Sweet Tooth

I think most people would agree that I like candy. And cookies. And pie.

But in an effort to improve my eating habits I've found another sweet release: fruit snacks.

There's a problem with fruit snacks, though. Their packages are too small. For instance, today at Giant I bought a box of Peanuts Snoopy fruit snacks. (Actually, the small wrapper says "Peanuts" while the box says "Snoopy". I guess they though they'd confuse people by advertising a fruit snack as "Peanuts.") There were maybe eight tiny packages of fruit snacks with about seven pieces inside each about the size of a Monopoly house. So one package is not enough.

Long story short, I've got a pile of these in my work garbage can:



No doubt our cleaning people think I'm some sort of junkie, when they come by my cube to get my trash and see fruit snack wrappers discarded like syringes from a heroine addict.

And who cares if they're only 80 calories a pack? That's little consolation when you need (at least) three packs to be satisfied - then you've consumed as many calories as a standard candy bar (although considerably less fat and sugar).

What I need is a 160 calorie pack. Because if I eat two, I'll feel like a pig. It's like the donut hole concept. If you say you ate three donuts for breakfast, you sound like a pig. But if you eat 30 donut holes, you can just say "I had some donut holes" and you don't look so bad. So if I say I ate three packs of fruit snacks, I sound like a pig, but instead I eat the entire box and I just say "I had some fruit snacks this afternoon."

...and in case you're wondering, yes, I did eat the entire box (which was only $1.25) this afternoon. I am ashamed.

Fantasy Football is Great!

People who know me, know I'm a bit of a numbers guy. Which is the reason that I love fantasy football. In fact, it may even be the numbers more than the football...I know, sick. And this post probably could easily go on my other blog, We are the Peanut Vendors, but this really is more about me than sports.

Last night I had my second draft in as many nights. Needless to say I was a little low on energy when I got to work this morning. But I'm already gearing up for a third draft, which I'll probably just do online, since I don't know enough people to get another in-person draft done (at least at such short notice - but maybe next year?).

And I do have to say, that the in-person draft is SO much better than drafting online. Especially after about the ninth or tenth round, when it starts getting hard to find players on your cheat sheet, but you can still get a good chuckle when someone tries to draft Roddy White for the third time. (Who knew he'd be so popular-glad I grabbed him in my Sunday night draft!)

A couple highlights for me last night:

1. A certain amature mixed martial artist (with a man-crush on Phillip Rivers) waltzed into the room with a freshly purchased fantasy football magazine in hand and announced that he was going to win the league this year. This is a keeper league and he could have kept two players from his team last year, like say, Ladanian Tomlinson and Randy Moss, but they were "probably going to get injured this year."

2. For the first time ever I drafted a non-running back in the first round: Randy Moss.

3. The league's "new guy" drafted Shaun Alexander in the fifth round.

4. For the first time ever, someone lost a pick because they took too long. (He eventually got it back because the commish couldn't find him on the website).

5. I ate a lot of cookies.

6. I missed out on Jeremy Shockey, Roy Williams, and Sidney Rice because they were taken by the guy who picked before me.

7. The three rookies on my team (DeSean Jackson, Ray Rice, and James Hardy) will either make me look crazy or crazy smart.

8. Yes, Brett Favre was taken in the fifth round. (Not by me.)

Ice Ice Baby

"Word to your mutha"

Ice is not always something I've made a priority. In fact, I've always kind of viewed it as unnecessary. On many distance running websites they recommend ice baths after long runs and regularly icing your knees after every run. I have generally disregarded this advice.

However, much like the month leading up to my marathon last fall, I'm finding myself beleaguered by injuries - either real or imaginary. I don't mean to say that my marathon is in jeopardy or that any of these injuries are serious. I've just got a lot of aches and pains.

Last night I felt my knee pop in the middle of the night and now I'm dealing with a sore knee. I don't think it's serious - at worst a mild sprain - and it should clear up in a few days. But I am beginning to believe in the power of RICE. That's Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. Again, something that's taught in every book and website about running, but I don't generally practice. Even right now I have a bag of ice on my knee, so I've got the R and I, but my knee is neither compressed nor elevated. That's tough to do when you're trying to get stuff done.

