Axel in DC

Some new features!

2007-09-15T07:33:00.000-07:00

My training has bee going really well, and I started using a new web site that keeps better track of things and displays the runs in better detail!

Visit it here: Click me!

You can click on the calendar and see any of my runs in better detail! I will soon start commenting again on that site instead of posting it here (pain to take screenshot then convert it and then upload it to this one)

Just finished a good 17 Mile run from my house, up the north side of the mall, then up the potomac on the C&O canal trail and back. There is a protest going on today but it was nice to see the Pro-Troops supporters with a counter-protest! Anybody seeing me run by with my fresh high and tight would know where I stand!

Catchup is the Name of the game!

2007-08-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

Look who won his first challenge!
Look who also ran 100+ Miles in August!

continuing on:
Schedule for this week and then some catchup on my runs from last week and this week:

Monday- Rest
Tuesday- 1-2 M Jog, 8x400m sprints with 2 Min recov, 1-2 M Jog
Wednesday- 5 Mile slow or Rest
Thursday- 4-5M Relaxed
Friday- Rest
Saturday- 4-5M off-road
Sunday- 11-15M slow

This run and the next were actually one run, that got cut short when I pressed th wrong button! It was a 2 M jog, 4 Mile steady, 2M Jog.

Run with Iverson to the Monument before getting on a bus and heading to PA for a dril show.... what a dehydrated day!

Long run with Tandy and Mullins from Barracks to just past Reagan National Airport. Check out the steady pace!!! I received some awesome running gear as a birthday gift from the Hingles. Lesson learned: wash the red shirt before you run with it! my new moisture wicking socks have a pink tint to them. Scared me at first, I thought I was bleeding!!

Treadmill sprints. Im starting to notice that the graphs dont reflect rapid changed in pace very well. This graph should have alot more dips as I was going back and forth from slow to fast 8 times. 'll figure it out, but I think it only uses certain points in the mile to use as graph points.

Treadmill sprints

2007-08-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Pulled myself off the couch on my day off (and a nasty cloudy day too) and went to the barracks to run. Did some good sprints at alternating intervals after a mile jog (1200 m, 800m, 400m, 800m, then 1200m with 400 m recoveried) (400m = .25 mile)and ended with a mile jog. Now off to quizzo!

Training Schedule for August 20-26

2007-08-21T09:08:00.001-07:00

Monday - Rest (Travel from Canada)
Tuesday - 1 M jog; then 1200 m, 800 m, 400 m, 800 m, 1200 m, with recoveries half as long as the efforts; then 1 M jog (Day off)
Wednesday - 5 Mile slow (Company Picnic)
Thursday - 2 M slow, then 4 M steady, then 2 M slow
Friday - Rest (Evening Parade)
Saturday - 4-5 Miles slow off-road (Drill Performance in PA)
Sunday - 10-13.1 M race or 12-16 M slow

Running in Canada, eh!

2007-08-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Run on Wednesday to the Washington Monument and back with Tandy, ended up having to use the bathroom near the monument and had to extend the run to th WWII monument where public bathrooms are!

2 Miles slow, 2 Miles fast, 2 miles slow on a treadmill on thursday

Was supposed to run with Baker from work before heading to Canada, but he didnt show so I just hit my slow 5 miles on the treadmill. It was a beautiful day though, I should have taken it outside.

This was a great run in Kingston with Sorbie and Mullins. Started at the Barracks and ran to Kingston and along the waterfront of the city. Saw some great old houses and beautiful scenery. I look forward to the next time I travel there and doing the run again, possibly for a longer distance.

Catch Up Again

2007-08-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

Ran with Tandy from the barracks to the Washington Monument on Saturday before heading out to Pasadena. Schedule was too hectic and I was too exhausted after the trip to do my long run on Sunday.

This little jaunt pushed me up over 100 miles (actually I was over before but due to the iPod shorting out on my big run it didnt get counted) look what Nike sent me!

Nice tempo run today, had a nice fast speed for the sprints!

A Little Behind in the posts!

2007-08-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

This week's schedule (almost finished)

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 1 M Jog then 3x4 800m with 2 min recoveries, 1 M jog (Iwo Performance)
Wednesday - 5 M slow (will be in Mentor, OH)
Thursday - 2 M slow, then 3-4 M steady, then 1 M Slow*
Friday - Rest (Evening Parade)
Saturday - 5 M slow, off-road (will be in Pasadena, CA)
Sunday - 10-14 M slow (return from Pasadena)

*Thursday probably isn't going to happen, jet lagged from travel back from Mentor and the weather outside is horrible. Jess and I have dinner plans so I probably wont go after that either.

