Month: November 2020

As I’ve said in the past, I finish most races with a beer — even if it’s just at home. So the IL Brewery Running Series race I was going to do was the perfect fit. However, the particular brewery (Jolly Pumpkin) still hadn’t reopened, and thus the race was cancelled. When I went looking for a replacement in-person race, I found the FraidyCat 5K.

I had run this race in the past, and it was a lot of fun. Well, except for that climb when you went around the back of the building (school?) and up the hill at about 2.75mi.

At some point earlier in the week, I had done something to my left knee. It wasn’t serious enough where it hurt all the time. But it hurt enough that I kept off of it most of the week. I also did a lot of extra stretching that morning to try and get it as loose as possible. I thought it would lead to the best possible outcome.

And then about 20 feet into the race, my left leg went down into a minor pothole and jarred the knee. This would become an issue later in the race.

During the first mile, things went OK. The pacing was a little too fast early on, but we managed to get it more in line before the end of the first mile. For most of mile 2, things were OK with the knee. But by the time we made the turn into the neighborhoods, it started to act up.

During the last mile, it became a run/walk scenario. I’d run until it got to about a 6, and then would walk until it was down to about a 2.

Even with all of the knee challenges throughout the race, I did still shave 6 seconds off of the last race time. And I’m closing in on being down 5 full minutes since getting back to more consistent running.

While I am not a fan of virtual races, I will always do them to help support those that have supported me. Having received extensive JAWS (screen readins software) training from Donka, I was happy to run with them when asked.

As I am Visually Impaired, I need at least 1 guide when I race. I am ALWAYS looking for new ‘eyes’, so a guide-In-training also ran with me on Sunday. For the race, Kathy was my main guide and Dave was the guide-in-training. Kathy and I have run multiple times over the last couple months, which gave her a good idea of how to pace me for the race.

Sunday’s virtual 5K was my first Naperville Half/5K race. I had attempted to run the Half in 2016, but was unable to do so. I believe that unreasonable hurdles were put in place by the Race Director, so I ended up finding another race to run that fall.

We met as a group in Veterans Park in Naperville to run. We had 8 people of Team Donka show up to race together, in a socially distanced manner. Myself, Kathy, Dave and Jodi all ran while the rest of the group walked.

Over the last 5 years, I had run this section of the trail many times, so I was familiar with the course. We did have one minor ‘obstacle’ along the way in the form of a stop light. This added about a minute round trip as we waited for traffic.

In the past, my issues have been with pacing. In that I will end up running an extremently fast first mile and then be spent, positive splitting 2, 3 and 3.1. Over the last month, I have been focused on starting off slower and then negative splitting. While I don’t have the exact split times, I believe that I did accomplish that.

The route itself was mostly flat during the first section (start to first stop light) and then a lot of hills (first stoplight to second stpolight / turnaround point). Knowing that, I focused on keeping a steady pace out, knowing that a small part of the back would be a run/walk due to the hills. This is essentially how it all played out.

It was a really fun day, and we were fortunate to finish before it started raining. After the 5K, we added on another .4mi to satisfy a 3.5mi race I needed to do. I look forward to running with Team Donka again in 2021!

If you’d like to donate to Team Donka, you can do so here!

Six months ago, I decided to use Nutrisystem as a ‘temporary’ solution through the summer. I had thought we’d be back in an office by the fall, and I’d be able to be back on the more ‘normal’ nutritional path from earlier in 2020. At this point, I’ve seen enough of the benefits from it to strongly consider keeping it in place even when I’m back in an office.

Now that’s not to say that I do things perfectly. I’ll admit to adding in meals that may not be perfect ‘flex’ meals — including the weekly ‘safety valve’ pizza from the local Domino’s. But even with all that, I am still seeing results because the number of times I’m on track outweigh the times I’m not. And once I’m back in an office, I believe that I’ll see even better results.

If you’re interested in giving Nutrisystem a try while saving $30, please comment with your e-mail. These comments will not be seen publicly, and I will send you the $30 coupon directly through Nutrisystem’s site.