that I could go slow and no one would care!

When I was heading into the last stretch of the run I noticed my overall pace was just a little over 11 minutes per mile so I mustered what Speed I could get and I finished at 11 minute per mile pace. The time for the last mile was 11:28 but my sprint pace at least for .1 miles was 9:37.

When I finished the run my heart rate was 165, but within four minutes of walking around the block it was down to 116.

The Post Run Walk

As I walked and cooled down, I thought why don’t I try to stay in the shade and try to walk for a mile. I walked in the shadows at the school for a bit and the around the Spring Garden park and made the mile. Because my heart rate was still over 100 it was a good fat-burning walk!!

The Results:

3.1 mile run – 34:15. Average pace: 11 min/mile
Average heart rate 147 bpm – 443 calories burned.

1.0 mile walk – Average heart rate 118 bpm
215 calories burned

Not too bad!

The Soundtrack for the run was a blues album. The latest from Julian Sas – Feelin’ Alive and sometimes during the run I actually did!

I’ll review the album in a bit at FreeWheelin Music Safari.

To try to make these posts a little less boring., I thought I’d add a few pictures to show you where I was actually running! What do you think?

Today’s Run : July 9, 2017 – Four Miles – a struggle over the last mile

The temperature was right around seventy  degrees this morning so I decided it was a good day for a run. Looking back at my posts,I see that the last run I wrote about was way back on June 8th. Just because I haven’t posted, doesn’t mean I haven’t been running. While I haven’t been running as much as I should, I did run four more times in June  Here are the results….

1 – June 15 – distance 3.26 miles, overall pace 10:45 min/ mile
2  – June 22 – distance 3.28 miles, overall pace 1049 min/ mile
3  – June 25 – distance 4 miles, overall pace 11:13 min/mile
4 – June 29 – distance 4 miles, overall pace 10:53 min/ mile

While you may not realize it, three of those four runs were on a Thursday –  June 15,22, and 29! The reason is simple, it’s my day off from babysitting and Target.

The last two runs were  both four mile runs and that’s a good thing. Now all I need to do is get another weekday run in and then a longer weekend run! Ha!

Today’s Run Prep

As I said at the start of this post the temperature this Morning was relatively cool (70 degrees). The only bad thing was that it is also very sunny! On days like today,  I try to plan my run so that it has a good amount of shade in it. The bad thing about that is that the most heavily wooded area in town is also the area at the highest elevation . Which means it’s uphill to get there!

The Run…

Anyway I took off telling myself to take it easy because there will be a hill coming. So I was buzzing along feeling pretty good like I could keep this pace up for the whole run But when I finished the first mile in 10:25 I began to worry. At the 1.5 mile mark my pace had dropped to 10:38 (mid-way up that hill) and by the time I was at the top of the hill and heading toward the second mile mark my pace had dropped to 10:53! Finally I made the turn and headed back to the hill, but this time I was going down hill so I got to recover a little but the rest of the run after  my descent was a struggle! My only thought was I don’t care about time just let me finish – which I did!

The Splits

Mile No   –  Average Pace

1      –     10:26 min/mile
2      –     11:17  min/mile
3      –      10:58 min/mile
4.     –      11:47 min/mile

The Results

Calories burned 591    Average Heart-rate 143 bpm Max Heart-rate by 156 bpm

Overall, I am going to rate today’s as a B – The first mile gets an A  and the last a C The to middle miles a B. So that’s the average which is fine by me!  AndI just need to remember each run makes me a little better than before!!

The Soundtrack for the run was Erosion the latest from the Prog Rock band Cydemind. I will be reviewing the album in a bit at  FreeWheelin’ Music SafarI

How could I not run on Global Runnig Day!

Ok so last night was my second comeback run and my second run of the week. The last one was ok and there has been no major pain. just the normal little soreness you can expect after not running for a while. I decided that I would run a route that is a little over 3 miles long. It is a loop run with only one small hill near the end of the run.

I had planned to use Selwyn Burchwood’s latest release Pick Your Poison as the soundtrack for the run. However I have been using my old  iPhone On my runs because I still do not haven’t  a case for my new iPhone. Anyway the old iPhone wouldn’t download any songs. Therefore I went old school and ran without music.