This run happened on a treadmill at the hotel in Mentor. It was supposed to be 5 miles however at mile 4 I had to go to the bathroom and it wasnt gonna settle for waiting another mile! Nice good speed though.

This run was at the annex on a treadmill, got some good sprinting in.

This Sunday run was supposed to be a 10k/6.24 Miles, however as would happen later on in the week.... duty called. Dang Jambalaya I had the night before!

This was supposed to be a slow run, but i couldn't help myself. I also made a personal best on the 1 Mile!

Good end to three days of running

2007-08-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

After a two hour drill block on an astroturf field in Washington DC heat..... I hydrated and then went inside to hit the treadmill!

Did a 6 M fartlek (swedish for speedplay) and added another quarter mile to take it to 10k distance.

When I was done running, a nice voice came over the speakers and told me I had set a personal record for my mile! Yeah! Of course I did have treads forcing me to run at a certain speed. I can't wait till it cools down some and I can get back outside again on the weekdays.

I've joined a few challenges online and will have them up soon. One I made for the districts in dc, most miles in one month. One for the D&B, one for armed services, and a few other fun ones.

Hopped on the treadmill today

2007-07-31T11:04:00.001-07:00

Ran in the Annex gym with Miller today. Although it doesnt show for some reason on the graph, I DID do 6 reps of the 400m/2min recov set. It might have lumped them together. Anyway felt good, I should try and run faster next time for the sprints. I was actually pretty comfortable at 8.5 miles per hour all 6 times.

Training Schedule for week of July 30-Aug 5

2007-07-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

Monday - Rest (Day off of work too!)
Tuesday - 1-2M jog; then 6x400m with 2 Min recoveries; then 1-2M jog (Iwo Parade that evening)
Wednesday - 5M slow
Thursday - 5-7M relaxed
Friday - Rest (Friday evening parade)
Saturday - 3-4M slow, off-road (Col Bourgeois' picnic for Sinfonia DC Area Alumni Assoc.)
Sunday - 10k or 6.24M Race Speed

Research Presentation is due for class on Monday Aug 6th, and Paper due, Wed Aug 6th

Busy week ahead of running and working!

Sunday run ok

2007-07-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

Lack of graphics at the moment, my iPod Nano and the Nike+ are having a difficult time dealing with the amount of sweat that I produce on these longer runs in hotter weather. The system kept ending my runs early, causing me to have to restart (andoften losing distance when I would'nt realize that it had stopped, and then just shut down at around mile 7! My guess is that sweat got into the machine and disrupted its flow. Anyway I'm going to attempt some new ways to waterproof the Nano. The startinga nd stopping of runs threw off my Goal a little, but with my current schedule, I would have reached it this week.

I ran from home to Haines Point at East Potomac Park with Jessica riding along on her bike. Total distance was just ovr 10 Miles, I'm not going to bother putting the pieces of the run that were recorded up, but here is the route!

Nice day on the Mall

2007-07-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Beautiful day for a run down the National Mall today, lots of tourists out, but not too much street traffic. I tried to use as many of the running trails in the grass as possible, since my schedule calls for off-road. One of these weekends, I want to try running at Rock Creek Park, where you don't have to worry about stopping for a traffic light. The moisture wicking shorts that Jess got for me are awesome, they definalty do their job, but caused my socks to get soaked, so I might have to look into the moiture wicking socks now! Tomorrow I run with my motorcade (Jess on bike) our plan is to go to Haines Point off the tidal Basin for about 10 Miles.

Hot Day for running!

2007-07-26T14:31:00.001-07:00

This is actually just one run, accidentally stopped it while I was trying to restart after catching some water at the Smithsonian Carousel!! My 16 run goal is actualy wrong by -1! Nice hot day, ran from the barracks to the Washington Monument during chow.

No run today....

2007-07-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

I wasn't feeling to hot today so I opted for the rest (on my schedule, every Wednesday for the first several weeks Is listed as 5M or Rest) Looking forward to getting back into the stride tommorow.

