Running Coach Dave

The Good and the Bad

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Dave

I figured I would finally write something now since at the moment I am not depressed. A lot has happened in the last few weeks, and most of it is not good. The new company that owns us, has shut us down. A little over a week ago, I had to lay off 17 people. A couple of them have been working there for over 20 years. The new company didn’t care. Had to let them go and they didn’t get any severance or their vacation time that they were owed. I’m sure I won’t hear the end of this. Right now, I’m still working at my branch, finishing up inventory, getting orders out that have been complete, and waiting to hear what my fate is. We technically are “consolidating” with the other branch, but I’m sure they won’t keep me around. No sense having 2 branch managers.

Diane had a job interview the other day that went real well, but there is stiff competition. The thing is, if she get’s it, the job is in Atlanta. So it could be quite a conundrum. If I keep my job, and she get’s this new job, I think we would still go to Atlanta. The cost of living and the housing market there is so much better there than in Denver. Obviously if I get let go and she get’s the job, we are gone. I just don’t want to leave Denver. But my chances of finding a decent job here is not good. Unemployment in Colorado is around 9%, and it is higher than some midwest states like Ohio and Indiana. Not a good time to be unemployed in cowtown.

On a different note, it’s about time to get serious about my training. The OBX Marathon is 20 weeks away now, and I’ve got a lot of work to do. I know I’ve been running some and have even been running some half marathons, but I really haven’t been too serious about it. There are some people that are ultra competitive no matter what, and I know I used to be that way, and I want to get back to that. They never say, “oh I’m just doing this race for fun”. They say “I wanna WIN”! I think I need to get that desire back. My running friend Heather Utrata is a great example. She knows going into every race that she is going to compete very hard and she is running to win. And a lot of the times, she does win. So I will buckle down, lose some weight (about 10 – 12 lbs), and get serious. But that’s after I run this fun little 5K tomorrow in Denver.

Posted in Diane, Heather Utrata, OBX Marathon | Leave a comment

Not what I had planned

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Dave

This is a short post, but maybe my most ~~sincere, err relevant,~~ oh whatever.

To set things up, here is the Readers Digest version.

In November 2009, the company I worked for, Arch Aluminum and Glass, Filed chapter 11 bankruptcy. A few months later, they were bought out by an investment company, Sun Capital. In October of 2010, events occurred that made me fear for my job, so I left to go to another company, Vitro America. They were a competitor of Arch, and I didn’t want to leave, but like I said, events occurred that led me to leave. In April 2011, Vitro America filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and yesterday (June 1) they were bought out by the SAME company that bought out Arch! So now, here in Denver, there are 2 companies owned by the same investment company, that do the same thing. I’m thinking I’m on the short list to be fired. I’m 56 years old and the economy still sucks (thank you Government). Not too many opportunities for someone like me to find anything out there. I’m thinking that I will become a professional runner and travel the world competing in races wearing my Nike shorts.

Posted in bankruptcy | 3 Comments

The Oprah Show

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Dave

If you’re like me and you stumble upon a blog that you want to read, you may read a few of the posts. And if that person has been writing for years, you’re not going to read everything. So this post may have some things in it that some of my devoted readers already know, but since they are devoted to me, they will keep reading.

I just signed up for the OBX Marathon in November and I will be running it with my two sons, Jason and Michael. As long as everything goes okay (NO INJURIES) this will be our first time running a marathon together! Jason and I tried running the San Antonio Marathon together, but we were both injured at that one and Jason had to stop at about mile 9 I think, and I made it to the half. This will be Jason’s second marathon, and for Michael, this will be his first! I think Mike has only done one half marathon, so this will be an experience for him. He is a fast dude (he could probably run a 6 minute mile if he trained) in short distances, but going long will be tough for him, as it is for all of of us! This will hopefully be my 6th marathon, which to me is amazing because I always wondered why anyone would want to torture themselves by running that far. Another cool thing is that a friend of mine is going to run the last 10 miles with me to make sure I get my fat ass across that finish line. I can’t wait! For those who don’t know, Jason is 31 years old and Michael is 29. Boy that makes me feel old. My daughter Kari, will also be there, but she will be cheering us on and not running. She is 26 years old.

