Four Day Weekends Are FUN!

Where to start when wanting to recount the activities of a four day weekend? First up, a painful truth: Even four day weekends are eventually coming to an end. Good news, I will get a little break in tomorrow, since I will be off and actually there won't be another full working week for me in 2009 anymore. Sweet... Mmmmmh? ;-) We are not allowed to carry any vacation or comp time over to next year and since I am kinda running out of year, I have to take care of it. (It's a tough job, but someone has to do it!)

So what was going on over the weekend? It can be compiled in these handy categories sorted descending by the time spend on the matter: rest, food, training, health issues and shopping.

REST

It may seem to some people that I am getting older or less fun, but my highest priority for this long weekend was certainly to get as much rest in as possible. I averaged around 9 hours of solid sleep each night from Wednesday night to Sunday night. Not counting the nap I got in Friday on our way up to Charlotte to drive the course for Terry's marathon in two weeks. Also not counting the time I was dozing or relaxing in the bed or on the couch. Do I feel much better today for all the rest that I was getting in? Not really, but I sure would feel much worse if I hadn't kept a low profile over the weekend. More about the in the health issue section of this blog post.

FOOD

Hey, it was Thanksgiving weekend, so of course we have to talk about food! Over my handy Google Reader I am subscribed to all kind of health blogs, runner blogs etc and a quite a lot of the blog posts leading up Thanksgiving have been about advice not to undo a whole year of training over one day and NOT TO GO OVERBOARD with the food. I threw in my two cents about this last week too. I think I did fairly good considering all the circumstances. We had Thanksgiving lunch at Terry's sister and the food was deeeeeeeelicious. I can't remember how much I ate, but I do remember that I actually had leftovers for dinner again... I really didn't expect to even feel appetite that soon again. For the remainders of the weekend, I was fairly alright, but I think at one point, there was a McFlurry involved as a desert. Shame on me... Or what the heck... Live a little. Today, I was sabotaged once more my an endless supply of German chocolate in the office. Nobody else to blame but me, since no one is stuffing it into my mouth, I do that all my myself. At lunch, I got some really food into my stomach and that held of the chocolate rant for the remainders of the day... Kind of... At least a little.

TRAINING

Yesterday, I finished up my highest mileage running week in a long time... A little over 22 miles. I am feeling pretty good about how the running is coming along for the MB half. Even Terry said yesterday while we finished up a 5-miler, that if I keep running and improving like this, than I will actually give him a run for his money at the 2010 MTY Sprint Tri, which is the ultimate baseline between the two of us... He is already adding up where he needs to save the minutes in 2010 so he won't be defeated again! ;-) Honestly, I have no doubt in my mind, that he won't let me repeat my victory from 2009, but I am determined on making it as close as possible! Between Thursday and Sunday I had on tap: a run and a lower body workout, a trainer ride (it was sunny outside, but cold, so I chicked out) and another two runs. Not bad at all.

HEALTH ISSUES

A lot of my resting, eating and training was worked around my current sinus infection and a surprise-backstabbing-ankle-pain-attack. I have mentioned before that I am fighting with a head cold these days. By linking my previous blog post to this one, I just noticed that I am dealing with this mess for over two weeks now. Fortunately, it's still all in the head and not on the lungs which leads me to believe that I can train fairly normally. It just a constant cycle of headaches, sore throat and runny nose. It doesn't seem to be a full blown sinus infection, but it also doesn't go away. Since I am not a person that starts taking pills right away, I basically left the whole thing untreated... I mean, what can you do about a cold anyways. But over the weekend I broke down and got me a family pack of Emergen-C and Ricolas and pop and drink as much as I can get into my system. The extensive rest over the weekend sure helped to not make things worse, but unfortunately didn't make things much better either. This ongoing sinus stuff also leads me to the attitude right now, that I eat whatever I want because my body is fighting off an infection. I kinda doubt that German chocolate is a big help, I think I need to choose healthier foods in order to be able to justify this behavior reasonably! ;-)

