The Weekend

Well last weekend was a busy weekend and it started off Saturday morning.

Capital City Classic/Taekwondo
This is a 10k run at two rivers park in Little Rock. This is my third year in a row to run in this race. The race falls at a great time of year with generally being cool in the morning. The course is flat and fast. I woke in the morning and felt good. I started off the race fast and comfortable finishing my first mile in 7:09. I was holding 7:10 until about mile 4 and then I started to cramp. This was the first time that I have cramped for a race and it was going so well! I pushed thru the last two miles in 7:30 to 7:45 times and finished with a 45:52. This race also has good post race food and beverages. They have pizza, the usually fruit and bagels, and beer. Not many races in Arkansas that you find free beer after the race.



Not only did I cramp, my 310XT decided to lose satellite reception also. I went back home to see if I could fix it and nothing worked. I checked the Garmin forums to see what actions I could take and none of those worked. So today, I'll call and see what they can do for me. I hear their customer service is great, so I'm hoping everything goes well.

After the race, I had to quickly head back to Conway to go to a marital arts class. I'm testing for my 3rd degree black belt on April 16th, so I knew I had to participate in this class to get some more training in. The class went well and I was able to work on my self defense which is where I'm needing the most work.

Sunday Long Workout
Sunday I had a planned swim/bike/run with a friend. We were going to work on our transitions and just get a general feel for all three events in one day. It is less than one month away from my first triathlon of the year, so this would be a good chance to work on some things. The swim was at Hendrix and I swam a 500 warm-up followed by a 25 minute swim (1750yds). We then got on the bike and headed out for a 36 mile ride. The first 18 miles were a warm up and then back into Conway was a TT effort. Again, about 9 miles into the TT effort I started to cramp. Ugg, I need to really focus on the nutrition because I have never cramped. I get myself back to Conway and decided to try the run and that turned into a 15 minute run/walk and I was glad to be done. Overall, I was glad for the training experience and I need to figure why I've cramped twice this past weekend. I'm glad I still have a month to figure things out.

The Standard Run/St. Louis/Tunica & More

Here's the two week update after being in St.Louis for 3 days and Tunica for 4 days.

St. Louis

While in St. Louis, I did get one chance to go running. The hotel was right next to Forrest Park. I was able to get a 6 mile run in. It was a very nice park to run in. They had some gravel trails which is always nice to run. Also, it was very quiet and away from traffic which made for a very nice run. I was able to take some pictures while out and about. I swear I didn't push the "Earthquake" button on the elevator at the hotel. Although I was tempted to.








Tunica

The trip to St. Louis was quickly followed by a trip to Tunica for a sales meeting. 4 days is a lot of time to spend in Tunica. I was hoping to be able to go for a bike ride while down there but the meetings never ended in time for a ride. I did get a couple of runs in while there and I'm not used to running on such flat ground where you can see for a long ways. A short 5 mile run seemed much longer when you see your next turn a mile ahead! I did get to go shot sporting clays for the first time in years which was a great time. It was to bad the course was moved to a new area because it the normal course was flooded due to the river being high. Sporting clays can be a challenge because you just don't know what the clays will do!




The Standard Run

I have a standard run route that I normally due maybe once a week. You would think that the same route would get old after completing it numerous times, but I find that is a great to gauge fitness after a few years of running. I still remember when it would take me over 30 minutes or more to finish my 5k route. Now the route has morphed into a 30 minute route to see how far I can finish in that 30 minute time.

Upcoming

Next week I get to ahead to Northeast to complete some site surveys to work. The surveys are mainly in the Philadelphia/NJ area, but I do have a couple sites near NYC and one site near DC. My hope is to finish the sites in NJ/Philadelphia quickly, so that I can have some time in DC. If I have the time, I'll probably do a quick running tour of the National Mall area because that will be all the time I will have before I have to leave Thursday morning from Philadelphia.

Also, next week the Capital City Classic is coming up and hopefully I can beat my time from last year. This will be the third year in a row that I have run this race, so I'm excited to see what I can do.