Peekaboo!!!

Yes - I know there was no updates for lets see... yes - pretty much 5 weeks. It's not that I'm back to my old habits, but it was 5 very frustrating weeks. First I was sidelined with the stress fracture. Then midway through what supposed to be healing process, I started having some pains in the middle of my foot (showed up to be nothing - at least on x-ray). So anyway today is my "big day" - I'm going in the evening to the TNT track workout, and I'll run for the first time in 5 weeks. It's very exciting - it's pretty much like if I would run for a very first time. The sad thing is that now after being cleared again for running, I was told to start slowly, and I have only about a month left to get enough training and mileage to run Portland on October 7th. Will this be enough? I'm definitely going to talk to our couches tonight, and see what I can do to make sure that I don't bonk in Portland (too bad the running team doesn't have SAG like the cycling team does).
Anyway - you can expect new updates again. I can officially run again!!!!

The road to calvary.

Growing up in a communist Poland, somehow I've never read the Tolstoy's trilogy "The Road to Calvary". Now after running 12 miles on Saturday, it seemed like this would be a perfect title for my blog post. Going to the meeting point, I have a lot of doubts and mixed feelings. I was nurturing what appeared to be some sprain of the ligaments in my right ankle. It was getting better every day, but I was unsure how it w0uld hold after the run. The last 4 miles I had some discomfort from what I thought was a too tightly laced shoe. Now I know that what I really had was stress fracture on my fibula by right ankle. It was "incomplete" fracture (medical term for saying that the bone wasn't split into separate pieces), nevertheless it was showing up on the X-Ray. I'm sidelined for next 4-6 weeks to get it healed, so no running for me. The bright side is that I was cleared for cycling and swimming. Cycling I can do, swimming I'd love to do, but I don't have an easy access to a swim pool. I guess for next few weeks the URL of this blog would not be really a true...
For now it should be actually http://tomekcantrun - oh well... they say that when it heals it should be better and stronger than ever before... See you until next time!!!

Bad things happen...

So I felt some discomfort in my right ankle and foot for a little while, but it wasn't really bad or anything, and I could still run a sub 7:00/mile without any problem. I didn't really pay attention to that, cause it almost looked like it's going away. I kept on training, running and biking. Then on Tuesday at the TNT track workout, it felt like the discomfort morphed into a slight pain of the tibial bone and tibiofibular ligaments. It only hurt when pressed with a finger, so I finished the track workout, with no visible problems. Then the next morning I woke up, and couldn't walk without pain in my ankle...
I called for appointment with a specialist, but that won't happen until Friday 7/20, so I have a little time to try to nurse this, and hope to get it better. For now, I'm really having to sit and wait, all at the time when I should be running weekly about 22-26 miles. I hope this is nothing serious, and it will go away quickly, cause I'm signed up for Wharf to Wharf, and then I need my feet to get me through the finish line in Portland on Oct. 7!!!

Weekend Adventures

This was probably the best weekend, I had since I started this blog. In some sense I made a full circle. You see my second post (but chronologically should have been first) was about biking up the Mount Hamilton. This weekend I did that again. I rode SAG for Justyna, so now she has something to brag about too!

Anyway, let's go back to the Saturday. For me it was a day of craziness. If I had only went swimming, I could have done a mini triathlon. Why? well first I went running with TNT folks. For this weekend, we had two options for organized runs. First was Rancho San Antonio starting 7am (uhh... ohh... if only people were on time), and then there was the option for Lake Almaden at 7:30am. I promised my friend Adam, that I'll go biking on Saturday, and we agreed to start around 9am (that way we would be done before it gets too hot). For that reason, I picked to run 6 miles with the folks running at the Rancho San Antonio. I've got there about 6:50am and found parking at the equestrian parking lot (no, I wasn't horse riding, but parking space is a parking space). I took the short (maybe not even 1/4 mile) jog to the meeting point as a warm-up. Then reality check - if you want people to start running at 7am, you need to lie to them, and tell them that the start time is 6:30 or at least 6:45. First we were waiting to about 7:10 to make sure that nobody else comes over for the run. Then (indeed few people showed up) we were waiting for the marauders to find a parking space (sorry, at that time on the weekend day, it's nearly impossible). Finally after they gave up, we went runing - at 7:30am. This made me stress that I'm gonna be late biking. I'm not sure if that influenced my running, or the hills put more stress on me than that. In the end the run was a good lesson about uphill (way more uphill that I'd ever wish for). We finished our 6 miles in about one hour, but I was really happy I went, since this was my first encounter with running uphill (about 600-700ft of elevation gain). It was also great to motivate other people - I think I made Mike start thinking about qualifying for Boston Marathon too. He's just about 1 month younger than me, so he can try to qualify with me in Portland, and then we can run together in Boston in 2009.

