Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

As my last post made pretty clear, I’m dealing with some stress right now.  Nothing too crushing, but stress nonetheless.  Fortunately, last week was a well-timed and much-needed vacation week for the Evolving family.  The 4 of us, along with my in-laws, piled onto a 46-foot sailboat in St. Thomas for a week of sailing in the Virgin Islands.  My father-in-law is a retired Coast Guard captain who has probably forgotten more about sailing than most people will ever know, so he provided the brains, I provided the muscle, and we all tackled the high seas.  Admittedly the quarters were a bit tight, and there may have been an occasional bout of tension, but overall it was an amazing experience.  The best part – no laptop, no iPhone, no email …. No worries.

The weather and water were beautiful, and we spent countless hours snorkeling in a variety of locations.  We bought a waterproof point-and-click digital camera before we went since we didn’t trust any of the cameras in the house to actually work and hold up to the conditions, so rather than bore you with words I’ll share some of what we saw and did:

Our floating home for the week

My favorite fishes

Ran into lots of these guys

Sailing is hard work

The scenery was stunning

Couldn't get the boy out of the water

Discovered that the daughter has some serious sailing skills

The proper way to refuel

Hard not to relax here

My mermaids

No opportunities to run while we were there, and I did find that I missed it on the days that my training plan said I should be running, which I think is a very good sign that my heart and mind are still very much into the training.  On the other hand, swimming and lounging proved to be very nice alternatives.

Of Fenway and Fartleks

We’ve survived the Boston portion of the vacation, or perhaps more accurately Boston has survived the Southerner invasion. The highlights of the Boston stop were the Duck-boat Tour, where we had a genuinely funny and engaging guide rather than the usual cornball guides who bombard you with painfully overdone puns for an hour+, and the Fenway tour. I’m not even really much of a baseball fan, but you can almost touch the history when you walk through Fenway. Both of my kids are self-proclaimed Red Sox fans because their grandfather has been a lifelong Sox fan, and said grandfather was on the tour with us, which he had never done before. It was a beautiful day and a really interesting way to see the ballpark. A sampling of the sights:

We’re currently in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, enjoying the comparatively frigid conditions versus back home in NC. Overnight lows in the 50s, daytime high today of around 70. Zero humidity. Much love.

I’ve managed to stick to my training plan pretty closely despite the travel. Week 3 was a successful step-back week.

Can’t say my travel diet has been equally successful. Enjoyable …. But not very successful.

Got in 3 runs along the Charles River while in Boston, and really enjoyed the change of scenery. Lots of early-morning crew team practices going on while I was running, which was really fun to watch while knocking out the miles. I don’t think my wife has been terribly amused with my alarm going off at 5AM most mornings, but I’m trying to keep up the running without interfering with the planned activities. By the end of the day I closely resemble a zombie, but that’s not necessarily much different than my non-vacation days.

At the advice of Chris K I googled Fartleks as an addition/alternative to my newfound love of tempo runs, and tried a version of a Fartlek run on our last day in Boston. After about a half-mile warmup I tried to really push the pace for as much as a half-mile at a time, then drop back to my normal pace until my breathing was back to normal, then stepped up the pace, then recovery …. Wash, rinse, and repeat. New approach in a new setting – all good. Here’s what the pace data looked like.

Will definitely be doing some variations of this again once I get back to the homeland.

Internet access is hard to come by here in the mountains, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, it has meant that I’ve hardly had a chance to read any blog entries, so I’m feeling a bit isolated from the bloggy goodness that has become such a part of my morning routine. Looking forward to catching up next weekend.

Brain on Vacation .... Body to Follow

Leaving tomorrow afternoon for a 4-day weekend at the beach, and having a hard time staying focused on my painfully large to-do list. Is it a good sign or a sad commentary that I have my running and cross-training planned out for all 4 days, and am looking forward to that as much as lounging on the beach?

I gave myself my first exercise day-off on Monday in a long time (no running, stretching, lifting, biking, swimming, etc.) since I could tell my energy supply was running very low. Got in a run yesterday morning that didn’t agree very well with my foot issues, but I think I’m still adjusting to my Superfeet insoles and that the discomfort is less about the Plantar Fasciitis and more about some general soreness in my feet. Walked 1 mile to loosen things up, then ran 4 miles at an average pace around 8:30. Already crazy hot when I got started at 6:15AM, but it was a good sweat. Feet don’t feel any better or worse this morning, so I remain optimistic that my body will respond well when I ask it to start full-scale training in about 3 weeks.

Quick unscientific insole review for anyone interested. I used SofSole Airr insoles in my shoes for my last marathon training. These things feel really good on your feet (very cushiony) especially in the Gel Nimbus shoes since they are neutral shoes and also very cushiony. However, the Airr insoles don’t offer a great deal of firmness in supporting the arch, which I think contributed to my PF issues. Over the last month I’ve switched out the SofSoles, and tried the green Superfeet insoles, and the Powerstep Pinnacle insoles. These two generally seem to provide very similar support in terms of the heel cup and the more rigid arch support, but the arch support is much more forward (toward the toes) in the Powerstep than in the Superfeet, where the support is more towards the heel and feels better aligned with my feet. The Powerstep support also seems a bit higher than the Superfeet. At this point I’m going to go with the green Superfeet in pretty much all my shoes, and see how they work for me. In terms of running they are considerably less cushioned than the SofSoles were, but I think I may need a bit less cushion to strengthen the bottoms of my feet. I’m also learning that the arch in my right foot seems a bit higher than in my left foot, so I may end up with different types of insoles in my left versus my right shoes. So many variables … so much fun.

