I’ve had a couple of great running buddies over the years. Key qualities include just
the right level of cheerleading and knowledge of such things as stretches, tennis
shoes and running paths. (I’m also glad when they’re talkers – ‘cause running
gets boring, and I’m usually too busy panting to bring much to the conversation.)

But far more than anything, the top quality for any running buddy has something to
do with accountability.

Day one of a new routine is always the hardest, but the good running buddy guilts
you into it. Day two: You’re super sore, but the good running buddy reminds you
that day two will become just another day one if you put it off another week.

So, about a month in, thanks to the encouragement from your awesome running
buddy, you’ve reached your short-term goal.

Then, things get busy. You have a couple of night meetings, a social hour or two … or
five. Crap, now you’ve got social hour flab. Go for a run? Eh … I need to catch up on
my sleep.

A month goes by. “Let’s go running,” you say, uncharacteristically, to your running
buddy, who, having considerable willpower, hasn’t stopped exercising and isn’t
going to wheeze as you do when you round the first corner.

The cheerleader in your running buddy kicks in. Even though you’re back exactly
where you started, your running buddy tells you “Nice job. Next time will be easier.”
So you plan to go running two days later. The time arrives. “How do you feel about
running?” your superb running buddy asks.

This is the moment where you return the favor. You say, “I’m all about it! Let’s go!
The air is cool and the paths are clear!”

But, instead, being the terrible running buddy that you are, you say, “Well, I could be
persuaded. But if you’re not feeling like it, I don’t mind.”

That’s a running buddy fail.*

*Sorry, Pat!

Watch this: I love that clip from Will Ferrell's film Anchorman, and it fits tangentially into today's post. Summer in the Midwest is a time of wretched, smothering humidity and baking heat, the combination of which usually makes you sweat without exerting any effort. If you dare to move around while outside in this sweltering stew, you take on some very real health risks. These risks should not be ignored, but they are completely manageable. With the State Fair right around the corner, we've got the two-mile Parade Run this afternooon (Get registered!) and the 6-mile (10k) Abe's Amble on Aug. 22 (Get registered!). It will be in the mid-90s today during the Parade Run, so anyone planning to run it would be well-advised to prepare. Here's a quick list of things you can do to make sure you cross the finish line on your feet instead of on a stretcher.

1) Dress for success. Just like any other area of life, running has a certain wardrobe. That stinky, pit-stained old cotton T-shirt you wear to the gym may be your favorite, but if you wear it while running in 90-degree weather, you might as well be wearing a garbage bag. You will become drenched in sweat, and the cotton will hold onto the moisture for hours. Instead, wear one of those newfangled mesh running shirts that wick away sweat like a personal towel boy. They're lighter than cotton, less prone to stretching, more breathable, and allow faster evaporation of sweat. Plus, they make you look like you really know what you're doing, so you can act all nonchalant when someone comments on your race attire. "Yeah, I run so much I had to get a special shirt...it's no big deal."

2) Baste yourself like a turkey. One of the benefits of running outside is getting a sweet tan that lets everyone know how active and "with it" you are. But when that sun is raining down fire with all the intensity of the Roman army in Western Europe, you're going to want a few tribes of Scotsmen to beat back the UV rays. Okay, that was a bad metaphor. Just wear sunscreen.

 3) Go all Niagara on yourself. I can't state this enough: Drinking enough water is absolutely imperative. Dehydration can drop you like a bare-knuckle boxer, and a poorly-watered person can experience tiredness, headaches, dizziness, rapid heart rate and even constipation - none of which is helpful while running. Luckily, it's easy to prevent. Just drink plenty of water. Don't wait until you're thirsty. Do it now. Seriously. Get up and grab a bottle, glass, mug or shiny metal canister of water. I'll wait. Slurp it down. All of it. Now do that about 10 more times throughout the day. Be sure to drink during and after the race as well. Bonus: Drinking lots of water can also help curb appetite, since the body sometimes confuses thirst with hunger.

 4) Bring your Siamese twin. Running with a partner not only offers motivation and support, but it gives you a safety net in case you start feeling double plus ungood. You can always hope a stranger notices when you collapse in an exhausted heap, but a good friend and running buddy will likely see warning signs of heat stroke or other heat-related maladies before you pass out. That's what friends are for - picking up your gross, sweaty body, hoisting you onto their back and finishing the race in record time. Okay, that might be a tad unrealistic, but it would be pretty cool. If your running buddy does that, you at least owe them your first-born child. (A second or third child is acceptable if you're only work friends.)

