I'm Kenny Powers, and You're Fucking Out

So, what's really funny, is that I haven't posted in like a month.  I'll be honest Lena's blog has intimidated me, plain and simple.  But honestly, sorry about all of that.  I think I've got my pitch back, though, so I'll get back on the figurative blogging horse.

So, where was I?  Oh yeah, I was talking about a workout I did 3 weeks ago.  Guess what, I haven't done one since.  Whoops, I have however had weekly mileage totals of 55 (in 6 days) and then 10 (in two days, I was pretty sick, and working, and I drank too much with Stevie B, Craig, Jeff T and Becky) and this week I am on pace to get in just under 70 in 8ish runs.  Yup, almost 70.  In fact I started reading this Lydiard training schedule that Mr. Crossin sent me, and guess what?  It looks pretty good.  I mapped out my runs for the next 2 months (much like I did at Ben's house, except this time I might actually follow it) and I should be running pretty decent mileage with a track workout every two weeks and a couple tempos and some hills, and three longer runs a week.  Damn.  What happened to me?  

Random side note, while writing this blog Kevin and I stopped at a Giant just outside of Arlington on our way back to Pa.  I bought a gallon of High C.  I immediately drank half of it.  My head now hurts.  Something about blood sugar.  I feel vaguely like Hamel looked during  the Vermonster challenge.  

So anyways, anyone going to be around the city this weekend and want to get in an easy 14 miler?  I know Clark is down for an hour or so, but if anyone else wants in, then let me know.  Don't call me right now, as I locked my phone in a cubby in the back of my trailer, but call me tomorrow, or leave me a message.  Anyways, for now I'm off to help Kevin drive, and by that I mean drink some more High C.  I'll update more about the specifics of my week of running this weekend, as kind of a weekly recap.  

Workout? Why not?!

So, after reaching the 60 mile mark last week, I decided to hit the track and try out my new pair of Lunar Racers (They were new, because I haven't raced or run hard in over a year). Anyways, 8.0 was doing 14 x $.25 on the track and didn't want to be the only loser out their alone at 7:00am Tuesday morning, so I said sure.  I wasn't going to do quarters, of course, but I made up a workout I had been wanting to do a variation of for a few weeks, if I thought I could do it.  I did a 2 mile warm up, then hit the track for 3 x 2k with $.25 jog.  My goal was to run 5:30 pace and see what happened.  It actually went very well, I split 5:29 for my first one, and went on to run 6:50.  My next one was a bit slower, 5:30 split and 6:53.  I closed well with a 5:23 split to finish up in 6:45 for my last one.  Then I jogged a mile with 8.0 and called it a morning.

Now, I know that might not sound like a brilliant workout to some (any) of you, but to me, it was as good as anything I used to be able to do on the track.  It was good to get that burning in the lungs back.  Not to mention my stomach was upset with me all day, which sucked, but was also rewarding in its own sense of accomplishment.  

That evening, after work, and before judging a talent show (more on that in a bit) I got in another 22 minutes, to give me 10 miles on the day, and 17 for the (2 day old) week.  Sick, slowly (literally) but surely (hopefully) I'm getting back in shape.

So, for those of you who don't know where I am or what I'm doing at the moment, I am currently working with the XC Truck in Asheville NC at a Nike XC camp.  Last night I got to be a judge for a battle of the sex's contest, which included a game of props, a synchronized dance routine, and a pick up line contest, which included a couple I might have to save for a rainy day (You must be from Best Buy, because you turned my software into hardware!).  Also, I was not judging this contest as myself, but rather as track and field coaching legend, Roy Benson, who was kind enough to let me borrow his hat, and his Pretty Good Joke Book, with classics like 

"Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon?"

"The food is pretty good, but it has no atmosphere."

That just happened.

Moral of the story, my senior year theater experience back in High School paid off, and I've still got it.  Anyways, I took this AM off from running to grab a few extra Zzz's, so I'm off to get in a solid 10 or so in a few.  I think I'm going to keep making Tuesday my track workout day, so long as it works out with my schedule, so if anyone has any recommendations for some workouts I might like, let me know!

