I'm Finally Back - And I Set A New Record!

So where have I been? Too busy to post here, that's where!

This shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone who's read very many of my posts here, but mainly, I've been doing a lot of running. And I sure do mean a LOT of running. In fact, during a two week period in October during which I was on vacation from work and had the luxury of being able to take extra time every morning, I actually did a stretch of running 13 to 16 miles per day almost every day, for a total of about 200 miles logged over that period. This served as the base for a new personal lifetime record, which I'll describe a little later below.

My wife Lynn and I also experienced a couple of major family-altering events as we said goodbye to a 16 year old cat and then adopted a couple of new kittens. Our beloved Jerry, pictured below and whom we had picked up at the Michigan Humane society way back in 1996, succumbed to suspected lymphoma on October 18.

Lynn had been saying for years that after Jerry was gone she didn't want to get more cats for "a long time." So I had all but resigned myself to a lack of feline companionship until, as the old B.J. Thomas song goes, "making it to my rocking chair" (and given all of my running I expect that to be a long, long time coming).

However, it became apparent that Lynn defines "a long time" slightly differently than I do, because only about three weeks later - at her insistence - we were headed out to the Arizona Humane Society to become the proud adoptive parents of a new pair of energetic kittens - "Sterling" and "Shadow." Here are their pictures, and I'm sure you'll be able to guess which is which.

But don't think for one minute that the busy-ness of raising new kittens distracted me for one minute from my athletic goals. Oh no! And it all culminated in the run I finished only a few hours ago this morning.

You could say that my Christmas present to myself this year was the thrill of accomplishment - setting a new personal lifetime running record and shattering my prior lifetime best (21 miles in 3 hours 46 minutes, a record which had stood for over 29 years since I set it on November 21, 1983). And the most amazing thing is that I didn’t realize until after I had done the first six miles that I had actually forgotten to eat anything before I left. So this was not only my longest run ever but also my longest run on an empty stomach, even though I did drink plenty of water. Amazingly, I never got hungry nor ran out of energy. (I’ll never again be able to resist chortling when I listen to running-related podcasts in which "the experts” talk about the “importance” of snacking on things like Gatorade and power bars multiple times at regular intervals throughout a run, especially when almost all of those experts usually spend far less time than I do finishing these distances!)

Christmas morning is right up there with Thanksgiving morning as probably one of the best times of the whole year to go running - because there's almost nobody else in the whole wide world out of their homes. Most of them are still in bed, and if they aren't, they're either cooking turkeys or opening gifts.

Santa's sleigh probably lapped me a few times in its orbit far above me as I did the first three hours of my record-setting five hour run this morning in total darkness just after the full moon had set, but I was so absorbed in the Disney podcasts to which I was listening that I didn’t notice him. I did see a red blinking light or two, but I’m pretty sure it was coming from the towers at the airport and not Rudolph’s nose.

Setting out at 4:16 a.m. from my northeast Scottsdale neighborhood, I ran a few miles west to the main street, Scottsdale Road, normally a major thoroughfare but almost totally empty on this early Christmas morning. I didn’t see more than a handful of cars during my entire 3 or so mile stretch along that road as I headed to the big blue landmark tower at the Pavilion shopping center at the corner of Bell Road - Scottsdale’s other major thoroughfare.

No planes flew overhead as I passed by the Scottsdale Airport; nor did I see any more vehicle traffic whatsoever as I headed through the Tournament Players area in the continued darkness. Luckily, I also didn’t encounter a single javalina or coyote on this run either. I guess they were sleeping in for Christmas too.

Still feeling great and encouraged and most importantly still full of energy despite my lack of caloric intake, I added a spur-of-the-moment two mile detour off of Bell Road and headed up 94^th to Legacy (formerly Union Hills) Road before turning east again to Thompson Peak. Then it was back down to Bell, where I once again turned east and into the most challenging part of the whole run - a grueling several miles of steep hilly roads in the aptly-named McDowell Mountain Ranch subdivisions. Actually I did a total of about four major up-and-downs on various hills, culminating in  the steepest one of all - the Javelina Trail, a loop which covered miles 19 through 21. Even if I hadn't done another mile, just my route through this point alone have qualified as my personal most challenging cardiovascular workout of all time by far. Mercifully, the remainder of my route after Mile 21 was relatively flat, but I was definitely ready for a rest by the time I was back in my own neighborhood a few miles later. Being only blocks away from home, I decided to call it a run and start my cooldown walk the second my iPhone stopwatch reached exactly the 5 hour mark.

