Weekend wrap up...

Check in tomorrow night for a DOUBLE update on the weekend and today's workout along with tomorrow's work out as well. Hope everyone had a great weekend and have a good start to your week - Only 5 days till FRIDAY!! :)

This is Freaking Cool!

OK, I know dolphins tend to be rare visitors around St. John, but this video was on the front page of youtube and was really awesome. How cool would it be to be out snorkeling and have one of these guys swim up next to you? I know my dad had an opportunity to swim with wild dolphins in the open ocean when he was younger - hopefully I'll have a chance to do that some day! Anyway, take a minute to watch this:



No training report today :(. Didn't make it to the gym at lunch and decided to come straight home after work as it was snowing like crazy. Tomorrow Ashley and I will go to River West Fitness for a good long workout session. I'll probably try to spend 45 minutes to an hour on the treadmill and run/walk at least 5-7 miles along w/ doing some other stuff.

Apparently my headache transferred over to Ashley's entire body as she wasn't feeling good tonight and headed to bed early. I jumped online and posted links to the blog on a few Virgin Islands message boards appealing to folks to give me some encouraging words for the upcoming big race. If you're visiting the blog for the first time, welcome!! Check back every day or so for new updates.

Also, here's a mystery - got a very interesting comment a few posts back. Quite inspirational in fact. Posted anonymously though - who could this ghostwriter be?? I think I have a few ideas, but am not completely sure. Will they make another appearance with more words of wisdom and perspective before the big race? We can only wait to find out. Here's a copy of their original comment:

Two dozen and five days from now, you will exit this continent and be brought forth to a new nation, located in the sub-tropics, believing in the proposition that anyone, so long as they possess enough resolve, can accomplish something miraculous. Soon you will be engaged in an eight tough miles race, testing that notion, and whether you, or anyone, can finish such a race, having chronically procrastinated and inadequately trained. You will come to a great beach, and then climb a vast mountain, which may or may not become the final resting place of your dream. And it is altogether fitting and proper for you to remember this:

The world will little note, nor remember, whether or not you finish the race, or even that you were ever there in the first place. But you must not forget what you do there. It is, therefore, for you, and you alone, to be dedicated to the great task before you, to complete your unfinished work and thereby consecrate the jungle with the smashed remains of your fears and self doubt. And like the will of the brave people who have run and struggled there before you, with that kind of mettle, your dream will not die in vain, but shall survive, and with it, at the finish line, a new birth of self confidence.

OK - off to bed for the night!

Thursday on Friday

Sorry no post yesterday. I did go for a run but when I got home from work got hit by a HUGE headache. You ever get one of those headaches right behind one of your eyes at like one particular spot in your head? This is exactly what I had become afflicted w/ by the time I got home. I laid down and waited for Ashley to get home from her hair appointment, then pretty much whimpered like a little puppy for about an hour complaining about my headache before I headed straight to bed. Thanks for taking care of me Ash - I love you.

Anyway, to report on my workout. It was short because I couldn't go after work so had to go on my lunch break (I'm not a morning person, remember - although for the race I will have to be!). I ran two good hard miles on the treadmill. Then I walked for five minutes or so and ran another half a mile before I had to hit the shower and get back to the office.

Some of you are probably thinking - he's not going to make it! Well I hope to prove you wrong. I will say this - with the race less than 30 days from now I won't be sprinting the whole thing and will probably be really struggling up the hills. My original goal was to finish and run the entire thing. I'd still like to do this - and will definitely try as hard as I can, but as long as I finish I'll be happy. I'll probably write more on this after I have a chance to reflect a bit in the final days leading up to the race, but I know I'm not going to be in "top peak physical shape" when we board the plane next month. I definitely could have trained harder early on, and made some mistakes along the way. But the good thing - I'm running and working out almost daily. I'm feeling better w/ more energy. I've lost (some) weight. And most importantly I'm no doubt healthier and in better shape than I was last year at this time and than I was when I decided I wanted to do the race. So those are all good things.