My training plan so far is to run a half marathon every month until November. And at each one, I need to be faster than the last one. So far I’ve done 2 half marathons this year. The first one I did in 2:01 which was slow for me but I was pacing someone. I just did the Colfax Half Marathon a couple weeks ago, and my time in that one was 1:56. I was shooting for 1:58, so I was happy. It was cold and drizzly the whole run, so that maybe why I did well. As my loyal readers know, I can’t run in the heat because of my MS. It really drains me. I remember a few years ago when I ran the Phoenix Marathon, it got so hot towards the end that at one water station I think I drank 10 cups of water and had 3 salt packets. I ended up walking a mile trying to cool down a bit. My next half is in two week. It’s the Run the Rockies Half Marathon. It starts at Copper Mountain in Colorado and goes to Frisco. It’s a bit downhill so I’m hoping for 1:55 or 1:56.

I heard the other day that Oprah no longer has a show? I thought her show ended years ago.

Posted in Jason, Kari, Michael, OBX Marathon, Run the Rockies Half Marathon | Leave a comment

You Asked, I Answered

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Dave

People ask me questions and I usually try to ignore them, but I figure maybe I should address their curiosities.

You seem to suck at running marathons. Why do you do it? Well, there’s the old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again”. I seem to do okay on half marathons (I unofficially did a 1:46 in a relay), but I ‘m still working at doing better in a full.

When did you start running? I’m a late bloomer. I didn’t start running until I was 50 years old.

Why did you get into running at such an old age? One of the reasons was seeing all the active people in Colorado (I’m moved here about 7 years ago) biking and running, and me saying, “I can do this”!

You have such long legs, why aren’t you a faster runner? Okay well when I was in high school, I was a wide receiver and defensive halfback. So yeah, I used to be fast. That was a long time ago.

Why do you run with your head down? I’m looking for money.

Why do you run with your mouth open? For some reason when I run, I can’t breath through my nose.

You seem to get injured a lot. What’s up with that? I think speed work is the devil. Every time I’ve gotten injured, it’s when I’m doing speed work.

What is your next marathon? The OBX in North Carolina in November.

Does your MS effect you when you run? Only when it’s hot. If it gets over 70 degrees, I’m toast.

You’re 56, but you look like you’re 40. Ho do you do it? Please, you’re too kind. Your only as old as you feel.

Posted in OBX Marathon | 4 Comments

The Royal Wedding

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Dave

This post really has nothing to do with The Royal Wedding. I thought if I named it that, I would get more people to click onto my site. Pretty lame eh?

Speaking of MS, I think that I’ve mentioned before that I don’t really like to give myself my shots that I have to do. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it doesn’t. But did you know that I can qualify to get a medical marijuana card and go buy some weed legally? I never would though. I think the whole medical marijuana industry is nothing but of bunch of stoners and pot heads. Check out this interesting article.

My running has been getting better thank you very much. I ran more miles in April (100) than I have since last September! And the best thing is, I do not have any issues with my leg. I’m still not pushing it too hard, but every week I can feel myself getting a bit quicker. I ran a 5 mile race today, The Cherry Creek Sneak, and thought going into it that I would be real happy to run it in 40 minutes. My actual time was 40:11, so I was happy with that. There were times that I knew I could probably pick up my pace, but I didn’t want to do that for fear of hurting leg. There was one point near the end where I got passed by somebody that I knew, and I went into my competitive mode, and sped up my pace so that I would catch him and beat him. But I quickly reeled myself back in and kept my pace. That was so hard to do, but I knew that him beating me was not that big of a deal. I’m not ready yet to go full speed. I will be though soon, so next time I’m running and that happens, I can and WILL kick it into another gear.

Posted in medical marijuana | 2 Comments

Boston Marathon

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Dave

Don’t get too excited. I didn’t run the damn thing! I just thought that I would post something about the Boston Marathon just because it is what it is, and I am what I am.

