Argh! Bee Doo Doooo. Bee Doo Doooo. Whose bright idea was it to set the Heartrate alarm on my Garmin?!? If I go one beat above 143… BEE DOO DOOOO. That sound has started entering my dreams at night. I know it’s there to help but WOW does it go off often. Why did I do this? Well if any of you know me, I’m always saying “Enjoy running. When it feels like work, STOP.”. Well I found myself staring at my watch more than enjoy the scenery and it started feeling like work, so I had to find another way to keep my running at 143 bpm, but not be staring at my watch. Voila! Bee Doo Doooo

Tuesday morning I woke up feeling great, with a low Heart Rate Variability and everything was fine. I knew that I had a  long day of teaching a new reporting system at work so all day long I just kept using a long run as a carrot on the end of a stick. Sure enough, 4 o’clock rolls around and it’s time to go home. Now where to run…. where to run. Why not run to the bike shop and pick up the spare car? We always leave the truck there at the shop and, whenever we do, I always find loads of garbage that I need to take to the dumpster. That settles it. A run to the shop. Now…. do I take the 4 mile route through Royal Oak, or the 6 mile on a more dangerous section of Royal Oak and hook up with Route 33 and have to run over the bridge. Hmmmm. Have you met me yet? Figure out which one I did yet? That’s right. 6 miles. 1 hour 2 min 9 sec (I wanted about an hour run anyway).

Mile 1   10:06 (no warmup)
Mile 2   10:02
Mile 3   9:48 (um…. this should be getting FASTER)
Mile 4   10:17  (THERE we go)
Mile 5   10:41
Mile 6  10:52

Got the truck…. AND a foam roller and back to the house. My left calf is acting up a bit…… Maybe a rest day is in order. Ah…. no hearing BEE DOO DOOOO for a whole day!!

OR two days off.

Friday (Where did the week go?). Two days off and my calf feels better. Must be from running on these crowned roads. I realized today that my numbers from my new Foot Pod have been a little off from my treadmill numbers. Duh…. I never calibrated the pod. A nice .6 mile warmup did the trick and I’m off…. BEE DOO DOOOO. Damn

A nice little run from the shop in 54 degree weather!!! I had to laugh because I thought it was warm. Warm enough I wore shorts and a t-shirt and felt great. I passed people on the St Michaels trail that were bundled up with beanie caps and gloves. They looked at me a little odd, but I LOVE when people look at me. I smile and wave. They have no choice but to wave back. So yes, I’m the fool you see running down the road waving to you. Anyway, the run went great. Little tenderness in the calf but that worked out quickly. I wanted an hour and 10 minutes (trying to slowly build my time) and that’s exactly where I finished, thanks to a couple short laps around my parking lot. Again, I’m THAT guy.

1 hour 10 minute   6.42 miles
Mile 1  10:13
Mile 2  10:53 (ran in to a little ice, had to slow)
Mile 3  10:47
Mile 4  11:07
Mile 5  11:13
Mile 6  11:06

I like the running. It’s EASY at that heart rate/pace. I’m just watching for it to get faster. Almost 3 weeks in. Can’t rush it……

SATURDAY MORNING

Awesome. People actually showed up this morning to run from the shop. My buddies Donnie Helgason and Dan Bieber arrived for our Saturday morning shop run. They both know I’m doing this MAF training and I have forewarned them that I am SLOW right now but I’m doing it for a purpose. About 1/4 mile in the run and it hits… Bee Doo Doooooo. Lol. I explain…. and laugh. Apparently too hard. Bee Doo Dooooo. Crap. This is going to be a long run for these guys. Donnie keeps laughing and shaking his head when it goes off. Dan does too, but Dan is also always a little ahead. I can tell he wants to go. He WANTS to run slowly, he’s just not able to run THIS slowly. It can be a slightly painful process every once in a while, but it should be worth it. I know my boy Dan has had it when we about a half mile from the shop and he asks if the alarm is on at the shop. Now in police terms, that is what we call “A Clue”. It means that Dan wants to run!! I tell him the code and he just laughs and says he’ll wait….. and off he goes. Donnie and I stay together and we wind up finishing 6.34 miles in 1 hour 2 minutes 50 sec. Nice to run with others but I feel bad for the pace (and the Bee Doo Dooooo).

Mile 1    9:41
Mile 2    9:42
Mile 3    9:39
Mile 4   10:02
Mile 5   10:03
Mile 6   10:11

Still average HR of 141 and MAX HR of 148. We discuss that I run faster when running with someone. I think it may have something to do with talking and not being so focused on the run. Who knows. I’d love to test the theory by talking on a solo run…… but people already look at me smiling and waving like I’m crazy…..

We’ll see. I’m going to do up a chart of my pace for each of my first 4 miles from my runs and try to plot how this is going….. 3 weeks down. 9 more weeks until my test, the Ocean City Half Marathon.