The Life and Times of the Watters Family

Bellingham Bay Half Marathon

Here’s a few photos from Cam’s half Marathon today (I didn’t get great pictures, my battery was really low on my camera). We are so proud of Cam!! Way to go babe!

Next up on the wishlsit is a Garmin Forerunner 205. I got the Forerunner 201 for my birthday last year, and it still works well, so I don't anticipate getting this one in the immediate future.

The primary improvements that make it attractive to me are the improved GPS signal tracking and a new, wristwatch-like form factor.

Jingle Bell Run/Walk 2005

Jingle Bell Walk/Run for Arthritis

This holiday season, our family is taking on a challenge to make a difference in the lives of people with arthritis. We are participating in the Arthritis Foundation’s annual Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis where thousands of participants nationwide will run or walk while raising funds on behalf of the 66 million Americans affected by arthritis or chronic joint symptoms. Please take a step by helping us reach our fund-raising goal!

Check out our fundraising website.

Resuming Exercise After The Race

Since finishing the marathon, I’ve realized that I need to keep exercising. Often. I think for now, I’ll definitely continue running, but I’ll focus on maintaining a manageable number of miles per week, probably in the neighborhood of 20-30 miles per week. At least until I have to start training for next year’s Portland Marathon, which will probably begin around the end of May.

I’ve also been looking into cycling. It’s a little less hard on the joints, which is probably a good thing considering I’m a pretty big guy at 6′ 2″, 250 lbs. The Cascade Bicycle Club has an annual ride from Seattle to Portland that looks interesting. Recently, one of my coworkers, a cycling enthusiast, showed me around the cycling equipment world at a nearby local bike shop for which he used to work.

All told, a basic setup is probably going to cost between $1750 - $2000 for a decent bike, pedals, shoes, bike rack, a new helmet and other assorted equipment and apparel.

I think I may even be able to find a few people around town to train and ride with.

Marathon Day

Well, the day finally arrived.

All the training and hard work paid off.

Here’s a link to the results: Portland Marathon 2005 Results.

I finished in 5:17:34. I had been shooting for about 5 hours, but I’m just happy to have finished.

UPDATE:

Here are some photos from race day. Be kind. I make terrible faces in some of them.

UPDATE #2:

A quick note to mention Gary Bering.

He was my walking pal from about the 22.5 mile point until just after mile 25. Thanks for the conversation and comiseration (if that’s even a word).

UPDATE #3:

A bunch of people from Bellingham in the race (55, including me): read more…

Marathon Training Update

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on my training for the Portland Marathon. Well, I haven’t stopped training and, in fact, the race is just a little over two weeks away on October 9th. I’m tapering down my training now to get rested for the race.

Things have been super busy at work and at home, so I’ll post my backlog of running diary/log entries when I get a chance.

Marathon Training - Week 10 - Day 4

Marathon Training - Week 10 - Day 3

Marathon Training - Week 10 - Day 1

Marathon Training - Week 9 - Day 4

Marathon Training - Week 9 - Day 2

Marathon Training - Week 9 - Day 1

I’ve been needing extra time to recover from the long runs the last few times, but I think that by skipping the Day 1 run altogether, I’m doing myself a disservice. So today, instead of skipping it, I just made it a little lower impact and I think it’ll help me to have better success in the other runs this week.

Marathon Training - Week 8 - Day 4

As anyone who reads this site with any regularity can see, I’m not the fastest bloke on the planet. That’s no problem for me, but it led to a funny exchange during my 14 mile run.

Guy On The Trail: “That’s a good pace you’ve got there. Not trying to kill yourself or anything.”

Me: “Well, I’ve got ten miles left.”

Guy: “How many total?”

Me: “Fourteen.”

Guy: “Oh, so you are trying to kill yourself!”

After the first 6.1 miles, I ran back by my house and picked up my sister-in-law’s boyfriend, Shane who ran the last 7.9 miles with me. (Here’s a pic of Shane and Holly, Betsy’s sister.)

Marathon Training - Week 8 - Day 1

Marathon Training - Week 7 - Day 4

12 miles is a long way. Ran it today (Monday) instead of on Sunday, as I normally would, because we were out of town and it was 90+ degrees where we were.

Marathon Training - Week 7 - Day 3

Marathon Training - Week 7 - Day 1

Marathon Training - Week 6 - Day 4

Marathon Training - Week 6 - Day 2?

Marathon Training - Week 5 - Day 4

I missed the Day 3 run on Friday due to work…again.

Marathon Training - Week 5 - Day 2

I missed the Day 1 run yesterday due to work. Wasn’t going to miss today’s 5 miler, though.

