Tag: James Gilliard

Cold Run – 11.30.15

blue-herring

As the snow had melted, and it was nice out, we went for an outdoor run with several others. Even though it’s almost December, several types of birds are still in the area — this Blue Herring is one of many that we saw while out running.

For me, running in the cold is harder than warm weather. But I made the decision to run a half marathon in January, so I’ve got to get the cold weather practice in. This first cold run was 4 miles, and we’ll most likely work up to 10 or 11 in the cold before 1/23.

After the run, we all met up at Starbucks to sit, talk and enjoy something warm to drink. 🙂

Final 2015 Media Snowball Piece

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In late July, a media snowball was started by Marie Wilson of the Daily Herald, and has been continually pushed down the hill by many others, starting with the Bev Horne and Bob Susnjara, continuing with Kim Weeks of Naperville Running Company, and now this.

I will be having someone record my talk, and will share the video once I have it.

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Earlier this month, I started looking at 2016 events and penciling things in. I’ll turn them from pencil to pen as soon as I have firm dates for things. While I had a solid base for 2016, I had to re-evaluate all of that after what happened last Monday.

As has been mentioned in previous posts (including the Daily Herald articles), I am legally blind. Not only was that confirmed on Monday, but also that the depredation rate over a five year period has doubled.

After having a week to digest all of that, I decided that I needed to try and accelerate a couple of projects before the sight gets worse. One of these is the Football project that I’ve mentioned before (http://www.jamesgilliard.com/the-dream.php). But since none of them are financially feasible in 2016, I have put together a GoFundMe page to try and attend at least 1. The goal would cover multiple camp experiences, and I’ve set that as a HUGE goal since I don’t know at what point it will get to the point I can’t play football any more.

You can view the GoFundMe page at http://www.gofundme.com/loveoffootball. If you can’t financially support the project, please at least share it with family and friends via e-mail, social media, etc. Thanks in advance for your help and support!

Virtually There – 11.7.15

RWB Logo

To celebrate Veteran’s Day, as well as help support Team RWB, I signed up to run two virtual 5Ks. The first one was for Team RWB San Diego, and the second was for Team RWB KC. As flag football playoffs were the same day, I knew I’d have to play Tetris with scheduling. I needed to get both 5Ks in before it got dark while not being tired for playoffs.

I had a chance to get the first 5K in (San Diego) before I left for the playoffs. I was tempted to try and get both in, but I realized there wasn’t enough time to do that, get a shower, and be ready by the time my ride came.

So instead I did just one (< 37m) and got ready. I got back from the playoffs (we started the day seeded 3rd and finished 3rd), and sat around for a few minutes to relax. As I looked at the clock, I had an 'oh ****' moment, as I saw it was 3:45 and it gets dark by 4:45 or so. I went and ran the 2nd 5K (KC), and it started to get dark as I was on the way back. I made it home safely, and the time was about 2 min slower because I had to walk more due to the dark. I had a great time doing these Virtual Veteran's Day runs, and look forward to doing them again in 2016. THANK YOU to ALL of the Verans and active duty personnel. And thank you to the San Diego and Kansas City chapters for putting these events together!

Ghost Run – 10.25.15

Ghost Run 1

At some point after the Celebrate Differences 5K in April, I learned that they would be the charity partner for the 2015 FraidyCat series. So I signed up to run it and help support them. It also ended up being the Virtual Old Glory Relay run.

We had great weather for it, and it was great to see Rebecca and the rest of the Celebrate Differences people out there. However, I believe the on site staff could have done a better job with things. For one, even though I registered in plenty of time, they didn’t have a shirt for me — and I still don’t have it almost 3 weeks later. I’ll get it at some point once it’s printed. The other HUGE issue I had was with how they handled the 10K awards. This is the first race that I’ve ever been at where they didn’t do age group for both distances.

When I looked at the web site afterwards, I saw that they had a note that it had to get to 250 before they would do that. I understand it’s a for-profit race, but medals can’t be that expensive when I see all of these virtual ones that offer a medal for $12-$15 entry fee. And when you buy them in bulk, it can’t be more than say $5-7 per. So maybe $350 to cover the 10K side.

While I don’t run races or participate in events because of the finisher medals (or medals in general), this rubbed me the wrong way enough that I needed to say something about it. And for the record, even if they had done age awards, I wouldn’t have gotten one (4th in age group), so it’s really about how it was handled not that I didn’t get one when I should have.

While those were both issues, there were a couple of good learning lessons from the day —

1) That until I can control starts / keep an even pace, we need to go to tethered running. Consistently, I’m burning out the ‘first level’ by 2-3 miles in and have very little left for the second half / later parts of races. As an example of that, I was at a ~12min/mile pace through the 5K and that pace dropped by about 2 min /mile on the 2nd 5K.

