Gordo Running

I wrote last month about my new set of goals and how I'm re-focusing my running and general workout strategy.  I'm not sure if strategy is the right way to put it, but let's go with that, shall we?  My brother Andy, put me on a 6 week progression workout that involved high weight, complex lifts (squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press) interspersed with core workouts, rowing, air assault bike sprints, and my normal easy group runs.  Mila did most of the workouts with me. she almost looks bored with that amount of weight At the beginning of January, I set my baselines: Bench (7 reps) 125 pounds Overhead Press (7 reps) 90 pounds Squat (1 rep) 285 pounds Deadlift (1 rep) 275 pounds I also had to take a practice Air Force PT test.  Here's how it turned out: 43 push ups (1 minute) 54 crunches (1 minute) 10:50 1.5 mile run We had fun doing the workouts and I was able to do 90-95% of the schedule.  There were a couple days when illness, time, o...

For these rankings, I decided to set the parameters at 5 miles to 15k.  I was going to go to 20k but only a handful of people have run a 20k in the area since 2016.  These rankings were much harder to come up with than the 5k rankings.  There are a multitude of events held here in San Angelo between trail and road races that are between those distances and not everyone does all of them.  Like the 5k rankings, I know there are people that're deserving to be on here but I do not have a time for them.  (I'm looking at you Shannon Corona)  I did my best to rank only people that are in the area and tried to keep recency in mind.  What suprised me was some of the differences between trail and road.  Particularly me.  I am way faster on the road than on the track.  I don't just mean time, I mean in comparison to other runners.  That made it harder to rank myself, actually. What do you think of these rankings?  Who should be ranked hig...

As I posted last week , I'm getting that itch to get out there and train again.  That also means jumping in races whenever I can to keep motivated and, you know, for fun.  This weekend's race wasn't on the calendar that I posted last week, but someone had posted it in the SARL Facebook group and xq no?  What I wasn't expecting was a track meet. I knew the race was starting at San Angelo stadium, but I thought that the course would likely be running through the ASU campus.  Sounds nice, right?  I showed up and was a bit confused at all the little kids running around in track singlets.  When I say "little kids," I mean there was a U-6 division.  Have you ever seen 5 year olds doing the long jump?  Just about the cutest thing you'll ever see. anyway Still confused, I checked in and was told there was no charge for me to get into the track meet.  I guess that's good, right.  Once inside, I registered and asked where we'd be starting....

Yep, I heard it again.  Yesterday my wife came home from work and had a message from a co-worker that had heard she's married to a runner.  "I ran track in high school and hurt my leg.  Tell your husband he should stop running."  Mila dutifully came home and told me, smiling the whole time because she knew how much I would follow that advice. It's far from the first time I have heard something along those lines.  "Doesn't that destroy your knees?"  "How long until your legs go out?"  "When you get older, you'll be lucky to walk." are some others. Can't forget "I got plantar fasciitis, you will too, so you should just quit."  I mean, she wasn't wrong.  I DID get plantar.  But, I just figured out ways to treat it. Maybe I'm not the right guy to dive into this.  Prior to focusing on running, I trained various martial arts for 15 years. The risk of injury or pain was the norm.  It is all about what kind of risk...

You know, I have seen a lot of posts and heard a lot of comments about how awful 2017 was.  Is it simply hyperbole or recency?  Am I bad for not totally agreeing?  Sure there were bad moments, but I'm not about to post some meme that "2017 broke me."  Anyway, in running it was a year that came in like a lion and went out like a lamb.  I ran the Houston Marathon on the second weekend of January but only ran five miles over the last two weeks of the year.  I set some PRs, travelled around Texas to run, and made some memories.  As we start 2018, I wanted to take some time to look back at my 2017 "year in running/blogging." January 90 miles races: Hot Chocolate 5k Houston Marathon (4:03:44 PR) most viewed blog: Shannon Trail Series Race #2   160 views running pic of the month: Mike cheering on runners at the Shannon Trail Series Race #2 Running Highlight: finishing Houston not only with a PR but the support of my TNT Runners homie...