More lamentable news from the Groothuis camp—I have been struck with a terrible sinus cold/flu for most of last week, and because I am in no imminent rush to kill myself with upping my mileage (well…not just yet, anyhow!) this past week ended up looking scarily similar to the week before.  For whatever reason I seem to be much more susceptible to contracting viruses this year.  I usually am only down and out for maybe a couple of days throughout the entire year, but in the past 3 months alone I have been hit hard multiple times with the H1N1 and other colds + flus slammed back-to-back in succession!  While I do not mind taking some time off when necessary, I really cannot afford to be sidelined any longer if I want to get my training going in order to be ready to squeeze-out a nice half marathon in early May.  The great news is that, for the most part, this crazy cold is finally on its way out!  Also, with the unexpected series of rest days I had to take, my achilles is feeling pretty phenomenal at the moment.  Both of these assuring signs can only mean one thing—get back to running TODAY!

(note: I do still need to upload my Garmin mileage totals for last week, so I will edit this post with those numbers when I get a moment.)

So it seems like I prematurely named this site.  Judging from my low mileage totals in the last couple of weeks, I really should have titled this blog “REST with Groothuis”

Unlike some purists, I have no qualms in taking rest days when I feel my body needs it—I usually take one rest day per week (usually on Tuesdays) to allow proper recovery for the week.  When I notice something startlingly awry or unfamiliar, I will take as many days as necessary to rest and recover, which is sort of where I find myself now.

I have been noticing some aching pain and overall strangeness in my ankle/achilles region over the past couple of weeks, which has prompted me to take a few extra rest days than I typically would.  You see, for the past 7-8 years or so I have had an ongoing battle with the dreaded (dun, dun, dunnnn!!) achilles tendonitis!, and it always happens to flare up when the temperatures start to drop in the wintertime.  To address this issue, I have taken to wearing prescription orthodics in my running shoes, which helps alleviate ~95% of my pain.  Unfortunately, since I have been using them so regularly this year in both my running and day-to-day activities, I must admit that they are undoubtedly at their breaking point… and fittingly, they will now break me if I don’t get a new pair REAL SOON!  The thing that worries me is that I’ll most likely have to wait until February to get a new pair since my insurance only allows for 1 pair per calendar year…. booooooo to you, insurance! BOOOOO!!!

But all is not bad… the days I have been running have been outstanding.  I sometimes feel so comfortable on my easy runs that I have to check myself to make sure I am not pushing the pace too much by the end… a couple of times in the past two weeks I’ve caught myself running some 5:30’s (per mile) at the end… which is probably not the best thing to be doing at this point in the year, considering my next big race (The Indy Mini (half) Marathon) is almost 6 months away!

I also ran my first workout since late summer this past Wednesday on a gently rolling trail loop in Ellenberger Park (just a few blocks away from my house) and I was very encouraged with the results.  This is what it looked like:

• 2 miles @ 10:13 (5:07, 5:06)
• 800 jog @ 3:38
• 1 mile @ 4:54

I would call the pace I ran relaxed & up-tempo.  This workout will eventually turn into a 3-2-1 mile workout, and I wouldn’t count out the possibility for the heralded 4-3-2-1 (10 mile total) as my base training builds, but since my mileage is so incredibly low at the moment, this was the extent of my first workout and I am pleased with the results.

I plan on posting my weekly training figures at the end of each post, but since I missed a couple weeks since I started keeping track, you can all laugh along with me as I expose the details of my last two weeks of “training” (if you want to call it that!)

—week 1— 45.1 miles

11/16 Mon 8.99 miles / 54:04 / 6:01 pace

11/17 Tues REST

11/18 Wed 9 miles / 53:49 / 5:59 pace

11/19 Thu 9 miles / 57:11 / 6:22 pace

11/20 Fri AM 9.01 miles / 56:46 / 6:19 pace

PM 9.06 miles / 55:56 / 6:11 pace

11/21 Sat REST

11/22 Sun REST

—week 2— 14.5 miles (ouch!)

11/23 Mon 9.01 miles / 52:44 / 5:52 pace

11/24 Tues REST

11/25 Wed 2 mile/1 mile workout (see above)

11/26 Thu REST

11/27 Fri REST

11/28 Sat REST

11/29 Sun REST

Well, well, well… look who came down with a feverish bout of the blog bug!  Yes, friends, I am officially back and beginning to get serious with this running business yet again after a wee 4 year hiatus in competitive distance running.  Wow! Just writing that sentence makes my stomach turn inside—4 YEARS! 4 years of essentially going through the motions with the sport I love so much (all one would need to do is look up some results of mine in the past few years to see this!)

But why, Gerry? Why, you may ask? Well, unfortunately, this scenario is an overpowering reality for many post-collegiate runners who set out into the world and unwittingly leave behind the competitive atmosphere that they once thrived under.  It’s not that I lost my passion for running during this time (I have been more or less running with some consistency since I left college) but it lies in the fact that you definitely lose a little fire when training and racing are no longer the primary focus in your life.  At the same time, I consider myself actually quite fortunate to have taken a little breather from competitive running because I have been able to concentrate on fulfilling other aspects of my life, the most gratifying and rewarding of these being becoming a husband, and now a father!

I feel like I have been hanging on to the nostalgia of the career I left behind in college, and only until recently have I felt ready and willing to give myself another chance to renew that lulled fire within me and propel myself to bigger and better things in running!

So here I am… geared-up, grizzled (well, I am 27!), and GNARLY now that I have this hip, new running blog! I plan on posting details of my training a couple of times a week, and with my love for design, you can bet there will be plenty of eye candy and the occasional video of some of my specific training runs (I use Sony Vegas Pro 9 for video editing).  Since I train mostly alone, for the past two years my “go-to” training partner has been the steadfast “Garmin 205 Forerunner Watch,” and so you can expect all the distances and times posted on here to be pretty damn accurate.  I believe it is important to be as transparent as possible pertaining to training details, so coupled with my Garmin and workout videos, you will see the entire spectrum of my training from the ugly blow-ups to the encouraging triumphs in head-on, brutal honesty.  Seriously, every runner who doesn’t own one yet should definitely have a Garmin Forerunner watch on their wishlist this year!!

I thank-you for visiting my blog and hope you come back often to check in with me and, of course, to….. RUN WITH GROOTHUIS! (man, it’s fun being cheesy, eh?)