My day started at 7:00 am picking up several dozen donuts for a veteran’s day breakfast. My Legion Post serves free breakfast to all veterans and their families every year for Veteran’s Day.  It is a simple breakfast, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, and sausage and gravy, oh yeah and donuts.  I know not the healthiest food, but if we were to offer cottage cheese and oatmeal I have a feeling no one will show up.  I’m the post commander and as commander it was my duty to greet each person that came in and to wish them well when they left.  One thing was consistent with each person I met whether they are 80 yrs old and served during WWII or young men and women returning from the current conflicts, they were sincerely thankful for this small gesture.  

This coming Wednesday is Veteran’s Day,  I won’t ask you to hug a vet, or wear patriotic colors or defend the current conflicts, but I will ask you to show appreciation to someone that is part of your life; you will be amazed how good YOU will feel.    

  
If anyone reads this, please give me suggestions on what helps you stay driven and focused.

 As Jason, Patrick and I walked to the starting line it began to rain, we each expressed our displeasure at having to run almost 12 miles and negotiating obstacles while a cold rain fell on us. Jason realized he left his race number in the car so he told us he would meet us at the start and turned back to retrieve it. Only a few minutes passed when the weather changed for the worse, the rain turned to sleet, this took a little of the excitement out of me, but I was still pretty physic for the race. After about 5 minutes the race gods smiled and brought the sun out.

They lined us by age group, so Jason was in the 25 – 29 male age group and Patrick and I was back in the 40-44 male age group. They sent us out in waves, which I think is a bad idea, I’m a fast starter and so is Patrick so we soon found ourselves zigzagging through the runners trying to find open space. After about the 3 mile I felt comfortable enough to stop this and keep a steady pace without much moving side to side. At this point I lost Patrick as he kept zigzagging for better position. Occasionally I would find myself right beside him again; his vying for better position actually caused him to run farther without bettering his position.

The first obstacle was the tires, you had to negotiate these as you see football players run through them in practice; placing a foot in the center of each tire. There was 3 sets of about 20 tires, they separated the sets with a large truck tire that was about 3.5 feet tall. I was able to go through this without issue and felt pretty confident as I reached mile 6 and the monkey bars. Before I started the bars I checked my watch, I was just past 45 minutes that made me feel good, I was still strong and running below an 8 minute pace. As I approached the monkey bars I pushed my brain back 38 years and approached these with the mind of a 6 year old; have fun and see how fast I can do it. No problem and I don’t think my pace was changed at all as I dropped of the last bar and his the ground running.

From mile 6 to 8 seemed long, we ran along Lake Michigan and the wind coming off the lake bit into my flesh. I gathered my inner strength and arrived at the beach and attacked the marine hurdles. I had worked my upper body all summer and here was where it was going to pay off. The hurdles was 4 feet off the ground and being 5’ 4” tall that mean it would be chest, arms and back that is going to get me through this obstacle. The only thing that slowed me down was the young lady ahead of me struggled with the last hurdle, growing impatient I jumped and as I propelled myself over I felt something strike the side of my head, it was her foot. As I shook the stars out of my head and stumbled forward, thinking it might have been better to wait for her to clear the hurdle before I attempted it. I smiled as I moved forward, checking my watch I noticed I was slowing down. I soon got passed by a lady about my age, she was moving at the pace I had trained for so I attached an invisible leash to her and stayed within 5 feet of her all they way to Soldier Field.

Soldier Field was the killer; you enter the stadium at mile 10 and have a 1 mile stair run! My timing couldn’t have been better though, to keep the race flowing they were directing the runners to different sections of the stadium to prevent bottle necks. I hit the upper deck just as they had worked down the section right in front of me. I was the first to hit it and that put me in the front of the pack for the section. I dug deep into my reserves focused on moving at a steady, smooth pace. I didn’t try to go up too fast, but made up the time on the downward direction. My heart leapt for joy when they directed me off the stairs and towards the exit, I was still on pace.

The calves took a huge beating during this phase of the race. When I got back on flat ground my calves tightened and began to cramp. Runners were dropping out left and right to massage the calves or try to stretch away the tightness. I vowed not to stop, I ran straight legged, that kept my calves from contracting too much and the cramps quickly subsided. I could now hear the announcer at the finish, I increase my gait as the excitement of the last two obstacle approached. I entered the park and quickly jumped on to the hood of the taxi obstacle and only paused briefly before doing the “Wall.” I decided to not use the rope but jumped upward grasped the top of the wall and propelled myself up and over in the same manner as the marine hurdles, 20 feet later and I’m across the finish line! Eleven and three quarter miles suddenly crashed down on me. My legs cramped, my lungs burned and I became very thirsty.

But inside I was warm and felt strong and proud. One hour and thirty-seven minutes, three minutes faster then my goal. Patrick soon found me, and we had some water, bananas and waited for Jason.

The hardest race? Yes. The best and most enjoyable? Oh YES!!

I am looking forward to the race, even though now I’m starting to worry about how I will do. I have found a flaw in my character, training method, or personality, not sure what this falls under. About 2 to 3 weeks before a race I lose all motivation to train.  Which is odd because I keep working out, just not at the intensity that I feel I should. Also I seem to lose some focus on my goal, l begin to have a feeling of "just wanting to get this over with."  I’m starting to think that this is a defeatism character flaw that exists within me; drop off on my training so I won’t be disappointed if I don’t do as well as I feel I should and then internally blame it on the lack of training.

This week it will take all my will power to not try to push myself andrun 10 miles or do a heavy lift but instead I need to focus on keeping limber and the muscles loose and rested.  The plan for the week is light weights for all workouts and maybe an easy interval early in the week.  Of course this is Sunday, come Thursday I might be thinking I need to squeeze one more hard work out in, that will not be good and I will have to find a distraction to prevent any stressful workouts.  I need every muscle in my body to be rested and ready for action come Saturday morning.

Hopefully when I get home from Chicago I can write up exactly how it went and post my time with pride….

I found using a solid steel ball for exercises that I normally would do with a medicine ball is really great in strengthing my grip. The risk of dropping it and having it land on any part of my body is not something that I wish to experience. So far my favorite exercise with it is to squat and pass it around my legs in the same manner that basketball players do to practice ball control. 

Doesn’t sound like much of a workout but I’m feeling it. 

Have to see what the winter brings.

This afternoon I did 35 flights of stairs and super set an upper-body workout. Then tonight I played 90 minutes of tennis. The tennis seemed rough, I didn’t seem to have the control of my hits or the hussle to get the balls hit to the corners. 

These things on there  own isn’t a bad thing. I look and feel much better then I did when I was only running.  But I have a 1/2 marathon on the 26th and the Urbanathalon on Oct 18th.  

I’ve really cut back on carbs, I wondering if I should do a carb load for a few weeks and see if my stamina comes back.

Also I’ve caught myself surfing the Misc and getting drawn into some immature converstations instead of reading up on helpful topics in the forums built for bodybuilding and fitness.   Not that the misc is that bad, it serves a purpose and some of the topics are interesting, but over-all it is more those looking for attention or looking to tear innocent people down. 

Right now I need to keep focused, read the positive posts and my eye on the finish line.