The big 6 0

So, I know I said I wasn't going to pull this whole 20 day off in between posts thing anymore, but, well, I lied.  I'm currently residing at UNC Asheville, in lovely Asheville North Carolina.  I would say I'm back on the road for work, but that would imply I was ever off of it.  Anyways, I've been running a bit this week, and with my 89 minute long run this morning, I officially broke 60 miles for the first time in a while.  Like, a long while.  I've been lucky enough to do most of my running this week with Jason "8.0" Knight, Brian "Gov" McGovern and Kevin "No nickname yet" Starkes. Needless to say, we have been running a decent amount, by my standards, and I've been starting to feel it.  This week has been crazy, lots of work, lots of running, and lots of failing to sleep on dorm beds.  Freshman year?  Oh wait, I said lots of work, never mind.

Anyways, my new old job is pretty sweet.  I'm doing Gait analysis and Nike iD for High School runners.  Right now I'm going all over the east coast to different camps. In about 2 months i'll be visiting high schools and going to meets promoting NXN and just generally doing my thing. Sick.

Running has been going great.  The camps have been sweet, so far, and are really helping me get my run on.  I've lost 30ish pounds since February, so clearly I'm doing something right.  Most runs I keep the tempo around 6:45 pace, and I do about an hour a day, though some days, with the kids schedules, it differs.  Next week I even think I'm going to get on the track and do some 1k repeats at tempo pace.  Mostly because I'm not sure if I can do a tempo at tempo pace.  My best/worst run from this last week came when Gov took us on these trails at the North Carolina Arboretum.  We ran for about 67 minutes, and we were looping around when Gov goes "I think if we take this left it will take us back to the top of that last hill and we can coast down the last few miles.  It should be uphill right at the beginning, but then it will level off."  10 minutes of 10% incline later, I was totally redlining while watching the other guys pull away.  You know the scene in Titanic where Leo's body just sinks into the ocean?  It was like that, except more painful and tragic.  Moral of the story, I'm getting back in shape, but I have a long ways to go.  

On a related note, having a watch with an altimeter is sweet, unless you look at it in the middle of a run and realize you have climbed over 1000ft and that you are now high enough to where you should start noticing the effects of that height.  We were climbing one hill in particular and once I looked at my watch and saw how high we were, I actually started to feel worse, but not until I looked at it.  So now my brain is working against me too.  Great, first my body, now my mind.  Anyways, I'll try to keep updating my blog a little bit more often, maybe once or twice a week, but I make no promises.  

A Dangerous Addiction

Friends, I have something to confess with you.  Something I need help with.  I am addicted to facebook quiz's.  There, I said it.  The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, and trust me, I have a lot of problems, and this is most definitely one of them.  Another one is that I'm too good looking, but thats another story (Hey Oh!).  No, but really, instead of blogging for the last like 2 hours I discovered what song of 2009 I was (Solja Boi, Kiss me through the phone), what periodic table element I am (Gold, of course), what Hogwarts Teacher I am (Madame Pomfrey, or however the hell you spell it).  I agree with the last two but apparently Facebook doesn't have a 100% accuracy rate.  

I have also discovered that I should live in NJ (false), visit mid century New York (sure), and drink Guinness (though it didn't mention in excess, I guess that is left up to my interpretation). Moral of the story, I need to get back in shape.  Why, might you ask?  Because, if I don't get back into shape, I am just sad fat dude who sits around taking facebook quiz's.  If I'm in shape, then whatever, at least I'm in shape, right?

I was going to talk a bit about some of my thoughts on the death of Michael Jackson, but I realized I didn't have anything nice to say.  So, onto my running for the last few weeks.  I haven't been doing much, I'll be honest.  I have run for the last half a week pretty consistently, but I was right in my last post when I said I would be supper busy and most likely miss a step in my training.  Anyways, I had a ton of work, got a new job, got to hang out with Becky for the first time in too long and drove to St. Louis from Antioch, Il (which is as boring as you would guess).  Anyways, I'm back in the game again, and feeling alright most days.  Also, I was in a hotel with a scale the other day, and it seems Big Mo's days might be numbered, I've lost almost 30 pounds in the last 6 months, so thats good.  The bad thing is, that I was so big to begin with, I still have a ways to go.  So don't worry Ben, you can still make fun of me for a while.  

