No, I haven’t been running. I’ve been settling into my new job, and coming up with all sorts of excuses when I think “I really ought to get back to running.”

So, yes, I suck. And I should be beaten severely about the head and shoulders. And I should run.

I guess the discovery that I couldn’t get that “runner’s high” during every workout was a bit of a set-back. That would’ve been a heckuva motivation! Ahh well… something to shoot for.

I’ve also installed a new plugin for WordPress to control some bad behavior on the part of blog spammers. We’ll see how this goes. If it keeps any of you, my RBF friends, from viewing the site properly or posting comments, then please let me know as soon as possible by sending me email at spamblocker@lafes.net.

I’ll be in my new job on the 16th, and I’m hoping things will be much easier (at home) by then…

Now that that’s out of the way, tonight’s walk/run hurt. My leg muscles are in pain. I’m hoping that this means the muscles are building character or something. I posted this entry under “Progress.” This is optimism.

Last night I hit the treadmill again for an hour, tucking away 3.2 miles. Some of that was actual jogging, but that was a fairly small portion. Still, I pushed hard and feel like I’m getting somewhere rather faster than the first time I started training. This gives me hope that the lost fitness will return faster than I feared.

The high point of last night’s training was that my boys joined me for the workout. We also have a stationary bike and an elliptical trainer. They switched off on those, and stuck with me for the whole hour. It was great.

Unfortunately, I did not experience any sort of “runner’s high” this time around. But I’m hoping to find it again!

I had a weird night of it though. I stretched and started walking, and knew pretty much right away that tonight was going to be harder than the night before last. My legs just felt more tired. I felt more tired. My pace was dragging, and I actually went a bit slower at first. After getting good and warmed up, I pushed the pace back up to 3 mph (slow!) and left it there. All the while my legs were complaining. I started wondering if I’d put in the same amount of time as last time… It was just harder tonight. Not so weird so far, right?

Around the 40 minute mark, something very weird did happen. The pain in my legs went away. Just like that, poof! No pain. One minute, I’m goin’ “I’m not gonna make it to 45 minutes,” and the next minute… I feel great. I kinda grinned to myself, and pushed the pace up a bit to 3.5 mph, fairly confident that I’d end up punishing myself a little bit, and then stretching the cool-down to the 45 minute mark. But the pain didn’t come. So, I did what any one of you would do.

I ran.

I pushed the speed control on the treadmill over into the 5 – 6 mph zone and set off in a good (for me) jog. And my legs felt great. No pain. After a few minutes, I was blowing something silly (I am out of shape, dagnabbit) and so I slowed back down to a walk, but my legs felt fine. So I caught my breath for a little less than a minute, and I pushed it back into a run. And I ran for another several minutes. With no pain. I kept going until my breathing just couldn’t keep up with my body’s demands (dagnabbit) and slowed back to a walk, and started my cool-down. Feeling decidedly odd. It was a weird, shivery sort of sensation, almost like someone was pouring cool water down the inside of my skin. I had a feeling of mild euphoria. I felt good. I think I actually got some sort of weird version of the runner’s high. I can’t think of anything else that would explain it.

And all that, after the first 40 minutes of just plain walking was such torture. I don’t get it, but I won’t complain.

Oh, and I ended up doing 3 miles in 55 minutes.

I would say that this start isn’t as bad as my first start at training up to running, but I don’t know if that’s because there was still some vestige of fitness lurking in my body, or if I just knew better what to expect. In either case, my legs got all tired out, and I can see it’s gonna be work getting back up to speed.

On the bright side, my XM MyFi provided some nice music to sweat to. I think I’ll keep using that while I’m indoors…

Next workout is tomorrow.

That being said, the weather was gorgeous for hiking, and the natural area was beautiful. This time I had the foresight to grab the digital camera, so I thought I’d share some pictures.

Come on inside to see ‘em…

On our trek, we encountered many scenic vistas, and sometimes inexplicable landmarks. For instance, this rock wall extended for nearly 300 yards in a more-or-less straight line. It is obviously man-made, but to what purpose? My son has his own idea of what it was used for…

We walked for many miles, mostly on narrow paths, occasionally finding a place to stop and rest in this very hilly terrain. Sitting there gave us a chance to catch our breath and look up for a while.

At one point in our journey, we found a path out onto the water of the nearby river. Though we found evidence that someone less respectful of the natural area had been there before us.

And we found one landmark whose size probably doesn’t translate well for the photo. But if you look carefully, that’s my son standing near the bottom of the memorial tree, which is the oldest and largest white oak tree in the park.

Hope you liked the photos! We have plans to re-visit this particular natural area, since there are many trails there that we haven’t yet explored.

