Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Miles run this week: 3, 6, 3.5, 10.3

So I just completed week 5 and this coming week is a "rest week" so that will be a nice change. I am pretty exhausted physically but I must admit I am not as sore as I thought I'd be and training has started to kick my butt yet. So I'm looking forward to the future progress. The runs during the week were easy and they are getting easier. I am doing all of these runs at or faster than 9 minutes a mile and for the 3 and 6 mile runs they were pretty easy and I finished without feeling exhausted. I expect that to only get even better from here on out.

I was not looking forward to the 10 mile run today. It will be my last run on a treadmill for a while. It was at the gym which meant I didn't have to deal with the elements. I also got to watch some Nascar coverage which made the miles crawl by. Oh football season, where art thou? I started the run with a heart rate of 145 bpm and I finished at 160. The reason for this is I ran faster today than the 9 mile run last week. Today I was doing 6.7 mph (as opposed to 6.3) and for the last mile I went up and down between 7 and 8 mph. I ended up running for exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes so I got to 10.3 miles. I must note that this is faster than a 2 hour half marathon which is faster than I want to be running the marathon.

My first two marathons took 4:20 and 4:47. I have not set a goal for the upcoming marathon because it basically relies on how Brandon is doing as well. I know I want to go fast and finish as soon as possible but I also care more about helping a friend cross for the first time than beating some stupid times. With my enthusiasm as high as it is right now, I am tempted to schedule my next marathon so there will definitely be another after this (*cough* the flying pig *cough*).

The 10 miles really felt good and while I am tired especially after coming home and playing with Liza in the pool, that is to be expected. After finishing at 160 bpm, I stopped completely and after two minutes my heart rate fell to 127 so that's pretty good. I'd love to get that down to 110 or 100.

Liza leaves tomorrow :( so I will blog tonight a little more about her time here. Pictures may have to wait because we are busy packing.

mile counter: 65.8

What an amazing week of running! Who'd a thunk! I ran 3 miles on Tuesday, 4 miles on Wednesday and then 3 miles on Thursday. I have to note that I drank 24 ounces of milk while writing the running blog last Tuesday and that wasn't smart before a 3 mile run. But I ran all 3 of those runs at 9 minute miles which is good enough for me right now. The Wednesday one was tough and miserable but I finished it with a little walking. Sometimes the point of runs is not to do them fast but to do them period. Especially the long ones between 15 and 20 miles.

Today I ran 9 miles on the treadmill at the gym and did it in 1 hour and 25 minutes. I basically set the treadmill at 6.3mph and then finished the last mile at 6.5 mph. I didn't feel tired after it either. My legs were a bit sore but it was a great run. The amazing part is that from the second I started to the second I finished, my heart rate never moved from 145 bpm. 9 miles and my heart was still 145!! Granted it was indoors with no wind or heat but during my first marathon, I set a goal for myself to not exceed 160 bpm before the 10 mile marker. I am already there!! That's ridiculously exciting. I am very encouraged and am looking forward to the running this week.

I have read that a good predictor of your physical condition is your heart rate 2 minutes after you completely stop running. If you are in good physical condition it should be 40 bpm slower. I was speed walking for 3 minutes after the run and my heart rate was 125 after 3 minutes. And then I stopped completely and stood still for 2 minutes and my heart rate after that was 100 bpm. So it's not too bad, definitely have some improvements to make there. I think next time I'm going to stop immediately to see what it is.

Anyway, I'm psyched about running now and hopefully I can keep up the training!!

mile counter: 43

Tomorrow Liz, Liza, Liz's Mom, Liz's Dad and I are all going to Wet-n-Wild Emerald Point. It's a massive water park. Liza is psyched and so are we. Check it out:

http://www.emeraldpointe.com/

Hopefully we can get some good pictures and post them this week.

Back in 2002, I started co-oping with IBM and rooming with Justin, who was a web development fanatic. I really have him to thank for much of what I know about websites and how to run them, but at that time I was looking for a hobby. I workg during the day and after a while, coming home and watching TV just isn't that entertaining. My list of prospective hobbies got narrowed down to two activities I was interested in, web development and motor powered remote control cars. Obviously you know what I chose, but remote controlled anythings always interested me. I was on my own for the first time with money of my own for the first time so I really could choose whatever I wanted. The idea that I could get a little motor running that causes the car to go 40 MPH is amazing to me. I figured I'd learn a lot about motors and engineering and have fun at the same time. Never happened, but maybe some day...