After a generous stretching session, I refueled on a glass of my favorite non-alcoholic wine (grape juice, known to be high in that magic “Reverse-it-all” cancer and age-fighting chemical). I promptly followed that up with my standard super-healthy blender shake elixir (orange juice, oat bran, spinach, banana, almonds, unsweetened baker’s chocolate and the all-important lycopene-rich giant whole tomato) and finally sat down to record and measure my route on the Runkeeper.com site, and found that it came to 25.18 miles. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know that at the time I finished or I definitely would have forced myself to run one more mile and make it a marathon. Alas, therefore, I haven’t earned the title of “marathon runner” just yet. However, I’m definitely encouraged. If anything, I’ve proven to my satisfaction that I will be perfectly capable of running a full marathon when (and I’m no longer saying “if”!!) I attempt it. But just for added insurance, I’m going to plan a FLAT route and avoid those McDowell Mountains when I do. I’ll save the McDowells for my regular half-marathons, which for the last year I have been doing on at least a weekly basis. 

Incidentally, Runkeeper also computed the following additional statistics for this morning’s run: pace 11:55 per mile, average speed 5.04 mph, 3,555 calories burned, total climb of 1077 feet, and sent me an automated email message which read as follows: 

“Congratulations!

This is a RunKeeper FitnessAlert to let you know that you achieved the following milestones with your most recent running activity:

Farthest distance

Longest duration

Most calories burned

Biggest elevation climb

Keep up the great work and let's see you beat these new personal records!”

I definitely do intend to beat those records. Yes, I'm going to rest first. But I promise not to wait another 29 years before I top this one. Or before I post again on this blog.

Stars Fell On Arizona Last Night

Or did they?

As you might have guessed, since my last post I've been busy...eating and running. The eating part's been pretty boring but I've been seeing all sorts of interesting things while running. In my last post it was javelinas; luckily I haven't had any more close encounters with any of them since I last wrote. 

However, as I was wrapping up my pre-dawn run early this morning, I happened to look up and see THIS sight, which I was able to capture with my iPhone:

I had an immediate flashback to 1986 when I was watching the television reports of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Was it another shuttle? I thought that program had ended. Was it a plane? If so, it was hanging suspended in mid-air, because the bright "tail" wasn't getting any longer, nor was the end of it moving. Was it an alien invasion? If so, at least fortunately it was far east of us. Was it headed to Washington to capture some errant politicians and whisk them away on a one-way trip to Endor? One could only hope!

What was particularly interesting was the rainbow effect in the plume at the top. The smaller white speck in the upper right-hand corner of the shot is the crescent moon. 

Of course when I got home I felt immediately compelled to Google "strange light in Arizona sky." I didn't even wait until after I had recorded my running route and mileage in my journal! 

It turns out that the light was actually not over Washington, nor was it a close encounter of an extraterrestrial kind. It was a missile test over New Mexico. 

So no stars fell on Arizona last night after all. But for a few brief moments a spectacular bit of extra pizazz was added to the sunrise, and it is no exaggeration to say that the Missile Test of 2012 put the 1986 Halley's Comet Fly-by to shame. 

Now I Think They're Out To Get Me!

Last week I posted about my encounter with a solitary dozing javelina that I happened to startle while on my weekly over-a-half-marathon run in the McDowell Mountain Ranch area a few miles north of my house here in Scottsdale.

Well, Big Ugly Piggy must really have been mad at me for interrupting his nap, because he went and rustled up his whole fan damily to invade the block I live on. And in the over 11 years I've lived here I had NEVER seen javelina on my street before.

I had just set off at 4:15 a.m. under a clear starry sky and was not two houses down from my own when I suddenly heard a rustle and then a virtual stampede as at least two or three javelina came out of the bushes and started running just ahead of me. Then as the rest continued to run, one turned sideways and stared back as if deliberately blocking my path and daring me to come any closer. So I stopped, suspecting there were cubs in the area. I was right. About three cubs emerged from the bushes and headed on up to join the pack. Reassured that the cubs were safe, Mama Piggy turned away finally they all ran to catch up with the rest of the herd. After giving them a bit more of a safe head start, I finally resumed my run, stomping my feet EXTRA HARD to make LOTS OF NOISE to ensure they all kept running away from me and finally across to the other side of our closest busy street. Finally I was able to rest assured they weren't really out to get me after all, and resumed my run. 

