Recipes

Here is are great recipe from Giada De Laurentiis, from the Food Network. It is a simple and easy Salmon recipe for the grill. I have used it a few times and it turn our great with very little time and effort. I am not much of a cook when it comes to fish, especially salmon, and I happen to think that people can very easily ruin salmon, but this recipes is simple and produces a great meal.

I also grilled some veggies to go along with it. I used zucchini, yellow squash, and asparagus. Chopped up with a little olive oil and sea salt and ground pepper in a tin foil packet. I put the veggies on for about 15 mins on a medium to medium-high part of the grill.

Salmon Recipe:

How to Peal a Banana

Ok, almost everyday I have a Green Smoothie for breakfast, which are great and I'll post on them later. I always have struggled slightly with pealing bananas, here is a great video on a much easier way.

Enjoy:

How to Peal a Banana:

Ambition

So I am feeling quite ambitious at this particular moment in time and according to my training program I'm am supposed to do a 4 hour run one day then a 3.5 hour run the next. So instead of doing that I think I'm going to try and run 2 marathons back to back. I don't think it will be a problem tomorrow but I think that Saturday might be rough. I have to work from like 10am to 10pm, so I'll have to get up early and hit the roads. I will let you know if it happens or not.

Vote on the poll to the right on whether or not you think I'll actually do it or not. If I don't get any votes I'm not going to post whether or not I ran back to back marathons, and it will eat you up inside.

Functional Strength Training

Here is a good article on functional strength training. I have started to incorporated a lot more of these types of exercises into my strength training routines. I feel that they have helped me to strengthen a lot of the counter-balancing muscles and secondary muscles that are often over looked.

Enjoy! Join the Movement:

Quote of the Day:

"Do or do not. There is no try". - Yoda

Hobby or Addiction?

There comes a point where you question whether or not your "hobby" is to the point of an addiction. Well, I might be getting pretty close to that line. This past Saturday morning I got up at 6 am to drive 30 minutes to go running for 5 hours. I must have been having marathon withdrawals, another person that I met that is training for a 1o0 mile race and anther fellow runner headed out on the trails and ran 26.17 miles, just a hair under a marathon. Though this was a slow easy pace and having some company was nice.

Looking at my training program it looks like I'll be running close to a marathon each weekend, so I'm sure I'll be flirting with that line of addiction, but there is far worse things. I think anyways.

Great Video

Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe does a speech about his experiences on the show and how his experiences have really changed his way of thinking. I think it is a great message. I know not running related.

Enjoy!

Mike Rowe's Speech:

Time

Now that I do not have a looming race I can focus on my training, but it is a different feeling not having a looming race. I hit the weights today and really am going to try and focus on build strength in my lower body and core to help with the hills and rough terrain of the trail race.

It was sort of difficult today because I scrapped my knee up pretty good playing softball on Monday, but it should be fine. I think I'm going to ride my bike to work tomorrow and try and get in a long run, 20 miles...maybe. The problem is that it is 30 miles round trip to work and back via bike so that tires me out a bit. We'll see...

Workout: July 5th-6th

July 5th: Off, I just ran 50 kilometers up and down hills I deserve a day off.

July 6th: 2 softball games and and easy 8 mile jog.

Quote of the Day:

"Run if you can, walk if you must, crawl if you have to."

-Nicholas Karnazes (Dean Karnazes' Dad)

Afton 50k: Results

It's official. I can now say that I am officially a Ultra marathoner. I completed my first Ultra marathon, any race over the standard 26.2 mile marathon distance. This probably being the shortest leap into the Ultra marathon spectrum but a leap none the less.

I actually felt really good throughout the entire race. There was a lot of hills, there was really only two areas of about 3/4 of a mile and a mile were there was flat running. Other than that it was pretty much up and down the whole way. It was a beautiful course, it was set in Afton State Park, next to Afton Alps, a ski resort, so yeah hills. The nice thing about it was you really could ever see that far ahead of your so the challenge of running 31+ mile up and down hills was slightly lessened because you could only see a few meters in front of you. You really only had to worry about the next few step in front of you, which generally was enough to worry about. You really had to watch every step to ensure that you had proper footing.

Here is a link to the results page of the Afton 50k Results, they should be posting the results soon. I am definitely like the trail running that I have done so far, it is a nice change of pace. I do feel that I will have to do a little more strength training in order to better condition my legs to take the ponding of the trails, but I'm not too worried.

Afton 50k

It is the night before the Afton 50k, and I'm just about to attempt to go to bed. I actually just watched the 50/50 documentary on Dean Karnazes 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. It was a little inspiration for me, but I think it got my mind thinking too much and now it will be hard to get to sleep.

I am pretty anxious for this race, it is Afton State park and it is 2 loops around the park and there are constant hills all the way. Here is a link to the elevation chart for the course, it will certainly take its toll on me. This will be my first Ultra marathon (any race longer than a standard marathon 26.2 miles) so I am fairly excited to officially be able to call myself an ultra marathoner, provided I finish tomorrow. This will be a 50k or 31 mile race, so not much longer than a normal marathon, so I think I should be able to handle it.

I have me trail shoes, camel pack and a hand water bottle, there is aid stations every 3 miles so I might not need to carry the camel pack the water bottle might be enough, game time decision. Well, wish me luck, have a great Fourth of July I'll be sure to post results after the race.

Ultra Fever!

Just in case any of you are looking to join in on some of the insanity. A friend of mine sent me a great site that list a ton of Ultra marathons in the Midwest. Check it out, mark you calendars and get running. My enthusiaim might be a bit premature being that I haven't even finished/attempted my first Ultra, but it looks like I'll have plenty of opportunities.

Ultra Marathon Race Directory: