I dragged myself out of bed this morning to go for a run and boy am I glad I did! I ran a bit further than my goal, I am quite awake right now and I have now ran over 1300 total miles with Nike+!
That’s enough miles to run from Purdue to Boston and 1/3 the way back!!
Yesterday was the first annual Purdue Half Marathon and 5K. It was a pretty cold day ( 43º according to the Nike Running app), but the race itself was pretty fun.
As it took me days to fully recover from the half marathons that I have run, I have decided that they definitely aren’t for me. I congratulate those that did run it, but I’m perfectly happy to run the 5k alone.
I’m also happy with my overall time although it definitely is lower than the first 5k I’ve ever ran back in 2010.
OVERALL RESULTS: (Number finished = 763)
Place Age
Overall Grp Name Pace FINISH
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74 11 KEITH MCDERMOTT 07:57 24:42.5
The hardest part of the entire race was definitely the climb back up the back of the stadium. That is quite a steep incline! (You can tell where this was on the track by looking at the darkest part of the heat-map for my run of the 5k to the right. I actually just walked part of the way up!)
Despite the one slow-part I encountered, I did enjoy the race and would definitely run it again and recommend it to others. It was the inaugural race so of course there will be kinks to work out, but it can only get better over time!
Enjoy a small gallery below of pics of runners from the half marathon and others in the 5k portion as well.
Today was the 2012 Purdue 5k Challenge. Mom and Dad came down to watch us run. This was Justin’s first official 5k and he did great! My bib was #888 and I finished 179th place with a time of 24:03. Justin was #1392 and finished 433rd place with a time of 28:14.
Last night Justin and I participated in the 2012 Relay for Life held at the Purdue Armory. Justin went to man a booth through his fellowship and was selling cupcakes and gave supplies for people to make cards for children at Riley’s hospital. I went to walk the relay and enjoy the activities.
Justin and I were there for about three hours, two of which I walked. According to my readings that it takes 1 minute 46.1 seconds for one lap and each lap is 0.07 miles. So, that works out to about 5.75 miles of walking last night. Not a bad little workout.
Yesterday I ran the Chicago Half Marathon. While I am happy that I was able to run it and it was certainly an amazing experience, I didn’t end up getting the time that I wanted and although it’s only my second half marathon, it’s also my last.
I ended with a time of 2:09:07, which was more than my time for my last half marathon, but not bad given that the weather was about 15ºF hotter than I was expecting. Having ran this half marathon, it did allow me to confirm that I’m going to focus on improving my times for the shorter 5k runs instead of going between those and endurance training for half marathons. I will do better than ever next year during the Purdue 5K Challenge and beyond!
Thanks Justin, Mom and Dad for coming to support me during the race!
Isotretinoin, how you’ve changed me these last seven months. You’ve vastly improved my acne while drying me out to where if I don’t clean my face every few hours and re-moisturize I start to look like the desert floor.
This morning was my last Isotretinoin pill. While I can’t wait for my natural oils to start to come back to tame the massive dryness, I’m happy with the results that have occurred during my treatment. I now await my follow-up appointment at the end of September to start to get on a long-term regiment.
It’s been one week since Sparky’s biopsy and it’s been quite the week, sadly not for the best reasons.
Late Monday we got a call from Dr. Corriveau of the Purdue Small Animal Hospital with the results of his biopsy. Unfortunately Sparky was diagnosed with squamous-cell carcinoma. While the best course of action is to get into surgery to remove it, this requires very expensive imaging to determine if the cancer has spread and to determine the margin of the cancer. After that would be the surgery which would be even more expensive. It would most likely require removing a few teeth as well. Taking into consideration the huge cost which isn’t feasible at this time along with how we feel his quality-of-life would be degraded, we opted for the next-best possibility. We started Sparky on chemotherapy.
Yesterday was his first dose of Piroxicam. It’s typically used for somewhat different areas of cancer but is promising. The best we can hope for is that it will maintain the current cancer and not allow it to grow. In a few weeks we will go back for another check-up.
Here’s hoping that our good boy, Sparky, gets through this successfully. He’s a great dog and it’s hard to even think about him having cancer.
This morning I ran a 5 mile run. I have a half-marathon coming up in the middle of September and need to be running more especially in the morning. This is especially important given the recent crazy heat Indiana and much of the midwest has been seeing. Today’s temperature hit the low 90′s with a heat-index of over 100ºF. So, I made a point of going to sleep earlier last night so I could run this morning.
Despite getting up around 5:45 and starting my run just after 6am, the weather was still crazy-hot for so early in the morning. I was OK with my overall pace given the heat, but it certainly wasn’t what I was aiming for (under 8min/mile). I’m trying to lengthen my runs while obtaining an overall pace of 7:30/mile.
Over the past month or so, Justin and I have worked to build up our own personal mini-gym. While it’s not much, it’s enough to get us in a schedule to improve ourselves and our health.
We now have a basic weight bench with 80 lbs of weight, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 lb dumbbells, workout mats, bikes and running gear. Every Monday/Thursday we do weights, Tuesday, Friday basic cardio and Wednesday, Saturday either a 3 mile run or a 5+ mile bike-ride.
Our weight-lifting is by-far the most difficult and pushes us the most I think, but the results will be worth it once we start to see them. On a side-note, do you know how expensive good dumbbells can be?!
Source: stock.xchng
Ce soir mon mari et moi nous sommes allé à Wal-Mart en notre velos.
Well, I was going to try to write more about tonight in French, but it’s too difficult with my current vocabulary set and also because I mainly only know the present-tense of the verbs that I do know. Know how to say “Can you ride a bike?” in French? It’s “Sais-tu faire du velo?” which literally translates into “Know you to ride of the bike?”. Yeah…
So, we decided to go on a bike-ride tonight as we were both not really wanting to run. However, we ended up biking to Celery Bog according to plan, then we went past the barriers on Lindberg and rode next to where they are building the new Lindberg road. It looks like they’re possibly going to build the pedestrian portion next to the new Lindberg – probably not have it elevated as the road itself will be. We then drove through the golf course some, cut through some trees and an apartment complex, rode next to US 52, went into the Wal-Mart parking lot by shipping/receiving in the back and went back to Celery Bog via the back-route. In the end, our bike-ride lasted about 7 miles or so.