Side note about Ben Stern, I heard you were going to jump in the Philly marathon and kick my ass?  Several things wrong with this chain of events:

1st)  Didn't I tell you to do that?  I thought I was the one encouraging you to do that exact thing.

2nd)  Don't think you're being sneaky, I saw you wearing you Nadal headband last time I was in town, I knew it was game time for something or another.

3rd)  I would hope you could beat me, my nickname is Big Mo.

4th)  If you don't beat me, that would actually be more embarrassing for you, then  it will be for me if you do beat me.  So I have nothing to lose.

Even with those points, here are my reasons, also in list form, for why you wont beat me.

1st)  I might not run the race.

2nd)  If I do run the race, I might enter under a false name, then you can never prove you beat me, and with no proof, it didn't happen.

3rd)  Before the race, I will either poison you, change your alarm so you miss the start, lock you in and or to a closet/room/car trunk/subway car/homeless person's box/telephone booth/Rocky/your brother/one of the girls you train with/Tushar's blog/Jacob/undersea cave/Hogwarts/my back/a copy of Sohachi Yamaoka's Tokugawa Ieyasu/an anvil/Ron Jeremy or something along those lines.  

4th) You will forget and not enter the race.

I feel I've proved my point.

Lets be realistic here

So, normally I say something like "My goal for the week is to run every day and get in 60 miles," or something along those lines.  This week?  Not so much.  I'm driving to chicago, my birthday is tomorrow, I have work for anywhere from 12 to 15 hours a day from Thursday through Sunday, and then Becky is flying into Chicago Sunday evening.  So I wont lie to myself and think I'm going to get in 60 miles this week.  I will, however, lie to myself and say I will get in 50 miles a week (again) and that I wont go too crazy on my birthday (Which I will be celebrating in Toledo Ohio, if anyone is around), I'll sleep well this week, and not eat too much crap.  Ha.

Anyways, as bad a week of training as this week is turning out to be, my last few days were pretty awesome.  Chris (who shares my disdain for leprechauns) and I went for a baller 9 mile run, which I mentioned before.  Yesterday I went for a 13 miler with Tushar.  It was pretty controlled and we felt great most of the way.  The last two miles I was pretty tired, but that was mostly because I hadn't really slept for the last 2 days.  Apparently my internal clock hates me when I have to get up at 5:00am for work on a Sunday.  It was a great refreshing run, and allowed for me to fall asleep sitting up on Tushar's couch.  Thus meaning I fell asleep at Tushar's as many times this weekend, as I did Heps weekend... 

Moving on.

As for my run today Chris and I are currently in Somerset Pa.  Which is apparently the never ending hill capital of western Pa.  We went straight up the first hill we saw, thinking it led to some trails, or something, because all we could see up the hill were trees, and more distant hills.  It did not lead to any trails, but it did lead to some neighborhoods and, more hills.  So yeah, I have no idea how far I ran, Chris was with me for 25 minutes, then I added on until I was at 40, then turned around and got back in 1:04.  I came straight back and didn't go into any of the neighborhoods.  So yeah, it was about 9, maybe, but it was hard as hell every step.  

Tomorrow we're of to Toledo, then to Chicago on Wednesday.  We're there for the next 10 to 12 days or so, then we head down to St. Luis for a week or so, then off to the Motherland, Portland.  

