This will be quick and boring update. Went out to Heahter Farms for our buddy run. Did another 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back. We did really good and stuck to a 10-10:30 pace. We got 3 miles in, in a little over 30 minutes. That's the fastes I've done in a while.
This weekend the training schedule called for a 10 mile run. The plan was to get out to the Berkeley Marina by 6:30 so that we could have our water stop people squared away with their supplies and directions then we'd go on a 2 mile run. We were going to do the other 8 miles with the team. That didn't quite work out the way we wanted to. By the time we got the water stop people on their way it was too late for us to go on a run so we decided to just do the 8 miles with the team. I hadn't been feeling good all week so my eating wasn't great, I was pretty well hydrated so that was good but I also had a headache before we even started running. Other than the massive headache I had by the time I got to mile 4 I felt really good. I haven't felt good during any of my runs this season, probably cause my training during the week hasn't been great and then on Saturday's I am doing long runs. I was able to do about 7.5 miles which was great because I thought by taking the short cut I'd only get 7 in. We've got 20 days til the Disneyland Half so I really need to make sure that I am good for the next few weeks and go to all the buddy runs and the track workouts. I'm gonna have to figure out when I'm going to get my run in this weekend since we'll be at a wedding Saturday and I won't be able to run with the team. Although I didn't get all my mileage in on Saturday I'm happy that I felt good and was able to do the 7.5 miles.
.....think of Dick Hoyt and his son, Rick.
Strongest Dad in the World
From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.
Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. ``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''
"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''
That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''
And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''
How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.
Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.''
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95logged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every > weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad would sit in the chair and I would push him once.''
That is the new name that Coach decided to give our team on Saturday. I think it's a great name especially right now when we have to be positive about Brenda's recovery. The good news is that they have found her a 9 out of 10 match. She still has a long road ahead of her but this is the start of her recovery from cancer.
Saturday we got up VERY early and met the team at the Delta DeAnza Trail in Antioch. We were going to try doing 10 miles but after arriving and trying to get things set up for the water stop people and getting things organized for the honoree potluck it got kind of late so we decided on running 6 miles with the team. We are still on track for Disneyland and we can do the 10 miles next weekend. It was a HOT run although I think we finished in good time. We did 6 miles in about 1:09. I had a horrible headache but I managed to get the mileage in and done. I was very proud of Karen, she went out early with the Summer Team and did 10 miles...YAY KAREN!! The rest of Saturday was spent relaxing.
Sunday we went out to Stern Grove again and watched Ozomatli. We had to be out there by 8am to get a good spot which we did and we had a great time :o)
Last night I got to Coach the Dublin Track Workout. It wasn't too hard but it's always fun. Coach called me around 4:30 and asked if I could cover the workout for him which was fine with me since I was going to go to the Concord one anyway. I asked Olivia to join me :o) So we headed out to the Dublin Track which is actually a park with a path that's about .2 miles long of a mile long. 5 laps around the path is 1 mile. We had both the summer team and the fall team out. The summer team was to do 2 miles total alternating each lap between an easy lap and a fast lap. The fall team was to do 17, 19 or 21 minutes depending on their level. I warmed up with the team and did the stretches and then while they worked out I sat on the side and called out the times for them. They all did a great job.
WOOHOO, I had an awesome workout last night. I have to admit though I am a little tired this morning. I headed out to the buddy run at Heather Farms last night for a 30 minute run. Cynthia met us there again and this time both Olivia and I were there so we all ran together. We did 3 miles in about 34 minutes....not bad :o) it was a little cooler last night but it was good running weather. Afterwards Ray, Cynthia's boyfriend, met us at the pool and we did about 45 minutes in the pool. We are using the schedule I used when I did Wildflower we followed the swim workout for week #2, I had Ray do week #1 last week. So our workout consisted of:
Warmup
200 swim
100 kick
100 pull
Main Set
25 Kick, 25 Drill, 25 Swim (we did this 4 times and did 4 different drills)
Cool Down
50 swim (it was suppose to be 100-200 but I took it easy on them especially since Ray had swam earlier in the day and it was Cynthia's first day in the pool in a long time)
So we did 750 yards :o) YAY! I am so proud of them and I felt awesome. It was nice to get back in the pool considering I have not swam since May.
So it was a good night of working out and then I went home and had a very healthy meal of fish and broccoli. The only bad part about that is that I had dinner at 9pm and although it was healthy I pretty much ate and rolled into bed not long after :o( not good for the belly. Oh well.
Tonight we have Run University. We are having all our clinics on one night instead of having them every Saturday morning. Should be fun.
This is a funny story so I had to share, doesn't really have to do with running but Lindsay is on of my friends I met through TNT. For her 23rd birthday she set up a day in Napa for a little wine tasting a nice picnic at the Diamon Oak Winery. Her mom and dad drove their SUV and then rented another van. It was such a nice thing for them to do that way we could all enjoy our day of wine tasting. We were suppose to meet at the Orinda BART station at 9:45am, board the vans/suv and head up to Napa. I was the first one there when Lindsay and her mom into the parking lot. We both got out of our carsd to greet each other AND......
