Day: January 1, 2012

AVR – Week In Review – 1/1/12

by Harold L. Shaw, posted in Week In Review

Christmas and New Year‘s Eve are all over and done with – I am not a Grinch or party-pooper, but at the same time I am glad the Holidays are over and done with. It is time to get back into a regular routine and not worry about shopping and overeating and drinking too much (not that I don’t usually do more than 1 alcoholic drink every other day), so I was a good boy that way.

Running This Week

I kept over 20 miles for the week, which is one of my goals for next year and I even ran two 5.0 milers and felt pretty good about them. I finished reading “Chi Running” this week and have been trying to incorporate many of the ideas and practices from ChiRunning into my running form. This does seem to be helping a bit.

This week in a word: Great
Weight
I got down to 170 yesterday and hopefully will break the 170 barrier sometime this week. The best part is that I continued to loose weight even though it was the week between Christmas and New Years.
Injuries
The right knee is doing better, but it does take a little bit to loosen up before I forget about it and just run. The lower back is still a little sore, but much better than it was a couple of weeks ago.
Shoes
It is pretty evident that the Saucony Peregrines are my go-to shoes and I am very impressed by how well they are working in all different running conditions for me.

Blog Posts
Below are the posts from last week:

  1. Didn’t Want to Run But Did – 12/25/11
  2. Running Gifts – What did you get?
  3. Initial Impression of Trying “Chi Running” – 12/26…
  4. The Hardest Thing About Running
  5. Running Carefully & Focusing – 112/27/11
  6. Thank You for your Support
  7. Muddy Run Down Back in Shorts – 12-28-11
  8. Looking Back at My 2011 Goals
  9. Wanted to Run, Rest Day Instead – 12-29-11
  10. Book Review – Chi Running
  11. 2011 and Beyond – My Running in the Future
  12. I am now Officially a Janathon Participant
  13. Five Miler Done-Just a Little Slippery – 12/30/11
  14. Running in 2011 – The Year of the Knee
  15. My IRC Run in Freezing Rain – 12/31/11
  16. AVR – December 2011 in Review
  17. Time to Re-Set My Personal Records
  18. First Run of 2012 and Day 1 of Janathon Challenge

This was week was a lot about reflecting about last year and figuring out what I wanted to do for 2012. I actually think that this is an important thing for us all to do. I received a couple of books for Christmas and another running blogger offered up and I received a couple more books this week, so I have a lot of reading to do. I finished Chi Running and I have a feeling that I will be re-reading sections of that book quite a bit during 2012. With the books that I received and the old running books in my library, I won’t run out of running reading material right off.  These are in addition to all the blogs that I read too.

Top Ten

Thank You again for reading posts from “A Veteran Runnah”.

Keep smiling and good things will happen! 🙂

Originally written by Harold Shaw published at “A Veteran Runnah” © 2011 – All Rights Reserved. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Harold Shaw and A Veteran Runnah” with appropriate and specific directions or links to the original content.

Originally published by Harold L. Shaw at A Veteran Runnah – http://vetrunnah.com

First Run of 2012 and Day 1 of Janathon Challenge

by Harold L. Shaw, posted in Running

The first run of 2012 and it was a pretty damn great run!!!  I broke 26:00 for my 3.2 mile course (by one second) and set a new PR for it. There are going to be a lot of Personal Records this year since I decided to re-set all of PRs and retire all of the old ones. I figured since I retired last year those PRs should too.

See my Time to Re-Set My Personal Records post.

Today was another first – I ran in shorts on January 1st for the first time “evah”. It was damn near 50 degrees up hear in Central Maine – absolutely unbelievable weather and I wanted to get out enjoy it before it leaves. By Wednesday I saw that one forecast had the temps diving to 6 degrees below zero. I sure as hell will not be running in shorts that day!!!!

I focused on my foot plant and arm swing again today, the arm swing is becoming much more automatic and the running tall/foot plant is getting better too. I will start working on increasing my cadence in a couple of weeks right now it is around 165/170.

No I felt good, the knee was a little balky when I started but after about a half mile it loosened up and felt fine, it doesn’t hurt now about 2 hours after finishing the run, so just have to get it lose before pushing at all. I really ran very comfortably and only pushed the last 200 yards to see if I had any kick left in the old body – unfortunately its gone for now – I will find it again this summer I hope.

I know that I am a lot farther ahead than I was last year at this time and a damn site happier. No papers to correct, no lesson plans to submit and I am running again!!!!

2012 is going to be a great year!

Quality of Run: Excellent
Weight: 171
Time of Run: 12:15 P.M.
Temp: 48F
Weather: Bright sunshine, winds 10 mph fm the south
Clothes:  SHORTS, Brooks tech long sleeve, cotton t-shirt over, poly socks, Peregrines (would not have minded gloves)

This is also the first day in my Janathon Challenge

Time to Re-Set My Personal Records

by Harold L. Shaw, posted in Running

This year I turn double-nickel and over the past couple of weeks, knowing this has caused me to think a lot about the Glory Days – you know those days when we used to run fast, but bear no resemblance to our current running abilities.

The Personal Records (PRs) that I set during those glory days will never be broken – age and injury have taken their toll on my body. Running that fast again simply ain’t happening. As much as I would like to believe that I could regain that competitive level again, the reality is I am older and slower and those PRs are very safe.

So what is a guy to do for a little extra motivation that going for a PR can be.

How about re-setting all PRs and starting 2012 with a clean slate – starting my running career from scratch.

Can I, can we do that?  I don’t know why not.

They are my records and it is my running career we are talking about, so by damn it is my choice.

But aren’t there records of all those races we have run somewhere on the Internet? Someone has to have the times we have run somewhere and will come out at some inconvenient time and burst our bubbles by saying “Nananana, that wasn’t your real PR, your real PR was…

Now if you are/were nationally or regionally ranked that might be true, but for most of us, especially us old farts, who ran a lot and mostly local races back in the dark ages, before race results were put in computers we are fairly safe.  Besides I can always caveat it with “It’s a new PR since I reset everything for 2012 and beyond.

Therefore, when I race a distance this year for the first time, it will be a new PR and hopefully I will have a few opportunities to challenge that new PR I set initially over the course of the year.

The distances I plan to race or run for time this year are:

  • 1.0 mile
  • 2.0 mile
  • 5K
  • 5.0 mile
  • 10K
  • 15K
  • 10 mile
  • 13.1

You notice that I didn’t put any goal times up, I want this to be a clean slate as far as expectations (except that I stated that I want to try for a sub 20:00 minute 5K – whether that is very realistic we will find out).  I do not plan to run any further than a half marathon this year – if I even go that far. I am saving longer distances for 2013, but only if I can stay uninjured for 2012.

So as of today all of my PRs that I set during the first 40 years of my running career are in the history books of my life and I don’t have any Personal Records for now. I have a clean slate and a new set of goals to run for

How about you – when did you set your PRs? Were they many years ago or within the past 5 years? If they are more than 10 years old do you really think that you will ever lower them again? Is there any harm in re-setting your PR?