So maybe these aches and pains could have been avoided with regular post-run icing? Possibly. But the aches and pains that I've had over the past week or two are enough to make me at least try.

Week Log August 18-24

Monday: Bike 16.6 miles, 1:01 Commute. Passed a lot of cars on the way in and a tractor (laden with hay) on the way home. I like passing vehicles on my bike.

Monday: Run 9.8 miles, 1:36 Another double-up. Spent some time recovering at home after my commute and did my run at about 7:00. Felt good and fast, especially since I was still recovering from Saturday's long run.

Tuesday: Bike 16.7 miles, 1:01 Commute. Legs were tired, so I took it easy.

Wednesday: Bike 16.6 miles, 1:01 Commute. After work my ankle was really sore, not really sure what's going on.

Friday: Bike 16.7 miles, 1:00 Commute. In the morning, while carefully watching traffic, I failed to watch the road surface and my water bottle jiggled out as I rode over a rough patch, so I had to u-turn to recover it. That cost me some time, which I made up on my wicked fast afternoon ride. Would have been under an hour easy, if I hadn't lost my bottle in the morning.

Friday: Run 4.0 miles, 40 min. Easy run. Despite my better judgment I ran right after getting home from work on my bike. Legs weren't feeling super strong, but things were all right.

Sunday: Run 7.5 miles, 1:15 Early morning run, legs were still feeling kind of beat up from all of the activity last week.

Total: Run 21 miles, bike 66 miles.

I need to take it easy the next three weeks. Will probably get about 12-15 miles of running in next week, then a long-ish day on Monday and nothing longer than five or six miles (at a time)after that. With three weeks to go, the last thing I need to do is hurt myself.

Great Gift, Bad Timing

Have you ever gotten a gift that was great, but just bad timing? Like a size medium t-shirt that your grandma bought you when you were no longer a medium? Or a gift certificate to Dairy Queen a week after you've started your diet?

That's kind of how I feel about this afternoon. Yesterday it was announced that my department would go out for lunch then we'd be allowed to go straight home. Which most of the time would be great, because I could spend the afternoon running or mountain biking or on an epic road ride. But because of my ankle I really feel like today should be a rest day. So here I am blogging about it.

The good news is that my ankle definitely feels improved from the past two days. It may have just been ordinary muscle soreness in an area I haven't felt it before. It still feels a bit week, so as a precautionary measure I will probably not be doing the 5K on Saturday and sleeping in instead. If my ankle still feels this good tomorrow, I'll do a short evening run, then Saturday will be a rest day and I will run again on Sunday.

I just don't want to risk ruining the marathon by pushing my ankle when I really should just take it easy. It's taper time, so my main job for the next four weeks is to avoid injury, not build fitness.

Why Must it Hurt?

Pain is a funny thing. As a runner I've learned to use pain as a tool rather than a constant nuisance. It would be much nicer if we all had diagnostic computers so that we could see what's going on with our bodies without having to deal with the messages sent via pain.

"Overworked anterior tibialis. Refrain from running for two days. Continue cycling."

"Dislocated shoulder. Seek medical attention immediately."

"Consumed tainted shrimp. Vomit, then rest."

I've learned to read some of the messages my body has sent me, especially in my legs and feet, and there is definitely a difference in the messages that I get. Some pain I can determine is fleeting, I often consider these "phantom pains", since during a long run they will come and go in different parts of my legs.

Today I'm dealing with "you've worked us too much and we need some rest" pain. After my marathon at Pinchot on Saturday, last night I added nearly another 10 miles. So today, along with the usual "dead legs" I've also got a bit of an ache in my ankle. It's not an "injury" ache, just a "lets take it easy for awhile before something bad happens" ache.

So I'm taking it easy for a while.

But, I am still planning on riding my bike to work every day this week. I haven't done more than three days in a given week, but given the current forecast, I've got a great shot at all five.

...and I'm still planning on the 5K on Saturday!

Week Log: August 11-17

Monday: Run 3.7 miles 34 min. Great weather, had intended to take it easy after Saturday's romp through the mountains, but ended up going a little faster than necessary.