A little surprising was the ankle pain. I was talking all the time about how happy I am that my knees and hips and back and everything else handles the mileage increase so good this time. I noticed that I had some pain in the inside of my right ankle, but just when touching it... It was just like some nerves were a little sensitive. Then I looked at my ankle Saturday night and it's all swollen up. What the heck?? I didn't have any pain in it that day, but I displayed that nice cankle. The next morning everything looked fine again, but in the early afternoon the swelling had returned. I ran my 5-miler and felt fine for the most part, only the last mile or so was a little painful. I put my ankle brace on over night and this morning it was back to normal, but the swelling came back over the day. We'll see how this little bugger is developing.

SHOPPING

I really didn't feel like participating in the Black Friday shopping frenzy, but my mom gave me a looooong shopping list and I kinda needed Christmas gifts, too. And there were tons of deals out there, but I sure didn't get up early early. We actually spend Black Friday on the couch, on the bike trainer (I did, while Terry was out for a run), in the car on the Charlotte marathon course and on our way back we stopped in Gaffney for dinner and some shopping. I am happy to report that I was able to get pretty much all the Christmas shopping out of the way over the weekend. Most of it Friday night and then we did another short trip yesterday and I thought I was all set until I got on the phone with my brother... Oh well, I am off tomorrow.

On another note... I really start getting excited about the trip to Germany now. Just another 17 days and we are OFF! ;-)

Giving Thanks for...

Happy Thanksgiving.

Whereas Thanksgiving (Erntedankfest) in Germany is more a celebration where the giving thanks for the harvest is done during a church service on the first Sunday in October (not a very fancy affair), the American version of the festival has evolved into a MUCH BIGGER event. Of course the focus is supposedly still on giving thanks for things we have been blessed with, but it's also a time for family reunion, TONS of food and.... football. (Surprise!) As well as the shopping frenzy on the Day after Thanksgiving also known as Black Friday and the official kick-off for the Christmas season.

I want to share what I am thankful for:

Today, I want to give thanks for my family and friends, to the fact that I always feel loved and supported by them, even though I don't see a lot of them very often. I want to give thanks for meeting Terry and that he sticks with me through all the ups and downs that life has thrown at us in the last couple of years. Thanks for a healthy body and mind. And last but not least, thanks for having a job in a rocky economy.

Here are some funny quotes that highlight the importance of food and football for Thanksgiving:

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day.
~Irv Kupcinet

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are
consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is
not coincidence. ~Erma Bombeck

It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a
pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the
Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it. ~Alistair
Cooke

On Thanksgiving Day, all over America, families sit down to dinner at the
same moment - halftime. ~Author Unknown

Thanksgiving is America's national chow-down feast, the one occasion each
year when gluttony becomes a patriotic duty. ~Michael Dresser

Coexistence: what the farmer does with the turkey - until
Thanksgiving. ~Mike Connolly

Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants. ~Kevin
James

The funny thing about Thanksgiving, or any huge meal, is that you spend 12
hours shopping for it and then chopping and cooking and braising and
blanching. Then it takes 20 minutes to eat it and everybody sort of sits
around in a food coma, and then it takes four hours to clean it up. ~Ted
Allen

The thing I'm most thankful for right now is elastic waistbands.
~Author Unknown

I love Thanksgiving turkey. It's the only time in Los Angeles that
you see natural breasts. ~Arnold Schwarzenegger

All these quotes are taken from one website (this one) and they also have some more sincere and somber quotes, if you are looking for those! ;-)

Have a happy Thanksgiving Day with your family and friends, enjoy the food and the football and GIVE THANKS!

Food Strategy until Turkey Day

I LOVE FOOD. I REALLY LIKE TO EAT.

