Music

You may have noticed that I have attached a playlist of some of the songs I find motivating while running. Of course, not all will suit your musical taste, but these are some of my favorites. I'll change it up periodically, maybe with some themed running playlists (religious, cover songs, 80's). Enjoy, and if you have any music recommendations, please let me know.

I also listen to Phedippidations podcast by Steve Runner a lot when I'm running. I find it very entertaining, but my wife can't stand it. So its up to you.

Restless

One of those nights were you just can't get into a deep sleep. Luke has been waking up the last few nights crying. The thing is, he's still asleep. So when we go up there we ask him if he's ok and he doesn't seem to know that he has been crying at all. Any parents out there with experience in this dept, please let me know. Rachel was tossing and turning all night too. Darn that stupid baby monitor, a drip of drool can fall from her mouth onto the crib mattress and it sounds like a shotgun going off through the monitor. I know you can adjust the volume, but its either almost silent or it picks up EVERYTHING, there's no in-between. But even before the Luke/Rachel all night party, I still had trouble getting to sleep. Turned the light out at 11 and tossed until about 1. It's on nights like that where I am determined to get up and run in the morning because that seems to be the only thing that makes me go right to sleep when my head hits the pillow.

So, 5 am, out the door. I can tell the days are getting shorter. But its still so freakin' humid out there. Toward the end of the run there was a hint of breeze, but it was still pretty much a sweat fest. I stopped once to change playlists on the ipod (OK, I REALLY needed a break and used the ipod as an excuse to stop). So 5 miles even at 9:18 pace. The pace would have probably considerably dropped if I hadn't taken a short break.

Playlist:
Last 25 minutes of Phedippidations 134: Online Training Logs
One - U2
Prison Bound - Social Distortion
Going Down - Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Eric Johnson
Freedom '90 - George Michael

New Mizuno Wave Precision 8's came in yesterday. I didn't run in them this morning, but I'm going to wear them today to break them in a little. That should bring my pace well below 8 min/mile when I where those bad boys. OK, well maybe not that much, but its still cool getting new shoes.

Humid Morning Run

With children 3 yrs and 5 mos, and a 14 yr old dog, getting a full night's sleep is like a unicorn. You've heard of it but haven't really ever seen one. That's why last night was so good, everyone slept all night and I awoke this morning ready to hit the roads. I was expecting cooler temperatures at 6 am. I suppose they were somewhat cooler than my run yesterday, but dog gonnit there was some humidity. The kind you feel like you're swimming through the air. But overall it was nice, the sun wasn't out and I didn't have to take any breaks.

I'm looking foward to running the half at the Spinx Runfest this year. I'll start the training cycle soon. Running a half doesn't get me as pumped up as running a full, but I just have too many things going on right now to train for a full marathon. I love the respect that the full marathoners command at the races. Even at check-in, the people working the desk seem to realize that these are a different breed of people. It's the one chance in any sport that I know of that mere mortals get to feel like an elite athlete.

Back at it

Well, Rachel is now nearly 5 months old. She's sleeping better for the most part, and our life has now retained some semblance of normalcy. I've started sneaking out every now and then for a run in the mornings when I can. I find that it helps me stay awake during the day if I can get my run in the morning.

I am going to try to do a better job at maintaining this blog for running and plus add a few personal thoughts and updates on the family. I've had blogs in the past for specific races (if you'd like to see the blog I kept while training for the St. Jude's Marathon in December, just go to www.myspace.com/palassis1). But it always seems to peter out and I lose some of the memories of those times in my life.

A little background that I promise never to bore you with ever again. I turned 32 in May, I am extremely happily married with 2 beautiful children (Luke is 3.5 and Rachel is 5 mos). Running has been my hobby for about 6 years now. I have 3 marathons under my belt, and countless race t-shirts in my closet. I live in the thriving metropolis of Easley, SC, where the drivers seem to take a special satisfaction in making me dive into a ditch at the last minute to avoid a very painful collision with their vehicle (Seriously people, would it kill you to swerve just a little into the other lane if there is no oncoming traffic?). I am by no means a fast runner, my PR for 5K is just below 22. I don't think I'm built for speed, but I can slog through high mileage runs and have a certain tolerance for pain. My PR for the marathon is 4:07. I want desperately to break 4 hours before I leave this world. We moved to the upstate from Savannah, GA in Oct 2007. The wife is from Gaffney and I am from Columbia and we both went to Clemson, so we were definitely excited when we found out we were returning to God's country.

On to today's run... most of my runs up to this point have been a 4.2 mile loop. We just returned from a vacation and my Garmin 305 is still packed up somewhere. But the old fashioned wristwatch shows it was completed in 40:20. I waited a little too late before getting out, it was probably in the low 90's by the time I started at 9:45. Not a breath of wind and no cloud cover. But hey, its getting me in better shape for those fall races. I am going to try to attach my running stats using the online log from "RunningAhead." Had to stop once in one of the very few shaded parts of the course for a breather.

I am a novice at this blogging thing, so if there is anything I left out or you would like to know, feel free to ask.

Jay