Tuesday: Bike 16.6 miles, 1:01 Commute. Very fast morning ride, but was hampered by wind in the afternoon.

Wednesday: Bike 16.6 miles, 1:00 Commute. Slow morning, but the afternoon ride was windless and for the first time ever, faster than my morning ride.

Wednesday: Run 4.0 miles, 41 min. Yes, I doubled up. But my legs felt terrible during the run. I probably needed to take some time to recover from my ride home before running. It's pretty difficult transitioning from a bike ride to a run.

Saturday: Run 26.4 miles, 5:42. My Longest Run Ever

Total: 33 miles cycling, 34 miles running.

A good week, overall. I need to get more miles in my "intermediary" weeks so I don't have such spikes when my long week comes along. I don't want to be spiking from 20-25 miles on my regular weeks to 40-50 miles on the weeks with my long run. I just need to practice getting more 8-10 milers in the evenings and maybe this fall I'll working on running a few days back-to-back.

In the meantime, I really need to focus on the taper. I'll run 20 miles this week (with plenty of cycling) and then maybe 15 for the two weeks leading up to the marathon. I'll hopefully be able to up my cycling for those two weeks and in that last week (Sept. 8-14) cut back on everything so my legs will be fresh for 26.2 fast miles.

My Longest Run Ever

Actually, a better title for this post would be "My Longest Run So Far", since I will be running further this fall, but for now the 26.4 miles I ran at Pinchot Park yesterday is longest I've ever run (by .2 miles).

I think that if I were to compile a list of trail running tips, one of the first would be to try not to be the first person on a given trail on any given day. Because on my 9-mile loop around the park I ran into a lot of these:

Not cool.

But other than the spider webs, it was a really good run. I don't often run trails in the summer, so usually when I do run trails I am subject to a lot of mud. But not yesterday. In fact below is the only patch of mud I came across on the trail, and it was easy to run around:


Unfortunately the dry weather also licked up my usual cool-off spot at a stream crossing.

When I ran here Memorial day I managed to stop at this stream and cool myself off with the cold water flowing through it, but yesterday all that were there were a few stagnant pools.

I had given myself a minimum of 20 miles to run yesterday, but I knew I would probably be okay running up to three laps or 27 miles. So when I finished the first 18 miles still feeling pretty good I decided to go for the third lap. Unfortunately about halfway around I started feeling the symptoms of dehydration and with the mid-day sun beating down, I was no longer able to take in more water than I was sweating out. So I didn't exactly finish strong but I had plenty of ice water at the car to cool my body down with (by pouring over my head, hands and feet) and plenty of water to drink, so I recovered from the symptoms rather quickly.

And at the car I was happy to see that the super glue I used to fasten the velcro to my shoes which my gaiters gripped onto held fast and at least the top of my socks came out gleaming white:
I also learned that wearing two pairs of socks are a great way to prevent blisters (one pair Injinji and one pair New Balance-both moisture wicking) and that the mesh on the uppers of my asics will still let trail debris in regardless of conditions (my feet were dry, but dusty).

So overall it was a great experience. The strange pains I had felt in my ankle earlier in the week only showed up a couple times in the first lap and then my legs felt fine (although eventually tired) for the last 18 miles or so. So I'm going to continue as originally planned, and after a good long taper, will hopefully be ready for the Erie Marathon in tip-top shape.

Wind, Rain and Pain

Yesterday was a wierd day, at least as far as my training goes.

I rode my bike to work for the second day in a row. In the morning my legs felt a little dead, so I didn't exactly have my fastest ride in. It took about 31 minutes, which is about two minutes slower than my previous two morning cycle commutes. It didn't surprise me much, because the night before on my ride home my legs felt a little noodlish. (or is it "noodle-ish"?)

But the afternoon ride was a different story altogether. I felt fast. Really fast. I was topping 30 mph in areas I hadn't topped 30 mph before. Then I realized it - there was no wind. All summer my afternoon rides have been hampered by a headwind coming from the East, but yesterday - no wind. I had long considered the possibility of a negative split on my commute impossible. The cooler winds and easier hills in the morning always make for a quick ride in. And in the afternoon I have to climb Slate Hill's Eastern Col. I don't know if it's really called that - but it's steep. But still faster than going around.