I still haven’t gotten back into running, and I’ve decided I’m approaching it wrong. I will be starting back slowly, and hopefully this will help me get past that initial startup hurdle. I’m gonna start with walking, as I’ve decided I can con myself into walking on the treadmill with a book. One thing is certain, and that’s that I’ve gotta get off my duff and get moving again.

I’ve let stress and laziness keep me from getting anywhere. But right now I can’t think of anything that will help more with the stress than taking care of my body. So… off I go. Don’t let me weasel out of it! please!

Moving right along…

I was looking for some good information on the effects of blood donation on runners, and found that there isn’t a lot. There’s a whole bunch of anecdotal wisdom on the subject, but not really a lot of firmly supported knowledge. The good news, however, is that the general consensus is that you only really need to worry about the effects if you’re a high-performance athlete. In other words, not like me.

According to this article, a “recreational athlete” (or “not world class athlete” (i.e. me)) shouldn’t notice much difference. There may be a reduction in “maximal” performance, but “sub-maximal” performance is unaffected.

The two caveats to that are make sure you’re not iron deficient (take supplements if you are (but be careful of taking iron supplements if you’re not iron deficient)) and to make sure that you hydrate “aggressively” the day of and after donating. They say that endurance athletes should treat donation day as a rest day.

I’m still not doing much on the running front, but I’m also still not giving up on it. My lovely wife bought me a Garmin Forerunner 201, and it’d be a terrible shame not to put it to use. It’s a really neat gadget.

I want to say that I’ll get out there and run again once I’m not under as much stress (silly reason… running helps stress!), or when I’m not sick all the time (which at the moment, I’m not). Truly, it’s just when I get my butt in gear again. That won’t be terribly far in the future, so don’t give up on me. I’m still reading the RBF blogs, and drawing inspiration (and chuckles, and commiseration, and sympathy, and empathy, and strength) where I can.

All of you, as always, rock.

In running news, well, I haven’t been. However, to continue the trend of the current year, I’ve managed to catch some sort of bug twice more since the last time I posted. I’m still recovering from the last one. Dunno what it is about this year, but I must be cursed or something.

Anyhow, welcome to the new digs. If everything goes well, you won’t notice any difference at all! If it doesn’t go well, well, let me know and I’ll try to fix whatever broke.

But to answer the question I’m sure is floating out there somewhere: No, I’m not giving up.

I’m going to be a runner.

I’m disappointed with how things played out when sickness caught me after mere weeks of training. My current lack of running certainly can’t still be blamed on sickness. I guess it could be blamed on lots of things, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I stopped, and I need to start again. I know for certain that I will start again. I do not know for certain when that will happen. I hope very much that it will be soon, but I haven’t had the heart for it yet. Life has been kicking me around a bit lately, and I need to recover from that and get back on the road.

Still, to be clear, I’m not giving up running. I’m not shutting this blog down. I just wanted to catch everyone up with where I’m at at the moment, and let you know that I’ll be pickin’ myself up again.

In a bit.

Darn if I didn’t wear myself plumb out. I guess the combination of not having done anything for two months, plus still being on the mend from various and sundry miscreants of the microbial persuasion, sapped what remains of my strength. My legs today are sore.

I view this as a good thing. Progress!

I put in a good walk with my sons this weekend. We went and walked a nice trail for a couple miles. The first mile was all uphill, so it was something better than sitting on my butt. And truthfully, the walk did wonders for my motivation. The whole time we were walking this (new to me) trail, I was thinking about how great a spot for running it was. There were lots of runners on the trail too, who apparently felt the same way.

And then I got sick again.

At this point I feel pretty darn disgusted. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, as the saying goes. This time it actually knocked me out of work for two days. Tests showed that it’s not a relapse of pertussis, nor is it strep throat (as the doc feared). It’s just some bug that’s running amok in this area. It seems like I haven’t been able to go for more than a month or so this year without being infected with something. I can’t recall ever having a year like this before, where I just seem to come down with every infectious disease that invades this area. The longest stretch of health was when I started running this year, and that only lasted until my recent entanglement with pertussis. Gah!

But the weather here is turning beautiful (I love fall), and I’m really looking forward to getting back to running on something resembling a schedule. I’m back at work today, and feeling slightly better than I did the last several days. Hopefully this thing will pass quickly and I can get movin’ again.

I want to thank April Anne, Lara, Mark, and especially Pam and Jank for their support through this quiet (and sucky) period. Y’all rock.

That being said, I suck.

I didn’t run last night, and I didn’t run tonight. I have no excuse but laziness. I lacked the motivation to get up and run. I could make excuses, but that’d be all they were… excuses. It’s crazy. The whole time I couldn’t run because of that stupid cough, I felt deprived and really wanted to run. And now that I can (and I know I can now…), I’m not doing it. Pretty silly, eh?

And I hate writing this post, and admitting how much I suck.