Running

For those of you that are friends with me and Kathy on Facebook, you may have noticed a trend recently: Running. Here is a sampling of posts.

New shoes! Nike Free Run. I'll try them out in a bit.

I read this conclusion on an article yesterday. I was convinced. To sum up his conclusion: "If you want to [do that], that's how you do that..., if you want to [do that], that's the exact info how to do it."

Spent a couple hours running this afternoon. I completed 14 miles while Steve Glickand Katherine J Glick Miller ran 12. Whee! (Thanks for the beer afterward, Steve. Kathy enjoyed her neck of beer)

Just signed up for the Kalamazoo half marathon at the beginning of May. I'm not as ambitious as several of my friends (Craig Glick Miller Danica-Pizza Vera Hernandez Keefe Brian Keefe Ed Kenny Steve Glick) who are running the marathon! Hopefully they'll still hang out with me. =)

2+ hours of running with Kathy today. The sunshine made it quite pleasant. The pace made it quite easy. The company made it quite wonderful!

Wait, one of those wasn’t about running…

A while back I signed up for the Kalamazoo marathon which is coming up in just over five weeks. A couple weeks ago, Kathy signed up for the Kalamazoo half-marathon. So we’ve been running together, and it’s been quite wonderful.

Sometime early in the year we had a conversation with a friend who is also a runner. He mentioned that he tries to run like a robot, and Kathy took it to heart. When she first started running with me she was concerned about her knees since she has chronic tendonitis that started in high school. Once she started running like a robot she didn’t have any trouble with her knees. Our friend also talked about 180 strides per minute which shortens your stride, lessens impact on joints, and allows increased stride length during races. I only had 150 strides per minute when I first checked, but have increased this to closer to 180. Kathy made a playlist of songs with about 180 beats per minute, making it easy to time the strides.

Working on our form has helped both of us quite a bit. It’s amazing how better form leads to less injuries and better stamina. If you ever want to be bored, ask us about running in general and form specifically and we can go on for quite a while.

I have had a couple of nasty colds that set me back a bit in my training. I initially had a goal of 3:30 for the marathon, but the quickest thing to go with extended time off is the lungs. I can run a long time if I go slow enough to keep my breathing low. If I try to pick up the pace than I run out of breath and out of energy way too quickly.

We are both enjoying keeping in shape, working off a few calories (1500+ during last Sunday’s run), and spending some time together!