Living the dream...this won't be the first time I use that title

So the majority of today was spent checking in Asics socks at the store. Now I don't have anything personally against Asics, a lot of people really like their shoes and they are a staple in any running store. But, their socks create a situation that tests the very limits of one's patient. Receiving them and stocking them is one of the biggest pains in the butt. Granted, Dwyer was kind enough to seperate them out between the stores, but the mind numbing process of checking each individually packaged pair into inventory was left to me.

The one good thing that came out of this was I was looking forward to the run tonight just to do something active. I started out nice and easy, and felt really good considering I had a workout the previous day. I did a little over 7 looping out towards the Capitol and back, picking it up on the way back. Got rehab tomorrow morning for the hip with Dr. Beck, so hopefully he'll keep working his magic and my lower abs will keep feeling better.

After I got back from my run I noticed I had a package waiting at the apartment. I was curious because I wasn't expecting any kind of package. I open it up and low and behold, its an Acumen Heart Rate monitor. Evidently in the podunk 5k (the race in which Chris became the Race Packet Series Champion and solidified his World Class Silly status) I had won my age group. Now while there are a lot of people out there who would absolutely thrilled to have won their age group, and rightly so, it was kind of a whatever moment for me. It wasn't because I don't like to win, but it was more because I didn't have to push myself to do it, and I wasn't pushed by anyone else to do it either. I guess thats why I keep running, I want to compete against people who might be "better" or faster than me. No one thought I would run in college after high school but I pulled that off and ended up running faster than the guy from my high school who went to UCLA. But I've still got a long way to go...just going to stick to Coach's plan and see where it takes me.

Icy Workout

Managed to pull off going up to AU to workout today...had no idea what I was going to be doing so that added to the fun. Anyway, got a ride up there with Dwyer and Sweet Lew. Met Slicko, Dumm, Baresi and surprise show up of the day, Frank. We started the warm up and were running with three of Coach's women including: Julie Culley and Lindsay Gallo. Both of them went to the US Olympic Trials this last year so they're sort of big deals. So we do our three mile warm up, toss some spikes on (due to the ice on one of the turns we ended up needing spikes and only could do 300 repeats).

Before the workout, Coach lines us up and then splits us into two groups. Dwyer, Frank, Slicko, and Lewis in one group, and then Barresi, Julie, Lindsay, and myself were in the second group. Back in the day I probably would've bitched about running with girls and had a huge ego about it. But I've totally bought into Coach at this point and whatever he does, he's doing it for a reason. Workout was 8 by 300 split into two sets of four with 100m recovery. The idea was to do one easy, two medium and then one hard.

I started in the back of the pack, Julie lead the first one, then Lindsay, then Barresi and I took the lead on the last one of the set. On my first lead I took it pretty easy, hit a 52-53, was more worried about being the jackass for blasting out a fast one than I was about being a little slow. Second set when pretty smoothly too, everything was between 54-50 until the last one. I checked with everyone before I took the last one that it was supposed to be a little harder than the rest of the set. I opened up my stride a little bit more on the last one but kept it under control and ran one of my smoother 45's. I think it might have caught Julie off guard a little bit but Lindsay seemed pretty happy that the last one had gotten down below 50.

It wasn't a workout to write home about, but it does give me the feeling that I'm getting fitter. Did about 6 miles a little uptempo afterwards to get about 10 on the day. Solid day...going to see if Coach will let me do some road mile soon.

In regards to whats up with Chris...honestly didn't see or hear much from him today, but I'm going to check up on, you guessed it, his computer tonight.

Like a Fish Out Of Water !

Hi All,
Last week I found out I'm on the bench for a few weeks due to a Stress Fracture in my foot. So its back to the Cross-Training that I love to do just as much as any distance running. Miles is our currency and how you count a workout, a day, a week. So its tough when you have to write down a big fat 0. Even with going to the pool and jumping on the bike for 90mins-120mins a day its like give someone a 100 Pesos to go on a piss up in the states. My point being you don't get drunk (unless you drink Miller-lite) just as we think your not getting any fitter.

