Thursday and Friday, Answers

Thursday it was cold. I walked 3 miles on the treadmill (1 hour total). I did 6 x 25 pushup. 1 min. each ab plank.

Lower back was sort of sore. Doing back planks is a bad idea right now. I think the back is stronger than the abs. Maybe the hips are being pulled back and up because of weak abs. I do not know if this is for real or just my active imagination.

At any rate, I need to get the abs strong again. Strong abs.

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Friday I ran 8 miles outside at probably around 7:45 pace. Temp of 28-32. Wind from SSW at 12. Felt pretty good until the way back. Did not eat enough food for breakfast. I felt weak.

No PT today. Rested instead.

Slept in to 10:37, and I had to work at 2:30, so the whole period of day before work felt rushed. I will try to get up earlier tomorrow.

I have to work Sat, Sun, Mon. Then Tuesday get ready to go to California! The weather there is predicted to be around 60 during the days, mid 30s at night. Nothing summery, but a good change of clime. Plus, my first time in California! We plan to go to Lake Tahoe, to some redwood forest thing, San Francisco, and Pacifica (where I wanted to live when I was still planning on going to school in SF).

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Fireroads are an awesome North Face shoe (though I think all North Face gear is awesome, even if I've had only two running shoes).

I had to google what a fireroad was. Here in Nebraska there is no such thing. The first things that came up were "is your child fire smart?" and "fireroads: find great deals and save" as if a fireroad was something like a book or a shawl or an accessory for you color coordinated bedroom (what's with that anyway? anytime you search for something, it comes up with all these places where you can "find" or "buy" the thing.)

I always thought a fireroad was a road leading up a mountain where trucks could come to put out a fire. Something like that. It makes sense, doesn't it? I pictured it being a crushed limestone or mulch trail.

In the description of the Fireroad shoe, it says something that it is too aggressive for the pavement, but can't handle real trail. So I guess a crushed limestone path would be a good setting for the Fireroads to thrive.

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The actual definition of a fireroad is this:

"a gap in vegetation or other combustible material that acts as a barrier to slow or stop the progress of a wildfire. A firebreak may occur naturally where there is a lack of vegetation or "fuel", such as a river, lake or canyon. Firebreaks may also be man-made, and many of these also serve as roads, such as a logging road, jeep trail, secondary road, or a highway ."

It is also known as a fire break, or a fuel break, or a fire line.

So I guess I was sort of close.

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Neat things about the Fireroad shoe:

1) Very light
2) Very stable (a pretty much flat bottom)
3) Sheds mud (flag bottom doesn't allow mud to accumulate)
4) Features the North Face orthotic (like all of the running shoes)
5) Interesting support system...some shoes have a more dense material to prevent pronation...the fireroads have this material more forward on the foot. Rather than having it under that bone that sticks out on your ankle, the Fireroads have a little web of plastic stuff right before the ball of the foot, on both sides (look at the picture, the little yellow stuff you can see). I think this works for me because although I don't pronate that much, my feet used to seem to sort of flop around during the running motion. I think the plastic web thing helps to guide the foot forward, thereby improving the stride rate, efficiency, and making me think that I am Haile Gebreselassie.

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Drawbacks (which do not really exist):

The fireroad is not an ENDURANCE SHOE. It is not designed like the Rucky Chucky or the Arnuva, which are for 100 mile races. But for now, they are good. I won't be going that far for a while!

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More info:

http://www.thenorthface.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=10903&storeId=207&catalogId=10201&langId=-1&from=subCat&parent_category_rn=11706&variationId=8Z5