Morning Turkey Trot

Before the turkey is the run. Or at least that's my mentality, I need an excuse to pig out. But its kinda a tradition, I used to do the Turkey trot in Manchester except with all the travel I feel the need to get more than 4 hours of sleep. . So here's todays run. It was nice, pleasant with some slight hils, nothing extravagant but a good time.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3341629

I'll be lazy today for y'all as well as give a shout to my route tracker.

Also this runs in Connecticut, so a slightly different locale than normal

Grok Sprints

Since I'm stuck on a treadmill here, due to the excellent(sic) location here at night, I've been getting creative in the runs, mainly to make it interesting. As I've said before, needlessly, running on a treadmill gets boring. This all brings me to tonights workout, sprints...barefoot. I figure even though its on a treadmill, I can still call them Grok Sprints in spirit.

The workout's pretty simple, I do a minute at 4 mph, then the next at 10mph; one at 4 then one at 10.5, ramping to the max speed. Following that, I just go until I'm tired and feel like I'm done. Pretty simple, but it turned into a solid 30 minute workout, 3.2 miles down and its great.

Treadmill review: Matrix T5x

As promised; upon day 2 on the treadmill here I'm writing a review. By day 2, I'm referring to the second day of many in a row because the suns going down to early here, so I've been on this treadmill before and know the ins and outs. I'm currently at the Staybridge Suites in Corpus Christi and they have the Matrix T5x treadmill.

The T5x is a newer treadmill, at least based upon my recent hotel experience, and the one here still has the feel of a newer piece of equipment. The link above shows the stats on it, basically standard for any treadmill nowadays, 0-15% grade and 0-12mph, nothing to exciting. The unit here has a very tight belt, and a stable deck so there's not a lot of rattle when I'm running on it flat or while running and adjusting the height. The user interface is a little confusing at first but you can navigate the options easily.

For my test I covered two workouts, the first was a longer run/jog to wake my body up that I usually do on Monday and then a speed workout the second day, both of which cover most of the functionality.

Pros

• The belt didn't slip at all during the long run, or the speed workout(1 min walk, 1 min 9.5mph+ and repeat 15 times). For me this is a huge plus because I run heavy when I get tired
• Speed adjustment can be keyed in on the keypad by your right hand
• Comfortable run, the deck went up and down easily without much noise.

Cons

• The E-Stop button is among the worst placed, it's dead center of the heart rate guard, so when you speed up sometimes you'll bump it. I did this once in the long run
• If you do not change the time BEFORE you start your workout, you're stuck at a sudden shut-down at 20 minutes, this may have a fix but I haven't found the command yet.

Grade: B - that estop is really annoying
Overall though it was a pleasant run, I'd still prefer to be outside but the hours I'm working now are not encouraging it so I'm going to be on this puppy for a while.

Daylight Savings

I woke up this morning for the start of my yearly attempt to run in the morning during winter because I can go in a little later and hopefully avoid the treadmill. I did a nice primal workout consisting of sprints and felt great, only 5 for 30 seconds and 5 more for a minute, so more middle distance speed work, but still speed work and felt great. So daylight savings started out well....

Unfortunately I forgot that the sun goes down earlier, the same yearly defeat that place me on the treadmill tonight. Usually I'd venture out but there have been some local law enforcement problems near the hotel I'm staying at so it looks like it's treadmill time. In honor of every runners hated/loved device I'm going to put a few posts on hotel chains and which running aids they have; because I'm picky. So that'll be the theme as well as how to get a good run without being bored; which thanks to baseball I was able to put a solid 5 miles in without a problem.

First run from my new Home

So this past week was the move from Palmyra, NY to Waldorf, Md. This drive down wasn't too bad other than the monsoon outside, but hey...at least it wasn't snow. The town of Waldorf itself is a nice bedroom community, most people here work north in DC or south at Lexington Park. That translates to a lot of 4-6 lane roads, with center medians and paved sidewalks along those same roads. From my random driving around, I'm pretty sure i can string together 20-30 miles of paved sidewalk throughout the town but that'll be later.

The first run here will probably be my standard, it's a nice 5.75 mile loop that's almost entirely on the paved sidewalk, and it's a relatively pleasant run. Of the four roads, only Smallwood dr is developed with the other three roads appearing to be brand new and wooded on both sides, in fact the Middletown Road portion has some small ponds and marshland below which seem to be bird sanctuaries so there's at least some scenery. My only issue is that the sidewalk disappears upon turning from Middletown Rd to Billingsly for about a mile until you turn back onto St Patricks. The route starts and ends at my complex, and is predominantly flat, so I'll need to find some hills. As always the route's posted below..

Normal Run in Waldorf (5.75 miles)

Posting to Post

So I've been gone a little while and unfortunately its because I haven't run any new routes in a bit. It's been a stretch of recovery runs, combined with lighter(3-5 milers) while I change my diet over to something a little healthier than "whatever is available". I'm moving towards the primal diet as championed in the blog, Mark's Daily Apple and it seems to be going well, but the shift off dense carbs while running hard hasn't been conducive to me staying awake during the workday so I've been fiddling with the details and trying to get everything balanced before kicking it to high gear again in a week or so.

On other news I'm moving to the Waldorf Maryland area so there will be new routes coming in from that area over the next week, and my next jobsite is in Green River Wyoming so I'm looking at running snowshoes. I figure it's cold, mountainous and snows all the time so running shoes might not cut it.

The Bourbon Chase

Hey there everyone, I know it has been a little while but I've been a little busier than normal so haven't had time to squeeze a post in, so here goes a race review. In the spirit of TheTravelingRunner, it's in a different state and all over the state.

The race was the Bourbon Chase a nice jaunt along the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky. Last year some of my friends from Team Shirlock mentioned there was a race across Kentucky that involved Bourbon. Being a consummate whiskey drinker this was the perfect race for me. The best part was the longest leg would be 8 miles, so I didn't need to worry too much about getting longer distances in, which has been very difficult the last few months being in Corpus Christi.

I'll be posting more in depth reviews and feedback this week for my legs, 2, 14 and 26 so if anyone else out there wants to review their own legs please shoot me an email.

First impressions, great race, very well run and well marked. There wasn't a time i was lost on the course or felt the organizers didn't have everything under control. The best indicator of this was the run through the Wild Turkey Distillery at 3-4 am and the distillery was open and serving Derby Pie. I will definitely be doing this race again, but more to come.