Spring Fever Week

Good morning.

Warning!

The weather this week in Chicago looks terrific. It may cause periods of spring fever. What happens when you get spring fever? Well, you enjoy more outdoor activities. You run outside in shorts and feel the Sun's warmth. You grab your golf clubs and start working on your game. You ride you bike outside and feel the wind in your face. You may even take the cover off your motorcycle and rev that baby up and take a ride along Lakeshore Drive. It's time to celebrate surviving winter. Enjoy!!

Yesterday's Boston Bound program called for a run lasting 1:50:00. I decided to focus more on mileage than time though. I wore a new pair of Nike Luna Racers for my 16 miler and the shoes were perfect. I believe these will be the shoes in which I run Boston. The goal of this run was to run it approx 45 seconds per mile slower than Boston pace. Most of the miles were run in the 8:30's zone and this was a very easy pace, effort wise. My heart rate was in the low to mid 120's at this pace.

Traveling south along the lakefront path was downwind. Coming back was another story. A tough 20-25 mile per hour, in your face wind welcomed me. After a while I decided to detour the path and take my Fullerton Ave exit and run along parts of the Chicago Marathon course.

I picked up the pace for miles 13-15 and was happy with the fast twitch muscle response. Mile 16 was a cool down.

A unique and funny thing happened today. Almost twice. I have not fallen down in a very long time. I can't even remember the last time I hit the ground. As I started my run yesterday, about 1/2 mile into my run my right foot hit a raised part of the sidewalk as I looked at my Garmin and I really had a most excellent trip. I almost bit the dust, but, I saved it. If anyone was watching they had to have a good laugh. I still can't believe I did not go down.

Later in the run on the lakefront path I was lookin at my pace again and all of a sudden my right foot hit a raised box of some sort and there would be no saving this one. I knew I was going down. I broke the fall with my hands, rolled so I could land on my right shoulder and hip, did a 360 roll and was back on my feet. I looked at the guy approaching from behind and the expression on his face was funny. I just gave him the baseball safe sign and took off again. I wish I had this on film. I am still laughing about it. My martial arts instructor taught me how to fall a while back and that came in handy yesterday. I am fine.

Split Time Distance Elevation Gain Elevation Loss Avg Speed Max Speed Avg HR Max HR Steps Calories
1 0:09:31 1 128 49 9:32 7:00 154 188 0 67
2 0:08:37 1 102 151 8:37 5:30 120 128 0 90
3 0:08:28 1 98 89 8:28 6:33 123 132 0 84
4 0:08:36 1 187 102 8:36 6:10 125 143 0 84
5 0:08:31 1 52 95 8:31 7:22 126 134 0 81
6 0:08:34 1 13 82 8:34 7:22 126 136 0 74
7 0:08:30 1 23 16 8:30 7:57 137 174 0 56
8 0:08:31 1 30 10 8:31 7:30 127 148 0 89
9 0:08:40 1 39 26 8:40 8:06 128 135 0 93
10 0:08:57 1 72 98 8:57 8:12 129 133 0 98
11 0:08:42 1 72 26 8:42 7:41 128 139 0 86
12 0:08:30 1 92 43 8:30 7:21 128 143 0 74
13 0:08:09 1 20 102 8:09 6:45 138 144 0 93
14 0:07:54 1 72 36 7:54 6:34 134 146 0 81
15 0:07:25 1 39 62 7:25 6:43 148 154 0 92
16 0:08:41 1 20 33 8:42 6:45 139 153 0 93
17 0:00:03 0.01 -- -- 9:25 8:53 135 135 0 1
Summary 2:16:26 16.01 1,063 1,020 8:31 5:30 131 188 0 1,336





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" Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction."

* It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” - Anais Nin