Why April?

I’ve learned from my history … I am not repeating my previous horrible Aprils.

• April 2008: Faced with foot problems, I ran just a little more than 30 miles total with 6.2 coming in one race.
• April 2009: I was happy to take a “rest month.” I logged a little more than 30 miles. Two weeks later I was at the doctor finally figuring out what was wrong with my feet.

But honestly, I have headed into those two Aprils ready to take a break after doing the Shamrock Half. This year is different — I want to keep pushing and build on the momentum of that race. I’ve never, ever, ever capitalized on my training before. I train for ONE race and I’m done. Well enough of that.

That’s why this month I am committed to running every day in the month no matter what. Yes, my health comes first, but it’s going to take something crazy to pull me off the road.

But there’s been something nagging at me for a while with wanting to do more than streak. I love racing and better yet I love a good challenge. So thanks to various factors, I am going to be running the Blue Ridge Half Marathon on the Parkway in Roanoke on April 24. It promises to be one of the most challenging races I have ever done with a total elevation gain of nearly 1,400 feet and a total elevation gain/loss of nearly 2,800 feet. Check out the course map and elevation change here. Basically it’s all uphill for more than 5 miles before coming back down.

For more information on this race, visit www.blueridgemarathon.com. Details are also on Facebook; you can also get updates on Twitter by following @BRM26pt2. If this sounds familiar to you, I did write about this on my blog back in July, but there’s been so much change in my life since then that I had ruled out doing the full marathon a long time ago and had pretty much ruled out doing the half considering it was so close to Shamrock. But things change …

So, April, take that.

The streak is alive

I’m not sure when I ran four days in a row last, but the April streak has started off well, despite the challenge of traveling over Easter weekend and keeping very busy. My mileage hasn’t been what I had hoped, but that’s not the point right now. I wanted to start off slow and not burn myself out.

Day 1 was supposed to happen around 6 a.m. Thursday, but I slept to my normal time and ended up running 2.2 miles that evening. Since I traveled on Friday, I got up the next morning and ran 3.5 miles — perhaps the first time I’ve ever ran twice within 12 hours. At least I don’t recall if I’ve ever done that. Also on Friday, I spent much of the afternoon at the North Carolina Zoo, which is enough exercise for two days in itself. I capped off the day by playing cornhole for about 2 hours.

Saturday morning I got up and ran 2.1 miles in my brother-in-law’s hilly neighborhood. I wanted to do more, but I was flat-out tired from the day before. Then last night I had a decent run of 3.8 miles. Four for four.

Just a reminder that this week I am participating in Relay for Life. Click here for the details. The more you donate, the more I’ll run.

You donate. I run. People get help.

At the end of next week, I plan to run through two straight days. No, really. I plan to start running before midnight Friday evening and run past midnight on Saturday morning. All for the American Cancer Society.

For the past two years I have raised money to help out the VCU Massey Cancer Center as part of the Monument Avenue 10k — in 2008 my friends, family and many people I didn’t know donated $1,000 for the cause. Last year my fundraising efforts weren’t as impressive, but I honestly didn’t make as big of a push as I should have. This year, since I opted not to do that race, I have felt like something was missing. But this week I got an email from my alma mater — Lynchburg College — that changed it all.

The LC Central Virginia Alumni Club has a team for next week’s Relay for Life, which will be held on the Dell at the college. My initial reaction was that I wanted to help in some way. After 10 minutes of thinking, I knew what I had to do — take my personal goal of running every day in the month of April to another level. Start running on April 9 and finish on April 10. Then I took it to another level — for every set amount of money donated, I will run a mile.

So, here is what I am doing. For every $50 I receive I will run 1 mile between April 9-10, up to 10 miles or $500; for every $100 after that I will run another mile, up to 5 additional miles or $500. That’s 15 miles that I will run to fight cancer if I receive $1,000 in donations by April 9. Please don’t think the $1,000 is a cap though — if the donations go beyond that, just keep giving.

To donate, visit my page here. If you’re in the Lynchburg area and would like to join the team, or just join me for a run that night, please leave a comment below with your email address (which is not displayed when put in the proper box) and I’ll be in touch.

3.31.10

At the end of December and early January, I felt like everyone around me was focused on New Year’s resolutions more than usual. Or maybe I was just paying attention to how people wanted to change and deep down inside I wanted to as well. I just wasn’t as vocal about it.

And who could blame me? When it comes to running, I honestly was ready to let loose. I wanted to do so many things to have a great rest of the winter, but after two years of on and off injuries and some downright laziness, I had some self doubt that I just didn’t express for everyone to see. Quite honestly, the first few months of this year were a make or break point for me. I either succeeded or failed. There would be no gray areas — I did not want to settle for mediocre.

That dedication to changing myself with running has helped me overall as a person. I feel better about everything. And if just a few more things can fall into place personally in the next few months, I feel like this year will be the best year ever in so many ways.

With my running, it all started with a run in the rain and then a few days later running in the mountains. If I could do that with very little training, I felt like I could do anything. So in the first quarter of the year, I haven’t told myself “no” with anything. I’ve become a “yes” man for the most part and not let excuses get the best of me.

