Lace Up! Weeks 4 & 5 Progress

Progress Weeks 4 & 5

Week five comes to a close… 54.14 miles down, 275.86 to go!  16% of the way there. In week four, I logged 9.69 miles, four of them running. In week five, even with some travel out of state, I logged 11.03 miles, three of them running. I ran less in week five more due to schedule and traveling than anything else.

I logged these times in Week 4:

4/22 = 8:09/mi

4/18 = 8:21/mi

4/20 = 7:11/mi

4/21 = 7:22/mi

In Week 5, I raised my running distance to 1.5 miles and clocked these times:

5/3 = 8:33/mi

5/5 = 8:48/mi

Of note in week four is that I ran my fastest two miles yet at 7:11 and 7:22 but my average was still down from the week prior.

So far, I’ve secured $1,652 ($1287 donated, $365 pledged) from 15 donors. This gets me 17% to my fundraising goal. Donations have been incredible but I thought there would be more distinct donors at this point. I have plans to move the needle over time! If you’re reading this…

Give me a hand here!

Dedication – Week 4

Week four’s miles are dedicated to my youngest brother, Jacob—the keeper of the keys! When he was in 6^th grade and I was a senior, I drove him to middle school, which was right next to my high school. They started 45 minutes later than we did so I would let Jake sit in my car to stay cool or warm depending on the season. This meant I entrusted him with my car keys. In true 90s fashion, he assured me he would protect my keys by securing them in his box of POGs (if you don’t know, this is what a POG is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_caps_(game). This showed how serious he was about keeping my keys safe, as nothing would be permitted to happen to his precious POGs. This photo shows Jake and I slightly younger. Me on the first day of 8^th grade and him on the first day of 2^nd grade.

Dedication – Week 5

Week five’s miles are dedicated to my oldest brother, Bart. I always wanted to be like my older brothers and would never let anyone tell me I couldn’t do what they did. So when Bart started running in 7^th grade, I started running in 3^rd grade. This was a big reason I got to be pretty good by the time I started track and cross country in middle school.

Bart also influenced my taste in music. He was famous in our household for wearing his favorite “concert t-shirts” when we played tackle football on the front lawn. No pads nor helmets in sight, we used to go pretty hard at it! Gen X Gen Xing. Invariably, someone would reach out to tackle Bart and come up with only a corner of his shirt, which would rip as the tackler fell to the ground. This made him mad but so did us telling him not to wear his favorite shirt when we played tackle football. Neither pleading nor ripping ever dissuaded Bart from doing what he wanted to do.

The stickman Pearl Jam t-shirt I wore on my first day of week five is a replica of one he had in the 1990s. That one also got ripped but that didn’t happen on the front lawn… it happened in high school when he attacked a notorious bully over comments made about a long-lost girlfriend. Bart got his shirt ripped and a suspension, but not the girl. But it’s all for the best because my best friend Mike and I then set him up with Mike’s sister and they’ve been together ever since. So it works out even though the Pearl Jam t-shirt had to be sacrificed.

What’s in the Walkman?

Pearl Jam’s August 1991 release, ”10”. I can’t listen to that album without thinking of fall 1992 cross country season (7^th grade), a girl named Nikki Kitchens who I met at King’s Island when I was wearing my Air Jordan t-shirt, and my cool-ass brother Bart. To this day, he imbues this album with an aura of 90s toughness. Just look at the photo!

Reflections

My legs were super tight at the beginning of week four, then I started a better post-run routine and my times got a lot better, my legs a lot looser. Still working through it though! I am just focused on building muscle memory for longer runs. The jump to 1.5 miles hasn’t been simple but I am still running the whole way and focused on building up, up, up.

Travel really throws me for a loop and while I’ve maintained strong dietary habits and workouts, the running itself is difficult. I logged 1.32 miles in the Birmingham airport, for example. Not easy to run there, so that was just a brisk walk.

ToolBank Disaster Services Deployment

The most recent feature focused on a deployment in Detroit in August 2014 following massive flooding. This was posted the same week the Detroit ToolBank had its Grand Opening and shows the presence we’ve had in different markets even long before opening a ToolBank affiliate there. We have a long history of deploying our resources swiftly to communities in recovery.

Read the full deployment post here.

See you soon and don’t forget to keep your sneaks laced up (like it’s 1995)!