Speedwork Day

2007-07-24T11:41:00.001-07:00

Today was a treadmill speedwork day. Started out with a nice easy jog for a mile then hopped up to a 8 min/mile pace for 1/2 Mile (800 m) 4 minutes of slow recovery then 7:30 min/mile pace for 3/4 Mile (1200 m) follweed again by 4 min slow recovery, then another 1/2 Mile at 6:30 min/mile pace. (that was a quick one, let me tell you!) Jogged a much slower mile at the end. Felt good today, and tried some new shorts that Jessica picked up for me at Target. They worked very well! Tommorow Tandy and I will be running to the GW monument at chow break.

Training Schedule for week of July 23-29

2007-07-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 1 M jog; then 800 m, 1200 m, 800 m, with 4-min recoveries; then 1 M jog
Wednesday - 5 M slow
Thursday - 2 M slow, then 1-2 M brisk, then 2 M slow
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 5-6 M slow, off-road
Sunday - 8-11 M slow

Family outing!

2007-07-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

Jess and I did my route together today.... I ran, and she provided security as my bodyguard on her bike! We ran a new route to the Jefferson Memorial and back. I was really surprised by how much easier the distances are becoming. I started out at a good slow pace, and increased gradually as I felt better. The drop in the last stretch comes from a very long hill I had to run up going east on M street. Jess didn't like that part on the bike much.

to explain this type of graph real quick: Ive noticed that they dont all look the same and it relates to how far youve gone and the range of speeds. For reference: at mile 1 I was running 10'15" pace, mile 2- 10'10", mile 3 - 9'44", mile 4 - 9'37", mile 5 - 9'12", mile 6 - 9'25", mile 7 - 9'07" and at the end after a sprint 8'55". Using those benchmarks makes the graph a littel easier to put into perspective.

Live from PA

2007-07-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

At Bucknell University in Lewisburg PA for a gig, hopped on the campus wireless to send this data from a run I did this morning before we left DC.

Miller, O'Bryant, and myself ran a nice easy 5 miles from the barracks to the Washington Monument and back. It was a beautiful day for a run, and I'm looking forward to tomorrows.

Like my little .25 mile sprint at the end?

(added to post on 24 Jul)
Here's the route we took:

Workout cut short today....

2007-07-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

We have a gig this afternoon and with errands to run before hand my workout was cut short. What was planning on being 5 total miles, became 4. Good run though, after one mile jog and 2 steady paced mile (about 8 min pace) I was feeling really good. My endurance is getting better, you can see cause I kept getting faster on my last mile jog!

Rest tommorow and a Friday Night Parade, then I'm going to hit the streets of DC on saturday before traveling to Pennsylvania for a gig.

Still truckin'

2007-07-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

Went on a mid-morning run today with Nick Tandy and Chip Mullins.
We followed this new route I mapped out... pretty good stuff, two hills and a good long straightaway down 11th at the end.

Lesson learned today... these two guys are faster runners and I have to try and make sure I'm not trying to keep up with them just yet or I wont finish these runs! As you can see on the graph I was pretty good at keeping my pace down once I realized I was going at 8 min miles!

Also, you'll notice it was supposed to be a 5 mile run but its showing up just under that. We were taking walk breaks every 1.5-2 Miles. We basically covered a 5 route, but .5 of that was walking! Just some clarification.

Note To Self:

2007-07-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Don't forget your training schedule at home, then just try and remember it....

because you'll end up running an extra 1200 m sprint!!!

Week of Mon July 16th-Sun July 22 Training Schedule

2007-07-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - (Intervals) 1-1.5 M jog; then 2 x 1200 m, with 4-min recovery; then 1-1.5 M jog
Wednesday - 5 M slow
Thursday - 1 M slow, then 3-4 M steady, then 1 M slow
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 4-5 M slow, off-road
Sunday - 7-9 M slow

wish me luck!

Sunday Run Route

2007-07-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here's my route from Sunday. Ran with Nick Tandy.

We started at 8th & I and went East, head up Potomac and then went around the inside of Congressional Cemetery, headed up 19th to RFK and then west on Capitol Street to Lincoln Park, down North Carolina to New Jersey, then east on I to our starting point.... Note of interest, there is a water fountain at Garfield Park!

First Post

2007-07-16T13:53:00.001-07:00

This blog is set up so my friends and family can harrass me when I don't keep up on my marathon training plan. I hope to post my schedule but you should be able to look at my Nike + information.

Here's to crossing that finish line in October!