I’m ending the first quarter with 257.8 miles — far and away the most I’ve ever done in the first quarter of the year. It makes my 1,000 miles goal seem much more realistic than just putting it out there at the beginning of the year. Since I haven’t come close to 1,000 since 2007, making that statement on Jan. 1 didn’t make any sense; that’s why I waited so long. I’m over my fear of injuries and it’s time to focus on this big-picture goal.

As I look ahead to the next three months of the year, my goals are simple: run every day in the month of April; run at least one 5k (I’m signed up for one on April 17); and stay above the 1,000-mile pace. Everything else is bonus.

Focusing on April

As March and the first quarter of the year come to a close, I keep thinking about “what’s next.” But I’m not sure why. Back in February I mentioned a goal that I had in April: running at least one mile every day in the month. While another “big” race would be nice, I can’t afford to pop out $75 or more to run another half marathon right now. My fitness is there to do it and my mind is too, but it’s important that I shift my focus to this bigger personal goal of mine.

Ideally I’d like to have as few 1-mile days as possible — maybe a couple a week to serve as “rest” days. Otherwise, I want it to be running as normal. Just more often. To keep with my goal of running 1,000 miles for the year, I’d like to get at or above the monthly pace of 83.3 miles to stay ahead of things.

On paper it looks and sounds easy; pulling it off, though, is the challenge I have yet to face. Along the way I do plan to run a 5k, so my desire to race will still be met. But this will be like a month-long race and the opponent is me and proving to myself that this can be done.

Ending some streaks

With this being race week and also not feeling well early in the week, things are a bit different. Here’s how, so far:

* On Monday I didn’t run. It’s the first Monday all year that I haven’t ran.

* I had a short run yesterday. That was the first Tuesday all year that I have run. Tuesday has been a non-running day because I am generally coming off two or three good days in a row of running from the weekend and Monday.

* Today I ran 4.5 miles. It’s the first non-double digit run on Wednesday since Jan. 20.

One streak that will stay in tact this week will be my streak of 20-plus miles in a week — 9 weeks. And, lastly, I haven’t mentioned it since I put it out there a month ago, but I am still planning to run every day in the month of April. Click here for the original blog post; I’ll detail those plans later.

Streakers

I wanted to bring attention to a couple of bloggers in the Lynchburg, Va., area who are doing some amazing running — they’re running every day for a year.

• Project Three Six Five
  Heather, who local residents may know from Riverside Runners, has a simple goal — run at least 1 mile every day for 365 straight days this calendar year.
• Runningitis
  Margaret, who local residents may know from a local TV station, also has a simple goal of running at least 1 mile for an entire year. Her streak started in November and she plans to cap it off with a marathon.

Check out those blogs, add them to your blogroll or Google Reader or however you keep up with posts. It’s pretty inspirational … which has me thinking, can I put together a streak? At this point in time in my life, I don’t want to run every day for 365 straight days. Only until recently have I actually regularly run three days in a row. But I also know that a lone mile can be a good rest day.

So this being said, I’m making plans now to run at least a mile every day for April. Since I’m in the middle of training for the Shamrock Half, I don’t want to set this goal for March. I want to do it in a month that I usually struggle. Every year for the past three years I do Shamrock and then get lazy. I know I have the Richmond Marathon in November, so focusing on something completely different in April will help me continue to build my base and give me something to look forward to this spring.

If all goes well in April, who knows what kind of streaking I might do …

OK, winter, that’s enough

I love running in the snow … but prolonged cold temperatures? I’m over it. It’s certainly been one of the most bizarre winters I’ve experienced in Virginia. While snow isn’t uncommon, the fact that it’s been around for so long is. While most of the December snow melted before the second big one a few weeks ago, I’ve seen some kind of snow on the ground — from covering the ground to completely to ugly parking lot snow — since Dec. 18. That’s just too long.

There’s been some pretty good melting in the past few days — I actually saw some grass yesterday — there’s the potential for up to 3 inches of snow tomorrow. All this snow just keeps things cold — the long-range forecast keeps temperatures in the mid- to upper 30s, with a hint of 40 degrees a week from now. So when I run in the evenings, that means it’ll still be in the low 30s, which pretty much means long sleeves and long pants. I haven’t wore shorts much at all.

I know it’s winter and I shouldn’t complain, but it hasn’t bothered me much until this week. Today I was just tired of it. I think I’m just tired in general, but the cold air is not motivating.

On the good news side of things, this week marked my fourth straight week with 20 or more running miles, a very nice streak indeed. This week also marked my third 10 miler three weeks in a row — I’m pretty sure that’s something I haven’t done in nearly three years when I trained for my first (and only so far) marathon. For my half marathons, I have generally tried to get it only two double-digit runs before the race, but my strategy this time around is obviously different.

So far this month I’ve run 45-plus miles, and like January, these have mostly been high quality miles. I’ve gotten in a few runs that are  just for the sake of getting in a couple of miles, but to me those are just as important. To have a mix of great runs, so-so runs and flat-out bad runs is what keeps things interesting for me.