Anyway, as soon as I finished the run, I jumped into the car and went to meet with Adam. When I arrived at his house, he was already outside, and ready to go. I get myself readied and we hopped onto our bikes, and too off on (according to Adam "easy") about 20 miles loop over the Silver Creek area. His easy definition wasn't entirely matching my definition of an easy ride. We've hit about 8-9% grade hill shortly after getting out of the residential area, and it lasted for about 5 miles. Then it was recovery time - short steep downhill, and another short hill (about 10% grade). After the second ridge, we had crazy down hill with sharp switch-backs and turns. It was a little less hectic with about 5 miles of flat road, but then there was a time for a final climb - 10 maybe 11 minutes uphill, to burn the legs, and punish yourself (I guess that's a reward for having a good ride?). Anyway when we finished, I was really happy I did it. All I was missing at that point was a short swim, and I could have felt like I did a triathlon backwards. Well maybe next time :-)

When I've got home after all these escapades, I thought we were pretty much done for the weekend. I had both my run and bike ride, and Justyna had her cycling training ride, but to my surprise, she said she wanted to go to the top of Mt Hamilton. For me it was like making a full circle. Second post (but chronologically should have been first) in this blog was about my first time ride to the top of Mount Hamilton. I was really surprised, but agreed, that we'll go on Sunday morning for the challenging ride to the highest peak in the whole neighborhood. We started a bit (like 1 and half hour) later than we expected. The road to first ridge and then down to Joseph Grant Ranch, was something she already knew - we did that ride few weeks back, but aborted the ascent after seeing thousands of people at the park, for Muddy Buddy. Today, the conditions were perfect - almost no traffic on the road meant that we could ride at times two abreast and talk easily. We've made it to the park in about the same time as before (just over an hour), but the idyllic ride changed a little after starting the second climb. On the road to the next ridge Justyna's legs started to remember the ride she did the day before. I offered her to turn around many times, as I knew how hard it was for me that first time, back in April, but she had the true spirit of a warrior today. We were stop for few seconds when we had a chance and shade, so she could rest the legs a bit, but then she just keep going. At about 2 miles away, you can see the Lick Observatory so close, that you could almost reach it with your hand. That's when she knew she will make it to the top today. She bravely made it to the top and back and now has a big smile on her face, every time she thinks about it. And yes it is something to be proud of. Her head coach from TNT wrote to her:

"Justyna - you deserve a big pat on the back!! Mt. Hamilton is quite an accomplishment. Hope you didn't have to ride it alone. Congratulations."

The elevation chart is just a picture perfect proof of the ride:

Off from work...

This was a really lazy week for me. I took the whole week of, since we had the 4th of July off anyway. I didn't go to the boot-camp whole week (they had a substitute instructor anyway, cause Russ was out too). I didn't run at the Tuesday track workout with TNT (but I have a good reason for that). Really the only thing I did, was to run a TNT buddy run with Tanja, on Thursday. The run felt really hard, even though we went really slow (about 10/mile pace). I guess we can call it a tough couch-potato pace.

Anyway I hope to pick up some speed over the weekend (will try to run a TNT run in Rancho San Antonio, and possibly bike some too).

Finally it's the weekend!!!

So... I hope this should be a good start for a good lazy week. I know that next week I'll have it a little easier, because I'll be taking a vacation, in addition to the 4th of July day off. To make the weekend successful, first we had a TNT training run. then I went with Justyna and her friends on a ride through Los Altos area. The run was really great. Tanja (my new TNT mentor) and I drove together to Half Moon Bay. It was a big run, since both the Peninsula and South Bay teams run together. They offered runs from 4-10 miles in distance. Both Tanja and I, did the 10 miles loop. It was really great to run with her, not only because chatting while running 10 miles, makes the time goes faster. The greatest part was that we paced really well in the beginning, and we were running faster and faster all the way to the end. We had truely negative time splits for each consecutive mile we've run there, making the whole 10 miles in about one and half hour, with average pace 8:44.

That was the first half of the weekend, the second half was a bike ride. Justyna and her friends were going for a bike ride in Los Altos area, so I tagged along. It was nice roughly 25 miles long loop. The area there is so great, full of fantastic houses, rolling hills etc.

Double duty...

