[Scratch]

Ran 10.2 miles this morning, blood sugars behaved much better than last Saturday's run.

I've also been doing submaximal sets of weighted pull ups and a push up variant throughout the day.

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A 3.3 mile run today to close out the week, one where I finally got to run 4 times and it totaled up to 27 miles, my second highest weekly total ever.

It's been a pretty strenuous week of training, along with all the pull ups and push ups I've been doing. I think I'll take it easy this coming week, rest up some so if the weather is decent on the 30th, I can take a shot at a 5K race that day.

[Scratch]

I did a very easy run yesterday, early on in the run I could tell my legs weren't all there and eventually I realized that instead of pushing it any, I should just relax, enjoy the bright sunshine and comfortable temps and take my time out there.

I plan for an easy run tomorrow and Saturday, then hope to go hard in a 5K race on Sunday.

[Scratch]

Ran 8.2 miles last night at a very easy pace. Easy easy pace, you might call it. I'm using the heart rate monitor again to help enforce these slower paced runs that are meant to give me runs that don't beat on the legs too much and provide a lot of good base aerobic conditioning.

Almost done with 2007 now and it's been a great year for me fitness wise. I healed up a broken ankle, started running again and did a half-marathon in November, can now do 15 pull ups in a single set and had 3 good A1c results.

I have some specific goals in mind for 2008 but will always try to be flexible enough to adapt to whatever curveballs life throws.

[Scratch]

4.8 slow easy miles today. That sets me up with the 5K distance tomorrow to set a new monthly mileage best.

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Closed out my running for 2007 today with a 5K race and a new PR of 27:11 by their clock or 27:12 on my watch.

Ran 555.1 miles for the year with a start up date of April 21st. Did 9 5K races, 2 10K races, one half-marathon.

It was a good way to close out the year today. I hope to continue to make progress in 2008 and most of all, remain injury free. Out of all the running stuff I managed to do this year, staying injury free was the most important goal that was achieved.

[Scratch]

I elected to start off the new year yesterday with a long run. More normally, I might have done like 7 or 8 miles, but with the day off and also the shot of cold air coming in today, tomorrow and Friday, I figured I could do a slow easy 11 miles and try to get my target weekly mileage in this way.

[Scratch]

14 mile run today, that's the most distance I've ever covered.

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A short 3.3 mile run for some more legwork and recovery from yesterday's 14 miles. It was a good week of running, I kept the heart rate low and totaled up 28.3 miles. I've sketched out ideas for getting 4 days and 31 miles this upcoming week.

[Dan Gato]

Scratch,

I always read your postings, it's inspirational, I bet many here are wanting to do what you're doing.
Keep it up !!!

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by Dan Gato

Scratch,

I always read your postings, it's inspirational, I bet many here are wanting to do what you're doing.
Keep it up !!!

Thank you.

I think one point I may never emphasize enough, in the past or even in the future, is the importance for a person to approach all of this with an idea that it's best to take small steady steps forward. It's the old little strokes fell great oaks idea or the journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step.

Last year at this time I was hopping around on two crutches. I could do about a total of 6 chin ups in the morning and would be spent for the day. Now I had gotten that broken leg through my hastiness and lack of knowledge, and broke my leg by running far too much far too soon. So I don't know, spending 6 weeks in a cast was tough, but taught me some value with patience and it also was beneficial in how it made me put some focus on improving my upper body strength as well.

The point is that with what I'm now writing about running miles is that it took a slow and patient build up. I carefully increased my weekly mileage and carefully increased the distance on the long runs. I usually took an easy week every third week to give my body recovery time.

But I suppose also what's been hugely important in getting to where I am now is that I've rather enjoyed the challenge of it all. That's why whenever I hear anyone say what should they do, I say, "Find something you'll enjoy doing." Well, it's not always immediately enjoyable -- I hate doing ab work, oh man, that's bloody uncomfortable working the ab muscles -- but over time when you start noticing the differences showing up, it's pretty cool.

And I'm really looking forward to the Broad Street Run. That's going to be excellent running down through Philadelphia like that.

[kstreeter513]

Scratch,
You have been an inspiration to me too. I have always enjoyed running, and for the past year and a half, I have been running 5-6 days consistently. But reading your posts about the runs you do has inspired me to run the St. Louis marathon this year. It is on April 6th. and I am very excited. I have four months to train so thats good because my weekly long run is only 15 miles so far. This weekend I'll try 18. But its good to see that you haven't let diabetes get in the way of things you want to do. Keep it up, and run strong.!!

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by kstreeter513

Scratch,
You have been an inspiration to me too. I have always enjoyed running, and for the past year and a half, I have been running 5-6 days consistently. But reading your posts about the runs you do has inspired me to run the St. Louis marathon this year. It is on April 6th. and I am very excited. I have four months to train so thats good because my weekly long run is only 15 miles so far. This weekend I'll try 18. But its good to see that you haven't let diabetes get in the way of things you want to do. Keep it up, and run strong.!!

26.2! Yeah, work on extending the long runs. I'll be interested in hearing how that goes for you. Now see, I'm probably not even going to consider making a run for 26.2 until 2010 at the earliest, but one of the things I've been trying to figure out is whether I just follow the classic marathon plans of long runs of up to 20 miles, then trusting that the training will be enough to handle an additional 6.2 miles on race day, or if as a diabetic I should make some sort of plan to go into the distance beyond 20 miles so I can find out what it'll be like out beyond the glycogen wall.

I don't know, I really don't know right now.

[Scratch]

Strange weather, I was perfectly comfortable wearing a tee shirt and shorts. 9 easy miles. When I was done that, I wandered over to the monkey bars and did a quick set of 10 pull ups, felt real smooth and easy after hammering weighted chin ups since last week. Then I did 15 push ups to top it all off, went to my car, and my blood sugar was 93 mg/dl.

I wish it was always so easy, but I won't complain.

[Scratch]

6.6 easy miles after work. I should have worn gloves though. Thought it was warm enough, but by the end my fingers were extremely cold. I rubbed them and shook them before trying to draw blood, but ended up with too little and the Ultrasmart Error 5 code. Grrr. Second draw was good and I was at 80 mg/dl.

It's strange looking back at times. It took me over 2 months last year to get to my first run that went over an hour. I went a meager 4.75 miles while doing that and my legs were dead tired at the end.

4 of my first 5 runs this year have lasted beyond an hour and 2 of them over 2 hours.

About the chin up progress as I'm also working towards being able to do one arm chin ups, I loaded up the backpack this morning with weights and was able to do one chin with 82.4 lbs on my back.

At this time last year, I was finishing up my first week in a cast.