Back to the pool, I went to the Washington&Lee pool . I slept in this morning and after the John Deere text from Chris I decided to wait to 12pm to go.I'm sure he went and tried to run. Turned out in my favor as the pool was closed anyway this morning. I'm the worse swimmer in there and in the slowass lane were there are two nice old ladies as I'm getting out one goes to me "You are such a fast swimmer"
Was she watching the same game as me ??????????????????

Anyway Keep on Keeping on !

-Wade

Hump Day...

Rough Wednesday...We got hit at the store with two hugeeeee shipments of asics and saucony shoes. Of course I hadn't managed to create all the colors and styles that came in, so it was a slow process getting them away.

Run was kind of pathetic as well, 6 miles super easy (7 minute pace the whole way). Going to try and do a double tomorrow, light 4 or 5 miles in the morning and then a workout in the afternoon.

Being from LA, I miss having a car pretty much on a daily basis. I know its more environmentally friendly not to have one, and I'm all for that. But as far as convenience, you can't beat a car. Plus driving is fun. The whole point of this is; when you live and work in Arlington, and your Coach works at AU, getting to practice can turn into a ridiculous logistical puzzle without a car.

To continue with the random series of comments in this post, got to keep you updated on the going ons of Chris. First make sure you check out his blog Secondly, my interaction with Chris today involved me connecting to his laptop through one of the computers at the store in order for him to connect to another one of the computers in the store. I swear I'm slowly turning into a computer nerd....

workout...kind of

Planned on working out with the AU guys today, but I guess Coach just told them to go easy today due to the snow. I went up to AU, didn't see anyone after 3pm (the time Coach had said practice was going to start) so got my 10 miles in and did some strides...definitely not complaining I didn't have to do 400m repeats but I am pretty eager to get in shape. Ah well, hopefully I'll get a solid workout in on Thursday.

Wadeeeee

Just in case anyone was wondering there's a good chance that Mr. Wade, the Irish Charmer and Manager of Pacers Arlington, will be posting on this blog...stay tuned for his witty banter

Why????

So I started a blog...and I'm definitely not the type of guy who would normally do this. But Chris Farley, the face of Pacers, a "World Class Silly", and as an added bonus, my boss, has this interesting blog and it clearly isn't getting enough followers..yet.

Its also another opportunity to keep myself accountable for my running. I hadn't really planned on trying to run competitively after a less than stellar career at D1 George Washington University. But after I graduated I ended up staying on to work at Pacers Running Stores, where I had worked during college. Working in a running store kind of requires you to at least be running a couple times a week. Well I figured if I was going to be running I might as well starting training for something, so I started to slowly start running with the Pacers Elite guys.

I did that through the whole summer and by the end of it I was starting to round in to shape. I did a workout with the guys from GW at the end of summer and killed it. It had previously been a workout I might have had some trouble with but I just cruised the whole thing. Ran 10 by 800 starting around 2:30 and ending around 2:16. Not an incredible workout but it was more about how relaxed I felt doing it. However, this was the beginning of a long stretch of being injured/sick.

I went through 3 and 1/2 months of going in and out of hospitals, three different types of antibiotics and shots were involved. Still don't know what I had but the lasting part has been the feeling of tightness in my lower ab. Finally in December I managed to start running a little bit but my training was all over the place, one week I'd be near 70 miles the next I would barely get 45. The only small glimmer of hope was the fact that I managed to run a podunk 5k to try and help Chris out to win the prestigious Race Packet series (more to come on this later).

The thing that finally got me set back on track was Coach Centrowitz becoming the coach of the Pacers Elite team. I had actually talked to Coach 4 years ago when I was looking at schools and was trying to run in college. Then for the following four years while I ran at GWU I would see him and his American team working out and at races. The big thing is, I would just be seeing them and not really in a race with them. But who knows, I've started to feel fit again and maybe Coach will get me straight again.......