First off, the whole qualifying thing is just not right. For a guy my age, I need to run a 3:45 or less to qualify. For a female, it’s 4:15! A whole half an hour difference! I think years ago when they made these qualifying times, that was probably close to what it should be. But theses days women have closed the gap on the men as far as running goes. I know in fact some women my age run a marathon in 3:45 right now! But wait! Starting in 2013, I would have to run a 3:40. WTF??!! I understand that nowadays with so many more people running, and qualifying, they had to do something to slow the onslaught. I hear of horror stories that so many people that do qualify can’t get in because of so many people trying to get in. So they devised a system where the faster ones have first dibs on getting in. I have a better solution, and I’m sure it’s not going to be popular.

GET RID OF ALL THE DAMN CHARITIES!!

One thing that frosts my butt is when someone says, “I did Boston”. Now they either are a tramp and really did do everybody in Boston, or they ran the marathon for some charity. Let me be clear though, I have nothing against charities, or raising money for charities by running in some events. But this is the Boston Marathon dammit! You need to earn it! And then I see these people with their Boston Marathon jackets, and they “ran” the marathon in just under 5 hours. Wahoo! What they should do is have the people that ran for a charity be able to buy a jacket, but it needs to say, “Boston Marathon Charity Runner”. You can’t walk on the same side of the street as someone that just ran their ass off, while you ran with your camera taking pictures of the girls from Wesleyan College, and probably in a pink skirt costume.

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Posted on April 17, 2011 by Dave

No one ever wants to admit that they are getting older, or getting slower, or getting fatter, but those are the facts of life. Some people actually don’t get fatter, but the majority do, and if you don’t exercise and take care of yourself, you probably will get fatter. And as we get older, it takes a hell of a lot longer to recover from injuries. I first tore my hamstring back in October, and it still is not 100%. I did a one mile race this morning, and I could tell when I was warming up that there was still some soreness in my leg.

So today was the Mile High Mile, and I was a bit nervous going into this race. Number one, I haven’t done any speed work since last September, and number two, I was very concerned about what would happen to my leg if I pushed it. Also, it wasn’t a flat course at all. That was a nasty incline after about 1/4 of a mile, and that was not fun. But once I got through that, it wasn’t too bad. I still did not push myself hard, but I did push harder than I’ve done in a long time. I ended up at 6:39 which I was happy about. I figured that if I did 7:15, I would feel happy, so my time today was very encouraging.

Last week was the Platte River Half Marathon, and that was the race where I was just going to pace a friend of mine, Brandi, to get her under 2 hours. One nice thing about pacing someone, there’s a hell of a lot less pressure on yourself. I usually feel very nervous, and then I go out and run a stupid race, and it ends up sucking big time. But my responsibility was to maintain a pace that would get us under 2 hours. The first 4 miles are really a slow warm up, but it’s so hard to run slow at the beginning when everybody is passing you. We tried to keep it on track, but we actually ran the first 6 miles faster than we should have. We settled down to the pace where we needed to be after that, and so we were feeling good. At one point, Brandi tripped and fell, but she rolled to the side to avoid getting trampled on, and then bounced right back up and kept running. That was awesome! Mile 11 rolled around and Brandi lost some steam. I was trying to keep a good pace, but at one point I turned around and didn’t see her. I ended up stopping at the water station at mile 12 and waited for her. After about a minute she showed up and I resumed running. The bad thing about mile 12 is that you go up a steep overpass, and actually quite a few people end up walking that part. I think we were about 30 seconds behind where we should have been before the hill, and then after the hill we were a good minute behind.

I knew at that point, we weren’t going to make it, but we kept running and finished together at 2:01:10. Missed it by just over a minute. But the great thing was, that was over 5 minutes faster than she had ever run a half before! So she did awesome, and the first thing out of her mouth when it was over was, “I’m signing up for the Colfax Half Marathon in May”. I have no doubt that she will break 2 hours on that one.

Posted in Colfax Marathon, Mile High Mile, Platte River Half | Leave a comment

The Economy Sucks

Posted on April 3, 2011 by Dave

This post has nothing to do with MS, or for that matter, running. I just thought I’d warn you in case you were hoping to read about another titillating feat of heroic proportion that normally occurs everyday in my life.

