Hands and Feet!

By: Brent

So to catch everyone up to speed on the "Metacarpal Mishap" the official word from the Doctor was that Jeff had a inter articular fracture the base of the 5th Metacarpal bone (in line with the pinky finger but within the hand portion, not the finger) on the right hand and that the bone itself was also displaced (no longer in line with where it should be is how I interpret that) but after more testing it would not require any future tweaking to get it back to where it needed to be. This is now cast in a pretty blue hand cast. Per Wikipedia, this is also the most common bone to be injured when throwing a punch. At this point, Jeff will be placing his biking and MMA heavy weight title fight on hold for at least 4 weeks.

Jeff's arm in a cast

Also this week, I signed up to run my first half marathon in what will be 2 years. I will be participating in my second running of the "Indy Mini", part of the Indy 500 festival weekend. I was asked by a co worker if I was doing it this year and I said that I hadn't really thought about it. My first running of it, which was also my first half marathon was a slightly bitter experience which I wrote about here. Long story short, the Indy Mini brings in about 35,000 runners and my friend Jonny the Fox signed me up and put me in a terribly slow pace causing me to get stuck in a Corral S, plus the road we started on was under construction so by the time the gun went off to start the race, it was 45 minutes before I got to cross the START line. Keep in mind the people that win this thing, were crossing the FINISH line 15 minutes after I started the exact same race. But after the road now being fixed and I was able to talk my wife into joining me in this race and the co worker, and as I am signing up I am hearing about more and more people I know running this, I was a sucker to say yes.

So being a 3 time half marathoner and having run a full marathon this year I want to tweak my training plan. Running gets boring. In the marathon, no amount of music on an iPod can keep you that entertained, so to train for 16 weeks, then have to run the run, I have a plan for success.

1) Start running, but don't start "training". It's one thing to just "go for a run". It's another to have to "go for a run". See how "just" and "have" changed how exciting that sounded.

2) Don't get hurt, or try any stupid mountain bike tricks.... well, we'll see how that pans out.

3) Re-re-re-read "My life on the run" by Bart Yasso. Every time I read it, it makes me want to not only run, but make sure I am happy with the decisions I am making in life.

4) Slightly revise the amount of Ice Cream I eat in the evenings. SLIGHTLY.

5) Keep up with the group rides on Wednesday nights at All About Cycling. Nice change of pace from running, plus keep my legs for and during cycling season.

6) Portion control, portion control, portion control.

7) Reduce my training plan down to 10-12 weeks, but get myself comfortable on my own schedule prior to training actually beginning with being able to run 6-7 miles hard.

I would love to see myself drop the weight back to the 200 mark, however, I leave that decision up to God. I am not a "dieter" by any means. If I lose it, awesome, its less luggage I have to carry with me around the course, and I know I will benefit from it, but again, I always have this mental image of myself from high school graduating at 6'-3" and 154 lbs. I looked fairly sickly.

OK, I think thats it for today. I will let you know how things progress.

May 7, 2011. Indy Mini. Goal Time: 1:55.00. Current P.R. 2:01.51.