Day 18.308: Cross-training

I’m not training for anything but when I was marathon training, I would occasionally get into conversations about strenuous activities such as raking leaves and shoveling snow and whether they should count as part of the training regimen - specifically as “cross-training” a.k.a. anything except running. 

Thanks to a wearable fitness tracker I no longer need to guess. Fitbit has a vaguely-defined measure called cardio load which is basically a measure of activity. When I do my morning workouts they add anything from 35 to 65 points. The 3 mile runs I did during the spring and summer added 80 to 90. The app also gives a recommended target each day (which I generally ignore) based on how “ready” it determines I am for working out. 

Here’s my cardio load graph for today. 

That yellow band in the late morning was clearing leaves by a mixture of raking, mowing and hauling. I think that counts as a pretty good workout and I did indeed slow down for the rest of the day. 

Day 18.138: Running?

It’s been something like seven years since I abruptly stopped running. It was quite a life-change after my somewhat obsessive marathon training. Over the last year or so, I’ve got back into a regular exercise habit, but running was not a part of it until a couple of weeks ago. Wow - running is a lot harder than I remember, but I do like getting out of the house. 

Day 11.120: Remembering Day 8.120

Facebook reminded me that three years ago - on Mother's Day - I ran my fastest marathon ever to date and qualified for Boston. A year and a half later I ran almost exactly the same time, qualifying for this year's Boston Marathon, but I missed the cut-off and so missed the miserable cold rain-soaked event a few weeks ago.

I am a way off running this far this fast now, but I am getting back to some consistent training habits. If I can keep up with my good habits for months rather than days, maybe I can be this exhausted again some day!

Day 11.111: May porcupines?

On Day 9.117 I saw a porcupine on the Eastern Trail while out for an evening run (I blogged about it on Day 9.121), so perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised when just under two years later and a little less than two miles from the same spot, I stopped running to watch this:

You can click to go to the YouTube video

...but I was very surprised nevertheless.

 As last time, the porcupine was not bothered at all by my presence. He actually walked straight towards me before the video was taken and I moved out of its way to the other side of the trail.

Day 11.103: Portland 10 Miler

As Exile #2 mentioned yesterday, I ran a little race yesterday. A new 10 mile race (also part of a New England series). It was a pretty perfect day - dry and cool:

The race was great - well organized and on a really nice coastal course in my old haunts in Portland. Here I am at the finish - maybe not killing myself to get across the line, but having given it a fairly honest effort.

I was nearly a minute per mile slower than my best 10 mile race time - but marginally faster than my February race. Since we are at the end of a winter where I had little motivation to be consistent in my training - that's probably an honest assessment of where I am.

Day 11.096: At least the ice has all gone now

This was what the day was like before it got really wet:

At lunchtime we watched the first elite racers finish the Boston Marathon on a truly miserable day for runners and spectators alike. I feel bad about complaining about an unseasonably hot and sunny April day two years ago now. I had assumed having achieved a qualifying time again but then having narrowly missed the cut-off time under that to race, that today would be a perfect running day, but apparently I'm not that important.

Anyway, the rain is still falling, the wind is still blowing, but we are indoors and home and my (much shorter) spring race is coming up next weekend when we are guaranteed perfect cool dry running weather - right?

Day 10.314: Unseen shells on empty beaches

On Saturday morning I ran to the beach. It's beautiful all year round, but I particularly love it when it is empty which is really reserved for the cold months. In the summer months, as well as having to share the views, we will rarely find an interesting shell on this stretch of beach as there are so many treasure hunters around. Not so at this time of year. I saw these surprisingly big mussel and snail shells (it was cold enough for me to run in two pairs of gloves - but no so cold I couldn't take one off for scale!) in fact I saw several of each about this size along a short stretch of the sand.

All of which reminded me of this - one of the first songs we wrote about life in coastal Maine:

Day 10.300: Fun guy identification

I'd like to think that I'm a fun guy, but I've got nothing on these things I saw on my run on Saturday morning.

Top left is all that was left of the ink caps I'd seen and failed to photograph a week earlier. Bottom left may be some yellow-orange fly agaric. I've no idea what the plain-looking mushroom in the top right is and there is no discernible fungus in the last picture but I liked the way the light was catching some of the last colourful leaves.

Day 10.298: Running after the storm

I'm really struggling to find the impetus to run in the dark at the moment. Since dawn is at the latest it will be all year at the moment thanks to the delayed daylight savings change, this is more than slightly difficult so my midweek morning runs in the last two weeks have been inside on the treadmill. That means that this morning was the first time I'd ventured out since the storm last Sunday night.

There were several trees down in patches of woodland - many broken a few feet up, a few uprooted. Late I found these two - one that had been cleared from the trail having narrowly avoided landing on a small fence, and the other still blocking the trail and lying on another surprisingly resilient fence.

Day 10.297: Fungus encounters

We've seen some good fungi on the trails this year, but we've also had a good crop hiding in the lawn. Here are some examples:

Last weekend I saw an impressive patch of what I think were shaggy ink caps when I was running. Since there was a family walking nearby I decided not to stop and take a photo thinking I would do so on the way back. On the way back I forgot. I may run that way again tomorrow, but it would be a surprise if they have survived another week including the big storm. If they are there and looking as impressive as last week I will try to remember get a photo.

Day 10.295: Coming and going

On Sunday afternoon as the first hints of the storm were approaching and Exile #4 was at her youth group meeting, I had a run in Portland. Early on I heard a train horn sounding very long and loud but didn't think much of it. When I arrived at the Eastern Promenade Trail, I realized it was the narrow gauge railroad operating and one of the guys on duty really loved sounding that horn!

I happened to catch the train just setting off and just starting its return journey:

Day 10.282: Lakefront morning run

Some pictures from yesterday's morning run along the bank of Lake Michigan.

