It is Wednesday evening and I'm home from Denver. I tried to run on a treadmill while in the Denver area and found the altitude to give me problems. The best that I could do at one time was about a mile, so I only got in 2 miles while being gone.

HOWEVER!!!!!! This evening at home I did another full 60 minutes on our home treadmill and improved on the mile I did on Sunday. This time I did 60 minutes at a 12.41 minute per mile pace, an improvement over the 13.11 that I think I did on Sunday. I ran the first 4 miles at a 12 minute/mile pace and walked the last 12 minutes.

I'm tired but I feel good. Tonight is churchnight, so we are off to our LifeGroup meeting soon.

Yesterday was a travel day, I had to fly to Denver, CO and then drive to Greeley about an hour north of Denver. It's very cold here, single digits, and still a bit icy in places. As a result after dinner last night I did not want to brave the elements to head to a local gym that has a track. I told myself that it would give my toes an extra day to heal. I did lance one toe Sunday night and it does now seem better. Yes my brother appears to have been right about there being a blister under the nail.
Today I will be heading back towards the Denver airport but won't fly out until tomorrow morning so I will be able to get in a run, probably on a treadmill this afternoon or evening and hopefully another one tomorrow morning before getting ready to head to the airport.

Sunday, January 21, 2007, here is a first and a personal best in many many years. I did 4.574 miles in 60 minutes, for a pace of 13.12 minutes per mile. This is now a target and a goal upon which to improve. Something tangeable to help in the training towards the April 29 half-marathon. I feel good, tired, but good.

The first 2.5 miles were run at a 12 minute per mile pace, but there was a phone call that interrupted things, but didn't require me to completely stop. However, it did prove to break any rhythym I had managed to work into. The rest of the time was a combination of run and walk

Oh brother of mine that ran his first marathon in Houston this past Sunday, looks so calm and collected even after completing 14 miles of the marathon at this point. His training over the past 9 months has really paid off. His time for the entire marathon is indicated in the photo and he is already talking about running another to break the 5 hour barrier.

He looks like he is just out on a Sunday stroll here and could be walking to an Aggie football game rather than pounding the pavement for another 12 miles.

I was fortunate enough to run with him for the last 6.5 miles or so of the marathon and he did really great. In fact the first 11 miles of the marathon he basically ran non-stop.

He is supportive of my running and has already offered up some great advice for me that will help my training. I've commited to run in the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon on April 29, 2007 and if all goes well he will be running it with me. That will be a fun time. Now all I've got to do is work consistently on my program. At the moment my sights are on running at least the first 5 miles before doing any walking. I'm convinced I can do the 5 miles in roughly an hour, which will allow me to finish in about 3 hours total, or so I hope.

Today is Saturday, January 20, 2007, I ran 3.084 miles. This brings my January total to 38.202. If this is a beginning, what will I be doing in a year from now. The funny thing is that I can still remember the days immediately after my cardiac bypasses when it was such an effort to just walk down the hall of the hospital, and a few days later when at home I got brave enough to venture down the sidewalk to the mailbox and back and thought I had run a long distance race to finish that very short distance. So when I stop to think about those days, it helps to put this day in better perspective. It helps to have walked in those shoes, even if they were house shoes, or shoes that someone else had to put on me at that point in time.

Today I feel good, today I am thankful that I can exercise, today I am thankful I can run, it feels so glorious to take a deep breath and be able to smile at the problems of the world. Thank you Lord.

Oh baby it's Friday!!!!! YESSSSSSS I got home and did 2.5something on the treadmill, not a great event but hey.....I had on new shoes and they deserve to be broken in and so do my feet...gently. Well I can say that my toes don't hurt. Did I tell you that I ended up getting a "full" size bigger shoe than what I've been running in, oh what a change. But they felt fine, though my toes did feel just a bit different having room to move around a bit.

Forgetful me, I failed to announce the grand arrival of the newest addition to our family. Yes we are grandparents...again. That is Dylan Alexander born on Wednesday afternoon. He came into this world at 7 pounds 7 ounces, and was a strapping 21 inches. I'll have to talk to Grandma about letting go of some better photos. We are happy and will be going to visit for just over a week this next Friday.

Here I am starting my "short" jog with my brother in the 2007 Houston Marathon, showing true colors of course.

Here is my brother as he's approaching the finish line of the Houston Marathon last weekend. He ran this marathon in 5 hours 23 minutes and some seconds...wooohooo. Way to go Aggie Ben. I was priveleged enough to run the last 6.5 miles or so with him as a surprise. I am truly proud of his accomplishment for this first marathon. I'm also glad that he's now considering another marathon in the future to try and break the 5 hour barrier, because I know he has what it takes to do it!!