That's all I've got. Anyone else have any good tips? Leave a comment below or email me at pyeagle@illinoistimes.com. Have a great day and a great run!

Perhaps it was the heat. By 9:30 in the evening, one would normally expect the sweltering fever and thick humidity of the day to dissipate, but the sultry blanket of summer seemed to defiantly drape itself over the park even as the waning crescent of moon slowly climbed into the night sky.

Full of root beer caffeine and a week’s rest, I bounded down the stairs of my apartment building, eager to take the abandoned streets as my own and make up for my recent inconsistency in the realm of physical exertion. I was wearing my space-age light-weight running shirt, a blinking light clipped on the back collar, and my black, silicone-covered music player pumping into my ears a growling, angry tune with grinding guitars and piercing drums – the best music to run to. I do my best work when the music strokes that hidden epic-sensitive spot in my ego, the one that secretly and fallaciously tells me I can run faster than anyone else on the planet. Sometimes it whispers to me in the first-person plural voice: “We never slow down. We never stop. We are invincible.”

I jogged quickly down MacArthur Boulevard toward Washington Park, leaping emphatically over each uneven sidewalk joint and mud slick, then turned east onto Williams Boulevard. I long ago reasoned that I should run the half-mile boulevard loop first because that first forces me to actually do it – saving it for the end would make it easier to skip. I’ve now begun to wonder if the final hill in the park leading back to MacArthur would be easier if I saved the boulevard loop for the end. No matter now.

The heat began to seep into my muscles and lungs as I pattered past the main South Grand entrance to the park. My short, quick steps gradually began to feel heavier, as though I was dragging a pair of dumbbells tied to my ankles and someone kept adding a few ounces of weight with every passing minute. As I pushed up the hill by the playground pavilion, my breathing began to change from shallow puffs through my nose to deep and forceful gales through my mouth, requiring concentration to keep them under control. I’ve found that metering my breath gives me focus and keeps me from feeling winded.

The downhill slope between the pavilion and the lagoon is a welcome respite from the toilsome fight that even flat land presents. I practically fell down the hill in quick, light steps that barely touched the ground and seemed to place my body ahead of my feet. But just as what goes up must come down, every downhill has an uphill, and the carillon hill awaited me next. I crossed the southern lagoon bridge, where a row of sleeping mallards had docked for the night, and began to push deliberately up the incline, every heavy footfall seeming to chip into the hillside like a stair case. I passed a young couple walking up the hill and thought smugly to myself, “Look at those lazy suckers walking. I’ll show them how a runner climbs a hill.” By the time I reached the top, the smothering heat had injected every cell of my body with a dull fire that made me second-guess my doubt in spontaneous combustion.

Going downhill again, I saw another runner headed the same direction and immediately shifted focus from, “Good God, I’m dying,” to “I have to pass that guy!” Competition is a powerful motivator, especially when a person’s physical faculties begin to groan for rest. The other runner turned onto a side road and began to walk. The smugness immediately returned, and a self-satisfied grin sprouted across my face like a cartoon lion who sees his prey fall into the dust.

The next few minutes are a blur – the combination of heat, exhaustion and hyper focus have wiped any distinguishing details from my memory. I only remember hitting the final hill leading back to MacArthur Boulevard with a cautious optimism – I was nearly finished, but the hardest work remained to be done. For me, the final leg of every run is always a sprint, no matter how tired or out of breath I may be. With two light poles to go and my legs and shoulders burning in protest, I increased my pace by about half – a full run at about 80 percent of my capacity. The last light pole loomed ever closer…a few more steps…now GO! I break into a sprint like I’m trying to catch the last train ever. The guttural tone of a favorite vocalist whispered indignantly in my ear, driving me forward. “We once drew, some lines in black. Right now, it’s about time, we took them back.” I pump, push and shed the weight of exhaustion for one last charge. My feet move faster than I thought possible, screaming and fighting every step of the way. Fifty more feet. My chest heaves in gasping breaths that only leave me wanting. Twenty feet. Tunnel vision sets in…I see only the blurred lights of a passing car ahead and the solid stripe on the road leading me forward. As I reach the finish, the heat hits me again, as if I had left it behind by sprinting. Though I’ve finished running, my legs don’t want to stop; the keep moving, forcing me to speed walk down the sidewalk with my hands on my head like a prisoner of war.

It was only 2.5 miles. That’s hardly anything. Perhaps it’s the heat that sapped my strength so early. Maybe it was from not running with a partner or my lack of a concrete running goal. Any one of those factors could be the culprit, or it could have been all of the above. At any rate, I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to run the Abe’s Amble 10k race at the State Fair on Aug. 22. That’s more than double the length that winded me last night, but I know I can do it. As my subconscious says, “We are invincible.”