On Thursday I finally made it to the buddy run in Willow Glen. I barely made it I should say, getting around 5:30am is not really my thing, so I snoozed the clock. Before I knew it, I had to go. Thankfully I have packed myself the evening before, so I just quickly jumped into the shorts and shirt, and took off. When I've got to the meeting point, Tanja, Jeff and Trisha were already warming up and stretching. I joined them for a couple of minutes, and then we all went to the trail. We were running at a nice easy pace, and chatting along the way. Jeff was trying out the run/walk thing, so I stayed with him on the first walk break. I was also thinking about going back to the car with him, when he took off at about 2 miles, so that I can make it to the boot-camp, but I decided that I shouldn't slack off, and finish the whole course (~5.5miles). Of course, I wouldn't have a chance to slack off, even if I cut my run short. Today was the boot-camp testing day, so I was going to get some more running, plus some ab crunches and push-ups. Anyway, I finished the whole course with Tanja and Trisha, and after a quick round of post-run stretching, I was in a car going to my boot-camp. I barely made it without getting late, and at 8am I was getting a second dose of workout. I knew I already did 5.5 miles in the morning, so I decided to take the boot-camp "easy" - I did only 33 push-ups/min, 68 toe-touching crunches/2min and the mile I did in 7:16. What a day...

Pace yourself....

At the Tuesday track workout we were running a time trial (12x400 = ~3miles at tempo pace). It's much harder for me to run tempo in the evening - I'm tired after day at work, still agitated from driving in traffic stress, and already thinking about getting home. At least these are my excuses, when I tell you that I averaged only about 7:34/mile. It wasn't really anywhere near what I would want to be, and it felt kinda hard to run. Well just see it for yourself...

One day, two runs....

It's really funny, but just before our TNT run with couches, they told us exactly, not to make up for times when we miss our buddy runs, or other training. That very day I did second run. Yes I know some will say it's foolish, but I have few arguments in my defense.

1. the TNT program is designed to get an average couch potato across the finish line of a marathon or a half-marathon. I'm not an average couch potato anymore, and I'm not training just to finish the marathon. I need some speed too (if possible, please... pretty please...)
2. almost everyone I talk to, about running in the marathon, says that if I'm serious, I need run about 30-40 miles a week - then my body will be conditioned enough, to run the 26.2 miles in a decent time.
3. I've been running 10K training runs for past month, so I felt almost obliged to start increasing the distance, if not in one run, then at least with a second run later in the day.

So yes I know that we shouldn't, but I felt a compelling reason to actually do so. I definitely started to see improvements in my cardio - the heart rate now is lower, and stays lower through-out the runs (at least the 5-6 miles). I think I'm getting a bit more coefficient when running too, but I still need to work on my cadence, to get closer to 90 or maybe even over 90 foot-steps per minute.Both the morning run and the afternoon run, were slower than my racing pace (I know I can run 10K at about 8:20 pace), and I tried also practicing the run-walk technique that our coaches mentioned before the morning run. All in all I think this was pretty good Saturday, and I accrued about 11 miles in total.

The first run was the morning run with TNT, along Guadalupe River Trail in San Jose:

Come race day, the above results are not even close to the time I need to qualify for Boston, but as a means to accrue the mileage, there's absolutely nothing wrong there.
The second run was along the same route that I did with Russ last week. Since I had to work on Saturday, I decided to go to the trail and run 5-6 miles. I slightly modified the route that we took with Russ, so that it had a nice hill at about 4.5 miles (and really nice down hill on the last 1/2 mile too).

I decided that since it's my second run, then I'll just concentrate on getting the mileage and not speed. I also tried to practice the run-walk technique. I run for 1 mile and then I walked for 2 minutes. This resulted in slower pace, but I think I can get better results with practice. One unexpected obstacle on the course (that also resulted in slower pace) was Canadian Geese. I passed them on the way out, and they were not happy about it, but were ok with me passing them on the trail, as they were in the bushes. However, on the way back, the geese were occupying the whole both the trail and bushes in one spot. Since they had youngsters with them, I didn't risked running into a flock of geese, but instead stopped, and tried to come up with something that would get them of the trail (my only way back to the campus, and my car too). The tactic that worked was one we were told one time, to use if we see a bear, while camping. It's really simple stuff - make your self appear big (wave arms, jump, etc.) and make lots of noice (yell, scream, etc.). The geese were apparently more intimidated by this, than in a mood for fight, so after making sure the young ones went of the path, they moved off the trail too, and let me pass, but still watched carefully, and hissed angrily. The TNT folks mentioned that they will prepare us to run in every condition and weather, wander if they ever though about people running through a flock of geese...