I’ll tell you something that you already know. The economy still sucks. I know we elected a new President that was going to turn this country around. Instead, we are a country that is trillions in debt and no prospects of it getting better. I left a company that went bankrupt and they employed 1,500 people across the country. They ended up going to auction and getting bought out by an investment group, and are still struggling. I went to another company that employs 1200 people across the country and it looks like they could be headed to bankruptcy. Both of these companies are in the construction industry selling glass, and the fact is, there is not much being constructed these days. You see some construction going on at the University of Colorado Hospital, but most of the glass work is being done by a company from another state. I left a job in Michigan at a company that is in the same industry, and I heard last week that they are in serious financial difficulty.

Well that’s my story. I actually wanted to talk a whole lot more about the economy, but it’s depressing me and I don’t like to be depressed or get anybody else depressed.

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There is no “I” in TEAM but there is a “ME”

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Dave

One of the things that I have learned since I moved here to Colorado 6 years ago is that there is nothing you can’t do if you really want to. You may not do it well, or do it fast, or do it far, or do it often, but you can do it. I never ever thought that I could possibly run a marathon before I moved here, or for that matter, 2 years after I moved here I didn’t think that was possible. When Diane and I first moved here, we started exploring and going on hikes and I thought that at one point I would have to get one of those walking sticks to help me get around because I have a “bad” knee. And if you wanted me to do a squat, I would have said that it was impossible with my knee. One day I was out running with some good people from Qi Fitness, and there was a guy there that is also a personal trainer. He told us all to do some squats for a warm up, and I first just stood there thinking, “yeah right”, but he made me do it, and not only could I do it, but it didn’t hurt! I’m convinced now though that my knee is better off with me putting more stress on it by running and working out. At yoga, we get into a frog squat for like ~~an hour~~ 2 minutes, and that is something that I thought not possible a few years ago.

My quest to do a triathlon continues, and next weekend I will be taking a swimming lesson at Denver University. Swimming I think is one of those things that you can be good at if you have the proper technique. I don’t have the proper technique and I’m hoping with this lesson, I will find it. I don’t need to be a Mark Spitz, (or for all you youngsters, Michael Phelps) but it would be nice to know that I could swim to shore if I ever fell out of an airplane over water. I want to swim a mile, that’s all I ask.

Posted in knee, Running, triathalon | Leave a comment

Lucky Tattoo

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Dave

I was talking to someone the other day who said that her niece got a shamrock tattoo on her lower back, because I guess she’s Irish and a ~~tramp~~ girl that is trying to show her patronage to her heritage. Most people don’t know this about me, but I too have a tattoo on my lower back. Mine is a 4 leaf clover. There are 2 reasons for this. First of all, I’m a ~~tramp~~ guy that is proud of my heritage, (I’m Irish) and it is for good luck. When I was diagnosed with MS, they ran a bunch of tests to see what my problem was. One of the tests was a lumbar puncture that they do in your lower back. They stick a really long needle in your spine and suck out fluid that they can test and see if you have MS or not. Before that, I had a CAT scan and they told me then that I had either cancer or MS. Part of me wanted to have cancer because I didn’t know what the MS would do to me. My grandfather had MS and died before I was born, so I figured it would be better to have cancer.

They did the lumbar puncture and diagnosed me as having MS. Other than being devastated, I was fine. I’m thinking that soon I’ll be in a wheelchair with a drool bucket around my neck. That’s how ignorant I was. Many people that are diagnosed with MS lead long and “healthy” lives. I wanted to make sure I was one of them, so I went and did what any sane person would do. I got a tattoo. Not just any tattoo, but a lucky 4 leaf clover tattoo.

And so far, so good. I’m “healthy”, I’m running marathon’s, (I never ran before I was diagnosed) and hopefully this year will do my first triathlon. I do have issues with the MS though. One of them is a problem that effects most people with MS, and that is the heat. When it get’s hot, I wilt. There have been 2 marathons that I’ve run where I’ll be doing good, and then it starts getting too hot, and all my energy get’s sucked away. That’s one reason that my next marathon isn’t until November. If I do well then I just might get another tattoo. Any suggestions?

Posted in 4 leaf clover, marathon, Multiple Sclerosis, tattoo | 5 Comments