Not even a month left now... I've still got time to get in even better shape! Stay tuned.

So this guy has me beat!!

OK, so I thought a little pond hockey was soooo original when it comes to doing some cross-training for 8 Tuff Miles. Boy was I wrong!! Just check out this picture. Race Director Peter sent this to me. It is his friend Bill Rielly of Brownfield, Maine. Here he is doing some "hill training" on some beaver huts! Bill has apparently finished the race 6 or 7 times, is 60 years old, and is in the "under an hour club." Wow!! He even finished 21st overall last year. Anyway, just wanted to share this cool picture - way to go Bill!

Doing an early post tonight and still haven't gotten my workout in. Looks like it will be doing some 8 minute abs and seeing if Ashley is up for that and some other exercise in the house. Would go skating or running but it's still snowing out there and there is a good 5 inches or so right now! OK - yes I could probably run in that, but no I don't feel like it when I can do some stuff in the nice cozy house to keep the workouts going.

Just got back from Ashley's brother's house and had fun playing w/ the soon to be nephews (1 and 3). They are a lot of fun and were in good moods tonight so we had a great time playing and then looking up train crashes online for the 3 year old to look at. He LOVES trains - his big thing now is train crashes apparently. Perhaps he'll grow up to be like my brother Ben, who is a true "foamer." If you don't know what a "foamer" is ask Ben or check out his website here: Ben's Train Travel Web Page.

All right, gonna have something small for dinner and then get some exercise in. Hope to get a nice long run in tomorrow after work at the gym so I'll report on that tomorrow night. Need a beach break? Go here and check out Little Maho - this was actually the first beach on St. John I ever set foot on. I was completely alone and it was about 11:00 p.m. - stars were completely filling the entire sky and it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life at the time. I'm becoming a big fan of these "On-StJohn.com guys!"

Quick Update tonight...

Need to get to bed soon so gonna keep it quick tonight. Made it to the Y today during lunch and ran a few miles, working up a good sweat. Not as good as last night but I was happy I got a run in.

I have some fun stuff to post tomorrow and promise a better recap of what's been going on lately. In the meantime, check out this gorgeous picture of St. John taken from the air (or at least part of St. John, it's hard to tell) that adorns the cover of the inaugural "St. John Magazine." Gives you a good idea of those hills...

Another fun thing to do that will get you excited for the big race. Check out some awesome photos from last year taken by Steve Simonsen (I have his St. John Calendar up at work w/ Cinnamon Bay calling my name) at last years 8 Tuff Miles. I hadn't actually looked at these yet - found them on the guestbook at www.8tuffmiles.com. It's a bit scary to me though - these people are all in very good shape and STILL are looking beat at the end of the race!! Anyway, have fun and I'll update more tomorrow.

Here's the link to the photos.

I'd bet good money I'm the only one cross-training for 8 Tuff Miles like this!!

Ahhhh... pond (or in this case river) hockey. There is simply no better sport in the entire world. Even when you're alone! So w/ the cold temperatures the ice is finally thick and some of the rinks at local parks have been flooded. Not only that, but the Fox River is finally safe to skate on and I decided it couldn't hurt to get a little extra workout in today using the old hockey muscles. I had the day off work today and headed over to the laundromat in Batavia to get all my laundry done at once late in the afternoon. While stuff was in the dryer I made the short trip over to the "Depot Pond" on the Batavia Riverwalk, a man-made eddy that is perfect for skating. I laced up the skates (thanks for these awesome new ones Ashley!), threw on my hockey gloves and took off across the river. Was pretty darn cold and I had forgot my stocking cap, so didn't last too long - but it was FUN! A little bit of snow on the ice so it wasn't ideal but still kicked the puck around a bit and took some shots against the brick retaining wall that surrounds this portion of the "pond." That was fun till I fired my puck into the nearby playground - oops! Well, as my old teammates can attest to, I'm much more of a player than a practicer, so after a few more loops around the ice and some hard sprints (see I did get some good exercise!!) back and forth across the river my ears were freezing and I decided to call it a day after 15 or 20 minutes. Even so, I was beat! Just take a look at the picture to the left, skating is a GREAT workout. Bet no one on the islands has thought of this training technique!

