Sometimes you have to challenge yourself......

I know I just wrote yesterday a long blog, but today was a monumental day in training. Because of family commitments this week, I could not train on Tuesday so decided to train this morning. Nancy decided to go out with me and so to challenge ourselves and make thins a little different, I chose a different course then our usual walk from CVS to Yankee Clipper and back. Today we started on the south side in front of Runner's Depot on 17th Street. We started off and what was right in front of us but the 17th St Causeway bridge. It loomed in front, and we started up its side. Team in Training calls it the beast, and I can see why. We went up and down then continued north on A1A to the overpass of Beach Place. Then it was time to head back, we went through Harbor Island and had to face the bridge again , but now slightly more tired. After some huffing and puffing we made it and were back in to our cars.

It was a great walk, a great training and we maintained a relatively fast pace of 4 mile per hour. We did 5.29 miles. Burned over 620 calories. It will be something we do again, not in the near future. But certainly when we want to be challenged again.

Where do I start after such a long hiatus?????

After trying week after week to log on to my blog, it has been impossible until a few minutes ago to do this. So much has happened and so many experiences have occurred since my last blog, that I find it difficult to summarize the adventures in a single blog. For my loyal friends who have missed my communications here, I thank you for your persistence in urging me to get into the site. Thank you, Barbara for the link.

I start off recounting the unfortunate trials of training, those associated with injury. As my friends fell to injuries in these last months , it made me think of the importance of training and not over training to avoid this. At the least amount of discomfort I stop, and wait for it to pass. My friends are healing and God willing will be training and racing with the group in the near future.

My work as an assistant coach at Friends in Training, has been challenging as well as frustrating at times. Sometimes I think that maybe it was just better to pay the membership fee and not have to deal with the bureaucratic stuff that comes with the role. But then when I seem to help someone finish a training session or walk with a person having a hard time, it seems to be worth it.

I still go out and train at least three times a week with Nancy, Rita, now Melanie and Cathy. Each day we do a little over 5 miles and what makes it interesting is not only the company of these wonderful ladies but the people we meet in the early hours of the morning. There is bus guy( who we now know to be called Kevin), we see him every day and say hi. Just before 4th of July we didn't see him and wondered where he was. Well we are headed back and the bus pulls up to us in the middle of A1A, the door opens and Kevin is there to wish us a good holiday ....that made all of our day. There is the kernel and his boot camp rookie, SM ( Nancy's name because the guy has a perfect body), crew cut guy, #8 or USA guy, and the others we see but not on a regular basis. See these people who walk into our lives if just for a moment keep us going each day, and I know that somehow our simple hello touches them too.

The FIT group is growing too. And now as we start the winter season I hope to have more people that will share our time during training. Nancy puts up with my stupid chatter, Marilyn has new running skirts and we got to see Marilyn over the inter coastal last week. I miss Barbara in our sessions and I am glad Dennis is back into training.

I am sorry that I just seem to ramble on but it is over two months of information here. To end I would like to mention that we did the first annual St Gregory's Bible Camp 5K this morning and it was not only fun but a success. Babette, a wonderful women who crossed paths with me from FIT died last month and we will honor her with a 5K next month. During the last two months I have walked over 240 miles, unfortunately I have not lost that much weight, still at about 10 pounds from when I started. I will continue to write, and I will continue to train. Continue to strive for your best and enjoy the journey.

Another week, and all is well...

What a great week it has been. Training i going well. I did 22.12 miles in 5:52 hours. With a total of over 180 miles since I started at the beginning of March. FIT, the training group I belong, had its second recruitment weekend. That went very well. We have Barbara,Dennis, Kathy, and Marta joining us from St Gregory's. All are excited about training and I look forward to sharing my time with them. Went 2 mornings to walk on the beach this past week. It is so great to be finished with training and do over 5 miles by like 6:15 am. I have talked to the friends I gather with, and we have decided to do it 3 times per week for the next few weeks to see how it works out. I worked with the FIT schedule for June, we do longer miles on Saturdays; and they give us a schedule to follow the rest of week. I calculated the miles by dividing the times by a 15 minute/mile pace. I cam up with week1: 10.67 miles, week2: 12 miles, week3: 13.33 miles and week4: 14 miles. If you recall from last week, I had mentioned that I wanted to keep a 20 mile base during this part of my training. So adding another morning to the beach training I cam up with for week1: 22 miles, week2: 23 miles, week3: 13.33 miles, and week4: 14 miles. I still will take Mondays and Fridays off or for some cross training, like bike riding. I am excited about this schedule, and others are too. Nothing is written in stone though, so as changes occur, I will post them here.