I think I've got it....

Tuesday last week (6/19/07) was our second Team In Training workout. We were working on pace and stride, and I think I've got it. First we measured what our cadence is (mine was 84, and unlike in golf, the lower number is not better). After that first lap, we had to work on improving our cadence (take shorter strides, move your legs faster, etc.) I think I've got it, and after a little while I was cranking up my cadence to about 96. This was all great - it gave me some serious speed (faster pace recorded by my garmin, was 4:19. The only problem so far is that I can't work my legs that fast for long... I'll need to work on endurance somehow, but I definitely liked the speed.

Goodbye Chris

Past week was kind of difficult for me. Just a little over a week ago - on Tuesday, I was going to my first track workout with TNT. I left work a bit too late, so I was hoping that the commute will be not too bad. Unfortunately almost right away I've hit a back-up because of an accident. I didn't get to see much - it was pretty much already cleaned up, but I noticed that it involved a motorcycle. The next day, I learned that a co-worker and a fellow boot-camper - Chris - had a motorcycle accident shortly after leaving work. I immediately put things together. He was pretty badly hurt, and was being treated at the Stanford ICU. Over the past week all of us at work waited impatiently for any news of Chris'es recovery. Unfortunately the news coming were not exactly what we've hoped for. First we learned that he had a serious damage to both C1, C2 vertebrates and brain stem, in addition to other injuries. Chris was a great person, very active and full of life, so all of us at the boot-camp wanted to cheer him up. We signed a card for him, with words of encouragement and went to deliver it today, hoping to bring at least some joy into his life. We've got to the hospital around 4pm, and when we've made it to the ICU waiting room and found Chris'es family, we've learned that our card arrived about an hour too late. I don't know how average person does react (or should react) to news like that, but I myself just want to scream inside of me, something like this "this is not true!... this is a mistake!... that's impossible!....". It hurts even more when you feel that you failed... If you were only an hour earlier, if....
There's no turning clock back, there's no changing of the past. I know that life must go on, but I also know that I'll remember Chris forever. Not just because of the tragic end to his accident, but because he was a great person, a great colleague and a great fellow boot-camper.

Goodbye Chris!

One weekend, two workouts, two posts.

Ehm... so it sounds better, than it actually is. Well.. I did two workouts over the weekend. First I run 10K with Russ, and then today Justyna and I went biking to Portola Valley, but... It's not like I did more, but in a sense I did actually less. My TNT training regiment called for a run on Thursday (about 20-30 minutes, witch translates into about 3-4 miles) and a longer run on Saturday (maybe like 6 miles). Since I knew I want to go biking on Sunday with Justyna, I slightly "cheated" the schedule. I skipped the run on Thursday, then I run 10K on Friday, then I was lazy and slept on Saturday morning, and finally I went today biking with J. We went to Portola Valley, parked near Mike's Cafe (mmmm.... delicious breakfasts and brunches), and biked on a short (12 miles) loop over Alpine, Portola, Sand Hill and Santa Cruz roads:

Because the distance was kinda short, we decided to go on the same loop twice, and then reward ourselves with a small breakfast at Mike's (Ladera Omelette and Belgian Waffle to share). Next time, we're thinking about parking in the same place and going on Old La Honda Road, for a bigger and more challenging loop!

Watching paint dry...

It seems that getting better is like watching paint dry. The progress is not happening over-night, but it slowly creeps on you. This is what I noticed when running with Russ, this Friday.
This was my 3rd full 10K, plus I run last weekend the 6 miles with TNT, that I interpolated to 10K. My times so far are 55:53, 61:53 and 52:11 for the full 10K and 50:03 for the 6m (approx. 52:08 for 10K). So it seems that last two runs are pretty much the same. But there were quite a few differences. On the last run, Russ was trying to teach me, how to shorten my stride, and make a better, more consistent run. Yes, so far most of my speed came from running a fairly long stride for a marathoner. I knew deep inside, that I can't probably run for long with that stride and the pace I needed, but at the same time, it gave me false hope that I'm improving with every time I run faster. Now I think the reality started to sink in, and I started taking advice from people that are much smarter about running than me. So thanks to Russ, one of the surprises from my Friday run, was that my average heart rate stayed pretty much the same for about 5 miles. What's even more important, is that the heart rate was never over my "age formula" limit (220 - age). One other difference from the previous runs, was that we head on one way almost 20mph head wind. Yes - the wind gave a great cooling effect, but it also felt like I was standing still, and not moving. So overall I'm very happy with that run. I learned a lot (and I still have a lot more to learn) about my running. I also maintained my time from the week before, improving my overall quality of run (lower heart rate, shorter stride, etc.) I'm really looking forward to run more with Russ - he's great instructor, and I'm learning a lot from him!