There is a reason for the weight struggle that I had for most parts of my adult life. Only since I refocused on sports to offset this food love, I am able to stay at a healthy weight and sustain a healthier lifestyle. That also meant that at one point, I had to stop breaking a sweat, whenever the scale went up a little. It is an often quoted phrase in this context: As long as you stand up more times than you fall down, you are fine. For me that means to monitor my weight and whenever I indulged in food, there also must be a time when I stick to a stricter regiment.

This week was supposed to be one of those stricter regiment weeks, since it's Turkey Day on Thursday. So my original food strategy for the week was being good on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Eat whatever I want on Thursday and hop right back on the band wagon for the rest of the week. Yeah, right... It's Tuesday and it's already not working out!

Why, oh why? Gingerbread... Not the American kind... the German kind. I am defenseless and we have a big supply of original German gingerbread sitting on top of the office cabinet laughing at me. I really don't care for Christmas that much, especially if people start decorating and carolling before Thanksgiving, but I also don't classify gingerbread as Christmas food (as well as my Mom's homemade x-mas cookies)... Those are all-rounders, to be consumed and enjoyed all year round. So my food strategy until Turkey Day was bagged around 9AM yesterday morning.

Oh well... I still have Friday, Saturday and Sunday to even things out a little, but the weekend seems to be dietary bear trap lately. This mission is doomed!

Counter actions have to be defined and executed! Well, they are already defined thanks to Coach Katie and I will ensure to execute as planned, otherwise I really will break into some serious sweat stepping on the scale Monday morning... But I'll be fine... Once again, I will get up!

In addition to my regular scheduled workouts, I am planning on doing a Turkey Day hiking tour with the puppy in Paris Mountain State Park in the morning. Most likely, it's just going to be the two of us and I am planning on doing pretty much the route, I did a couple of weeks ago, but this time hiking not running. There are several Turkey Trots in the area Thanksgiving Day and also a bike ride, but I passed on all of those options, because it either means to get up really early or that I won't be back in on time to drive over to see the family. It also has the side effect, that I will wear out the puppy some, so she will be sleeping most of the remainders of the day and not even notice, that her favorite humans are not at home... Right, like that's going to happen! ;-)

About Commitment, Shock Waves and Getting Soaked

The title is a pretty good summary about this weekend's activities! ;-)



Commitment

I have been talking about it for a while... Set a goal... Changed my mind. But I still had it in the back of my head to do a half marathon and I wanted to do it soon. Why I don't even really know, but it just seemed to me, that with a goal like that, it would make me work on my running... Hopefully make me a better, faster runner with more endurance. Hopefully get me in a shape that an Olympic distance triathlon next year with a decent time doesn't stay a pipe dream. Now that Terry has been battling a knee injury for the last four weeks, he most likely won't be able to run the marathon that he planned on in Charlotte on 12/12. So he was also already talking about the next possibility to do another marathon. We needed a venue with a marathon and a half far enough out for me to start building and so we decided on Myrtle Beach. We talked about it, I even hired a coach a couple of weeks ago, so things got serious. But on Friday we closed the deal. We signed up. No turning back anymore. We are committed! (They don't do refunds! :-)

That was all I did on Friday, that was sports related... I really did enjoy my rest day... Thanks for asking!

Shock Waves

Yesterday, I had a bike ride on my plan. It was a gorgeous day, so of course we decided to go outside. We haven't been to Donaldson Center in a while so we ended up going there. I have to say that I underestimated the temperatures and had one layer to less on me up top. But what can you do, you just start pedaling and hope that you warm up. Which I did... At the end of the first loop, I felt fine even if I would have still preferred to have a little more fabric on me. Halfway in my second loop I hit that rough piece of road that sends little shock waves through the body and just in general shakes you around a little. Under normal circumstances that wouldn't really bother me, but then I noticed that me toes froze in the meantime. The shock waves due to the road wasn't a big deal, but the vibrations that I felt in my toes made me cringe. But fortunately, that is only part of the road and as soon as it got smoother again, I was back in the game. It's really weird how my toes go dead first, especially since I only had half gloves on and my fingers felt great. After three loops around Donaldson center, I called it a day. But I was glad that we got the chance to ride outside in the sun.