It was this short run with him that allowed the bug to truly nibble on me. I've been running on our treadmill this winter and I've toyed with the idea of running long distance. Even at the Saturday morning Weight Watcher meeting that my wife and I attend our leader has been talking about goals for 2007 and has each of us thinking of a goal for the year. While most are considering a weight loss goal, I've decided that my goal for 2007 will be to train for a marathon. I've commited to the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon on April 29 this year as a step towards that goal. I think it would be awesome to run with my brother in perhaps the Houston Marathon in January 2008.

This makes me feel so great to have made such a decision as to run again. I hated running in most of my high school years, yet I played basketball, so go figure. Until my senior year I was always the last to finish "running the lines" on the basketball court. Something happened my senior and running suddenly became enjoyable and when it did, I went from the back of the pack to at or near the front of the pack. I"m not sure who was more amazed, me or my coach. Anyway, I again started to run in 1984-5 when I lived in Wyoming where the city I lived in built a recreation center that included an indoor running track that was an 1/8th of a mile. I worked up to doing 5-8 miles per day 5 days a week and again felt great. However, I eventually started doing more travelling for my job and the running ended around 1988. Well, almost 20 years later and after my heart surgery, here I am feeling the need, the want, the desire to run again. I've run almost 35 miles since the first of the year, not a long distance but for me it makes me feel alive again. Thanks Lord for a second chance.

Thursday 1/18/07 I didn't run. My wife and I took a short trip to Academy and I bought a new pair of running shoes. I got a pair of Nike Air 90's. I also found out that the old shoes that I had been running in (New Balance 608's) were a size 10.5 and when measured that I actually needed a size 11.5. So, Aggie Ben you were right about the problems with my toes it appears. Thanks for suggesting that I look for a larger size. I would have never guessed or believed that I was wearing a full size smaller than I should be wearing. Well anyway, my feet are happier and I'm happy too.

This week has started good after getting home safely from the Houston Marathon. I've done 3 miles on Tuesday and 3 miles on Wednesday. I'm not out to set any land speed records, mostly doing this to maintain my health and for the challenge as well.
On Tuesday I signed up to run a 1/2 marathon on April 29th in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. As soon as I finished signing up I felt a rush of committment, but I know with continued effort on my part and consistentency I can complete the 1/2 marathon in what I predicted, which was 3 hours.
My short term goal is to complete 5 miles within one hour, I hope to be there by the middle of February.
I have what appears to be blood blisters on two of my toes (the second toe on each foot). My brother tells me that it is because my shoes are too tight and that I need to look for slightly larger shoes. Well tonight my wife and I will go searching for a new pair of shoes. The blood blisters don't hurt, they just look bad. I remember that this happened last summer when we first started to walk in our neighborhood on my left foot only. It was the same toe then but it did go away on it's own.
I'm excited about running, excited about doing the 1/2 marathon at the end of April, and excited that I may be ready to do the Houston Marathon in January 2008. I'm hoping my brother can come to OKC and run the 1/2 marathon with me in April.

Just a bit of history about who I am. I'm Randy, a 51 year old quadruple cardiac bypass survivor. I had my surgery on April 9, 2005. I was able to bounce back fairly quickly, finishing a 12 week rehab program in only 6 weeks. That was followed by an immediate job relocation from Texas to Oklahoma.
I've been working out with relative steadiness since August 2006, first walking outdoors with my wife until late November. Then with the cold weather we took the walking inside on our treadmill. To keep that from becoming too boring I started to jog just a bit on the treadmill and found that I liked it.
I started doing 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill at a 4 mile per hour pace. Since the first of the year I've started to jog most if not all of the 30 minutes at a 5 mile per hour pace.
This past Sunday I ran about 6.5 miles of the Houston Marathon helping my younger brother (47) complete his first full marathon.
Well the bug has bitten and now I'm interested in training to eventually run my first marathon.
Just over 20 years ago I was running 5-8 miles a day, 5 days a week on an indoor jogging path when I lived in Wyoming. I discovered then that I enjoyed running and only wish today that I had kept that exercise up and maybe I wouldn't have the "zipper" on my chest. Oh well, can't change the past but I am in control of my future.
Tonight or later I will post a couple of photos from the marathon of me and of my brother. I'm really proud of him and his accomplishment.