Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Hangin' with the home boys... part 2

As we headed out the front door towards the elevator, I asked how far they wanted to run. I was a little worried that it would be farther that I was planning on, since I am going by my training plan for my upcoming marathon in January.

Paul answered that he didn't care, what did I want to run? I told them that my usual loop was a four mile run, or we could go to the next leg, and it would be about seven miles. To that, Pete said "Seven miles, that would be farther than I have ever run in my life."


On the outside, I played it cool. On the inside, I was jumping up and down with a big giant smile on my face. All I was thinking was that no matter what, at least I would be able to match their distance. Even if I come in 10 minutes behind them, at least I will be able to run as far as they do.


I was one cool cucumber... "O.K. Four miles it is"...


We got out of the elevator and walked across the lobby towards the front door. I asked them if we were going to stretch out outside, or had they already done that upstairs while I was changing. Paul said "I read that it doesn't really make much of a difference if you stretch or not. I'm not much of a stretcher." And off he went...


I found out a few things during the course of this run. Pete is probably more at my level as far as running goes, and Paul is nicer than he used to be. When we were growing up, we had a saying. "It doesn't matter who you offend, as long as you get a laugh". Now, you need to understand, these two guys were born funny. I just want to be like them when I grow up.


We don't take the saying seriously when it comes to other people, at least not anymore... But with each other, there have been few limits as to what you could say over the years. It was obvious that Paul passed on several opportunities to have fun at our expense. There were lots of chances for him to make jokes about my breathing, complaining, pace, or pointless banter. I was trying to keep him from paying attention to the pace part. He let it go... Much appreciated. I am pretty sure that by the time my Garmin beeped at me, and Paul asked if that meant we had gone a mile, he was having a hard time hearing the alarm over the sound of mine and Pete's breathing.


As it ends up, Pete has done most of his running up to this point on a treadmill, and I have done most of my running at over a 10 minute pace. I don't think that Paul would call anything over 10 minutes actual running. More like speed walking. Maybe even slow speed walking...


Paul and I were talking throughout most of the run, or at least the first 3 miles. At one point I said that I have a hard time gaging my pace when I am running under 11 minute miles, because I am not used to it. I said that "I know that right now we are running about 10 1/2 minutes.." Paul responded with "We are running just over 9 minutes".


"That's what I'm talking about. I never run this fast, so I have no idea what our pace is. And I'm the guy with the Garmin"... One of these day's I am going to have to learn how to use the light on this damn thing...


We started talking about back in the day when we used to run together. Back when I was faster than Paul. (Sorry, I am a little bitter...) We were talking about the night we ran the Firecracker 5000, and the beers at the starting line. We remembered that my little brother ran that race with us. Well, sort of... We had all been together at the starting line. The beginning of the run was up a gradual slope. When we got to the first turn, my brother was no where to be seen. We assumed that he was (obviously) either up ahead, or had fallen behind. When we got to the end, we wandered over to the pub that we had all agreed upon as our meeting place after the race.


When we walked in, there was my brother Matt sitting at the table waiting for us. He was flushed and wet with sweat. I gave him a high five and said "Nice run Man, how long have you been waiting for us?" He told me "Not to long", and we went on to order drinks. The server brought us our round, and bent over to whisper in my ear. "Your brother told me that you guys bet on the race, and that whoever lost was buying the drinks." And since that was me, she was willing to work for a better tip. She then told me that my brother had been there for about a half hour. No way he could have done that. It was only a 5k.


It ends up that when we hit the first turn of the race, he had already fallen behind, so he said screw it, and took a left instead of a right, and went straight to the bar. He was on his 3rd drink by the time we got here. When he saw us walk through the door, he dipped his hands into his water glass and splashed his face and ran them through his hair.


She got a good tip all right, but my brother is the one that paid it:) Best laid plans...


As we were laughing at the old story, I told them that I have talked more during these few miles than I have during all my runs with Jane combined. She runs with her iPod, so she is always listening to music. I don't run with music, because that is when I think about my blog writing, and I am afraid that music my screw it up, so I don't even want to try it. I might like it... and no more blog.


Pete followed that up with "You guys talk, I'm gonna concentrate on breathing. Obviously I need to run outside more."

At some point before the run I had mentioned that my goal for the upcoming marathon was to break 4 hours, which would be averaging 9:15 minutes per mile. I said that with my average pace for my training runs, it was starting to seem like that may not be a possibility. Towards the end of our run, Paul actually ran across the street away from us, and then crossed coming back to us. He was obviously trying to get in a little extra work while staying with us at our much slower than his usual pace.

He finally said, "Yes, I think you are going to have to do something about your training runs if you want to break 4 hours". That was a very nice way to put it Paul. We may have passed the "It doesn't matter who you offend" theory...
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This was the first time in a long time that running had been a social time for me. It was awesome spending time with two of my best friends, while at the same time doing what has become one of our favorite activities. It makes me miss spending more time with old friends. We used to run races together regularly. Back before we all got married and moved away. We need to find a way to spend more time together.
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Speaking of spending more time with old friends, we have signed up for the Ragnar Relay Del Sol, here in Phoenix. It goes from Prescott to Mesa this Feb 26th & 27th. We will run a total of over 200 miles in about 24 hours. Each runner will run three times and each run will be from 3 miles to 9 miles each. Little or no sleep. There will be 12 of us on the team. So far we have four of us from Mount Rainier High School, wives, neighbors, friends from work, and one of our old pals from The Greenlake Alehouse. We have space for a few more...
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I run my first ever actual half marathon this Saturday, October 24th. It is the 41st Annual GoDaddy.com ® YMCA Half Marathon, in Phoenix. I am scheduled to run 12 to 14 miles this Saturday as part of my training plan for the Walt Disney World Marathon in January, so the timing is perfect. I will use this race as both a gauge on my time, as well as practice for keeping to my scheduled pace. I will be using drink stations, and trying to not pick up my speed every time someone passes me, as well trying to make my goal time of under 2 hours. These are all things that I never get to work on during my training runs. Wish me luck...
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6 comments:

  1. Good luck with the half this weekend! I have been tempted to do that one as well.

    Kimberlyrunner-twitter

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  2. Nice post! Looking forward to your "adventures" :-)

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  3. Keep running man!!

    I did 2 3.25 mile runs yesterday!
    We've been driving to Fremont, parking along the Ship canal then running into work (downtown). when the work day is done we run back to the car.

    I'm hoping I've got enouigh time to get enough miles in to do the Seattle 1/2 next month. I haven't done a whole lot of running the last few weeks...

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  4. Thanks for the comments guys/gang/people.. I think I will do o.k. Not sure about the goal time, but your encouragment helps. -Adam Dopps

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  5. Remember the keys for tomorrow:

    1. Get to bed real early tonight
    2. Have your 'stuff' all laid out
    3. Hydrate early, then you just sip last hour before race.
    4. Easy digestable breakfast fuels like banana's, bagel, etc. I like Oatmeal (real stuff) too as soon I wake up.
    5. MOST IMPORTANT - DO NOT GET CAUGHT IN THE EXCITEMENT AND GO OUT TOO FAST!! I think 20-30 sec slower than goal pace 1st mile is perfect. You'll make it up later.

    Good luck, Mike AZ_Michael (twitter)

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