I wish I could have taken a picture of that herd running across 94th street. I even considered trying with my iPhone, but knew it was too dark and the picture would never have come out. The best I could do for the benefit of you readers out there in Malaysia who other than for my post last week have probably never seen a javelina, let alone a javelina family, was to rustle up this picture from the Internet:

Watching them all run across the street reminded me of this road sign I spotted while on vacation a few years ago.

In any case, I certainly was on a higher level of vigilance throughout the rest of this morning's run. I even hallucinated a few times and saw "javelina" that turned out to just be rocks or desert vegetation when I got closer. 

So I'm a bit peeved right now at these ugly piggies for somewhat diminishing the normal level of mental zone-out that I look forward to as a major benefit of my long-distance runs. I almost wish I weren't such a cardiovascular health nut. There's a great breakfast restaurant around here called Butterfields, and if I dared to, I'd head right over there right now and order up a great big slab of bacon out of pure spite. (And yes, animal purists, I know they're not technically part of the "pig" family, but I'm going to call them piggies anyway. They're WORSE than pigs).

Ahhhhh, the bacon fantasy continues as I slug down my heart-friendly spinach, oat bran, and orange juice blender smoothie.....no, make that pork sausage McMuffins...

Mountains and Darkness and Javelinas - OH MY!

If I'm not posting here, I'm running. And I haven't posted here in quite a while, which means I've been doing quite a lot of running. In fact I've been running more-than-half-marathons almost every single Saturday for several months now - and almost as much every Sunday. 

But the 11-miler I finished a couple of hours ago this morning had a twist. My favorite area for these long morning expeditions is a neighborhood called McDowell Mountain Ranch - in the McDowell Mountains, a couple miles north of my house. I especially love this area because it is not only a great cardiovascular workout with strenuous hills to run in, but it also provides over 500 feet of elevation and a spectacular view of the Scottsdale city lights when done in the dark - which it usually is as I do most of my running early in the morning.

Well this morning there I was rounding the top of the curve in the road at the highest point on my route when I noticed a big black lump just ahead of me on the sidewalk. Just as I was starting to conclude that this was a garbage bag that had fallen or been thrown from some vehicle, the "lump" heard my footsteps approaching, jumped to its feet, and scurried off into the brush. It was a javelina!

Now, there is a trail in this area which is called the Javelina Trail - but I wasn't on it. And I'd never seen a javelina just decide to take a nap in the middle of a sidewalk before. But I'm glad my footsteps apparently woke it up and scared it off before I got any closer. 

Wonder if it's time to start tying some bells to my running shoes?

Two Posts In One Day!!!

Even though I already posted today, I found this photo that someone had put on Facebook today and just couldn't wait to share it.

Now how could anyone argue with that?

Wouldn't it be great if our politicians used this "thinking cap?" As anyone who's ever been to a Disney park or resort would know, when you think about it, this country would be a far better place if led by Mickey Mouse rather than the clowns currently in place (I would have said "Bozos" if it weren't for the fear of being sued for libel by Larry Harmon).

If the U.S. were run like Disney, politicians would actually serve citizens just as Disney serves its guests - graciously and with respect. True, we'd probably pay higher taxes (ticket prices) but it would be worth it because, like Disney guests, we would get what we paid for. We would actually have a budget surplus, because just like a Disney park our borders would be well-gated and no one who hadn't paid for a ticket would ever be allowed to enter. RINOs who won election under false pretenses and then disregarded the needs of their citizens or otherwise gave anything less than impeccable service would be fired on the spot and escorted from the premises - and the same would be true for rowdy shoplifting citizens who refused to pay their own way for the services they received. 

Walt Disney himself had something of a vision of this in his original intention for what later unfortunately became merely a theme park (EPCOT), and the Disney company did later achieve something perhaps closer to Walt's actual dream with the establishment of the city of Celebration, Florida. But the ideal would be to take this concept and make it national. And there would be nothing Goofy about that idea.

Arizona REALLY Needs Daylight Savings Time

First things first - I just finished another 13.1 mile half-marathon run a couple of hours ago.  I've been doing this almost every Saturday now for several months. The only problem is that I have to keep getting up earlier and earlier and earlier every week in order to be able to be finished before the sun gets too high.