Getting Soaked

Today, I wasn't this lucky. 2 miles into my run it started coming down... BAD! My own fault, if I hadn't procrastinated all afternoon, I guess I would have been fine, but no. 10 minutes after it had started raining hard, I was soaked... soaked... my clothes were not able to take on any more water. If I remember correctly than this was my first rain run EVER. So far I was always lucky that it subsided to a drizzle or light rain by the time I headed out OR I just bagged the outside run and opted for the treadmill. But honestly, I rather run in the rain and get soaked than spend an hour on the treadmill. I got back to the house and left my shoes outside, peeled off all my layers and left them in the sink before I headed into the shower for a long hot soak. I didn't realize how cold I was until I felt my hand and legs hurting from the hot water... But fortunately it didn't take long to warm up.

Hopefully, I will have more luck with my run tomorrow... We'll see! ;-)

Traffic Offense Here and There

I live in the US since 2005, but I had another FIRST last Wednesday. A court appearance due to my expired registration. The ticket was worth USD 113.- but the officer told me that if I appear at court at the given date and present a current registration, this ticket will most likely be waived. USD 113.- I thought was worth taking off half a day from work and so I showed up there, plead guilty (I am not kidding!), presented my new registration and was dismissed without paying a cent. As a US citizen, you might shrug your shoulders at this point and wonder, why I even mention this and as German citizen you may wonder how a registration can expire... In the name of intercultural understanding, let me highlight some differences in the constitution and handling of a traffic offense in Germany compared to South Carolina (I am sure there a are differences from state to state and so I can only refer to SC).

The thing with the expired registration. In SC your registration is valid for one year. Each year, after you paid your property taxes for you vehicle, you receive a new registration along with a sticker to put on your licence plate. Whereas, in Germany, you just pay your taxes and that's it. I know about how it works around here, but I guess it's not completely engrained into my brain, so that I completely forgot about it and didn't even notice that the new registration never reached me.

In Germany, there is a catalogue which refers every common traffic expense along with the fee. You get a ticket and most of the time you pay and then you are done. Around here, you can show up at court, tell your side of the story and have pretty good chances of lowering your fee. Fascinating. For example, a woman turned into a one-way road the wrong way round. She stated that she hasn't been in the area for a while and was a little confused by all the changes that have been made since she has last been there and just didn't realize that she wasn't supposed to turn. The judge cut her ticket in half. Fascinating, once again.

Being it my first traffic offense here (or any offense for that matter), I really didn't know what to expect in the court room. I kinda of thought that there will be only traffic offenses handled and everything will be pretty much straight forward and we'll going to be in and out of the court room in no time. Well, not so much. Most of the cases where right along with mine... Normal stuff... Nothing exciting, tickets got waived, fees got cut in half, nothing special. But every couple of times there was tough stuff, stuff that I never expected to witness this afternoon. Disorderly conducts, open containers, littering, domestic violence, underage drinking, threatening a teacher... It was a mix of all kinds of stuff. Who needs Judge Judy, if you can get this kind of entertainment live and in color at your local municipal court. Don't get me wrong, most of the things were just sad, but a couple of these cases were hilarious... The whole court room chuckled at times...

Anyways, I am glad that whole thing is off the table and I don't have to think about it anymore. I am sure next year, I will notice, if my new registration is once again lost in the mail.