Marathon Training - Week 4 - Day 4

Taking the week off seemed to work out well. I finished today with less pain than after the 7 mile run, and I felt like I still had some gas in the tank when I finished. Next week is 10 miles. We’ll see how that goes.

Marathon Training - Week 4 - Day 3

Ran without the Forerunner again. I think I run faster with it.

Marathon Training - Week 4 - Day 2

Marathon Training - Week 4 - Day 1

Felt good to get out there again. Tomorrow will be a little more fun, as I shoot for 5 miles. Yay!

Marathon Training - Week 4

Ok, a quick update. Week 4 of my training should’ve started on July 5th. However, I was traveling out of town all week and it cramped my ability to keep up with my training as well as I would’ve liked. I did run about 5 miles one of the days that I was out of town, but I skipped both the 3 mile runs and I still haven’t run the 8 mile, which I was supposed to run on Sunday. It’s tough to run 8 miles when you’re traveling from 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Needless to say, I’m a little behind.

Fortunately, I had an extra week difference between when I started training and what the schedule called for. I had intended to double up Week 5 and just do it twice, but I think what I’ll actually end up doing is stretching Week 4 out over two weeks. This’ll hopefully do two things. First, it’ll give my knee a shot at getting better before I try to attempt 8 miles. Also, it’ll keep me from over-exerting myself trying to just overcome the gaps I left in my training. I think this’ll be good, because I don’t want to injure myself and not be able to finish my training. Anyway, watch for the real Week 4 to start tomorrow (Tuseday, July 12th).

Marathon Training - Week 3 - Day 4

I forgot to charge my Forerunner before today’s run, so I simply ran for a little over 70 minutes and figured that was close enough as I pretty consistently average around a 10 minute mile. I also ran with my brother-in-law and our pace over the distances that I knew for sure were way ahead of that pace. My knee is killing me.

Marathon Training - Week 3 - Days 2 & 3

I’m still fighting the Iliotibial Band problems, hence the crappy performance on Wednesday. I tried to rest and stretch Thursday and Friday, and ran a little later in the day on Friday. I was a little slow, and had some pain, but it was manageable. I’m going to try running with a brace on Sunday. This morning, I couldn’t even move without my knee hurting terribly. I think I aggravate it at night by turning over in my sleep and torquing it in funny ways. Maybe I should sleep with a brace on.

Marathon Training - Week 3 - Day 1

Marathon Training - Week 2 - Day 4

Yes, I skipped day 3 (a 3 mile run). I didn’t skip today, though.

Marathon Training - Week 2 - Day 2

Marathon Training - Week 1 - Day 4

Marathon Training - Week 1 - Day 3

Marathon Training - Week 1 - Day 2

Woohoo! Today was the first time we ran/jogged more than 3.2 miles. It’s a new milestone. One we’ll be breaking on Sunday.

I’ve really gotta figure out what to do about shin splints. They’re really getting painful and I’d rather not have to run with them the entire time.

Marathon Training - Week 1 - Day 1

Preliminary Training - Stage 10 - Day 10

Today was the last day of the preliminary training for us. Kelly was sick (breathing like “a fat kid with asthma”), so we only jogged for a limited time. Starting Tuesday, we switch to distance goals and get a LOT more agressive about increasing distance. In a few short weeks, we’ll be running 8 miles on Sundays.

Preliminary Training - Stage 10 - Day 9

Preliminary Training - Stage 10 - Day 8

Preliminary Training - Stage 10 - Days 3 thru 7

Sorry. I’ve been busy and haven’t been keeping up with the postings. Here’s an update that catches backup up to today’s run.

Preliminary Training - Stage 10 - Day 2

Preliminary Training - Stage 10 - Day 1

Preliminary Training - Stage 9 - Day 4

Today was the last day to include some walking in the training. Starting on Tuesday, it’s all jogging/running the entire time. For the next two weeks (Stage 10 of the Preliminary Training) it’s 30 minutes of jogging 4 days a week, and then, on June 7th we start the first week of the actual training program.

I’ve noticed a lot of changes since I started this process two months ago. Since I started tracking my training progress on this site after my knee injury, I’ve lost nearly 7 pounds. I’ve gained a ton of muscle in my legs since then as well. Back then, I was only jogging for 5 minutes at a stretch and I couldn’t fathom how I was going to jog for 30 minutes consecutively. What a difference a month makes.

I also need much less sleep and although my work stress has increased considerably, I’m generally able to cope with it better.