See, I have this thing about greasy lotions and potions. There are numerous reasons the good Lord in His wisdom made me male, and my abhorrence of chemical cosmetic products is definitely somewhere on that list. I HATE SUNSCREEN. When I'm ready to run, the last thing I want to do is spend 15 minutes putting it on, and when I get back I DEFINITELY don't want to spend twice that amount of time loofah-scrubbing the blasted stuff back off. But I'm also a health nut (as you may already have guessed), so I just avoid the need for sunscreen entirely by trying to do all or at least most of my running before the sun comes up. 

Unfortunately, when you're running for almost three hours, that means having to leave VERY early in the morning. Today I was out the door at 3:35 - and yes, that is A.M. Geez. Arizona is one of the few states without daylight savings time, but I say we really need it. Maybe it should even be two hours. Who needs daylight at 5 a.m. anyway? 

On another topic, last time I was here I promised to post before I went to any more buffets. And even though it's been about a month, I have indeed kept that promise - I haven't been to any buffets since my last post. I'm going out to Pei Wei's tonight - but that's not a buffet so it doesn't count.

The nice thing about Pei Wei's is that the menu has decimal points in its prices. That's very important, because if there's one reliable rule in life, it's that if a restaurant's menu prices don't have decimal points, you're going to pay way too much money for way too little food. No exceptions. If you don't understand, let me explain: it's a much better deal to get a third-pound of ground round for "$6.95" than a single regulation-sized scallop with a dab of Hollandaise sauce just thick enough to hold the mandatory decorative but useless sprig of parsley for "28". That's the even worse thing about these places - not only is your wallet raped, but you have a good chance of still being hungry when you leave. Unless, of course, you also spring for the imported French beurre-cream layer cake that's on special for "9". And that is what the restaurant is hoping you will actually be drunk enough to do after they've managed to sell you the recommended wine-bottle pairing for "75" - yet another reason I'm thankful to be a near-tee totaling milkaholic who always waits until after he gets home to have that milk rather than order it for "6" at the Maison De Pointless. I need to save that money so that I can afford my running shoes!

My wife and I actually did once eat at one of those frou-frou French restaurants and left so hungry after our meager portions of a purported "seafood" dish that actually consisted primarily of clam shells in chicken broth that we had to stop off at the McDonald's right around the corner for a real meal immediately after leaving. Luckily, we still had just enough money left over to pay for the Big Macs.

Anyway - on to Pei Wei's tonight. And probably on to several additional runs of half-marathon length or better. Whenever that next buffet meal comes, I'll have earned it. 

This Blog Is Not Dead!

...and neither am I!!! I have neither run myself into the ground nor eaten myself into oblivion since my last appearance here back in...gosh...October!!

I've been very much alive and busy - and only went to a handful of buffets in between my now almost weekly half-marathon runs. I promise!

However, since it IS no longer October, and since Blogger has upgraded and how offers more enhanced blog design capabilities, I have managed to find a few minutes to replace my former Great Pumpkin Orange Halloween-ish background with something different!!!! Welcome to the new, Disneyfied blog.

And that's all I'm going to say for now - but I'll try to be back here again before my next buffet. Really! I mean it!

Another Half Marathon!

Yes - that's right - I did it again this morning! I repeated my route from yesterday and completed another 13.1 miles. That's a full marathon, split into two parts over two days, and it's the first time I've ever done two consecutive runs of that distance.

I guess it was a little more challenging the second time around than the first, because it took me four minutes longer to complete it - 2 hours and 40 minutes today vs. 2 hours and 36 minutes yesterday. And I'm down another pound - which makes sense, since according to my Runkeeper app I've been burning about 1790+ calories per run at that distance, or almost 3600 over two days...and 3500 is what it takes to lose a pound.

Despite all the pounding, my legs and feet feel great, albeit well worked out, but I'm not going to push it any further at this time. I'm giving my running muscles a break tomorrow and am just going to take a bike ride before work. But I'm planning to resume running at the more sane level of three miles a day starting Tuesday and continuing over the next few days and am still well on my way towards earning those Margaritaville Volcano Nachos next weekend! :)

On second thought, I might just attempt another half-marathon next Saturday morning just to make sure...