Chasing the Red Baron

Happy Father's Day! To my own pops, if you get the internet up in heaven, thank you for the guidance you passed onto me.

To my little daughter..

I always blink for the flash

Thank you for coming into my life, you have given your mother and I so much meaning to our life, today would not be a celebration without you.

Yesterday I noticed I was mentioned on +OptimalRun.com for running dad's that blog, pretty neat!

To my wife, thank you for pampering me this weekend! Part of my Father's day swag was some running snacks:

Yesterday I had some strawberry custard mixed with a nutella cupcake mixed in... YUM!!  Later we went to Dominicks and saw Red Baron pizza was on sale for 3.99. Anything less than 4 dollars has to be a meal just for one... So I ate the entire pizza for dinner. 1600 calories later, I felt content. Perfect food to charge me up for the long run. Just drank a LOT of water to counteract the sodium.
Today I woke up around 7:15 (yay sleeping in!) and I noticed my leg felt pretty good.. hmm? My wife went out and got me a yummy coffee from +Metropolis Coffee . I drink coffee black and the their brew tasted amazing. A lot stronger than the cheap coffee I keep at hand at home. By the time I was ready for my run, my hands were shaking lightly.  My wife also went out on a run with our daughter in the BOB.

I stepped out today feeling good, my right calf felt randomly a lot better after doing a lot of massages to my leg seen here and icing.

My first mile was pretty quick as my street is always cooler and breezier, but once I hit Hollywood, helloooo heat and sun. Instead of feeling like Red Baron was fueling me, I felt the entire run was a battle against the heat.. slowly crashing and burning like so:

We've been heat struck!

My initial goal was to not hurt my calf, just go slow. I amended this and added, don't get heat stroke. Drank +Gatorade every couple miles, and my pace slowed down every couple miles as well. Lesson for today: No more sleeping in on Sundays. Rather than start my runs at 9:30, I need to be done by 9:30am.

I saw a lot of people coming back from another Color Run (are these like every weekend now?). I saw people burning out on their pace, they would start off really fast and go by me, and be slowing down in less than two minutes. I hope everyone eases into the weather!

Today's run wasn't bad as I didn't try to go fast, which resulted in my slowest time in a few months. I'll take that though over getting sick or hurt.

When I finished my run, I refilled my bottle with water and just doused myself with it to cool off. I also noticed I was covered with gnats. I was going to take a picture, but a sweaty hairy chested guy covered in bugs isn't that hot.

After a recovery Gatorade and trying out the purple Nuun (yum!) , I had a cold shower and forced myself to eat a yogurt and banana. The heat run killed my appetite.

I'll make sure to work on my calf again today to keep up the recovery, but I must depart to go to the beach or something fun!

What did you do today?