5 Years Running

Today was a long run day.

Even with Guns N' Roses blasting through my earbuds,
"Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty"

...my thoughts wander and I reflected upon the fact that I have been running for 5 years now.

I went back over my blog post of 2014 and had a good laugh at my 5 year plan.  Based on those posts, my running has exceeded my expectations.  I started with a 30+ minute 5k, now I'm sub 23 minutes.  My first Half-Marathon was 2 hour and 7 minutes, now it under 1 hour and 44 minutes.  

Really, I'm content, even if I never beat those records.  I used to think that if I could just average an 8:30 minute mile for a half, then that would be enough.  I've managed a 7:55.

Does this mean that I'm not striving for faster? Of course not. I'm human.

Right now I'm nowhere near in any shape to run those times, and that is fine.  Since Afrika, I've been bulking up on miles.  

I got my hands on this book:

I mentioned this book in one of my earliest blog posts. Now I'm going to give the 5k training plan a try for Monterey this Fall.  I think I will use it for my half-marathon that I plan to run in the Spring.  I've been running twice a day on some days, something I haven't done in quite awhile.  For example:

Tuesday AM	Tuesday PM	Wednesday AM	Wednesday PM	Thursday AM	Thursday PM
5.3	0	5.3	3	8.6	3
Friday AM	Friday PM	Saturday AM	Saturday PM	Sunday	Monday	Total
6.2	3	5.3	2.6	6.2	16.9	65.4	7/9-7/16

Today I ran 16.9 miles at a 10:11 pace.  I haven't had a "gel" in years.  For these long runs I drive out to the end of the canal.  My car contains a cooler with a supply of water and assorted veggies/fruit.  I grab 2-4 pieces at the end of each 3.7 mile loop.  There is a port-a-potty where I park and so other needs are met also.

Next week I reduce my miles to something in the 40s.  I'm going to sprinkle in some "speed work" for this low mileage week.  I've been doing hill sprints on the treadmill twice a week, so I should be ready.

For the first time I've managed to achieve a 10mph pace on the tread mill (at 1% grade) and hold it for about a 100 yards.  All previous attempts resulted in me panicking and hitting the stop button, or pulling out the safety key. I believe "teaching" my legs to run at this faster pace is critical to any future improvement.

Afrika

So around my 50th birthday, my wife and I started to get serious about our "bucket list" which included doing a safari in Africa.

Then the big Ebola outbreak occurred and we put the trip on hold.

With our 25th anniversary coming up, and the Ebola outbreak ended, my wife got more insistent and found a good tour group to go with.  Ebola cropped up again in the Congo, but remained contained, and our trip was booked.

I'm not going to say where in Africa we went because apparently it might help poachers to track down animals of interest.  But I do have a few pictures and videos to share.

A Giraffe:

A female lion

A male lion: we encountered this big fellow on our last day.  He changed my perspective on "marking territory" in a big way.

The ubiquitous Cape Buffalo: okay, maybe not ubiquitous, but there were a lot.

A white rhino.

Elephants

And a leopard

So that covers the "Big Five" plus a Giraffe.

We saw a lot of Baboons.

A few Wildebeest.

Some Hyena, including a dead one, killed by a male lion defending its lunch!  We also saw a den with several baby Hyenas.

Cute little mongooses, or is that mongeese?

Hornbills are now the iconic bird of Africa for me.

Here is a warthog - best picture I could get.

I really like this Elephant picture.

And let's not forget Zebra.

We enjoyed the local beer.

I don't think it would be much of a surprise to say we saw "The Smoke That Thunders."

We visited geological wonders.

Running

I got only two short (30-40 minute), back-to-back treadmill runs in during the middle of the trip.  I am now trying to regain my running fitness.  Running on Safari is generally not recommended.  I wouldn't want to be mistaken for prey.

Malaria

For the second time I took malarial medication on a trip where I was never bitten by a mosquito.  Early on in the trip I had a case of "Shaka's Revenge" that put my gastrointestinal system into the worst tail-spin that I can ever remember.  Our guide suggested it was due to the medication, I'm less sure, but I stopped taking it just to be safe.  I began questioning my guide and various natives about malaria.  Long term malarial medication is just a no-go for all of them.  They rely on mosquito netting, and diethyltoluamide (DEET). 

So Africa is checked on my "Bucket list," well, except for Egyptian pyramids.  Still there is a desire to do some more Safari in the future.  My wife was quite keen on all of the birds she got to identify.  Apparently the best time to go birding is during the rainy season, which is also the mosquito season - ugh!

A final picture from our sunset cruise.