The Run

Once again I told myself to take it easy. The first block of the run, which I usually find the hardest , was a little of a struggle. But it was actually completed a little faster than my previous run.. After that point I was running a little easier, but I was shocked when I looked down at the first mile mark and saw that my time was 10:37!

I thought that’s pretty fast, so I better slow down. I thought I did, but as I kept looking at the time, my pace was hovering right around 10:40 minutes per mile. That was what the pace was when I reached the two mile mark and the three mile mark! And actuallly I was still running pretty comfortably. I was even comfortable enough to get a little sprint at the end. That sprint brought my average pace down to 10:37 for the run!

Here are the splits: Mile 1 10:37 Mile 2 10:40 Mile 3 10:40 last 0.27 10:14!

Hmm I was just thinking if. I better off running without music. That’s the way I ran for years and sometimes I think it helps me be more in tune with my body and my breathing. So maybe I’ll try it in my next few runs and see how it goes.

This Morning’s Workout

This morning I didn’t want to do a full 60 minute workout, but I still wanted to get in a good workout that would burn a few calories  not just a yoga strecting workout. So I designed a modified 27 minute workout which combines a little tabata with my regular stuff
. It ended up being a 39 minute workout that burned 236 calories. But the most importantl thing is that my morning workout seems to get my body started in the morning.

Oh by the way i intent to write about Selwyn Birchwood‘a album in a bit so stay tuned. Now I want to go hear what Mr Comey has to say!

Renaissance Granddad Returns to an Old Workout and Starts Running Again!!

Ok so I haven’t written anything here in a very long time! One of the reasons is that I switched and started posting more at my original website Me, Myself, Music and Mysteries, and most recently I decided that I was going to focus more on the books that I read, so I started a new website This Man Reads. The second reason is last year I sucked at turning my biological clock backwards. In actuality, I think the clocks moved faster last year! Anyway, I have vowed to do better this year.  So far that is happening and hence this post!!

Actually, the move to getting in shape and slowing down that speeding biologic clock started at the end of 2016!  For several years I did a simple 15-minute workout before work. The workout consisted of a 5-minute warm-up and tuning in using the Ek Ong Kar mantra. followed by 5 minutes of Kundalini exercises and then 5 minutes of light weights and resistance bands. Last year I stopped doing that workout and started doing more yoga in the morning. Additionally, for years I ran three days a week. Typically, I ran four miles to days a week and a longer run between 5-8 miles on the weekend. For a variety of reasons in 2016 I hardly ran at all.

Renaissance Granddad Postpones Yearly Doctor Visits!

When December rolled around and I was faced with my yearly physical and my visit to my cardiologist, I put them both off. until after the holidays. It’s not that I am in bad shape, just not the shape I am normally in. My weight is about 5-6 pounds over my  typical weight and 12 pounds over my running weight. Additionally, I have not been eating all that well!

So near the end of December I decided to go back to the old routine on a daily basis. On days that I work at Target I do the routine in segments of  3, 6, and 6 minutes. On the non-Target days I do the routine as follows 3  minute meditation, 6 minutes Kundalini, 6 minutes light weights ( 5 and 15 lbs) and a kettle bell and 6 minutes using a variety of bands. The result has been that while I have not lost weight I have lost some inches, I think!

A Return to An Old Workout Leads to a Return to Running – Hopefully!!

Anyway, I feel better and this has led me to the streets!! Yes this week I have run twice, so far! I hope to make it three days with a run tomorrow. And while I have not run far, both runs were 2.1 miles, my overall pace  was not bad the first day was 11:22 and the second 11:15 min/mile. Both times were better than I ran back in August and October!

And Doctor Appointments!

I also made an appointment with my doctor for my yearly EKG and blood work in two weeks and will make an appointment with the cardiologist  for a week or so after that, so I can take all the results to the appointment!

So the plan is to watch what I eat and see if the added running can help me lose a few pounds within  the next two weeks. So that I go to both appointments feeling good about myself! And maybe I can start moving  my biologic clock in the reverse direction!!

Wish Me Luck!! Don’t worry you’ll hear about the running!