First TNT Workout!

Yesterday we had our first team workout. We all had a great time! We first run a 3 person relay (so that everyone run 12x200). Then we did some stretching and core work. After all that there was the fun part - "hang with the gang" we had pizza, salads and soft-drinks, to refuel on, and we had the opportunity to meet people, chat with each other and listen to some survival stories form our honorees. It was a great time and I'm looking forward to the next one, next Tuesday!.

Great weekend!

Yes - it was great weekend! Both Justyna and I had our first Team In Training weekend workouts. I'm extremely happy with my run, as it shows that I'm no longer going backwards ;-)
Our team ran 6 miles along Los Gatos Creek Trail. It was sunny and hot for a morning time, and there was much more terrain variation (read hills and bridges). Despite all these "bonus" features, I still managed to get my best time for 6 miles. I made the whole loop in 50:02, which extrapolated to 10K would be ~ 52:10 - my best so far.


At first I thought it will be much harder to get a good time. When I run on the track, it's flat and easy. Running on the trail was a lot different - lots of small hills, that quickly add up. I skipped the water stop that was setup on mile 1.5, when going out, as it was too early for me, and coming back was too late. Thankfully I had my own water, in my new addition to the running gadgets: Amphipod fuel belt. I also took one PowerBar gel with me (double-latte flavor - yummy!), which helped a lot with having energy to run.

At the same time, Justyna was having fun on her own, in Los Altos. The cycling team that she signed up with, had a 15 mile cycle loop, with a surprise stop: "rear flat!!!". They made all the participant, pretend that they've got a puncture in rear tire, and need to change/repair the tube. For many of them it was a very first time, and judging from the stories, it was pretty funny view. But all in all, she managed to take the rear wheel off, deflate, remove the tire and tube, and then put it back together - given that she's still pretty new to cycling, I have to say - I AM IMPRESSED!!!
I guess she was impressed with her performance too (not only with the tire change, but also cycling - she managed to keep up with the fastest group for about 10 miles).

Because we started the weekend on such a great note, we felt that we need to do something on Sunday too. We decided to go to Mt Hamilton in the morning. We were doing pretty good, and after about 1 hour of pedaling up, we've arrived at the Joseph D. Grant County Park. To our surprise there were thousands of people there, as it was a 2007 Muddy Buddy race time! We took a little time off there, chatted with the participants covered toe to head in mud, and took off for a little more climbing. Justyna wanted to get at least 10 miles up - half way to Lick Observatory. We turned around at that point, hoping to beat the cars, that already started leaving the park after Muddy-Buddy.


I have to say that I'm really impressed with Justyna! She made half way to the top, and she had energy to spare! This was her second time on the Mount Hamilton Road (about 2 years ago, we went there on mountain bikes with our friends Debbie and Omar), and for me it was a third time. On April 1st I took my Kona mountain bike on a 4.5 hours of climbing up all the way to the top. This time I was riding my new Specialized Tarmac. After going half-way there, I think I could have made it in more usual 2.5-3 hours.
Riding a road bike there is soooooo much easier!

Overall I think this made for a pretty good start of a hopefully great season with Team In Training - GO TEAM!

Gentelmen! start... your... engines!!!

My TNT season has started with the kick-off meeting last Saturday, but our first real workout would be tomorrow. I'm getting really anxious about all that. What would it be like? Would I really learn what I need? Would I be able to improve my running enough to be able to qualify for Boston Marathon? Would I be any good? Please keep your fingers crossed!

BTW: so far I only know that after last boot-camp I still have hamstrings sore from the workout. I hope they will get better before tomorrow morning.

Going backwards???

This is sooooo embarrassing, that's it's not even funny. The first time I run 10K I made it in less than 56 minutes, so it was obvious to me that the next time I'll only be better.
WRONG!
I just hope that this was just a combination of getting too late to the track, and not being up to my best. What really was not right, I'll probably never know. I'll have another shot at a 10K next weekend during coaches run, with TNT - I just hope it will be better than the first one. For now I have to live with defeat and the lap splits below:

So for now I'll just keep running and try to get better so that I can erase the memory of not getting better result from the time before.
On the other hand on the fund-raising front, I had a wonderful week, last week and I'm getting closer to the finish everyday. I have over 60% of funds raised and I have several hundred dollars more lined up with matching donations that were made by my colleagues from work. I'm way ahead of any goals that I could think of so far!

