Sins of a runner and a little "Catsmacking"

I almost wished something bad had happened on Sunday just to give myself something to talk about.  The Catsmacker Fun Run started out at Lake Winona and included the forest roads of various quality and a little Ouachita Trail.  I showed up, ran, chatted, ate some food and went on my merry way to finish the 23 mile course in 4:19.  I ran the distance with Stacey who is high spirited enough for two people and a runner who is infectiously in love with the sport.

The only instances of note were:  Approaching the first aid station we saw PoDog, Stan, and PT hovering around a bunch of empty water containers.  Some ______ hilly billies decided that at 7:30am on a Sunday it would be fun to punch a bunch of holes in the jugs and dump them out as well as hiding some of the other jugs in the bushes off of the trail.  I tell ya, I envy the fun they must have had.  Also, I was endlessly pursued by a host of horseflies.  They seemed to come from everywhere and had me dancing around screaming like a girl trying to avoid the painful bites.  Stacey wasn't bothered by them at all of course and observed "back on the farm the horseflies always landed on the horse's ass."  Thanks Shorty!

The Catsmacker ended my highest volume week to date, 70 miles.  A portion of these miles came from my new second workout of the day, 4-5 miles on the treadmills at UAMS.  I'm doing this to try and keep up my mileage during the summer (and possibly here on out) when I have some traveling to do on the weekend and don't want to can't get a long run in.  This marks my first successful attempts at treadmill running and after doing it, I am expecting good results to come from it.  I have also implemented a little heavy weight lifting in the equation to hopefully help with the vertical climbing I always seem to find myself doing and maybe a little vanity.  This is just a session 2-3 times a week including 2x6 of bis, tris, shoulder, bench and squat.  Nothing too big or too much.

So you may think, "My goodness, the boy's doing 70 miles a week.  That's a lot of training...or...He must have read something in RunnersWorld to give him all these ideas..."  Which leads me to my thought of the day and something I am noticing more and more; fluffy running.  It is an all inclusive term to include anything that is ever written in a magazine about running (such as "The Athlete's Palate", "10 Mental Tricks to Run Better", "10 Signs You Need a Rest Day", "Why You Should Run Barefoot", "Why You Shouldn't Run Barefoot") or hear from a medical "professional" ("alternate your breathing pattern so the weight of the air your breathing in doesn't make you off-balance").  My other favorites include the subjects of tapering (which can be anywhere from a week to a month depending on who you talk to), nutrition (way too much) and how to increase your training volume ("don't go more than 10% per week").  If you've made it this far I'm sure you can infer the tone of my typing to mean that I think all these things range between goofy to hypocritical or just plain nonsense.

So if there is a runner's Bible, I'm breaking the rules (kind of like we all do with the real one, huh?).  In sequential list of which Circle of Runner's Hell I'm going to:  I don't taper more than a few days; I consistently am inconsistent with my mileage (last 2 months 58, 45, 22, 7, 35, 44, 70), I follow no training plan, I run 9-12 times per week, I don't use gels during runs (because I think they produce the opposite effect we desire, ask me about this one if you dare), I don't do a long run longer than 16, and FINALLY....I don't read RunnersWorld for advice.

After all is said and done, running is an individual sport/activity where your success is going to come only from the effort you put in.  My best piece of advice, put one foot in front of the other and GO!