.....we had matching outfits on. We did not plan this at all but YES we did have the same exact skirt on with black V neck tops. Too funny! We had to make sure to stand on opposite ends of any group photos. We had a great time though in Napa. The weather was perfect for a day of wine tasting. We stopped at Markham Winery for a tour and private tasting. Diamond Oak for a picnic with some yummy sandwich's and yummy cake and then a few people did wine tasting at BV. Olivia, Karen and I decided on a nice ice cold soda at that point. I had great time once again on a full day of fun with my TNT friends.
that in doggie language means....GO TEAM!!!! Last night was the first track workout of the season. I chose not to run. I have been super exhausted and just wasn't feeling it. I have also been feeling guilty because we've been gone every night this week and our poor little pooch has been home alone, this weekend we'll also be gone most of the weekend. I decided to grab the doggie and the camera and just head out to track and support. The team ran a 2 lap warm-up, stretched, Coach Gary did some talking about how track works and then they ran for 14-19 minutes. Patch and I walked 3 laps with Brenda and her mom.....see I wasn't totally lazy :o) I took lots of pictures of the team and then we headed home. It had been pretty warm but it turned out to be nice a nice evening.
Last night was the first buddy run of the Fall Season, it's always fun to watch the new people come out and wonder how they are going to run for 30 min (about 3 miles for some) and not pass out. 4 months later they are running 3-5 hours, it's kind of crazy. We had a pretty good turnout, not as big as I thought but a good crowd and the summer team was also out there so that added a few people. We did 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back which for me is about 3 miles although last night I don't think I made it to the 3 mile maker but I was close. My friend and TNT Alumni, Cynthia, came out and ran with me and that was very helpful. It was once again pretty warm last night and you know me, I hate the heat. We had a good run though and it was nice to have the company. I did not swim last night but I did head over to the pool and helped Ray, Cynthia's boyfriend, with some drills. It was funny to watch him do the drills and wonder how the heck he is going to swim 1600 yards at Wildflower next year. That was me not long ago but I did it and I know he will too. It was a very productive evening. Looking foward to track on Thursday. I hear it's suppose to be in the 90's today :o( hope it doesn't start to get insanely hot again.
Boy it was a busy weekend. A fun weekend but a busy one and exhausting one. Saturday was the first coached run of the season. We met at Heather Farms in Walnut Creek. Olivia and I had to be out there at 6:45 :o( to help set up water stops. Our team doesn't start running til later in the morning but because we share water stop duty with the Summer Team we were out there bright and early. Olivia, Phil and I decided to run 3 miles early and then 3 miles later with our Fall Team. The first 3 miles were great although it seemed a lot warmer than 60 degrees. We finished the first 3 miles in a little over 30 minutes. Not bad, seems like we mananged to keep a 10 minute pace. Rocky was suppose to run with us but a few of the other boys convinced him to run 8 miles, so he did. We came back and greeted our fall team as they arrived, we had a shoe clinic first and then we were back out running. I think the second 3 miles took us a little longer and it was much warmer and I was a little dehydrated. We got the 3 miles in though and felt pretty good. Why I feel today like I ran a marathon I have no idea. For some reason my entire body is very sore....hmmm, maybe it's the fact that I haven't been running any other day but Saturday and so it ends up kicking my butt :o( That will change this week though since we start our buddy runs on Tuesday and track on Thursday night. I am also going to start swimming tomorrow. My plan is to head out and run with the ream for 30 minutes and then go swimming at Heather Farms since we'll already be out there.
The rest of the weekend was pretty fun. We headed out to Danville to watch our friend Jeanette's band on Saturday evening. There were over 20 of us crazy TNT'ers there. Sunday another bunch of us crazy TNT'ers headed out to Stern Grove in SF to watch a free concert.
Saturday evening at Music in the Park in Danville
I am signing up for this triathlon :o) yipee, I can't wait. I wanted to do the Tri 4 Fun in Pleasanton in a few weeks but because of schedule conflicts with the run team I won't be able to so I'll do this one instead. I am going to be helping out my friendCynthia and her boyfriend, Ray start training and getting into the triathlon world. They both are thinking about doing Wildlfower next year. The great thing about this is that it'll force me to get out there and train also because they will be expecting me :o) I really need this because as you guys can see I can't train on my own.
So the Luna Bar Triathlon is on August 27th in Rancho Seco (Sacramento Area). It is a 1/2 mile swim, 16 mile bike ride and 3 mile swim...piece of cake :o) haa, haa.
This weekend is a busy one. Saturday we have the first coached run of the season at Heather Farms in Walnut Creek. I'll be running 6 miles. Saturday afternoon we are going to watch our friend Jeanette's band, East Bay Mudd, play in Danville. On Sunday we are heading out to San Francisco to Stern Grove for another free concert.
Have a great weekend!
So you think I am crazy because I have made this endurance thing my life? Haa, haa...check this out.
The Northface Endurance 50
50 marathons, 50 states, 50 consecutive days. Dean Karnazes (Dean's Bio) begins the North Face Endurance 50, the ultimate running expedition, on September 17th in Missouri and aims to finish 1,310 miles later on November 5th in New York City. Along the way he will transcend preconceived notions of human endurance to inspire people to test their own personal limits.
This guy is amazing and a couple of us had the pleasure of meeting him last year during his book signing of the Ultramarathon Man.
He is a huge inspiration and motivator. You can even sign up to run with him. I'm actually thinking about it although I'm not sure I could keep up. You can run the entire 26.2 miles with him or part of it. It's a $100 donation and you get some great goodies. I think it would be an amazing experience.