2) That ‘disposable clothing’ (aka Goodwill sweatshirt purchases) are better options in races where it’s borderline (say 45-50) rather than UnderArmour suit. I ended up having to pull off layers (Terri carried the top for me) mid race. It would have been better if I could have just pulled off a $2 sweatshirt and dropped it.

Upcoming Virtual Relay – 10.23.15

Old-Glory-Relay

Earlier this year, I found about this incredible cross-country relay. As the IL stops are too far south, I decided to run it virtually. So when I run the Ghost Run 10K on Sunday with my guides, that will also be my virtual Old Glory run.

I will post photos from Sunday with the shirt post-race. And hopefully next year, it will come further north in IL (or be at a better time). It would be an honor and an amazing experience to physically participate one one of the legs.

Dark Run – 10.23.15

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Last year at this time, I had access to a gym and could go run indoors when it got dark early. I still had to navigate there/back in the dark, so a 15 minute walk might turn into 30. This year, the training is outdoors, and we’re just going to have to deal with it (as well as a temperamental weather dog).

Tonight was the first dark run, and it was in the rain to boot. The leg out wasn’t too bad, as we were going into the light, even when we were in the trees. However, it got more challenging on the way back.

The lesson from tonight is that until DST ends in the spring, we’re just going to need to run with the tether. Even if I can’t see a thing as we’re running, I plan on doing it. For two simple reasons – I trust my guide completely and with my life, and I refuse to be a prisoner of the dark.

After the run, we headed over to a meet & greet at a local Binny’s. Meeting Mr. Wilson (’85 Bears) was a great way to end a long week!

Cold Run – 10.3.15

ColdRun-Terri-James

I went out with Terri on her last pre-taper run (8 mi). It was a cold and windy day, but the first 4 miles wasn’t that bad. We stopped at the Knoch Knolls Nature Center to use the bathrooms and then turned around.

While the first 4 weren’t bad, the next 1.5 was the absolute worst. Running into a 30 mph+ headwind is no fun for even a short distance, let along 1.5 miles. Until we got back into the shelter of the forest, it was hard to run for long stretches.

And even back in the forest, at 6.5 it was just too much. I think running that 1.5 into the wind took too much out of me, and I ended up walking most of it from that point back.

While it was not the best of runs, two positive things from it:
1) The chalk sidewalk message (see photo)
2) Getting a taste of what it could be like for the Lakefront Half. I just hope we’re not running into the wind then.

Finish. Always. – 9.19.15

itu

For those of you who know me well, you know that there times where in frustration, profanity comes out in spades. But even in that time, there are words that you’ll never hear me say. Simply because they’re not in my vocabulary. Another word, which you’ll never hear me say had a 3 letter acronym. If you change the F to a C, you’ll get DNC.

Yesterday, the PC Open race at the ITU Grand Finale bent me but couldn’t break me. Even with the challenges of the day, it was an incredible one.

The swim was the worst part of it. Even though we were inside of the break wall, the waves were still bad enough that I couldn’t get my head in and keep it there to do a normal freestyle stroke. And the tether broke shortly into the swim. Luke figured out a plan B to deal with that and kept pushing me along to finish even when I felt like there was nothing in the tank. I was really concerned that we were going to get pulled out of the water (which would have ended the race), but we finished and headed back to transition.

After transitionwe headed out on the bike for our ride. This particular course would have been impossible for me to do without a guide, as about 1/3 of it was on lower Wacker Drive in the dark. But with Luke as the pilot, it went well. The extra padding in the Dare2Tri suit helped from the last time I was on the race tandem.

We then came back to transition and out for the run. About 1/2 way through, my lower back started to tighten up and it got hard to run for any long length of time. But I kept pushing with Luke encouraging me on, and we finished (2:21 total), and I was so happy for the post-race massage. 🙂

Even though it was a struggle yesterday, many positives and many things to work on for the 2016 season.

1) Even with Lake Michigan utterly kicking my ass, the difference in the finish time at ITU and Naperville as about 1 minute. And that’s with an additional 350m in the water at ITU. I see that as a HUGE psitive.

2) There will be a lot of early mornings this fall and winter for swim training. And I need to find a way to make it down for Open water sessions in Lake Michigan next spring/summer.

3) The struggles of yesterday did nothing to discourage the long term goals. It only fueled me to push harder to reach them. To that point, Naperville (8/7/16) is already firmly on the schedule and about 15 other events (Tris and running races) are in pencil.

One final thing — THANK YOU to the ITU event staff and all of the fans that were out there yesterday. As usual, there was a tremendous amount of encouragement and support for us out on the cours and at the finish. And a special thanks to the kind woman from Canada who lent us her phone so we could coordinate the post-race meet-up.