            Drugs. In the world of fitness – and by extension – sports, they have become an issue impossible to ignore. Even though most of us amateur runners, cyclists and other athletes will never deal with steroids personally, we are constantly barraged by allegations about or confessions by the names we admire: Lance Armstrong, Mark McGwire, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Bill Romanowski…the list goes on for miles. If we think about it, we realize that these are names not of gods and titans, but of humans just like us – straining to hit the ball harder, pushing to top that hill faster, struggling to shave an extra second off that lap time. Those who use steroids want to be the best and make for themselves a name to surpass the heroes they admire.

          Author and extreme amateur athlete Stuart Stevens began taking steroids in 2003 as research into the mental and physical effects of steroid use, and he wrote about his experiences in Outside Magazine. (Read it here.) Stevens relates how his body changed into a muscle-bound machine that wouldn’t quit, but more interesting than the effect it had on his body was the effect it had on his mind.

“You confuse what these performance enhancing drugs are doing to you and yourself,” Stevens told NPR’s Michele Norris in Oct. 2003. “You start to think pretty quickly, ‘Well, this is me. I can ride three hundred miles and the next day, I can feel just fine. Aren’t I impressive?’ ” (Hear it here.)

With steroids, we could all be bigger, faster and stronger. So why don’t we? For me, it’s a combination of reasons: the prohibitively high cost, the dangerous health risks and the lack of any real need. But there’s another reason I’ve chosen to take the hard road to fitness: to me, using steroids defeats the whole purpose of being an athlete.

“Sport is about individuals competing against individuals, not about individuals competing against other individuals’ doctors,” Stevens says. “… There’s something about it that is tremendously dishonest. The athletic endeavor should be one of the purest endeavors that we engage in in life.”

I have been running and watching my diet for about five years, and I’ve lost more than 70 pounds in that time. I’ve run two half-marathons, gained self-confidence and greatly lessened the health risks I’ll face later in life. Sometimes I imagine just what I could have accomplished if I had taken steroids. I could have done two full marathons, and I could have a chiseled physique to show off. But I’ve come to realize that wouldn’t have been me. I may be slow, weak and a bit pudgy, but I’m better off now than ever before. And I’m proud to say I did it the hard way.

My sister Natalie is awesome. (Both of my sisters are awesome, of course, but only one of them is relevant to this post.) A dietician by trade and an avid fitness enthusiast, Natalie recently turned me on to an online tool that holds a lot of promise for my future fitness.

For a very long time, I’ve been kicking myself for not doing a better job of tracking what I eat. I know that if I did track my consumption, I would be confronted by some unpleasant truths – namely, that I probably get way too many calories from carbohydrates. Dieticians say you should get about 60 percent of your calories from carbohydrates, but I’m probably closer to 80 percent. (That’s just a guesstimate, of course.) Once I finally get in the habit of tracking what I eat, I’ll be in a much better position to identify consumption trends that sabotage my fitness and overall health.

Enter NutriMirror.com. It’s a free service that lets you log your food intake and offers nutrient values for your logged items, as well as helpful analysis to show you where your diet can improve. It contains a lot of nutrient values for foods I wouldn’t have expected to see in the database, such as pineapple salsa from Trader Joe’s.

Using this tool, I’ve already learned that my usual morning smoothie (recipe below) contains a lot of carbs but also a ton of fiber, which is why it keeps me going for so long. I’ve also realized that I consume far fewer calories than I should to maintain my weight. Someone at my height and weight should consume 2,657 calories a day to maintain weight. Between breakfast and lunch, I only consumed 775 calories total – less than one-third of my total. Unless I manage to consume 1,882 calories for dinner, I’ll probably end the day with a 1,000 calorie deficit. (Yes, I have been completely honest in tracking my consumption – I promise!) This whole time, I thought I ate too many calories…weird!

Enough about me and my nutrition. Someone else try this out and let me know how it goes. And as promised, here is my smoothie recipe. Modify as you see fit.

6 frozen strawberries
1 ripe banana
8 oz. orange juice

Just stick it in your blender and blend the heck out of it. You don’t need any milk because the banana acts as a thickener when it’s blended, and you don’t need any ice because the strawberries are frozen. If you want to jazz it up a bit, add in some berries or peaches. (Props to Amanda Robert for giving me the recipe…and word is, she got it from Dusty Rhodes. Both are former Illinois Times writers. We know how to keep it healthy here – except for those office parties at which we stuff our faces with cookies, cake and cheesy delights of all varieties. Forget I said anything.)