Day 10.276: Asticou and Jordan Pond Path (twice)

With rain and strong winds expected later in the day, we got out as early as we reasonably could on Sunday morning to walk a trail before the weather hit.

We chose the wonderfully named "Asticou and Jordan Pond Path" which starts at the Asticou Map House (mid-left) and ends with at the Jordan Pond House with its lawn overlooking Jordan Pond (bottom right). The trail was entertaining - with steps and streams breaking up the woodland trail with its apparently seaweed-covered trees.

When we arrived at the far end, we decided that it would be best for me to go back along the trail and bring the car around to meet the rest of the party. I had my trail running shoes on so I left everything except my phone and the car keys and set off to run back along the trail in jeans and t-shirt. I passed a couple of surprised groups, then decided I was getting too sweaty in the pre-storm humidity and took my shirt off. I really surprised the next group.

It didn't take me long to get back to the car or to bring the car around the island to the Jordan Pond House. Meeting up with everyone was made harder by there being no parking spaces, no cell phone signal and lots of other people cruising for any spaces that might open up. Astonishingly, the girls spotted me and then Exile #2 found me on one of my passes through the parking lots and we were able to get everyone into the car as the heavens opened and head into Bar Harbor for some well-deserved lunch.

Day 10.265: Maine Marathon - take 2

A few things went better than last year.

I was there earlier - so had no stress due to parking and other start-line essentials.

The weather was probably even closer to perfect - cooler and drier at the start - although the sun probably made it warmer by the end.

I did a better job of starting the tracking app at the right time.

Yeah - that's probably it.

The first 13 or 14 miles were OK, but as I discovered after that, I was going faster than my training had prepared me for.I was about three and a half minutes slower than last year at the half way point, but 35 minutes slower by the end.

To be fair, I probably didn't give it everything after mile 19 when I texted the rest of the Exiles to let them know I was fine but going to be arriving later than planned. I was thinking about still feeling human for the rest of the day and able to enjoy the rest of my parents visit as much as finishing in a reasonable time, but still it was a humbling experience.

Overall it was a satisfying milestone in my comeback - taking an extended period off running (or any kind of meaningful exercise) and putting on 20 or 25 pounds is not something I plan to repeat any time soon. Nor for that matter is running a marathon. Hopefully I'll stick to the first one long enough that if I break the second one I'll be better prepared.

Day 10.264: Exile #2's Sunday Column #175

Exile #2 writes...

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend. Exile #4 had a school dance on Friday. Then yesterday, it was Exile #3's turn, it being Homecoming weekend at her school (the weekend of the first home football game of the season). For her, that involved heading over to a friend's house at 4 pm to begin preparations for the evening. I brought her home some time after 11 pm.

Early this morning, Exile #1 laced up his running shoes because he'd decided it would be fun to run 26.2 miles before lunch (what was he thinking?!). The rest of the Exiles and Exile #1's parents went into Portland to cheer him on! He did well, and although he didn't quite have the run he'd hoped for, he remained cheerful, and slept it off this afternoon, while Exile #3 and E5N1 had dance rehearsals. We rounded things off with a tasty dinner this evening.

I think it's safe to say all the Exiles (and hopefully our guests) will sleep well tonight.

Day 10.263: Getting ready to run

I'm afraid that today was rather overshadowed by my plans for tomorrow morning which include going out in public dressed in this attractive outfit:

...and then running 26.2 miles. Considering I'm still at least 10 pounds over a reasonable race weight and have had a short and incomplete training cycle, my confidence that I will have a good race is not high. Not long to wait to find out if I'm right!

Day 10.260: Can't run them all!

I received this today:

I'm a little more disappointed than I would have expected.

Day 10.252: Fog in the East End

Well, I started the week with two sick days which is not good either for my mental health or my work place, but was probably necessary for my physical health. I probably should have realized when my runs over the weekend were taxing despite the fact that they were scaled back approximately 50% from last weekend.

The second run was 12 miles easy around Portland while Exile #4 was at her youth group. It was foggy as I ran along the trail past East End Beach and when I arrived at the cruise liner port it was hard to tell if there was a ship in dock or not. As I moved along it did emerge, but the view was still quite a good indication of how thick the fog was.

I'm not back to full strength but should be well enough to be at work tomorrow - especially if I can get a decent night's sleep tonight - something that eluded me yesterday.

Day 10.248: Spring/summer running update

In January I found myself having not been out for a run (at all) in 9 weeks. Considering since I took up running five and a half years earlier I hadn't gone more than about 9 days (and that only once or twice), this was quite a serious situation.

The thought that if I stopped running I would get lazy and never start again had haunted me for most of those five years and as it turned out it was really easy to do just that. I got in the habit of staying up later, filling my time with good things like making music and reading books and watching TV with Exile #2, but at some point I realised that I needed to be exercising again.

Getting back into regular running habits was hard - much harder than getting into them in the first place. The fact that I had put on 20 pounds and lost a lot of fitness did not make getting back on the road easy - nor did the fact that it was winter in Maine. It was April before I started to string some decent miles together and feel like a runner again. The table shows my weekly mileage totals since then - hardly a picture of consistency. The final blip was somewhat planned - for our camping trip - but the other orange weeks indicate I did less than I planned.

Finally, I've put a few consistent weeks together - nowhere near enough for long enough to be trained for my marathon on October 1st, but unless I get sick or injured I will run it - and it will be another step towards fully back to what had become normal running fitness.

Day 10.241: Life with a runner

Exile #2 took these photos yesterday and emailed them to me with the subject line, "Life with a runner".

Then she found a draw with some more running shoes in it.

I don't see a problem here - the ones in the draw are very old, the ones in the pile are old (more than 400 miles each) and the ones in a line are my current ones.