Headed back to the laundromat and finished things up, meeting Ashley after she got off work to head over the the nearby fitness center to try it out. Looks like everyone at Batavia Enterprises (Ashley's work) and family will be getting free memberships as they are working this out in a business deal (they own the building the fitness center is in). Anyway, tonight we paid the $6 guest pass to check things out. Ashley had been here to work out before a lot but I hadn't ever been inside. This place is awesome!! It's in an old building w/ lots of character. Hardwood floors, exposed brick walls and the like. It doesn't have a gym or a pool and is really small but has everything else you could want. Ashley got on the eliptical machine and I jumped on the treadmill thinking I'd be beat after skating. Exactly the opposite! I had probably my best run since well before Christmas. I'm not sure if it was that I was warmed up, that I was with Ashley, or that I could watch my very own TV w/ sound (EVERY treadmill has a TV w/ DVD player and a headphone hookup, it's awesome and I watched a cool show on the History Channel about Bigfoot). One thing that really may have helped was a slowed down a bit to a 6.5 on the treadmill which is about a 9:10 minute mile. Slow, yes - but I think this will really help my endurance. Anyway, I was running and two miles were over just like that and I felt great! I ended up doing a 5K, walked for a little bit, then ran another half mile at a high speed. I probably could have run even further but didn't want to push it and be dead tomorrow (I'm sore now! But a good sore). Anyway, this is where we went and will be going all the time starting soon hopefully:

River West Family Fitness



As you can see from the graph, stayed completely consistent so that was really good. Headed out after the workout and split a Chinese dinner which was a good idea cuz it turned out to be HUGE! We have about half of it left over for lunch tomorrow and although I probably ate one crab rangoon to many it didn't completely ruin what I'd accomplished on the treadmill.

All right, it's getting late and I need to get to bed. OHH, but I wanted to say Peter's been posting lots of great updates so check out the latest at:

www.8tuffmiles.com

Seemed like there as something else I was gonna talk about, but it's slipping my mind and the mattress is calling. Later!

I feel like a crochety old man today :(

Well it will be a bit of a short update tonight as we have company in from out of town (Michelle, our maid of honor), and this is her room I'm writing from! You may have noticed no run update yesterday. That's because I never got a run in. Was too busy at work to take lunch off, then had our engagement photos (very fun with the craziest Polish Photographer I've ever met. Well I guess I haven't met any other crazy Polish photographers, but he was great). Then headed to get some dinner and had a long talk and by the time we got home it was already 10 pm and 0 degrees out so going for a quick run around the block was out.

Not wanting to lose training time, I hit the gym today after work for a run that just didn't feel good. I tried different speeds, walking intervals, but I just couldn't get into it (no graph tonight, ipod's still out in the freezing car!). Spent about half an hour on the treadmill and did burn some calories and exercise the muscles but hoping to have a much better workout tomorrow night after I work representing the Museum at a local chocolate festival. I have such a long way to go to where I'll be ready for the race. And truth be told I know I won't TRULY by ready in the way I should had I been more disciplined w/ my training over a longer period of time. I was feeling kinda crappy about this tonight on the way home. But hey, there is still a month to go, I've been eating better and have more energy it seems, and even if I end up finishing at a turtle pace, I'm still going to finish and I'll still be with my two best friends in St. John. Couldn't ask for much more than that! And don't hesitate to comment if you are reading this! It helps me stay motivated.

I'll report tomorrow on what I hope will be a much better feeling workout. Should be fun as I think Ashley and Michelle are going to join me at the Y following my work event. I had a deep thought today while listening to some Jimmy Buffett on the treadmill (I don't really think you're supposed to have deep thoughts when listening to Jimmy B.) Maybe I'll report on that and write more tomorrow. I'm out for now.