Thursday, April 11, 2013

'Gonna Be A Great Summer

This will probably get obnoxious before the end of baseball season ... but I am gonna ride this hot streak this summer as long as possible ...

The Kansas City Royals are in FIRST PLACE!!!

Some of you gals show pics of your dresses and clothes and new hair cuts, but I have no fashion sense and I cut my own hair (Don't laugh, I'm not joking)  So here is something I think is cool.  I mentioned last post that we have over 300 autographed baseballs, here are 100 of them.  I used to be really into sports memorabilia, and still really enjoy it, but it takes a lot of time and is pretty expensive, so I've slowed down a little over the years.  But I've got a pretty cool collection.  (I'm actually more proud of the frames I made for these jerseys and the balls than the stuff in them - ha.)

Baseball geek in my basement - if you come visit I'll give you a guided tour.
Anyway, back to running - I had a fairly good run this morning, again, all things considered.  I know I keep reporting "all things considered", but we just can't get a consistent run of warm weather, and I feel like all my times are a little slower because of the cool temps.  This morning it was 34 degrees, with mist and 91% humidity, 13 mph West wind.  But overall  my Tempo Run was decent.  Here are the splits ...

Mile 1 - Warm up
Mile 2 - Warm up
       Mile 3 - 7:25
       Mile 4 - 6:57
       Mile 5 - 6:56
       Mile 6 - 6:46
       Mile 7 - 6:43
       Mile 8 - 6:46
       Mile 9 - 6:41
Mile 10 - Cool down

I warmed up with two lite miles and then stopped completely for about 6 minutes, milling & stretching, and then stood still in one spot for about a minute, simulating the corral at the start of a race.  After that, I tried to gradually ramp up with actual race splits for my half-marathon coming up in three weeks.

It took me a little while to feel like I was running smoothly, mostly because I did hills on Tuesday and my legs were still a little fried.  And I reaffirmed that I need a couple of more miles to get loose before and during a race.  I don't think I could have gone another 6 miles at that pace this morning.  But on the bright side, I felt good overall about the times since I ran them on the road and not around a track.  The course I ran this morning wasn't tough at all, but it had some rolling elevation that made me focus on pace and heart rate.

I felt decent about the run, but I still have a long way to go before my half-marathon in a few weeks.  I don't feel at all like I'm where I need to be, but I don't know that I've had a realistic snap-shot of it recently either. Hope your week is going well!
... be great today!

7 comments:

  1. Been reading for a while but first time commenting...so hi!

    I too, always need a while to warm up the legs. Doesn't matter how many "warm up" miles I do, the first tempo mile is always slow! Its really discouraging until you get to that second one - like you did - and start hitting the paces!

    Great job on the tempo though; you almost had a perfect progression there :)
    ~ Penny

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  2. OH MY GOSH! You have a framed autograhped Favre jersey!!!! I have that same picture you have in the frame autograhped by him too. Very cool stuff!

    I don't wanna talk about my Brewers so far this year. Good luck to the Royals!

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  3. You would love my cousins' basement, it is insane with sports memorabilia and customized frames and what not, he actually just had ESPN come and do a write up about it for some sports fanatic article they are going to put out.

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  4. I'm seriously impressed with your framing skills. Not so sure about the stuff you stick in the frames but I'm from Australia and our national game is cricket.

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  5. Did you make all that framing stuff?!?! Holy crap man, you missed your calling.

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  6. I don't know much about baseball but would enjoy your tour. Here by us Rugby is the national sport and also cricket...beating Char's Aussie team! We are getting some really cool weather now. Have a great weekend!

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  7. Great tempo run, but, um, Jim, methinks you're counting your Royals chickens a bit early.....

    From,
    Your Cards Fan Runner Librarian Friend.

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