A Passion for Running

I didn’t run yesterday and I won’t run again today because this cold has really got me feeling like crap.

On a more positive, non-non-running note, I spent a whack of time this past week cleaning out my hard drive and organizing files and folders and has it ever made a difference. I did a really good job organizing things, and am already seeing an upswing in my productivity. For a while there, it seemed like I was spending more time finding stuff than doing stuff. Now, the pendulum has swung and the best part is as I’m creating new stuff, I’ve got a place to put it. My rockin’ OS X desktop has never been cleaner.

Speaking of OS X, I’ve got myself a copy of the newest release (10.4 “Tiger”) and am looking forward to installing it over my existing edition (10.3 “Panther”). I thought Panther was awesome but the feature set on Tiger is nothing less than astounding. Plus it’s got all these uber-cool widgets. There are thousands of them and they’re all free! I’m really looking forward to the upgrade although, with anything like this you hope all your existing software will still work. I’ve done quit a bit of reading and it looks like all with be a-ok but ya never know. Crossing fingers…

Have you been to the Running Blog Family Directory lately? We added an update page where you can see all the most recent posts of RBF members.

I posted about this a few days ago so this is repeating myself but I’m doing so because I’ve made some changes to make it easier to distinguish between member posts. Check it out and let me know how it’s working.

Oh, and if you want a graphic added to your listing, just send it to me at: mark at completerunning dot com. Need help making a graphic? Let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

This cold sucks and my calves are sore as hell. Undoubtedly due to the fact I had a very hard time holding form during yesterday’s run. Too bad they don’t allow naps at work…wait a minute, I just realized I work for the government!

zzzzzzzzzzzz…..

I had a rather crappy 45 minute run with Aaron tonight. The company was fine – I just felt like crap the whole way. It seems I’m fighting a cold.

To the title of tonight’s post: I played pull my finger with Christopher tonight. It was the first time we’d done that and I’m kind of surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. I must be slipping. Anyway, Christopher loved it so much I felt a bit inadequate when I could only respond to the finger pulling three times. He giggled and giggled and giggled and damn near pulled my finger off trying to get a fourth response out of daddy. I guess I’ll have to eat some beans or something tomorrow. Still, he went to bed smiling so it wasn’t a total loss.

The wife and daughter were not amused. It’s usually when I post something like this when I check my logs and notice I had a visitor from that Forbes thing. I’m sure those Forbes readers really appreciate coming here to see this kind of thing after reading A Passion for Running was a “best” kind of place to come to. It appears I’ve sunken to a new low on this blog.

That said, it’s GREAT to be a guy!

Have you been here? You should go! Ken is doing some neat stuff and filling a void in the running blogosphere. Good job ken.

Today’s poll comes to you from Jack who’s currently doing some reflection while he recovers from his marathon. By the way, Jack – CONGRATULATIONS!

As always, vote in the right-hand menu and feel free to comment here.

You ever have one of those days when you just don’t have enough creative juices to even try to make your post title interesting? Well, there ya have it.

I ran a very good 40 minutes barefoot today. My goal was to nail down a consistent pace after the requisite 10 minute warm up period (requisite for me anyway). Overall, I think I was pretty consistently between a 7:30 and 7:45 min/mile pace. Hard to tell though since going barefoot means Gretchen’s (amazon affiliate link) foot pod is pretty useless so I have to rely on more traditional means of pacing – that being measuring time against marked miles. I just know I’m about to hear from you Forerunner & Timex Bodylink people now!

I ran along till I got to a marked mile, timed the mile at 7:30 (trying not to speed up thereby skewing the results), and then ran the rest of the way as close to that pace as I could.

So, I’m thinking I probably averaged a 7:45 pace. I’m good with that.
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Have you noticed the new way I’m handling affiliate links? I saw this on someone’s blog and thought it was cool. It’s kinda like saying, “hey, I like this stuff. I endorse it enough to tell you up front without tricking you to go look at it”. This way seems somehow more…credible?

Some time ago, Jeff over at boingoblog talked about starting a tv station/news service that focused on strictly positive news, happenings and more.

Well, Jeff. It appears someone over at happynews.com had sorta the same thought and they even have an RSS feed.

I had a terrific barefoot run today. I ran 8k/5mi in 40 minutes. That’s a 5min per km/8min per mile pace – a pace that felt very comfortable. I should mention it was on pretty rough pavement and my blisters (the ones I got from running in shoes without socks) didn’t bug me at all. That makes sense since they’re not located where I land – they’re a bit more on the sides of my feet.

So, that rocks. And now I’m looking at race calendars again. I’d love to do one – at least one before the snow flies. After all, an 8min/mile or better pace is respectable. It’s not terribly fast by many people’s standards but running a race at that pace in my bare feet? I could live with that.
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Oh, the title! In the last couple kilometers of today’s run I did some strides. As I was doing so, I passed another runner who looked down at my feet and yelled, “duuuuuuuuude”!

Cool.

I took yesterday off after Monday’s 1 hour 44 minute run and those nasty blisters I got from running in my shoes without socks. I’m still shakin’ my head at myself for that dolt-ish move.

Ran 30 minutes with Aaron again tonight and the blisters didn’t bother me at all so I’m happy. From when I began barefoot running, I learned quickly how to deal with blisters: Pop ‘em with a sterile needle and drain them but do NOT tear any skin away and all is good.

Tonight’s run was good although my feet had a little soreness – mostly in the arches of my feet. I guess that is to be expected after my farthest run in a year and the fact that I ran the last 35 minutes of Monday’s 114 minutes barefoot.

I’m gonna do 40 -50 minutes barefoot tomorrow.

It’s all good!