Week 7 - Three Mile an Hour God

Last night (the eve of my long run) I was at the Jubilee Conference listening to the opening message from Don Opitz and during his presentation he referred to our "Three Mile an Hour God," as coined by Kosuke Koyama. Don went on to explain that the reason most of us miss the Lord in our daily lives is that we are running through life while God is moving at three miles an hour - pretty much a stroll through the park. Now Lisa and I were trekking along at a pace more than three miles an hour (Let's remember, Jesus walked this world in the Fertile Crescent, not Pittsburgh in winter. I'd make the case that you wouldn't see Jesus strolling at three miles an hour along the shores of the lake in North Park, because, frankly, there wouldn't be many folks for him to walk with.), but the concept is the same - running (even at a pace faster than 3 mph) allows me to slow down my life for a bit. Lisa and I spent 2+ hours with each other. We could choose to talk about whatever random thought crossed our minds or we could simply run in silence. So glad that I get to experience "slowing down" through running.

Highlight of the week - the four slices of pizza I downed at the office after our long run (we normally get Vocelli's, but today we got Pizza Parma and oh. my. gosh. was it delish)

Difficult part of the week - discovering it was actually 12 degrees this morning instead of 22 degrees, as advertised by the Weather Channel

Week 6 - Snow Flurries, Snow Showers, Snow

Week 6 started off with treadmill workouts, mandated by the fact that the roads were still impassable by people on foot and motorized vehicles at the same time. The speed workout was 5 x 1k, which was nice to do on the treadmill. I think the tempo run was supposed to be six miles, but once I got over the 30 minute cardio machine limit, I look around guiltily to see how much longer I can go and break the rules, so I didn't get in a full six miles.

By the time the weekend was here, I was ready to be outdoors, but it was still a question as to what roads I could run on. I called the office in North Park to see if they had plowed the trail around the lake, but the lady on the phone there would not tell me. She said that I had to come judge for myself whether I thought it was safe or not. Hrmgh! Lisa and I made plans to meet early Saturday morning, but she had to cancel because of a cough. I enjoyed an extra half hour of sleep and then headed into the office and made plans to do North Park in the afternoon when the so-called sun would be out.

The trail around the lake was the empty-est I have ever seen it before. Sometimes I will be headed out there, thinking Lisa and I are the only devoted runners, only to encounter dozens of other crazies. Not so much on Saturday. I could probably count the number of non-sledriders that I ran into on two hands during my two loops around the lake. There was some sun shining through when I first arrived and some beautiful snowflakes, but it soon went back to blah, wind and cold. Since I am beginning to expand my acceptance of such things as treadmills and music, I decided to do the ipod while I ran AND I decided to give the imapmyrun app another try. I had tried it when I first got my phone, but was thoroughly underwhelmed with it and just gave up on it. I had seen that it had some updates, though, so figured it I'd give it another whirl. It was great! As I was listening to music, a nice lady come on over my headphones to tell me when I hit my miles and what my pace and speed were. It was great until I drained the battery...it didn't make it through the whole run.

Highlight of the week - rediscovery of the imapmyrun app
Difficult part of the week - No yoga/strength training accomplished this week - need to bet back into that, though that has never been the best part of my training...

Week 5 - Gettin' in the Routine

I'm late on this post, so trying to remember what all week five entailed. I was out of town at the beginning of the week, so I did my "speed" workout on the treadmill. One complaint on treadmills - I wish you could convert to meters! It was 3 x 1600, so pretty easy to stick to miles and not that big of a deal, but it would be nice. I did a nice run with my winter dog some evening Wednesday (?), Thursday (?). Who remembers?

And then, of course, we all know that the biggest snowstorm since 1993 hit! I would have loved to run outside to take in the sights of all that snow, but there was no way the sidewalk would have worked and the roads I would have run on were barely passable by two cars and since they were so treacherous it simply would not have been smart. I considered running up and down the shoveled portion of my street (it was quite pristine, really), but it was only .07 of a mile, so I would have needed to do 50 reps up and down the hill in front of my house to get in seven miles (and I'm pretty sure the neighbors would think I was weird.) But thanks again to the incompetent folks at the YMCA in Bellevue, I got another free pass. They can't find the waiver that I need to fill out, so they just let me go in for free. I try to pay, but to no avail.

Highlight of the week - my first good speed workout (treadmill holds you accountable)
Difficult part of the week - the drunk jagoff in Bellevue who made catcalls to me as I ran past (I hate that)