Disappointing, kind of

I don't get it.  I am so close to being on pace to run as much as I want each week, but somehow, I manage to always will myself to come up short.  For example, this week, through 3 days I had run 25 miles.  I ran a hard 8.5-9 with Ben, and was pretty pleased with how it went.  I ran just under 70 minutes for 10 the next day then followed it up with an easy 6 the next day (I had work and had to run at 9:15 at night, and didn't feel like running past 10:00).  Anyways, no big deal, clearly on my way to getting an easy 60 miles this week, which was my goal.  However, things started to fall apart.  The next day, which was a Thursday, of course, I only ran 3 miles.  We drove to Philly and had a busy day and I went for a run at 8:00 on a treadmill, b/c it was shitty and very dark out, and I had no idea where I was.  I felt awful, apparently whenever I run on a treadmill now my body decides it wants to die.  Ok, no worries, I still have 28 miles through 4 days, 3 days to go and I only need 32 miles, 10, 10 and 12 and I'm fine, 60 miles.  

Shit, on Friday I  decide to go to a baseball game instead of run.  We have work in the morning, and we work fairly early, so running before hand is no an option, then we have to check into our hotel in downtown Philly.  We get into town, but can't check into our hotel for a while, and can't go running b/c I can't just leave the truck and Chris and run randomly.  No worries, we'll run when we get into our hotel.  We get checked in at about 5.  I'm getting ready to go when Chris says "Yo, lets go to the Phillies game."  I've never been to a MLB game before, so I decide, screw it, lets go to the ball game.  We get there, expecting to get tickets, no problem (They were laying the Baltimore) and find out the game is sold out.  After a few minutes of ticket searching, we find a scalper with 3 tickets to sell, sweet, except they are 2 and 1.  Since Chris is with his girlfriend they take the 2, and I get to sit and watch the game by myself.  Sweet.  That is until I read my ticket and see it is for a game from last week.

Whoops.  Luckily for me, I find the guy who sold it to me and get an actual ticket, which turns out to be dope as hell.

My seats were section 108, so right next to the 1st base line foul poll, and I was so close I could spit on Jayson Werth, if I had wanted to.  Anyways, going to a sporting event in Philly is awesome, because they are terrible fans.  The O's were playing well, and instead of getting behind the Phillies, the fans just start yelling and booing and leaving early.  It was so awesome to see.  I couldn't believe how terrible the fans treated their players.  Thank God I suck too much at anything to get paid millions of dollars to play in front of such ungrateful fans.

Anyways, where I'm going with this, is that I didn't run.  Shit.  Anyways, I had work again this morning, bright and early.  We were out at the Wissahickon trail and it started pouring.  Like everything got soaked and our computers barely made it out alive.  Chris and I were covered in mud, so we packed up, and went for a run.  Chris claims we were hammering on the way out, but we negtive split our run by 2.20 to run 57:40.  Easily over 8 miles, it was just way too nice a place to run, and it was pretty cool (mid 60's) and raining.  Best part, my nipples didn't bleed (F$%& you Ben).  I think that means I'm turning a corner.  

So, thats it for now.  Tomorrow, I'm getting in a long run with the one, the only, the Magush.  So read his blog, then wait a week and read my more entertaining version of the same story.  Sweet.

Week in review, HA!

So.  My last 3 weeks of running have gone pretty decently.  Both 3 and 2 weeks ago, I got in about 50 miles each week, at a decent clip, and I felt awesome.  The beginning of this week did not go so smoothly.  I started off going for a terrible hour long run where I felt like someone had decided to replace my legs with wacky inflatable arm flailing men.  I said to myself "Myself, you're just tired, no worries."  I hate it when I lie to myself.

(Side note, Family Guy just made a joke "Kobe brand condoms, for the protection you want.  For the sex she doesn't).

So yeah, I had a shitty week of training.  Oh well, that will happen.  Also, I was embarrassed by the fact that Tushar was updating his blog more often then me, but then I read it.

No, but really, well done Tush.  Also well done to the following people: Ari, Jokin, Meagan, and the random girl who beat me a 5k this weekend.

Also, if you haven't seen the hangover, do so.  Then agree to take me to vegas.  I'll bring the Jager.

Ok, I know this post kind of sucked, I'm tired and out of it, but I felt the need to write something once a week, so that I at least feel slightly less useless.  Anyways, if anyone is around DC for Tuesday, or Wednesday or Thursday and wants to run, let me know.  My goal is to get in about 60 miles this week.  Sick.