Preliminary Training - Stage 9 - Day 3

Preliminary Training - Stage 9 - Day 2

Preliminary Training - Stage 9 - Day 1

Preliminary Training - Stage 8 - Day 4

My sister Kelly rejoined me today and should be with me throughout the rest of my training.

Preliminary Training - Stage 8 - Day 3

Preliminary Training - Stage 8 - Day 2

The second of back-to-back days is always a little more painful than the day before. Today was no different.

Preliminary Training - Stage 8 - Day 1

This morning I jumped straight into Stage 8, skipping the last two days of Stage 7 (15 min jog/5 min walk). I was getting behind schedule, having missed two Sundays in a row. Because of the long layoff, it didn’t hurt so much. The true test will be tomorrow when I go do it again. This morning was also the first morning that I ran without my knee brace on my left knee. It felt pretty good, so I think I’ll try it without the brace again tomorrow.

Although the race, and not my weight, is the ultimate goal, I have been frustrated lately that I’ve been stuck at 248 lbs. That means that in the three weeks since April 19th, I’ve only been able to lose 5 lbs, despite regular exercise and a more balanced diet. The optimist in me says that it’s because of all the muscle I’m building, but the pessimist says that I’m just destined to lose weight slowly.

Preliminary Training - Stage 7 - Day 2

Preliminary Training - Stage 7 - Day 1

Today was the first day of Stage 7. For the first time, I made it across the Alabama Street Overpass. Anyway, today felt good. The shin splints that had been troubling me seem to be largely cleared up and my knee is pretty much back to normal, at least as long as I’m wearing my brace. I covered a lot more distance this time and, for the first time, it’s really starting to feel like I’m making progress.

Preliminary Training - Stage 6 - Day 3

Today, my sister, Kelly, joined me on my jog/walk. She’s decided to run the Portland Marathon with me in October. In the mean time, we’ll be training together. She’ll be in Mexico for the next week or so, so I’ll be going solo again for Stage 7 of the preliminary training (15min jog/5min walk), but she’ll be back again for most of Stage 8 (20min jog/5min walk) and the rest of the training as well.

It’ll be fun to have a partner. It definitely makes the time pass more quickly and it helps to keep me motivated throughout the run. It’ll be great to spend more time with her, too. She’s ten years younger than I am and I moved out of the house when she was in elementary school, so we didn’t really hang out growing up.

Preliminary Training - Stage 6 - Day 2

Today was rough. I wasn’t motivated AT ALL this morning. Stayed up a little too late last night and I’ve just been having a crappy week. My left knee is in a brace already and now my right shin hurts right around an old injury from when I was a kid.

When I was about eight years old I was walking (running?) my dog down the street and a friend was sitting on his bicycle. Being the genius that I was, I thought it might be a good idea to hurdle (or attempt to anyway) the back tire of his bike while running at top speed. Unfortunately, for my shin anyway, I overestimated my leaping ability by a bit and ended up catching my shin on the improvised foot pegs that he’d made. Now, when I say “improvised foot pegs” what I really mean is a bolt that stuck out about 3 or 4 inches on either side of the rear axle. And when I say “caught my shin” I mean that this bolt actually penetrated my shin, cut through the muscle and took a chunk out of the bone. Now, for whatever reason, I never received any medical attention for this wound. Oh sure, my mom or dad put some kind of bandage on it for the 4 or 5 weeks it took for it to heal, but no stitches or anything like that. And now, when I run, it hurts terribly.

Anyway, needless to say, today wasn’t much fun. I kept my spirits up by making up cadences (which I will not repeat here) and ended up finishing pretty strong and in decent spirits despite the pain in my shin. I will say one thing for all of this training. It sure makes time fly. Seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I was just walking my route, but it’s really only been about a month. One down, a little over five to go.

Preliminary Training - Stage 6 - Day 1

Today was first day that was actually painful somewhere other than my knee. When I jog, I’m at about a 10 minute per mile pace. If I could maintain that pace throughout the Marathon in October, I’d be elated. Hopefully, with nearly six months of training left, I’ll be able to work up to something like that. While finishing is my primary goal, my “stretch goal” is to finish in under 5 hours. For a guy that is currently at least 50 lbs overweight (that’s being generous and accounting for my body type), that seems like a fair, but challenging goal.

I’m starting to get bored with my route, but I can’t really do much different. Maybe I’ll try going the other direction on the trail, but I know that the trail doesn’t go a full 1.5 miles in the other direction so it’ll be interesting. Also, I like the fact that my current route is basically uphill for the first 1.5 miles. Anyway, I’ll see about changing it up a little bit on Friday.

