August 24

Well this week wasn't too bad. I had a few successes this week, both in the gym, at the dojo, and on the road.

I went to kung fu on Tuesday and Thursday just like I should have. Hit the tread mill at the gym on those days, 15% incline for 30 minutes with a 3.5 to 4 mile pace. On wednesday I hit the weights pretty hard. I want to start putting some focus on my hamstrings. I did let curls, stiff legged deadlifts, and lunge squats. Also did leg extentions and bench press (45lbs 4 sets 20,dumbell).

All my weight sets will be in sets of 4 for reps. I see a 100 mile run as 4 marathons (25 not 26.2)
you can break it up in 4 parts. I will train like that. I may move to 10 sets of 10 reps in the future but maybe make it 20 reps. This is called German Volume training. either way, I need to put some time into the hamstrings. This week was a success.

I did however drink a bunch of beers Friday night, maybe 6 or so. I went to bed early because on Sat. I had a 9 mile run with the ladies out at Randolf air base. That 9 miles sucked, it was boring. I ran with my 3 litre camelback and it was heavy. The ladies took of in the car after we were done, I just kept on running. I put in about 21 miles on Sat. The bad thing is that I went up to Hooters that afternoon and drank about 12 beers.

On Sunday, I went for a run, about 11.5 miles, it was slow prob because I had way to much alcohol in my bloodstream, and I was a little oxygen deficient.

The fact remains that, at least, I went out and got some miles in. I am on nights this week at work, but I plan on starting Day 1 on my workout plan I have made for myself. Cactus Rose 100 is 9 weeks away and I want to run sub 24, I got some work to do between now and then. No more beer for me! Dammit.

Until next time, later!

Johnt

Aug 16th

What a week, I think. I started off well with 9.5 mile run on Sunday in the heat 98 degrees or so. Monday was a nice 4 miler, kung fu practice, and then the gym for stretching and some abs and pushups with a little 3 miler afterwards. Tuesday was an 8 miler in the morning. The afternoon was kung fu and I tested for my green belt. It went well and I was able to start learning some new material. I was pretty trashed on Wednesday morning and didn't meet my running group for hills and speed work. Dammit, those ladies are gonna kill me. Wednesday was also a good friend of mine, Bill's birthday so no workout. I picked him up a litre of Glenlivet 12 year and went to the small get together. We drank a few Warstieners with the neighbor, H, who is like 92 and his wife Ms. Betty. With that said, there was no running on Thursday morning. I did however go pick up the kayaks for this kayak trip we took down the Guadalupe River from Gonzales to Victoria. Well that was the plan. Rick and his brother Bill came down from Ft. Worth on Thursday night for the trip. On the way to Gonzales in the morning, I was pulled over for doing 62 in a 50. Dammit man, I have been so lucky in the last 2 years, but my time was coming. I looked at the fee schedule and told the officer, "Damm, man these tickets are expensive, no wonder all you fellas have new cars." He was not amused. I guess I have to call the lawyer man, Mark Sideman and have him take care of it. Well, on to the river. We put in at Gonzales, Texas. For those of you who don't know, Gonzales is the Birthplace of Texas Independence. Come and Take it, is what the settlers told the Mexicans when they ask for their cannon back. And, as they say, the rest is history! Well, little did we know we would paddle those damm kayaks for 11 hours and still never reach the first bridge. The river was moving like a stagnant pond. All was fine and good till about 5 PM, and we became a little pissy. By 830 PM still no freakin bridge, we saw one person the whole day, and there was only one power line that crossed the river all day. It was fun if you like solitude, I guess. After about 4 hours, every bend in the river looked like the last and it was no longer really amusing anymore. I was getting pretty bored to say the least. We were singing songs, and mostly talkin crap to each other, like guys do when they are good friends. Breakin out the occasional movie quote, would bring laughter, "Hey, Rocco, take her to the zoo, I hear retards like the zoo", or "I see a red sash, I kill a man wearing it, the cowboys are finished around here". And of course we worked on our Sean Connery imitations. Well by 30 minutes before nightfall, we were like "fuck it" I guess we better start putting up the tent. We had a rain storm about to blow right up our asses, with lighting, thunder and all kinds of mayhem. We got the little pup tent up just in time. This thing is made for like two people, and 3 grown men crawl in there. Not cool. I was like, " I hope that rancher who owns this place doesn't show up, he is gonna be like, dammit, Brokeback Mountian up in here. hahah So it starts raining, and after 15 years of having this tent, I have used it like 3 times, I find out, hey its not water proof. Who Knew! The rain came down in torrents, for about and hour and a half. We had about 3/4 of an inch of water in the bottom of the tent and we were colder than a Popsicle. Once it stopped raining, we poured the water out of the tent and in the process, we got bit by hundreds of fire ants. Wow, great! All we could say, between laughing at our situation was, "Man, this fuckin sucks." We slept a little and got up about 6 am and packed our gear up and headed out about 7ish this morning. After about 2 more hours of rowing the kayak, we get to the bridge. Holy Mary, mother of Jesus! Wow, we were like, "I didn't think we would ever reach this freakin place." I called a buddy of mine to pick us up, and finally about 1230 this afternoon he shows up, with some Budweisers. That was a nice treat, being as how we didn't have any whiskey, scotch, or beer with us. So now that we are back home we have learned a few lessons, the main one being, if the river aint flowin, your gonna be rowin!