Another unsolicited review …. I’m trying out the Hammer gels since they’re on sale at REI right now, and since they’re the gel sponsor for the Outer Banks marathon in November (but mostly because they’re on sale). Thumbs up on the Apple Cinnamon. Kinda neutral on the Vanilla flavor. I’m a huge fan of most anything vanilla flavored, but I didn’t think the Vanilla hammer had much flavor. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t very vanilla. I’d give the vanilla gel advantage to Gu, which I thought tasted pretty OK. Next up I’ll be trying the Montana Huckleberry, mostly because I like the name of the flavor. Admittedly my criteria for choosing which flavor to try seems to lean a bit less towards serious athlete, and more towards something my 8-year-old daughter would use. As long as I don’t start listening to Miley Cyrus while I run I think I can still take myself somewhat seriously.

Marathon 2 - Electric Boogaloo

Finally got off my electronic rear-end and clicked the register button, so now it’s official. I’d circle it on my calendar if I weren’t such a computer-dependent tool and had some sort of physical representation of time that lived outside my laptop.


Sunday, November 14th – Kitty Hawk, NC – The Outer Banks Marathon

I’m working through injuries now, and have no doubt that my body will entertain me with new and exciting ailments between now and then, but I needed to make this official so I have a singular point on the horizon to aim for.

‘Why the Outer Banks Marathon?’ you didn’t ask, but no doubt we wondering. Nags Head and the Outer Banks hold a special place in my heart and many of my best memories. My family first went to Nags Head for a summer vacation in 1980 and we loved it there. It was a lot different back in those days, but underneath all the changes and growth, the basic charm of the area is still there.

We kept going back every summer for several more years, and after about the 5th summer my parents started talking about retiring there. My sister and I had heard that before, so we didn’t give it much consideration, but in the mid 90s, after having gone every summer since 1980, my folks bought some land in Kitty Hawk and started working on house plans. In 1998 they both retired from the working world, and moved into their Kitty Hawk house. We still go every summer to visit, and now my kids have the Outer Banks as part of their summer memories. This summer when we go visit for the 4th of July will mark the 30th straight summer I’ve visited the beaches of OBX.

The starting line for the marathon is about 1.5 miles from their house, and their little street even shows up on the race map, which I think is really cool. What makes this even better is when I told my folks I was going to do this, my dad signed up to walk the half, which starts at the same time as the full, but goes from the midway point so that the half and full end in the same place. I’ve helped him look up a training plan online, and he’s already building up his walking base, so we’ll be trading training war stories throughout the Summer. I consider my dad one of my best friends, and to my wife’s dismay we are INCREDIBLY similar, and if all goes well we should be crossing the finish line around the same time.

Now that they’ve got my money, it’s time to get serious about planning and training. Looking forward to sharing my trials and tribulations for my second run at 26.2.

Giveaway updates:

Erin at ‘eri-thon: from 0 to 26.2 in 30’ is giving away 3 copies of ‘The Ultimate Runner’, which looks like a great book and I’m not-so-secretly hoping I win. Check it out and enter soon – only open for 2 more days: http://eri-thon.blogspot.com/2010/05/ultimate-giveaway.html

Chris at ‘Suck It Up … Rantings of a Runner on the Edge’ is giving away a headlamp and/or Family Guy DVD prior to crushing 100 miles. Final few days for this one too, so visit soon: http://chrismcpeake.blogspot.com/

Is She Back Yet?

Every year my wife and her group of friends from high school go away for an extended weekend somewhere with lots of sun, and no husbands and/or kids. This weekend is this year’s trip, so I dropped my wife off at the airport at crazy-early AM Thursday morning, and braced myself for handling my kids on my own for 4 days. This annual trip is always a good way for my wife to unwind and recharge, and for me to truly understand how colossally screwed I would be if she weren’t around to keep our house from devolving into something from Lord of the Flies.

I’ve gotten fairly adept at handling the kids over the last few years, mostly thanks to the multi-page detailed instructions my wife leaves me, but this year has proven to be exceptionally challenging. Something is different. Some new variable has been introduced into the equation. I keep waiting for Jeff Goldblum to walk through the door, put a drop of water on the back of my hand, and tell me about chaos theory and how ‘Nature finds a way’. Trying to solve the riddle of what has changed is worthy of the great detectives throughout the ages ….. or maybe not:

Meet Zoey.

12 lbs. of pure, unbridled energy. Zoey joined our family Christmas morning, and it took about 30 seconds for her to win us all over. It’s a good thing she’s cute, because she is a crapload of work to keep up with. Any semblance of routine I had worked out with the kids is effectively crushed by little miss Zoey. I tried working from home the last 2 days, and every time I got on a conference call the dog needed to go out, or needed to come in, or needed to eat, or invented something to bark at, or decided to eat her dog bed, or grabbed the cord from my headset mid-call and ran across the floor trailing the headset and the phone. It was all pretty funny, but definitely made for some long days. She’s actually a pretty well-behaved dog, her timing was just brutal.

Today went pretty well, although if I could type that statement in a whisper I would since we’re not quite done yet. The house is a complete mess, but the kids are fed and in one piece (again, looking for the ‘whisper’ font), and we’re all starting the countdown to Mom’s return.

On the running front, things have been fairly uneventful, which is just how I like it. The knee recovery continues to go pretty well, and this week I upped the runs to 4-5 miles each, with no new pains or increased soreness to report. Tomorrow I’ll be stepping up to 5-6 miles as the upper-bound, and see how my body responds.

The kids have been watching Zoey in the 30 minutes it took me to put this post together. Time to assess the damage. Pray for us.