gokennergo.com

Okay, okay -- I know. I've been bad, slacking off in the Training Log department. There's no excuse for my failure. That, however, does not mean that I won't make some.

AAAUUUGGGHHH! Atlanta had me crazy-busy. I ended up having to stay an extra day to get things working properly. I was so busy there that updating this log just had to take a backseat. Sorry to all my millions of fans.

As for the training... this morning ended up making for an interesting run. I decided to try to find my Sports Walkman so that I could listen to some radio while I ran. I found it, turned it on to make sure that the batteries were holding up, then turned it off again. I strapped it to my arm, grabbed my apt. keys off of the hook by the door, and walked out the door.

As I turned back to the door to lock the deadbolt, I looked at the keys in my hand, and realized that they were not the right keys. It is worth mentioning that I normally wear glasses, but I don't wear them when I run. So, when I looked at our board by the door and saw two keys hanging, as I expected, I just (foolishly) assumed that they were my apartment keys. Turned out that they were keys to something else, so now I found myself locked out (the knob is locked automatically) in just my running garb, no wallet, no change of clothes, nothing. Oh, and it turned out that the batteries in the Walkman were dead after the radio was on for about 10 seconds.

My girlfriend, Leanne, works about 3 miles away in the downtown Loop, so I decided to just run there to borrow her keys -- and CTA pass to get home. I should have run home, but I have to be at work by 9 and by the time I got home using the train it was already 8:45, so I just didn't have time. But, I didn't do the 3 miles in intervals, so I think that the training pretty much balanced out.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with a personal trainer at my (and Leanne's -- she joined last weekend and has been a couple of times while I was out of town) new gym so that she can tell me how hopelessly out of shape that I am and recommend a training regimen for me. I am going to try to keep our meeting somewhat brief so that I can do my cross training and strength training.

I'm running off to get my car to the shop. More later. -K
posted by Kenner Estes at 5:02 PM

This morning was fine. The area around the hotel is not exactly a runner's dream -- little access roads that basically lead nowhere. The area is very industrial (the highway is "Peachtree Industrial Blvd."), so there really is nothing other than a few hotels and then many company buildings that look like they were all made by the same company. I pretty much ran around the access roads and parking lots until my time was up. I did end up running my last three intervals, so the last 15 minutes was all running. Or, rather, a sort of walk-paced jog. My only criterion for it to qualify as "running" was that at some point in each stride both of my feet were off the ground. Boom, I was running.

I shouldn't have waited so long to add to my training log today because I'm pretty tired and my mind is not able to construct sentences with much meaning. Tomorrow morning I will get up to do my cross- and strength- training before I head into the office for Day 2, Atlanta. There is an outside chance that I will stay here one extra, unplanned day, but that is only if I can't get everything done before I have to leave for the airport tomorrow. Regardless, Wednesday is a rest day so I don't have to worry about the training.

Take care all. -K
posted by Kenner Estes at 11:06 PM

No training today. I am in Atlanta - well, really I'm in Norcross, and the office that I'll be working in for the next two days is in Duluth, but all are suburbs of Atlanta. I'll definitely go into the city either tomorrow or Tuesday.

Anyway, there's a fitness center here at the motel, so tomorrow I will be getting up to run 40 minutes at 3/2 intervals. I'm planning to start doing more running, like to use my last couple of intervals to just run to ease myself into running all the time. My schedule has me doing intervals all the way up to the marathon, and then even doing the marathon using intervals. My goal, however, was to run the marathon and it still is. I talked to my mentor, Lou, and he said that it is totally acceptable. "If you want to run, run." Once again, I will take his advice.

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. -K
posted by Kenner Estes at 10:32 PM