So, uh, it’s been a while
I’ve been super busy at work, which leads to less time at home, which leads to much less motivation to keep this blog updated. Less free time coupled with the fact that my readership is at best paltry, and that leads me to put this last on my list of things to do, so often it just doesn’t happen.
I’ve been doing all my running in the evenings after work, and so far so good. No missed runs and I’ve managed to finish them all before it gets dark and I haven’t pushed dinner time back, so I’m not really missing much time with my son. I’ve taken him with me on a couple of the shorter runs, and man oh man does pushing a 28lb toddler in a jogging stroller make running up a hill more challenging. I’ve re-adjusted to not getting my heart rate up first thing in the morning, so I’m not feeling sluggish for the first half of the day, and all-in-all, I think it’s probably a more sustainable training time. So far in the month of October, I’ve run about 30 miles which isn’t a lot for you avid runners out there, but I think it’s a good start for someone getting back in the game.
Yesterday’s 4.5 mile run was awesome. I ran the same less than stellar pace of about 7:35 per mile, but I felt great the entire time, even going up the monster hill that usually kills my pace. My average and max heart rate stayed lower than usual and the third mile which has 2 substantial hills along that course was run in 7:40, which was a real boost. It’s funny how some days everything just clicks and other days it’s a struggle to finish.
In news you don’t care about, I’ve stopped logging my runs on mapmyrun.com and started using The Daily Mile. I’m digging The Daily Mile, though I do wish they had mapping capabilities. I still use mapmyrun.com to plan out routes because I think they’ve done an awesome job in that arena, but everything else about their site and interface just wasn’t working for me. Now, if I could just get a clean data feed from The Daily Mile I’d be all set :)
To keep track of the actual routes I’ve run, I’ve been using rubiTrack. It’s fairly basic software, that unfortunately has some cost associated with it, but it syncs flawlessly and seems like a good alternative for logging my runs over time. I tried a couple of the free alternatives, and while most worked, there were things that annoyed me, like having to use Garmin Connect to offload the data then import it, etc. With rubiTrack, I plug in the Garmin, hit sync, and well, it imports my data right then and there which is nice.
OK, that is all. I really need to get working, I just needed some time to warm up the noggin before hopping back into the code. If you’re reading this, thanks for indulging me :)