So my evening ride went quickly, I managed to ascend Slate Hill with relative ease and topped 35 mph on the descent down the Western Col. (I don't think it's really a "col" when the climb is under 300 feet vertical, but it makes it sound impressive.) I got good timing at a stop light and managed to roll through the intersection at over 20 mph. I turned onto Gettysburg Road and the rain came down.

But it was fine. I got a little wet, but it happens. I got home and my total travel time was just over 1 hour. My ride home was at least 2 minutes faster than my ride to work. That is unheard of.

I was also due for a run that afternoon, so instead of taking some time to recuperate I just guzzled some water, changed into some running clothes and went.

I felt terrible. I wanted it to be an easy run, but this felt sluggish and downright slow. And three times I got this pain in my leg. I think it might be a bad pain - like, an injury paid.

NOOOO!

I'm one month away from the Erie Marathon and if it is the worse-case scenario (stress fracture) I can forget about Erie and probably JFK too.

But one thing at a time. It's not like it hurt on every footfall. Just three times when my foot landed on the pavement just right (or I guess just wrong in this case) a sharp pain would shoot up the inside of my right ankle into my shin. So it could be nothing. I might just be a little overtrained, and the weather is pretty much dictating that today and tomorrow will be rest days.

I did some strength training today and did some "ice-skaters" to test the leg and those felt fine. So the plan now is to wait and see. I'm going to continue with my plan to run 20+ miles at Pinchot State Park on Saturday. If I finish with no or little pain, I'll continue with my training as planned. If the pain is occasional and not serious, then I'll take a little time off and some extra time on my bike next week - probably won't do the 5K. But if the pain is constant and serious, then we've got a situation on our hands...

On the Ride Home

Today on my ride home I noticed the reappearance of something I used to see regularly in the spring but haven't seen in a while. Actually, it's someone.

A few weeks after I started riding my bike to work I passed a (presumably) homeless man pretty regularly on Limekiln Road in New Cumberland. He never bothered me (although he did shout something at me once which I couldn't make out), so I ignored him and eventually he went away. But now he's back.

It appears that he might be a migrant of some kind. He has a bicycle loaded up with all kinds of odds and ends (including what looks to be some kind of small mattress) and I usually see him at different points along the road, but always on Limekiln somewhere Between Spangler's Mill Road and Poplar Road (or is it Drive?).

Anyhow, my point is that I kind of feel like homeless people bring out the worst in me. Well, maybe not the worst - but I generally don't feel good about myself after passing one. I mean, these are people with a unique story and while we assume the worst, it may just be another "Chris McCandless" living the life of a wanderer as "Alexander Supertramp".

My point is that they're people, and when approached by a homeless person I'm more likely to treat them like a telemarketer than a person. "I'm sorry, now is just not a good time..." (okay, telemarketers are people too, and I can only hope that they hate their jobs and they're just calling people at dinnertime to make ends meet until something better comes along). But maybe someday I'll have the courage to learn something from them, or at least help them out. Because if I did run into Chris McCandless, I know he'd have some great stories to tell.

Week Log August 4-10

Monday: Run 7.2 miles 1:09 First run for the new Nikes. Some blisters, but nothing serious, especially since it was a long run for a new pair of shoes.

Wednesday: Bike 16.7 miles 1:04 Commute. Humid morning + windy afternoon = SLOW

Thursday: Run 5.1 miles 48 min. Had planned to do around 10 miles, but a thunderstorm cut my run short. Did first three miles at 10:00/mile pace. Did last two (in rain) at an 8:20 pace.

Friday: Bike 16.6 miles 1:00 Commute. A nice cool morning made for a quick ride in, but another downpour hit about 2 miles from home in the evening.

Saturday: Run 8.4 miles 1:44 On the Horshoe Trail in Lancaster County, lots of hills, lots of rocks, and lots of hills. Yes, I know I mentioned lots of hills twice. The Garmin indicates that there was at leas 1500 feet of climbing for that 8.4 miles. The run may have been slow, but it was not "easy".