A week ago I finally retired the website that I began that summer in 2002. I used it as a platform for developing school websites, messing around with personal sites, and creating my own personal blog. It wasn't expensive to own (about $80 a year) but I haven't used it consistently for a year and a half since we started this blog and I saw no reason why I needed it anymore. I am definitely going to miss it. I always enjoyed having a little space of my own on the internet. But I don't need it anymore. Liz and I have our own space now, it's right here on this page.

I think some company is trying to take advantage of the traffic because for now it's an advertisement site. I've got news for them though... not a lot of people go there... give it up.

RIP fultonjr.com.

Running has been such an after thought lately for me. With Liza here and the summer heat and so much fun in my life it's been tough to make time for an activity that makes me miserable. But as miserable as I feel while running lately, I'm going to drive on and train for the marathon I'm running on October 26th, The Marine Corp Marathon. Here's a link to the course.

This blog post is just as much for me as it is for any readers who care about the fact that I like to run. Ha! I just just said "like". I used to like to run but lately it has felt like a chore and something I am doing because I feel like I have to. To be honest, I do have to. If I don't run, I slowly gain weight and I have noticed lately that my endurance has really not been the same as it used to be. Weight gain has come to a crawl though since I've been eating more organic food and eating more in the house rather than going out all the time but it's still there. So I have no choice but to continue to run and force myself to like it again. It's just my performance and the results that have pulled me down.

So I am currently in week 4 of the 18 week marathon training, which requires a 3 mile run today, 4 mile run Wednesday, 3 mile run Thursday, and 9 mile run on Saturday. So far the longest run I've done is 6 miles and I've done that 3 times in the last month. Two of the times went fine(54ish minutes) but the last one, this past Sunday, was miserable. I ran with John which normally means my competitive spirit comes out and we have a great run, but 3 miles in I just threw in the towel and we ran/walked all the way to the end. I am not going to use this as an excuse but we ran at 1PM and I hadn't had any lunch, I biked to get there which is a 5 mile bike ride on a mountain bike, and it was mid-90's and really humid. It was a recipe for disaster so I can't be too bummed about it but I also am not thrilled to ever have a bad run.

So this will be the first week I will actually stick to my training. To avoid the heat Saturday I am going to run on a treadmill at the gym so that should really improve things since I have no heat to compete with. I am going to try my best to update every week on the blog on how I am doing in running just to keep myself motivated. I want to get back to where running is fun and feel great doing it. I am running the marathon with a friend named Brandon from school and I read his blog about how lately the first mile is miserable and the rest is great. I remember those times and I'm going to work to get back to them. His blog has been really motivational for me but at the same time I envy the brand new exciting feeling of running and succeeding for the first time. For me though it has just been miserable the whole way through so far. I'm both out of shape and completely exhausted of motivation.

So as I push "publish post" I am heading out to do my 3 mile run and I won't stop until I complete it. Then after the run I am playing a softball game. Just like the first time I used the program, I'm going to once again rely on the training program to prepare me and trust that I will improve.

For anyone interested in seeing the training program, it is put together by a man named Hal Higdon. I followed this same program for my first marathon and it went spectacularly. The second marathon, I attempted to follow his "Intermediate I" program but toward the end I trailed off and did my own thing. I mean if you look at some of the weeks, it asks you to run 8 miles and 12 miles in back to back days. No thanks.

I'm sure inquiring minds want to know how Liza is doing and how we are doing with her? I keep saying I will blog when I have time and I promise I will. It's just whenever I get the time she then picks that time to annoy me and I don't want to blog when I'm annoyed. So alas, it gets put off. 80% of the time she is wonderful but the other 20% of the time she gets an attitude that even baffles the interpreters. Maybe that's what her Mom meant when she emailed us and the first thing she asked was "How is her behavior?"

Maybe tonight after softball I will blog about her.

Since Brandon started a mile counter during training, I might as well post one and keep track: 24

I am not feeling very wordy so this may be a short blog. I apologize. So we had a garage sale on June 28th. It was incredibly successful. I woke up at 4AM and started setting things up and Matt and Meg came over as well as Andrius and Kristin. So we had 3 families worth of stuff but we were not very hopeful. We kept having conversations like this before anyone arrived:

"I think I'll start it at 10 dollars and then bring it down as the day progresses."

"Yeah, but you are assuming that we have people here that care."

But somehow, someway, at 7AM sharp people started coming. We had a constant flow of people from 7AM until 11AM and then it went down from there. All in all the 3 families made $600 and we came away with about $200. We still have a considerable amount left though so we'll either save it for another sale or donate it to Goodwill. Here is a few pictures:

After the garage sale we went to the pool. Liza loves the pool so here is a picture of that:


This past weekend we went to Pawleys Island and that was a blast. It was amazing because we were camped out both days on the part of the beach where the marshland meets the ocean so during high tide the water flowed toward the marsh and during low tide the water flowed toward the ocean. So the whole time there was this flow of water we could hop into and float down. It was really enjoyable.