That's all for now. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Pushing Through

It's this time of the year... Cold and flu season. I don't get sick very often, but I officially have the sniffles. Unfortunately, if I have the sniffles this early in the season, it's going to stick with me for most of the fall/ winter... not getting worse, but also not getting better. Fortunately, it's a head cold and not a chest cold and therefore training is not in danger as of now. When it comes to flu and this year's swine flu epidemic, I stay pretty relaxed. I can't even remember the last time that I had the flu and I never had a flu shot in my life. Also this year, I won't get a flu shot, not for the regular or the swine flu, especially since I am not in any risk group. My personal recipe for flu prevention? Sleep, exercise outside, ease up on my diet without going overboard and frequently washing my hands and/or use hand sanitizer. Will this be a guaranty for not getting sick? Certainly not, but it increases my chances quite a bit - I think! ;-)

Since my body is also still adapting to my new workout routine, I try to put emphasis on getting enough sleep these days. It's funny that the coach's plan has so much of an impact on me, since really, my weekly volume hasn't increased, but the intensity certainly has. Every workout has a purpose, which is good, but boy am I glad that tomorrow is going to be a rest day. In favor for one hour more sleep, I once again skipped the weight lifting class this morning and instead did a run and strength in the evening.

And so I am keeping on pushing through the sniffles and the adaptation process... Wish me luck! ;-)

2009 Dan Davis Memorial Turkey Trot 5K

Results (based on Guntime)

29:29 mins (9:30min per mile average)

Overall 171/423

Turkey Trot the 2nd.

This race last year was my first 5K EVER! Last year we were bundled up at the starting line in 32F degree weather. I was well in my second mile last year when my toes finally defrosted. My goal back then was to make it under 30 minutes which I did with a time of 29:45mins. This year it was at least 60F degrees and we were on the road with shorts and t-shirt and personally, I hoped for a water station somewhere. What's up with that? Since when do I need a water station in a 5K race?

A lot of training and racing has been done between then and now and numbers don't tell the whole story. Sure, I was hoping to post a way better time than last year instead of just improving my time by a couple of seconds. But last year, I didn't even dare to warm up, because I didn't think I could even finish the race if I add another mile... Like my feet have an expiration date and fall off whenever I hit the 4 mile mark. Which of course was silly even back then, since I ran a 5-miler a couple weeks prior to the 5K last year. Last year, I felt like throwing up by the time I crossed the finish line and this year I felt like I had some left in me. Last year, Terry paced me, talked me through the race and motivated me... This year, I paced the kid and hopefully helped him through the race... He sure was motivated since he took off a couple of yards before the finish line and finished in front of me. ;-) A lot of good things happened between last year's race and this year's race and even if the numbers might not say, I still feel like I have improved as a runner.

The race had a late 9.30am start. Very unusual, but I welcomed the hour or two more available for sleep. Got up and had some pita bread with jelly for breakfast, packed up some stuff and we headed out of the door.

At the package pick-up I ran into a co-worker of mine and shortly afterward also into our BRR team member Alex with his wife. I got the camera ready for a little group shot, when I noticed, that I didn't put the memory stick back in the camera. Nice job, Kathrin! ;-) So Terry went back to the house to pick up his camera while I did my warm up mile. By the time Terry came back, I finished my warm-up and chatted with co-worker, Alex and wife. Shortly after that we saw a co-worker of Terry with his wife and then some Salsa friends of ours.... Amazing how much our running family has grown over the last year too. We stood there chatting and taking pictures before we walked down to the starting line.

This year they didn't have an annoucer, so everyone was a little hestitant when the start was a annouced by a young woman walking down the hill with her cell phone to her ear, but then we were off!

It was a good race and I felt good most of the time. I was supposed to run each mile a little faster than the previous mile which worked for mile one and two, but mile three was a little slower. I really needed that water stop around mile two, which is unusual for me and I also always forget that mile three is a slight uphill most of the time. But it was a beautiful day on a beautiful course.

Terry actually finished so early (21:33 mins, first in his age group!!! So proud of him!), that he was able to run to the car and get back to the finish area by the time the kid and I came by. In the finish area we met up with our buddies again and recapped our races. Had some water and a really yummy blueberry muffin.

After I got home, I grabbed the doggy to run my cooldown mile for the day. We did the 2.2 mile loop around the block and I ran one mile and walked the rest of it... Just enjoyed the sunshine and appreciated the fact, that I CAN do this.