Our Third Song is Out!

Hella Sound's third running music release, "As You Wish" is now available—go check it out!

We also have had 3 reported PRs by folks running with our music—check 'em out on our Facebook page. That makes me incredibly happy.

Good stuff!

Well Hello There!

I'm sorry to have left y'all in a lurch!

Since my last post I've been gravitating towards the fantastic dailymile.com site. It's a really well-put-together site that tracks workouts and lets you cheer on others (and receive motivation, too). Y'all probably know all this, since many of you are already on there.

(Note: dailymile.com plug is in no way sponsored—it's just an awesome site. Word.)

I guess I neglected to give the lowdown on my San Jose Rock N Roll Half experience. I was sick leading up to it, which sucked, and my sinuses were busy draining themselves all through the race, but it went okay. I finished it, and I ran the whole thing (except 2 water stations), which was my goal. I guess I was pretty disappointed with my time, but not defeated by the experience (like I was last year).

Anyhoo, I'm digging dailymile.com, so I'm going to keep on truckin' with it. If you're on there, connect with me! And if you're not, join up!

More good things comin'!

:D

I've been sweating my tweaked right leg. It feels like shin splints, and I have a couple suspects. Regardless, the season's final Fleet Feet Sunset Run got rid of some of my worries, and I'm feeling more confident for next sunday's halfie in San Jose.

It's gonna be tough. Finishing at a reasonable pace is gonna be a struggle. But at least I feel confident that I'll be doing it sans-injury. The plan for this week is to chill out some, baby my leg a bit and make sure I go into the race feeling 100%. I think that's the best I can hope for, and then tough it out where I'm missing cardio.

Again, I hope to god it's a cool morning. If it's warm and sunny, it's gonna be a long, long race.

Having said all that, it's time to start thinking about the Las Vegas Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in December. The original plan was to build up a base working towards San Jose, then build off that and work on speed for Vegas. I hope to start with ~15 mile weeks and keep going from there. Hopefully by Vegas I'll have quite a few long runs under my belt, and everything will be trucking along smoothly.

I do believe my little barefooting thing exacerbated my leg issue, so I'm gonna hold off on any more of that for the time being. If I feel amazing in November, maybe I'll sneak a few more barefoot runs in. There are a few other culprits, but I believe the barefooting didn't help. I have to have more miles under my belt to be able to do that regularly.

If all goes well, I also plan on incorporating some strength training and other conditioning into the mix. Ski season is coming up, and I wanna have my quads, core and hammies ready to hit the slopes.

Good times.

Photo courtesy joysaphine on Flickr.

Getting Mentally Ready

Well kids, the San Jose Rock N Roll Half Marathon is in 12 days.

Am I ready?

I'm not entirely sure. Running was going great, but I have hit a few snags along the way. This last week has been an utter trip. Running and I have not gotten along the last several days. I have some theories as to why, and I can right them, but I can't take many more bad runs like the one on Monday. A day like that in San Jose will lock out any chance I have of finishing the half marathon with my head held high.

So, I'm a bit nervous.

I have had life interfere with some of my runs, and haven't lost an ounce of weight (like I planned), but hopefully I can pull it all together in these last days and get my #$@% together.

One other thing: if it's hot again in San Jose like it was last year, I'm done. I'm toast. I can rehydrate and drink as I go, but ultimately I don't think I can hang in warm, sunny, windless weather.

It's Time to Play: Sick? Or Sore?

Sunday's 9 miler was awesome and I was a raving ball of happy endorphins all day, but when Monday rolled around I felt a little beat up. I hadn't run 9 miles in quite some time, and the various aches were subtle enough—and in odd enough places—that I actually felt a little flu-like.

Soreness in the quads or calves would be no surprise. But I had trouble the whole run keeping my chest and shoulders relaxed, which meant some stiffness the next day. Really, I kinda felt just a touch beat-up all over. I went to sleep (incredibly) early last night, ready to shake it off.

This morning I still felt a tiny bit achey, but was ready to hit Crissy Field for another 5 miles.

Kids, I pretty much went all-out on this monkey. Like a 4-out-of-5. I ran to What Are You Made Of?!? and part of How To Turn Around A Bad Day—both at 175BPM—and absolutely kicked ass. That's the fastest I've ever done 5 miles. Ever. I really didn't think I'd be able to bring it in under 50 minutes, but I done did it.

Again, I'm awash in endorphins and feelin' fine.