THANKSGIVING DAY

I am still running. It is not easy to find the time to run and when I do find the time to run I get other ideas to use up my time and sometimes I am just too tired to run. It is hard for me but I am not giving up. Every time I talk to people about training for marathon, I get the idea that I have to be lot more disciplined and careful about what I eat and when I eat.

Today is the Thanksgiving day, a day to celebrate God's grace and mercy and a day to eat a great home cooked meal with the family. I helped my wife prepare the Thanksgiving meal for our family dinner. I got an eighteen pound turkey so that we have some left over turkey meat for lunches. It took four days to thaw out the turkey and took 6 hours to bake it, but it took only fifteen minutes to eat it. I felt like I was cooking all day even though I was just a helper. I am used to sitting down at the grandma Rice's Thanksgiving dinner table with countless varieties of dishes; never giving much thought to all the time it took in preparing the dinner. You got to enjoy preparing the dinner to really enjoy the day because it is a lot of work and it takes practically all day to prepare. For me celebrating the Thanksgiving Day was not just eating the dinner but the process of making the dinner and to mentally taking a day off from other work related responsibilities and just enjoying helping each other in the kitchen. I also realized that the most fun part of the day was tasting the roasted part of the turkey every time I checked the temperature of the meat. Everything turned out great and we had a great Thanksgiving meal. Now I need to do some running.

Half a Bagel


Thought for the Day

Don't eat Donuts Before you Run

I believe eating habit has a lot to do with how our body responds to stress. I love to drink a cup of orange juice before I run, but I think it did not help me as much as I thought. I asked one of our Sunday School friends what she eats before she runs. She said, "half a bagel." I am not much of a bagel eater. I would rather eat some donuts holes. I did try to run after eating some donuts and a cup coffee; and it gave me a burst of energy at the outset but I got tired very quickly. I also learned that I should not drink too much water or eat a heavy meal before I run because it gives me some sort of pain in my stomach. I think it is called side- sticker. One morning I decided to eat half a bagel with a cup of tea before I ran and it helped me run smoothly but I should have avoided the tea.

Proper use of energy

Thought For The Day


Be consistent, steady and humble and you will succeed


On Tuesday I thought I could run faster so I tried, only to find out that I was running out of breath. I had to stop few times to catch my breath. Wrong thing to do. Today I decided to humble myself and run slower. It worked and I ran 5 miles in an hour and I didn't have to stop for breath. There was a person in red running in front me about 10 blocks away. At one point I thought of catching up to the runner but I chose not to. It is humbling to be a steady and consistent runner when you feel running faster. At this speed it will take me about 5-6 hours to run a marathon. I do need to improve my speed. My goal is to cover 8 mile an hour. Next week I will try to run 6 miles in an hour.

New Running Shoes

A Good Pair of Running Shoes

Yesterday my wife took me to a shoe store to buy me a new pair of running shoes. We thought it would take, maybe about 30 minutes at the most to find a pair of shoes that would work for my feet. Well, it took almost an hour. I learned a lot about those running shoes and how each one is made differently. Not all running shoes are equal and for a good one I need to spend around $80 to $100.00 I went for the medium price shoes but the young who picked the shoes for me said that I should buy a better shoes when I am ready to run the marathon. Later I ran for two and a half miles and I felt good. I think I am going to enjoy running more now that I have a new pair of shoes.

STARTING OVER AGAIN

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Just keep the train moving, because it takes a lot of energy to get the train going again once it stops.

I have been out of the country for a while so I am behind on my training. I am starting over again. Two days ago I ran for 45 minutes and I felt tired. I need to run more. I also need to buy a good pair of running shoes. Sometimes I am tempted to run bare feet like I used when I was a boy. My feet are flat and really wide so it is hard to find a pair of shoes that feels comfortable.
Today I went hunting for shoes but they did not have my size. I don't really know what sizes would
work well for me. Maybe E3 wide.

SPEED LIMIT

Thought for the Day


Never Run Faster Than You Can Run


Last week I ran outside. It was great. My daughter accompanied me on her bike and I covered 2.8 miles in 40 minutes. I felt good. Everything went well except the pain on the left side of my abdomen. My wife said that's because I drank two cups of tea before I ran.

Two days ago I was running late so I decided to run faster to cover more ground and get a full work out at the same time in 10 minutes. It was a wrong thing to do. I usually run at level 4 but I decided to start at level 6. after about 5 minute I was out of breath. My heart was hurting and I felt tired. Last week I ran over three miles and I felt fine but this time it was bad.

Lesson learned: I should know my speed limit and maintain that for a while. I believe I can run faster but for now I have decided not to run faster than my body can handle.

Thought for the Day

The More you Stretch the less you will stress out your muscles

Today I stretched out for about five minutes and it made a difference in my running.
I usually experience pain for the first 10 minutes but this time I felt good from the outset. I ran for one hour and covered 4 miles. It was a great feeling to run my first one hour since I started training. My wife told me to stretch more before I run but I thought it was a waste of time so I would jump right in to running. I think I will stretch more before I run from now on.