Two Wheel Blogs

Mike, a friend of mine from work, took up running recently. In May, I ran with him as he did his first 5K race. Since then, he's come over to Edwardsville to run the Route 66 10K, which I did not run, and the Mud Mountain 5K cross country classic, which I did. The week after that, we ran the Cross Country Kick-Off 5K in Forest.

Mike has his sights set on running a half marathon and, eventually, a full marathon. I recommended that he run the St. Louis half marathon on November 7. I decided that I would start training for the half marathon. I have no idea if I'll be physically able to complete the program. It's entirely possible that, at some point, my body may tell me, "Too much. Too far." And if it does, I will listen to it and stop. But if I am able to follow the program, gradually increasing the distance I am able to run, then I'll make the decision whether to run the half marathon or not. I have given myself until October to decide: that's when the registration fee goes up.

I ran my first half marathon in 2004. When I did, while I followed a training program, I didn't follow it exactly. I did all the prescribed long runs, but I did not run workouts (400 repeats) to build speed. Instead, all my running was long distance at an even pace. This time, I am trying to follow the program exactly. Today's workout called for me to run five 400s, so that's what I did. I've never been a track runner. All of my running has been on roads or trails. So I'm still getting used to running the oval -- especially the curves. But it was a good night, a good one for running a workout on the track, and I felt pretty good throughout. But after my fifth quarter, I was ready to stopped. I jogged an 800 to cool down, then headed for home.

Diane and I planned to meet at 8:00 for dinner. This meant I had about an hour to kill. Since the place we were going to meet wasn't far from SIUE, I decided to suit up and do some climbs on Whitesides. Instead of taking my usual route out to the SIUE campus, I took a different route instead. I was looking for any hill I could climb. Tonight was all about climbing.

I climbed the Union Avenue hill, then rode up the 157 hill toward SIUE. I got on the bike trail and climbed the service road hill, then headed to Bluff Road and Whitesides. I did five climbs on Whitesides. For the first three, I stood in the pedals to climb. For the last two, I tried to remain seated as long as possible, before finally giving in an pumping my way up to the summit. I then has a leisurely ride to the place where agreed to met. I racked my bike, changed into the clothes I'd left in the car, and I was ready for dinner.

My legs are tired, but they don't hurt. And my rib muscles feel a little better. Still not 100%, but getting better. Fortunately, the training schedule calls for an easy 3-miler tomorrow. Good. I can use the rest.