One funny story, Gryffin really won my heart this weekend. Jon and I took Dewey and Gryffin over to the flowing water because Gryffin showed interest in water and Dewey loves swimming in water. When we got there we realized the water was too strong for Gryffin so we just waded a bit. I then said to Jon "I bet I could swim upstream against the water" and he responds "I'll give you 5 bucks if you can for 30 seconds." So I handed him Gryffin and hopped in and started swimming. I made it for a good 15 seconds when all of a sudden Gryffin jumped in to save me. Or at least that's the way I like to think of it. He was just floating on down the river making no progress whatsoever. But it was so cute to see his little paws doggie paddling as fast as possible. He could float so that was at least something. I immediately stopped and grabbed him and helped him back to shore. But he really won me over with his effort to try and save me.

Here are our favorite pictures and then the photo album of the weekend. If you click the album, it will take you to the pictures:








http://picasaweb.google.com/EMDickman/4thOfJuly

I apologize we haven't blogged about Liza in a while. I am a bit disgruntled with her right now and her attitude about... hmm... pretty much everything. I will try and blog the next time she is sweet so it's not so negative.

Instead of saving the top of our wedding cake last year, we had our baker make us a mini cake to celebrate with. And it was good....

I have been waiting all day to write this post. Mainly because over the past few weeks I have been blogging and commenting on Liza and Gryffin and what Liz and I are doing and there has been almost no mention of Daisy. It really came clear today what I want to say and that's why I've been waiting to blog about it.

Originally I was going to make this an actually poem the way "odes" should be but there is no way I'm going to post a poem in our blog(let alone write one) so this will just be in normal story-telling, blog, format. And no I won't sing it either.

To put it bluntly, Daisy has been taking a lot of crap lately.

We adopted Gryffin in May. She immediately had to get along with another dog in the house. She has embraced Gryffin and they have become best friends. The one problem is that Gryffin is an attention stealer. If Daisy is getting pet, then Gryffin steps in front to get the love too. If Daisy is laying near the window, Gryffin squeezes in between her and the window. Remember when I said Gryffin was a snuggler, well Daisy bears the brunt of it a lot. She graciously relinquishes her spots without any fuss or anger. She holds no grudges and quickly finds another spot just as good. Here is an example, what was originally a spacious resting place, is now a crowded, uncomfortable corner of the chair:


Now that we are taking care of Liza, Daisy has to handle more inconveniences. Daisy doesn't mind being held but she doesn't prefer it. On Sunday we all went to the Children of Chernobyl orientation picnic and Daisy and Gryffin were hits of the party with all the kids. I pretty much just sat in the grass with them as an endless line of kids sat with me in a circle to play with the dogs. Daisy was uncomfortably picked up, passed around, and one time kicked and one time dropped and she never changed her behavior. Not a human in the world contains the amount of patience that Daisy possesses and with such little animosity or frustration. Call it being a dumb dog but to me it's admirable. And for any dog owner you would understand what I'm about to say, I wish this was something I could express to her. I could just see the look in her eyes the whole time saying "well... ok... be careful... ouch that hurts... I'm not sure I like this." She was clearly uncomfortable the whole time but there wasn't a moment during the picnic did I think Daisy would have snapped at the kids. She was a true lady =P.

Like I said above, she was kicked and dropped during the picnic by a couple of the kids and she doesn't react or show any signs of snapping at them. It was so cute, the second she got kicked (although accidentally), she put her tail between her legs and ran to stand between mine. It was very precious.

She also has become such a wonderful house dog. She has not pooped or peed in the house in many many months. She never ever barks or makes a sound. She is hardly ever demanding of us in any way as far as whining or crying goes. She sleeps hard but plays hard too. She is extremely fast and loves to run around the back yard and can have a TON of energy if she gets a fire lit under her. When we have to leave the house, all we have to do is show her a treat and start walking to her crate and she'll hop in without any fuss or disagreement.

I am not going to act like we can take credit for her. I think dog behavior is hard to change and for the most part, an owners influence usually just amplifies or dulls the traits of a dog. So really I think we just inherited this wonderful animal and got incredibly lucky. But I am going to go out on a limb and say that Daisy is the perfect dog and the last month has really convinced me of that. I can't believe she's ours.


*DISCLAIMER* - I realize there are many readers who also have dogs and think theirs is perfect as well... ... ...that's cool too... we're both right.