Aug 7

Just checkin in. I have been trying to get into the habit of doing a blog post every day, but sometimes I am just not motivated to write. I havent run since Monday. I think the heat kicked me in the pants on Monday. Additionally, the back of my left knee was hurting and my right hip and right knee on the outside were bothering me. I am planning on heading back to San Antonio on Friday. So I think I will take off till then and then hit up 60 or so miles on the bike, and if I feel froggy I may try to hit 15 or 20 miles running. Or maybe I won't, who knows. Thats the plan though. I have been working on a training schedule to prepare for Cactus Rose. If I stick to it pretty well, I think I will have a good 100 miler or at least I will be better off than if I never started. Thats the thing that matters. Starting, getting off of the couch or pushing away from the bar. A friend of mine said after the Bighorn 100 that maybe the event was more like a pebble thrown into a pond, as opposed to some kind of divine whatever. I think he was right. The run was the pebble thrown into this pond of my life. The ripples are still moving out from center. How will others and myself be affected? I dont know that answer. Time may tell it.

Have you ever heard about the mobile theory? This is an allegory. In a childs crib usually there will be a mobile with little horses or some type of animals hanging from a string that spin in a circle while some melody plays. If you displace one of the little hanging animals, the mobile becomes out of balance and the other animals in the mobile try to put the other back into its place. Its a pretty good representation of what happens to a person in life when they try to make changes. Others are trying to put you back into the place they expect you to be, because its uncomfortable for them. But, I think that one of the things this theory did not address, (maybe because I dont know the whole story) is about the person who is making the change. Sometimes when making a change, even if its for the positive, its uncomfortable. Some what like Plato's allegory of the Cave. In one sense you understand everything around you, i.e. the shadows on the wall, and as you move to the door its very frightening so you move back to what is comfortable. More to follow on that thought ...

Aug 4 Running

It has been awhile since my last post, like two months or so. Since then I have completed 1 100 miler and DNF'ed at anohter at 75 miles. I was a little depressed after the DNF but it only lasted about a week. I have been working on a training plan for my next hundred miler the Cactus Rose 100 in Bandera. Also a friend of mine has talked me into doing the MS150 bike to the beach from San Antonio to Corpus Christi. Its a two day event, and I am thinking of taking the following monday off to ride back to San Antonio. Who knows.

I went for two seperate runs yesterday, one at 0530 for 6 miles with my friend Bill Conway up here in Southlake. Then at 1730 i went for 9.5 miles it was 102 degrees. Crap that is hot. I took two electrolytes before I left but forgot to bring anymore with me. It took me about 1 hour and 40 minutes to run the distance down the side of 170 to 114 in Southlake Texas. The grass was about 4 to 6 inches high which really sucked also. But, now the inside of my left knee is hurting, so maybe I will have to take some time off. Who knows?

This afternoon its off to the gym and I have to spend about 1 hour practicing my kung fu material because I am supposed to test for green belt this coming Tuesday. Hopefully all goes well.