It's Race Week And Other Updates

So here we are again, it is officially race week! This Saturday I will be running with my beautiful wife and her wonderful mother in the BIX 7 in Davenport, IA. This annual race is one of the biggest non-marathon road races in the United States each year with over 15,000 runners and walkers competing annually. I believe that this is my 6th BIX, but only my 2nd time running. The race features a 1/3 mile steep hill to start the race along with a couple of other good sized hills (for Iowa at least) throughout. It is always the last weekend in July, so that means heat and high humidity are usually in play as well.

2 years ago this was the first race that I ran as I got back into running. That year it was quite a struggle for me as I finished with a time of around 1:45. Although I have not been training directly for this race, I am currently in the best shape of my life and running faster then any other point in my adult life, so I'm expecting it to be a good race. What I am even more excited about is the chance to run another race with my wife. Last year we did 2 races together (one in the pouring rain) and it is a really good opportunity for us to spend time together as well as encourage each other. With kids at home, usually the question is who trains and who watches the kids, so we rarely get to run together. This will also be Erin's warm up race for her first half marathon, which will also be in the Quad Cities, coming up in late September.

As for other updates, I am happy to report that I am healing well from crashing my bicycle a week ago. The biggest lingering pain is in my right elbow, but I am noticing that less each day as well. Late last week the heat kept me inside on my trainer, but I was able to get back out on the K2 for a long ride on Sunday (see below) and again tonight. I do feel a little hesitant and nervous but nothing I can't handle and I'm sure it will go away with time.

As mentioned above, on Sunday I did a 70+ mile loop on the Raccoon River Valley Trail with one of my co-workers. We kept a very easy pace the entire way, but I was surprised at my endurance and how fresh I felt after the ride. This may end up being my longest ride for the year, but I really want to try this loop on my own at some point to see exactly how fast I can finish it.

Sunday long ride

At the end of last week I decided to stop using the calorie counting app that I had been using on my phone after 7 weeks of use. Over that time, I didn't end up losing weight at any greater clip then I had previously, and it was taking a lot of time to use it each day (honestly, time that I didn't have anyways). I also noticed that it ended up having some adverse affects that I didn't like, such as "banking calories" to use later in the day as well as focusing on food more, it seemed like the next meal or snack was always on my mind and I'm really trying to get away from thinking about food all of the time. 

One last update that I will leave you with, is in my opinion the most interesting one. Recently my wife, Erin, posted on Facebook after one of her training runs and mentioned that I had done a good job coaching her to several months of injury free training (after dealing with an injury leading up to the BIX last year). The spurred requests from a couple of ladies that I know asking for help developing programs for them. Now I am certainly no expert and have no formal training, but I was happy to help and put all of the knowledge that I have gained to good use. I don't know why, but this really felt to me like some major milestone on my fitness journey. I have so many people that I go to with questions and requests for help, I just never realized there would be a day that someone else may come to me.