Death to the Treadmill!

Ugh, another day, another workout on an effing treadmill. It is just so impossible to get motivated when I just want to kill myself staring at the little board of numbers oh-so-slowly climbing upwards. The tv does not help either. When I run outside, I do so without music. I completely zone out so I dont have to think about what mile I'm on. Instead, I let my mind wonder and wonder and wonder until I finally remind myself to look down at my nike+ device and go, holy shit its almost been 7 miles...almost done. But the treadmill is a constant reminder of suckiness. You're toes going numb from the track vibrating, your joints starting to ache from landing on a moving surface over and over and over and over. Dont get me wrong, treadmill are fine when you are just running 1-2 miles or for 20 minutes, but anything over 3 miles, especially 7-9 miles, makes me want to have a treadmill burning party!

This week so far:
01.04 - XT 30 min bike
01.05 - 4 miles
01.06 - 2 miles
01.07 - SNOWED IN (Jillian Michaels 30 day shred)
01.08 - 3 miles

Hopefully it starts to get warmer by the time I get up to the higher mileage of my training. Here's to a 35 degree February!
::Fingers Crossed::

New Year, New Goals

In 2009, I ran 3 marathons, one 10k, and two 5ks. Not too shabby. This year, my goals are about to get geared up a bit. Not only do I plan to update this thing a lot more, but I really really want to beat my PR for the marathon. But I don't just want to beat it, I want to crush it! By 10 minutes! thats right, 10 minutes! Today starts day one of my training for the Kentucky Marathon in April. But I plan on adding hill repeats and speed work to my training, hopefully propelling me to succeed in this endeavor.

Hopefully I can shed this holiday weight that I may have collected and get going with this right away. One thing that was most helpful was that a lot of my gifts were running and fitness inspired. I have run holes into all my ankle socks and finally had the chance to throw them away when christmas came around. Thanks to my sock suppliers!

My biggest complaint of 2009 was moving to Wentzville and losing my close access to Forest Park for training for my long runs. Sure the Katy trail is closer to me, but I would find myself driving the extra distance for the simple fact of water fountains. My lovely companion completely solved this problem with the Camelbak fanny pack (rhyme delightfully unintended).

The gift to myself, however, was the shape up walking shoes. I'm sure you've seen the advertisements. The Sketcher version was $100 big-ones! But I found these lovlies at Payless. They are Champion and only $30. I noticed a difference right away. With the addition to ankle weights, they make a pretty good resistance that will be sure to give me an edge on my goals. I wore ankle weights everyday under my pants to work while training for Denver (my current PR) and I saw that when I took them off to train after work, I felt lighter and faster. Hopefully this will help me towards my 10 min summit.

Hope everyone set some pretty steep fitness goals this year. I know some marathon virgins that are tackling the big one this year so here are some goals from active.com and GOOD LUCK!

If anyone needs a beginning marathon training guide just let me know!
And Run, damnit, RUN!

UPDATE: Day one of training - finally went and checked out the YMCA by my house. Everytime I pass it, I think "I really need to go check that place out." Did 30 minutes of XT. Marathon Training 2010 has commenced...

Marine Corps Marathon

Pic: Me and John post race at the Beer tent

Things have been so busy as of late that I am finally getting around to updating everything. The Scrogginsdesign Website, facebook, flickr, and these here blogs. Back in October, I took a week to discover the wonder of Washington DC and also to run the Marine Corps Marathon. This race was:
my 6th marathon all together
my 3rd one in 2009
the first one I've ran with friends since my first one (st louis with Casper)
the hardest I've ever run (the course was outrageous)
and the most amazing!

my time was 5'34 (my 4 best time) and it was just so amazing. You dont know how incredible it is to have a Marine put a medal around YOUR neck and tell you he's proud of YOU. Just so special to me being a Marine Corps Brat, being surrouned by Marines again (only this time they were all so young looking!) and run with them. Just amazing, and to finish at Arlington Cemetary and see that statue of Iwo Jima after finishing something like 26.2 miles...
you dont even fell the pain anymore.

truly inspiring. I have posted all the pictures from my trip on facebook.
Click here to view my adventure!

Running Recession Proof!

HAHA!
Click here to read the article to the title.

All Star Game 5K

Starting time 7:30am July 12
The day after my 25th birthday. Goo.
This was fun but it got kind of how there for a sec. It is july in st louis, afterall. Got a pretty cool medal to add to the collection. But as Pallardy says...I only do these things for the medals anyway. :)

Wounded vet Runs 100 Mile Marathon in Honor of Soldiers

This story is just amazing - and just in time for the Fourth of July Weekend.
Hope it motivates everyone to run in between the hot dogs, beer and fireworks.
Dont forget to give it up to those who fought so you could be free!

Have a good weekend!

Oh Glorious Rest

So you know that last post where I was supposed to run 20 miles...I didn't.
I had actually been avoiding this blog for quite some time cause the training for Seattle just wasn't going the way I had wanted it to. I could blame the extreme heat that had been going on in Missouri which was a contributing factor. I could barely breathe just walking out the door, but in short I just didn't even try to push myself into it either. I had gotten one long run of 17 miles between Cincinnati and Seattle and just didn't even run the last 3 weeks before the race - heat index did get up to 110 :(

So on to Seattle. The Thursday before the race we had a softball game for our drinking league and needless to say with my lack of activity the past couple weeks took a toll on my quads. To be frank, they were burning. When entering Seattle, I realized how hilly the city was and proceeded to have a panic attack Friday night before the race.
Had I prepared enough?
Will the course be a hilly bitch?
Should I have opted out of softball this week?
Is this just going to be a repeat of Memphis? (I got really hurt and had to walk the last 6 miles)
Should I have just sucked it up and trained in the heat?

All of this was plaguing me throughout the night. Race day was saturday. Starting time was 7am, but out of the 25,000 runners didn't actually pass through the starting line until 7:40. My quads still burned from softball, but it was a good sore and I just thought we'd see how I felt towards the halfway mark cause I can always just go with the halfers if I'm not up to it - but I didn't come to Seattle to do go halfsies :)

The course was not as hilly as the city makes up think it would be and it definitely wasn't as hilly as Cincinnati. The race was quick, when it was over it didn't even feel like I had been out there for 5 hours. I raced my second best time 5 hours and 24 minites - beating my st louis time by one minute. It is such a relief to know that my body is used to this by now and that the 3 weeks off didn't hender my performance at all and in the end probably actually helped me cause it gave me a much needed rest between the 2 marathons.

To me though, the best part of running was that I added an interactive element to my race and allowed people from home to follow me on twitter throughout the race. I updated every so often and tweeted pictures and whatnot - which was nice to have something to take my mind of running. But the feedback from people was so encouraging. I'm so glad that people got into that. It felt like they were right along with me on my 26.2 mile adventure. So thanks to everyone who got involved and lets look forward to the Marine Corps Marathon in October!

Click here to follow me on twitter!

UPDATE: Pictures from Seattle