I feel really good about this past week. I had 20 miles of running which sets me up well going into the fall. Next Saturday is my last long run before the marathon and I will shoot for 20-23 miles, depending on how I'm feeling when I reach mile 20. After that I will be going for two 20+ mile weeks then settling in to my taper so I can go into the marathon with the freshest legs available.

Plugging Away

Monday night after my softball game I got a chance to talk briefly with one of our former teammates who is also a runner/cyclist. He has a newborn at home, so his only workout comes from riding his bike to work: 22 miles each way between Mechanicsburg and Hershey. That's 44 miles a day - and he rides every day. 216 miles a week. Every week.

So I had some extra motivation going into Wednesday's commute. Which was good because it was a little ugly. Well, not exactly ugly - I just kind of wished that I had gone for an afternoon run instead of riding my bike to work.

The morning commute was muggy and I spent at least half of it with my sunglasses perched on the back of my head because they were fogging up whenever my speed dropped below 20 mph (which is well over half the ride).

In the afternoon I was faced with a wicked headwind. I quickly acknowledged that I wasn't exactly going to be setting speed records today between the muggy morning and the windy afternoon, so I considered the wind a cooling breeze and took it easy so as not to wear myself out before reaching Slate Hill, where I really need to wear myself out. I soon realized that wind + traffic = a touchy situation. After Slate Hill, the traffic tends to pick up some and I found myself not only battling headwinds but also side winds that pushed me back and forth laterally. Which I'm sure the motorists around me loved. But I made it home, safe and sound although three minutes slower than usual.

This afternoon I faced another training setback. We're going away this weekend so I wanted to get a medium-lengthed run in. That is, about 8-10 miles. Unfortunately after three somewhat easy miles (at a 10:00/mile pace) a thunderstorm moved in and I ran a relatively fast (8:20/mile pace) 2 miles home. Hopefully I'll find time to get about 8 miles in this weekend. With the marathon coming and JFK following after that, I'd like to get a total of about 90 miles in the month of August, and I have less than 25 done so far.

It's Time for Another Pair of Running Shoes

I've decided that it's (finally) time to start breaking in the pair of Nike Air Pegasus (LiveStrong edition) that I bought (on sale) at Dick's months ago. My Glycerin 5's have 215 miles on them and they're simply not going to make it to the Erie Marathon. In fact, I'm declaring that the Library Loop 5K was their final race. I'll use the Nike's at E-Free in a couple weeks.

Last night I initiated them properly with a 7-mile run around the neighborhood (and then some). I would actually have liked to have run more, but I had a 7:00 softball game and I didn't want to be late (or too tired). The shoes generally felt good, except for a bit of a blister on the ball of my right foot, but hopefully that is something that will fix itself in the breaking-in process.

At the softball game however, things didn't exactly go swimmingly. I had a pretty good game defensively (as a catcher, that means I made a play - actually I made three, which is highly unusual), but went 0-3 at the plate. It didn't help that the other team had one of our former players in left-center. A really fast former player. (Brett Favre - that's why the Packers won't trade you to the Vikings!)

The game was pretty tight until the last inning when the other team starting hitting. Hitting really well. And since it was single elimination, we're done for the year. Which at this point feels more like a relief than disappointment. You hate to lose, but sometimes you're just ready to move on to the next big thing. And for me that next big thing is the Erie Marathon, just 40 days away!

Week Log July 28 - August 3

Monday: Run 5.2 miles, 53 min. Early morning run. Took it easy, had a softball game that night.

Tuesday: Bike 16.6 miles, 1:01 Commute; fast morning, windy afternoon.

Wednesday: Run 6.4 miles, 59 min. Attempted "marathon pace" hot weather made that tough and I came up a little short. But generally speaking a pretty good speed session.

Friday: Bike 16.6 miles, 1:01 Commute; neither direction felt fast.

Saturday: Run 3.1 miles, 24 min. Fredrickson Library Loop 5K. Would have really had liked to have done a bike ride in the afternoon, but weather wouldn't allow it.