THANK YOU TO ALL THE GENEROUS DONORS!

On the breaking news front, my wonderful wife signed up with the TNT cycling team, and she will try to beat me, by raising $4200 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She will ride the Honolulu Century this year - that's 100 miles in a bike saddle!
This is a really lofty goal and she will need all our support so please be generous to her too! To donate please follow the link below:

https://www.active.com/donate/tntsvmb/justyna

I hope she can get her goals accomplished, and successfully finish the race!

Long weekend update...

Long weekend means long update, so be prepared for lots of reading...

First I'd like to thank all the generous people that keep donating to my Team in Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma Society fund raising account. I couldn't be happier as I'm already past the half-mark!
This is really starting to get downhill, and it's all thanks to YOU!

Now let's go back to the updates.

First, I made my personal best for a mile (on the boot-camp trail loop). I know this is nowhere near where I need to be to qualify for Boston, but it seems that I'm getting closer and closer every week. For me being able to get less than 7min/mile is a big deal. If I can run 1/4 of the marathon at this pace, and 1/2 at the needed 7:30/mile pace, then I can "slack-off" the last 1/4 of the marathon, at about 8min/mile...
Now can I push that for 6 miles? Can I run at 6:30/mile? One thing for sure - I need to keep running and training - my TNT starts with a kick-off meeting next Saturday!


Anyway... enough about running - I took really lazy weekend, and aside from painting bedroom in our house, I did two nice bike rides.
Sunday Deb, Omar, Justyna and I, went to the Los Gatos Creek trail, and we cycled from Campbell to Los Gatos, and back (roughly 11 miles). The GPS data for this ride is a bit off, cause being in a group I've got distracted, and forgot to turn on the GPS on the way out for probably about 1/2 mile. On the way back, there's a "bonus" data from a quick ride to the ATM on Pruneyard, since I forgot to turn the GPS off at the end of the trail.


Finally today we did a little bit more demanding ride (one nice long uphill, but not too steep, and one quick steep uphill) in the Woodside area. It was again Deb, Omar, Justyna and I. We all started in the back on Bicycle Outfitter in Los Altos, and went over a small (about 20 miles) loop around the area. Again, being distracted by talking with the group, I forgot for almost 1/2 mile to turn the GPS on. Also on the way back we stopped at Pete's Coffee, and the data have about 1 hour less of moving time, than the total for our ride :-)

It's downhill from here...

Both running and fund-raising is all about making progress, and the last week seems that I made a great progress in both.
Thanks to a great response from both my co-workers, friends and even people that I never met, I'm already getting close to half of my fund-raising goal. I keep telling myself that it will be "downhill from there". I'm hoping that once I cross the half-way mark, it will only be easier to count marks towards the finish line. So far I'm really happy with 46% mark:
Running was pretty good too. First I ended week with a great boot-camp workout, that I topped off with a mile run (7:29/mile). Then we went with our friends for a short and easy bike ride, but they were taking off for Sacramento later on that day, so the short easy ride had to do it. Finally I went today to the track for my long run of the week. This time I challenged myself to run 6miles. I ended up running 10K (6.2miles) at average 9:00/mile pace. This was first time running at the Bud Winters Field with my Forerunner 301. It was great to have something keep the tabs on mileage automatically, cause last time when I run there I was getting lost with how many laps I finished, and how many more to go. The other advantage of using GPS is that you get much more precise mileage readouts, than just by counting laps. The complete data for the workout are as usually on tprzyg.motionbased.com site.
It's great to know that even now I could run the Wharf-to-Wharf in less than an hour, but I'm hoping that by the race day (July 22) I'll be able to run better and faster.
BTW: I'll start the regular training for my marathon run with TNT in June, that means I'll have roughly 4 months. As with everything - there's always a lot of room for improvement, so I'll have to keep on training!

Minor setback...

Last week I've got some really nasty sinus infection, so I wasn't running, I wasn't biking, I wasn't even able to come to the boot-camp. This week I'm catching up, but it's tough to get back on track. I hope to make up for that over the weekend with a good run and some biking.