Preliminary Training - Stage 5 - Day 3

Yesterday, finished up Stage 5 (5 min jog/5 min walk, x3). Again, it felt a little easier today. I spent most of the jog/walk visualizing the race and other athletic type things I’ve been thinking about trying after the marathon, like the STP.

After the second walking section, I decided to just jog all the way back home for the last 10 minutes instead of jogging 5 min. and walking 5 min. Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Tomorrow I start Stage 6 (10 min jog/5 min walk, x2). It’ll be interesting to see how that goes.

Preliminary Training - Stage 5 - Day 2

My jog/walk felt a little easier this morning. Was able to fully jog all of the 5 min. sections without stopping early. On Tuesday I had to take a 30 second walking break in the middle. Gotta keep trying to get up earlier, though. Leaving at 5:45 am doesn’t give me quite enough time to take care of everything in the morning before work.

First Day Back On The Trail

It felt really good to get back out there. Today was the first day of a re-started Stage Five: Jog 5 min/Walk 5 min; repeat twice. Because my route is out-and-back, it always takes me more than the prescribed amount of time. There are two jogging legs going out, and only one coming back in. I guess I need to turn around sooner. The knee felt pretty good, but the route I’ve been taking is uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back, and jogging back down the hills hurts a little. I may need to find a new route.

I left the house a little earlier (5:45 am) than usual this morning. I think I like training at that time better. Fewer people on the trails. Also, as Summer gets closer and closer, it’s getting lighter and lighter at that time so early doesn’t necessarily mean dark like it did even a month ago.

Preliminary Training - Stage 5 - Day 1

Since I wasn’t updating for the first couple of weeks, I’ll mark this as my official starting point for record keeping purposes. Here is some reference info as I begin. I’ll start with these three, and update every so often. Maybe weekly? Anyway, I don’t know if I should keep track of more stuff or not. If so, I’ll add it when I know about it.

Physical Data

Weak In the Knee

So far, my knee troubles have put me two weeks behind. Fortunately, I had about 4 weeks of extra time.

After about a week of issues, I started reading up on different conditions online. The condition that is most consistent with my symptoms is called chondromalacia patellae, or patellofemoral syndrome. Much of what I read suggested a program of stretching and strengthening the hamstrings and quads. I thought I’d give it a shot. Wish I’d done it sooner. After stretching my left hamstring for about 5 minutes (slowly of course), most of the pain was gone. To be on the safe side, I made an appointment with the doctor just in case. He confirmed my self-diagnosis and also recommended a knee brace. With the brace, I can now walk and jog pain free.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow as I restart stage 5 of the preliminary training — five minutes jogging and then five minutes of walking, repeat twice.

Working Through The Preliminary Training

(NOTE: This post describes events that occurred between March 21st and April 5th)

As I’ve mentioned before, I was able to jump all the way to the third stage (of ten) of the preliminary training schedule. Step 3 is to fast walk (approx 15min/mi) for 30 minutes three days per week for one week. I started the preliminary training on March 21st. The first two weeks went pretty well. The fourth stage maintains the same pace while increasing the time to 45 minutes and adding one day of walking.

Mondays are usually a training off day for me, but the weather was great and I was full of energy. I decided to just go for a quick jog, which turned into a full on jog for the next thirty minutes. That may not seem like much, but for a fat guy like me, it was a lot. Anyway, needless to say I skipped my regular Tuesday morning training. I was now into stage 5, which is five minutes of jogging followed by five minutes of walking fast 3 times (thirty minutes total). Feeling a bit bad about skipping on Tuesday because I jumped the gun a little on Monday, I decided I’d do some cross training instead. That’s where I got into trouble.

Up until this point, things had been going fine with the walking and cross training. This time, though, when doing a “split squat” my left knee (the one that was back at the time) started hurting terribly. I stopped working out, and took some anti-inflammatories and figured it’d go away in the morning. Well, it didn’t. I was on the shelf.

Choosing A Marathon

(NOTE: This post describes events that occurred between March 28th and March 31st)

I’ve written briefly about this in an earlier post, but I thought I’d spend a little more time on it here.

When I decided to run a marathon, at first, it was a little nebulous. Ok, I’ll run one someday. Well, when is someday? We’ve been wrestling with some potential major changes (currently under wraps) at home lately, and so I was kind of putting of selecting a particular race based on the conclusion of those issues. As it became clearer that there weren’t necessarily going to be hard answers anytime soon, I decided to choose a race now. I’ll just figure it out later if anything complicates my cho