October 30th, 2012 – 3.50 Mile Run

The continued prayer is, “Lord keep me focused. Keep my mind stayed on You. Help me to bring You praise. I know You believe in me. Please help me in my unbelief. Amen.”

Happy Halloween!!!! I’m not a particularly big fan of Halloween but any excuse to dress up like Michael Jackson is alright with me.

Last night was the first run I’d done since the Half on the 21st. It was great and I am *so* glad that I let myself take a full week off so that my calf could heal completely. It was the first time in quite awhile that I ran without any pain or even discomfort.

I got an e-mail with a free week pass to 24 hour Fitness. Normally you would never catch me in a gym. I am a BIG fan of open air exercise. Not only because it’s free but because you are less likely to catch a bug from the cologne-soaked, herpes infected college coed running sprints on the machine next to you.

Really, dude? I’m 40 years old! Go try making eyes at the Lycra-covered hottie on the elliptical machine with the bouncy boobs, sweating to Justin Beiber!! She’s more your speed and your cologne is seriously causing my brain to hemorrhage. Seriously, who wears cologne to the gym?!

Anyway, creepy college kids and obvious STD and Staph infestation aside, the gym has equipment that is *WAY* cooler than mine!!! My treadmill is at least 3 years older than the kid trying to catch my attention and while it will allow me to set a mph pace, it doesn’t allow me to set, say a 12min/mi pace for a quarter of a mile, then a 10:50min/mi pace for the next 2.5 miles, then a 9:30min pace for a three quarters of a mile then a 13min/mi warm down.

Also, their treadmill seemed to be much easier on my joints. I felt like I could run for hours on that thing! Certainly, it wouldn’t do to train on such nice equipment exclusively. A 13.1 mile road race after training exclusively on treadmills as soft ad puffy clouds, with “The Big Bang Theory” playing overhead, would be a rude awakening indeed. But I’d highly recommend it for people who want to comfortably work on speed.