BTW: I'm about 1/3 in my fund raising for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This is mostly thanks to a few (anonymous) donors that made it so much easier for me to start. To all you potential donors - there's still a lot more (about 2/3) to be done, so please keep on giving. This is all for a really great cause, and as I said before - I'm not asking for much, as every dollar counts. I know that it sounds unrealistic, but honestly every dollar CAN make a difference, not only in my fund raising, but more importantly in the cancer research.

Donate early... donate often...

TNT already activated my part of their website for collecting pleadges and donations towards my fund-raising goal. Please go there and remember that every donation counts, and every amount can possibly save someone's life!

http://www.active.com/donate/tntsvmb/tntsvmbTPrzygo

Thank you all for supporting me in this journey!

P.S. Remember - you can support me by clicking on the ads here, as all the proceeds will go towards my fund raising goals with TNT.

To rename or not to rename?

Big news is that over the weekend I joined Team in Training, to get closer to my goal of running the Boston Marathon. This of course spurs a question about the blog title. Not that I ever mentioned why I picked originally the name "Running with a yellow rubber band", so here's the story. Long time ago, at work, we received a box of the "Live strong" wristbands from Lance Armstrong's foundation. I never wore it, since I never believed I deserve to wear it - yes you guessed it right - I used to be a couch potato. Since I almost completely turned my life around (I work out, run and bike). I decided that for once I'm good enough to wear the "yellow rubber band". Now TNT has their own purple wristband. I was torn trying to decide what to do, when it occurred to me that I should wear them both, and have "Yahoo!" colors on my wrist.
Yes - Yahoo!s original colors were purple-and-yellow. The legend has it, that when Yahoo moved into their first office building, Filo went to a store to buy some paint, to paint the office. Since there were two paints on sale, he ended up buying both and the two colors were - yes! - purple and yellow!
So I already know what to do, now the next question is what to do with this blogs title? Yes I'll be still wearing yellow, but I'll also wear purple. I guess for now I'll leave it as is, but please comment on this post, with what do you think I should do?

You can support my adventures with Team in Training, by clicking on the adds you see here, as all the money raised through the ads, will go towards my fund-raising goals with Team In Training.

First "sale"....

I was so excited, blabbing about my new GPS HRM, that Bryce decided to get one for himself. He had it express-shipped, so that he can take it with him on the relay run this weekend. I bet he will post his observations in his blog. Good luck in your race Bryce!

Morning run...

Yesterday at the boot-camp Russ offered that we can all run together a 5K course around the trail that we usually run the 1 mile TT. This was an off-the-record and non-boot-camp run. Both Bryce and I jumped on the idea - he needs to get more mileage before his relay run this weekend, and I wanted to get more testing of my Garmin Forerunner. We met around 8:15am and headed out to the trail. Russ roughly remembered from where to where the 5K distance would be, and we decided to compare his memory with what my GPS will show. Once we started the clock, we started to run fairly fast (~7min/mile pace) so at the corner (around 1/4 mile) we slowed down. We picked up the pace again on the stretches of straight path. We also tried to outrun the bugs which were swarming in large numbers.
For todays run I setup my GPS to mark laps every 1mile and also beep when I go over the max for my heart rate. This was working great as we get pretty easily split times while running. By the end of our run, I started closing on my max heart-rate, and about 1/2 of a mile before finish I had to slow down to keep it under 182. When we were less than 1/4 away from finish I picked up a little the pace (regardless of my heart-rate) to catch up with the other guys, so by the end I was at 186. I also had a brain fart near the end, when I pressed stop on my GPS at 3.01 mile mark, but in a split of a second I realized that it's a mistake and restarted the clock, for the final stretch to 3.1 mile mark.
Overall this was great run, but the bugs were extremely annoying. We made the whole run in roughly 24 minutes with an average pace of ~ 7:48/mile. Seems that I'm getting close to my desired pace, but I still need to get some mileage to be able to go for my ultimate goal - the marathon. the results are as always posted on the motionbased.com. Cheers!

2007 Pat's Run in San Jose

This was my second running race ever, and also first good test of my new toy. So lets see how I did:

Pat's Run 2007 - San Jose - Overall

date: Apr 29th, 2007 location: San Jose, CA Summary number of finishers: 2384 number of females: 1075 number of males: 1285 average time: 00:45:25

bib number:	1478
age:	38
gender:	M
location:	San Jose, CA
overall place:	525 out of 2386
division place:	161 out of 435
gender place:	419 out of 1286
time:	34:31
pace:	8:13

Ok so total time was about 22 secs. longer compared to the Great Race (4.0 miles), but the course of Pats Run was 4.2 miles, so in the end I improved my average pace from 8:32/mi to 8:13/mi - yahooooooooo!
Well... I should probably calm down, since my goal is to be able to run for 26 miles with less than 7:30/mi, so that I can qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Russ - my boot-camp instructor was also running (he improved since Great Race too - his time today was 24:13 and pace 5:46/mi). We also expected Mohamed (another fellow boot-camper) but it seems that he "no-show'ed" for the race.