Not a bad week overall, since it's coming back from a "long" week last week. Next week I'll be shooting for around 20 miles, but if I end up playing softball two nights in a row it may throw things off. This week I would have liked to snuck some more miles in there, whether biking or running, but couldn't seem to beat the weather - and today's social schedule wouldn't really allow it.

Another Blog

With the haphazard directions this blog has been taking, and the sheer volume of posts I've managed to spill out, I've decided to create a second blog.

This is sort of an experiment, and at the time it has only one post (a re-post of An Open Letter to the Green Bay Packers), but it will clear the clutter that is on this blog (my "personal blog") and give focus to a topic that I often like to make jokes about, sports.

This blog will contain my posts about my life, my family, my church, my cycling and my running.

We are the Peanut Venders will contain my posts about the NFL, the Tour de France, and anything else in the world of sports that merits my comment. Occasionally I may double-post, but I'm hoping a focused sports-center blog will gain some public interest and maybe I'll actually make some revenue from these here ads I've got up. (Which I'm cutting down on in this site.)

So check it out. If you love it, great! But if you're not that interested in Brett Favre, cyclists with inpronouncible (unpronouncable?) names or how thick the smog is in Beijing (for the Olympics), then don't feel obliged.

Fredrickson Library Loop 5K Race Report

I feel kind of silly doing a race report on a 5K. Although, it wasn't that long ago that I did a race report on a one mile race, so I guess I should.

There's not a whole lot to say, though. I started out a little fast, finishing the first mile in 7:05, but was surprised when I reached the second mile checkpoint in 7:13 - I had lost only three seconds off my pace from the first mile, despite some sizable hills (maybe not hills, more like "slight elevation changes" - but at a 7-minute mile they felt like hills).

That being said, I was surprised by my finish time of 24:09. Yes, it's over a minute faster than my time last year, but last year I also ran a 5K in 23:24 a few weeks later. So I was expecting a new PR, especially since the splits after my first two miles had been so good.

I suspect that the time or placement at the two splits may have been a bit off. Also, I'm beginning to suspect the accuracy of the measurement at the race I set my PR at - 45 seconds is a lot of time in a 5K. So we'll see how I do at the West Shore Evangelical Free Church's Community Fun Fest this year...it's coming up in three weeks. That should give me an idea of how fast I really am...maybe.

After the race I had the joy of once again watching the Fredrickson Library Book Cart Drill Team. It was kind of like synchronized swimming, but in the road and with library book carts. It was odd seeing adults dance with book carts to Queen's "We Will Rock You". Very odd.

An Open Letter to the Green Bay Packers

To Ted Thompson, Mark Murphy, Mike McCarthy and anyone else who may be in charge of the money:


It has recently come to my attention that you have offered Brett Favre $20 million to NOT show up to training camp, NOT play football for the Packers or any other team and stay retired.


I would like the opportunity to bid on this position that Favre has been offered. I am far more experienced in not playing professional sports and would probably serve the Packers far better the Favre in this capacity. You see, I have not played professional, collegiate, high school or even Pop Warner football in my entire life. I have a solid 28 years of experience not playing football.


How can you trust someone who has been an NFL MVP, won a Super Bowl, and served the Packers as starting Quarterback for 16 seasons to not play football? Favre has talked a good talk about not playing football, but he's made it clear that not playing football is not where his passion or his talents lie . I think my record makes it clear that I will be a much better non-football player than Favre for the 10 years that has been offered in the contract.


In fact, I don't even need $20 million dollars. For the sum of $15 million for the next 12 years I will be willing to not play football in the NFL. That's two extra years for five million dollars less. In fact, I will even quit my current job and not take a steady job anywhere else for those 12 years and I will definitely not work for another NFL club. I'd use that time to give back to the community that has supported me so much for the 28 years I have not played football and given me the opportunity to show you just how good of a non-football player I can be.


Obviously, the non-work clause would have to have exclusions to allow me to run, cycle, and well ... blog, but that is something we can work out at the bargaining table. I look forward to hearing from you soon.


Best Regards,
Jeff Lorow
another-mile.blogspot.com