Senior Olympian Sprinter

Our house is in an area that is abundant with wildlife and a couple weeks ago I stumbled onto some baby bunnies ready to leave the nest.   We never saw a mother, but about 6 little rabbits are currently residing in various locations around our house in flower beds, under the gazebos, shed or wherever they chose.  They are fun to watch, realtively tame and just plain cute.  They are growing very quickly and will soon be scattered around the neighborhood.  I wonder if they want to race??  In a few weeks the racing does start for me, the Tennessee State Championship will be held.    I have started some speed work outside--finally.  I have held off as long as possible to prevent the injury that has plaqued me in recent years.   Yesterday I got the stop watch out  and ran some grass sprints on a very nice soccer field that is one of may favorites.  It is mowed very short and is quite smooth.  I ra...

My recent luck with personal electronics has been lousy.  A month or so ago I washed my iphone 5 and it had to be replaced.  That was relatively simple, the cloud remembered my stuff and I was back in business in a coupe of days.    About 2 weeks ago I was working at a makeshift desk in a tissue mill and rolled my chair back, the chair was tangled in my power cord for my work computer and it feel to the floor and landed flat on the bottom.   It was immediately rendered useless.    I do all my blogging and other communicating on this device and I was out of business.   I called the geeks and send the computer in to the geeks that take care of them at Buckman.   I got the follow up call and the hard drive was junk and everything was gone.  Lovely.    I have a replacement now, but it is new and every web site treats you as a new computer and I lost all my favorites--which is a big deal ...

Last weekend I decided to not run on Saturday and do some weight work on my legs.  Usually this just makes my legs a little sore and stiff for a couple of days and life goes on.   But, this time was different.   I finished my routine and felt fine.  My left foot--the good one-- had a little ouchy spot in the front middle and I did not think much about it,   The next day, I was removing a door to be painted and it was a lot heavier than I anticipated and the trouble started.    The foot really started to swell and get quite painful.  Like turf toe in the middle of your foot instead of the big toe joint.   I started to ice it that evening and the thoughts race thru your mind about injuries and missing the Nationals again.   Deja vu.    The foot actually felt broken, had the red puffy swelling, the whole deal.  I have had a broken foot in the past and I knew the drill. ...

Time to get serious about training.    90 days to go is my starting point for speed training.   This is the dangerous part of the training where the injuries happen and you can inflict some real pain on your body--but losing sucks.   I have my weight down to 195 and feel pretty good about that weight.   I think it will  go down a little farther as the speed trainig picks up. Earlier this week I ran on a treadmill and fought the thing to get a comfortable pace.  I have out grown the threadmill work and I am really ready for the outside stuff.   I will be moving from 800 and 1000 meter controlled runs on the treadmill to the chaos on the track brings.   So I will be switching to 50 and 100 meter grass runs in bare feet if possible and some down hill runs to stretch the stride a little.  I have agreat place at a park a couple miles from my house.    On track work will be 200 and 400 mete...

Somedays life works out and you get to smile all the way through.   I finally had one of those days last week .   I was traveling in the Jacksonville, FL area and had a little bit of time in the late afternoon to get to the beach for a run.  So, I checked into the hotel and got my gear and headed to Jax Beach.   I crossed A1A and pulled right into my parking spot, which was one block from the beach.  Free parking at the beach---that is pure luck !!  Whatever it was, I parked and headed down to the beach.   Low 70's with the usual sea breeze from the South and nice sand and the sun slowly falling behind the condos.   I love it.   I took along a tape measure to measure my stride at various speeds and to make sure my left and right legs were generating the same stride length.  I know it is fussy, but I train alone quite a bit and do not have anyone that can tell me when my stride is goofed up.  ...

Linda and I moved into suburbia in December of 2012 and I been amazed at the animal activity.    Recently, the amazement has been more shock and awe.   During the period when we were in the process of closing on our 1880 model house, there was an issue with some critters trying to live under the house.   A local firm was employed by the previous owners to clean out the residents.   They caught a skunk and I think a raccoon or groundhog. Then the crawl space was sealed up to keep the unwanted tenants out.     This was just the beginning and I should have noticed that bigger challenges were coming.     Life was good for a very short period. The past couple of weeks has been a challenge to "not go postal" on the local vermin that daily drive Linda and I nuts.    Let's review the list, which is approaching Noah's.      A first we...

  EPIC Treadmill OK, we all have run on treadmills and I had an opportunity yesterday to run on an EPIC treadmill.   Hopefully this will be my last time to run on this antique.   I enclosed a picture to let everyone know that it still had power, but that was about it.   The digits for the time, distance and pace were all broken.   The belt made a very constant and loud hum that caused all passersby to glare in the door at the noise--my Nano was drowned out!!  The speed was regulated by pushing  a button that were listed in MPH, but the speed read out --which did work, was in KPH.   OK, I understand both units, but it took some figuring to be correct.  I did figure out that the display in the top middle was a quarter mile lap around the track.   It was kinda correct , but a little iffy on accuracy.   EPIC had the start and finish line at the 50 yard line of the football field, ...