But anyway - running was only half of the fun. Finally I was able to put my brand new (3 days old) toy (Garmin Forerunner 301) to a good test. For the first time I was really able to see the advantages of being able to monitor my heart-rate and pace in real-time. With continuous display of heart-rate I was able to adjust so that I don't go over my max. heart-rate. The only problem was, that when I stop paying attention (the last 0.2 mile before finish) I went too high on the HR (max for my age is 182 by text-books). I need to find out if I can set audible alert for this.
Another thing that I need to change (this time it was really my silliness) is when I start the "clock". In todays run I started the clock with a starting gun, and it took me about one and half minute to reach the starting line. The two lessons learned before the next race are:
1) stand closer to the starting line (there were people not even planning to run, way ahead of me, so I had to weave around to pass them)
2) start the clock at the start line (nobody cares how long you walk to the start line, from where you were when the race started, and it can be really long time, if you're far)
One last "convenience" item is to set the Forerunner to mark laps every mile automatically (yes it can do that). Today I forgot to mark the lap at 2 mile mark, and I ended up with 3 laps that are 1, 2 and 1 miles long respectively, instead of the 4 one mile long laps I wanted.

The "icing on the cake" is the data download, so that you can look up the race on a map, check out your performance, and graph things like heart-rate, elevation and pace to see all the details of the run. My details are again on the motionbased.com website.

So in the end it was great to have the Forerunner - I was able to better pace myself, and make the whole run more fun! for myself.

New toy

After I run the Great Race, I decided I "deserve" a new toy - a heart rate monitor with a GPS. I like buying things at costco, and "coincidentally" they have the old Garmin Forerunner 301, for about $150. They also have the new Garmin Forerunner 305, but I decided that I don't have to have the latest-and-greatest.
So last week I received my package, and lunch time on Thursday I went to the hill that we run 1 mile test at the boot-camp. I just started running, thinking I'll run real slow, so that I don't break a sweat (I didn't even change into running clothes). After all I was just doing this to "test if it works" :-)
I ended up finishing the mile in 8:45 (not bad for "not running" pace). So far I think that the forerunner is fantastic. It has a chest strap for continuous heart-rate display and the GPS gives you distance and pace readings while you run. The other cool thing about it, is that you can upload the data after run, to motionbased.com website, for further analysis and/or sharing.

So far this is it, but I plan to post a lot more of my observations on how it works for me.

View from the top...

20070401-133712-S110-5576
Originally uploaded by tprzygoda.

Some time ago, one of my co-workers took on a challenge and biked to the top of Mt. Hamilton. I decided that if he did it, I can do it too. I asked my friend to go there with me for a bike ride one day. That "one day" happened to be April 1, 2007. The result was a pretty steady (about 5% grade) climb for 4.5 hours on my squeaking mountain bike, and about 1 hour ride down. I had on me a Camelbak MULE with about 3lt of water, so the whole ride indeed felt more like a mule ride, not a bike ride. I can mark this challenge as done now, but since I did it in such a wrong way (heavy bike, heavy gear, etc.) that I decided to re-do it one day (maybe in few months?), but on my new road-bike instead of the MTB. Also I want to do it in a more reasonable time (2.5 -3 hours climb, and about 45 min. down.) Again plenty of room for improvement, so keep on training...

My first running race...

20070415-104042-DMC-TZ1-0103
Originally uploaded by tprzygoda.
So I started about mid January, to go to a fitness bootcamp (been there regularly since). It happens that our instructor likes running, and I think it's sort of contagious, so I started to run too.

So far I have lofty hopes and dreams (I'd like to qualify for a Boston Marathon in 2009), and one small achievement. I've run in the "30th Great Race" from Saratoga to Los Gatos, together with my buddy from the bootcamp Bryce and our instructor. This was my first running race ever and I did pretty good against my own goals (I hoped to run the whole race - 4 miles - in about 40 minutes) - my official time was:

Event:	The GREAT Race
Year:	2007
Bib:	262
City:	San Jose
State:	CA
Overall:	519
Finish time:	35:06
Chip time:	34:09

Net result - I still have plenty of room for improvement - keep running...