This morning, I did the Daniella's Journey by the Sea 5K. She was an inspirational young lady who's family coordinates this race in her honor. It was fun at John Lloyd's. Beautiful morning, about 1000 entries for runners and walkers. I did well kept a 14:19 minute per mile pace. And the picture at the top is what greeted Barbara and I as we prepared for the race.

I wish Barbara a quick recovery and for all of you that are out there training and sweating continue, you are doing great.

Life sometimes gets in the way...

Good day, it has been about 2 weeks since my last entry. Well like I said in my title, life sometimes throws you for a loop and your direction gets off keel for a bit. But I am back. Two weeks to catch up, but no worries I will edit most of it out. In the last 2 weeks I have done a total of 49 miles in a little over 12 hours. in one week I worked out 5 out of 7 days and the next week I worked out 4 of the 7 days. And I have lost a total of 13.6 pounds. Good considering I had a very rough week. Last Sunday a group of friends from Friends in Training went up to Orlando to do the last Minnie Marathon. It is a 15K or 9.3 miles course designed for women. There were 2,800 women doing it and 250some guys. It was a fun time , we went from Animal Kingdom to Wide World of Sports, through the movies studios, the yacht and boardwalk into Epcot and finished right outside of Epcot. We all got the medal and finished way below the 15 minute pace required by the race director. Yesterday we started the new season of FIT, which is the training group I get together with every Saturday. It was great being back. I am now an assistant coach for the walking group, helping them to reach the goal of finishing a marathon this year. So I continue to evolve and grow. I know it will be an exciting year. I added a picture from last week's event, I was clean by then , but I got to meet my favorite gal there at Disney and show her my medal. Have a great week, guys.

Florida Aids Walk...

What an incredible day it has been. Went to the Florida Aids walk in Ft Lauderdale. It was a 10K route going from downtown, east on broward to 14th Avenue , to Las Olas, east to the beach and back ending up on the river walk. It was a beautiful course going through the quaint neighborhoods and Las Olas. Seeing the boats, and the beach and then heading back. There were several thousands people. A cross section of Americana. Gays, straights and in between.

The exciting part of the day was that it was the inaugural walk for a bunch of people from our church, St Gregory's. My friend, Barbara, organized a bunch of us to walk together. We had t-shirts and she had a medal for each of us at the finish line. Everyone had a great time and I think we set some on fire to want to continue to train and do future races. There were 14 of us that came together and walked for a great cause. Overcoming our prejudices and uniting for a cause that affects all, even the ones that aren't infected. At the end of the race a photographer from Sun-Sentinel took our picture and its posted here. Hopefully next year we will have a bigger group. We are already planning our next race and get together.

It has been a great week.....

What a great week it has been. The weather has been great and life is good. Training has been going well this week.I did 18.87 miles in 4:67 hours. I was out 5 days, but one day as I started and was only about half mile out, it started to rain. So I turned back. I don't like rain, don't like the feeling of getting wet. Well during my training last year, I got wet several times. I even did 18 miles of training in the rain. I should be used to it by now, but I figured so early in my training, it was just not worth it. I hate the feeling of being wet, getting blisters and having to dry my shoes afterwards.

On saturday had a great training session unofficially with my FIT group. There were about 15 of us, including Shari, our coach. It was great being all together, old friends and new friends. I look forward to the official training starting on May 10th. We did six miles, walked from the park past the Yankee Clipper and back. What a great feeling to get it done and it was below the 15 mile pace we will have to keep for the Minnie marathon next week. More about that in the coming week. So we keep at it. Slowly but surely getting stronger and fastr as the weeks go on. Concerning the weight loss, I have lost 12 pounds, so I am on a good start there too.
Continue to enjoy life my friends....

Quiet week means a good week...

Good day, all. Its a little late , but better late then never. This past week was a great week in my training. I was able to get out there 5 days, and walked a total of 20.24 miles in 5:10 hours. The saturday walk was for 8 miles, we traveled from the park to Las Olas, crossed the bridge, went into Idlewild community back to A1A to the light past the Yankee Clipper and back. We avearged a pace of less then 15 minutes per mile. It was a good training experience because there were no challenging moments throughout the period.

There was not much to report this week. Things went well at work. Life was quiet, life is good. Until next time.....PEACE.