I’m going to go eat 1,882 calories worth of candy.

I have fallen off the wagon. I haven't run in several days, and the interval between my runs has grown lately. I know that exercise gives me energy and confidence while speeding up my metabolism, so why have I let myself get so far off track? I confess to having been lazy, distracted and unmotivated. Today, that ends.

Below are a few of the things I'm doing to stay motivated and get back in the habit. I hope they help other people stay motivated as well.

1) I'm making a conscious decision each morning to work out, no matter what else arises. It will be part of my schedule - no ifs, ands or buts. If I have to run over my lunch break, I'll do it. If I have to skip the occasional social engagement, I'll do it. I am committed.

2) I'm going to keep my running gear near my bedroom door, so I have to look at it every time I enter or leave. It will serve as both a reminder and a shame factor - if I don't work out, my running shoes will stare me down and shame me into using them.

3) I'm constantly telling myself that I love to exercise, and there's no better feeling than the exhaustion of a great run. I used to hate exercise during my early college days, but I convinced myself through repetition that running is a part of who I am, and now I feel as if I absolutely MUST do it to feel fulfilled. I just need to be reminded of that from time to time.

4) I'm going to keep my new running buddy* accountable for her runs. Knowing that someone else is watching your progress keeps you on the straight and narrow, while knowing that you need to push someone else forward helps you push yourself. Having a good support system is important in many areas of life, and exercise is no exception.

*You may have noticed Rachel Wells writing for Illinois Times the past couple of weeks - she just started at IT and she is my new running buddy. You'll probably see her blog posts here at some point as well.

Now it's your turn - what do you do to keep motivated? Have you been slouching lately? I want to hear your story. Leave a comment below or email me at pyeagle@illinoistimes.

 Have a great week, and keep on keepin' on!

Hey, long time - no see! Where have you been? I was worried sick about you! You really ought to come visit me more often. (Yeah, I haven't posted on this blog in awhile. I'll change, I promise!)

Now that you're back safe and sound, let's talk about diet. When you're exercising a lot, it's hard to balance your need for energy with the all-too-easy tendency to undo your workout by eating the wrong foods. I've found the best policy for me is eating low-calorie/moderate-carb fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds - all with plenty of fiber. I avoid the sport gels, beers, breads and chocolate milk that I've heard touted all the time. That stuff is great if you have a super high metabolism that will use the energy up before it gets turned into fat, but my body operates more like an 1850s steam locomotive than a Mag Lev train. My body reacts poorly to simple carbohydrates, so I try to stick with foods whose nutrients will be absorbed into my blood stream slowly. My primary goal for exercise is weight management, and when I work out, I push myself nearly to exhaustion. Accordingly, the recommendations in this post are for people with slow metabolisms and high nutrient-replacement needs. If you don't fit that criteria, this post may still be helpful, but you may want to use a more general source. http://www.marathonrookie.com/nutrition.html (*Disclaimer: I'm a vegetarian and sometimes vegan, so I obviously avoid animal proteins most of the time. Thus, I don't have much knowledge of what animal proteins are best for active people, and I've left that out of this post.)

The table below contains some of my favorite post-workout foods with corresponding nutrient values. Click the name of each food to see additional data about each entry. Note that most of them have a good mixture of the various protiens your body needs. You may also notice that I've included some of them with added salt. Though I normally keep my salt intake relatively low, I don't see a point in eating food that doesn't taste good - if you want to add salt, go for it. As with anything else in life, just don't go overboard.

Food	Amount	Calories	Carbs (grams)
Sweet bell peppers	1 cup	30	7
Red tomotoes	1 cup	32	7
Roasted salted almonds	1 ounce	170	5
Roasted salted sunflower seeds	1 ounce	163	7
Bananas	1 large	121	31
Sweet potato	1 cup	176	41
Hummus	1 ounce	50	6

The great thing about eating mostly fruits and vegetables is that you can eat until you're satisfied without feeling guilty. (How many times did your mother scold you for pigging out on asparagus? My guess is ZERO.)

This is by no means a complete list, and what I've suggested here isn't going to give you everything you need for a healthy diet. This is just a starting point, but hopefully one that will send you in the right direction.

Keep up the good work, Springfield! You're looking great!

Any avid runner knows the joys of a road without cars. Though you only need about four feet of personal space, it’s a wonderful feeling to have an open road before you and no metal beasts whizzing by with seemingly total disregard for your safety. It’s the difference between feeling like you have the whole world to yourself and feeling like you’re being stalked by a thousand huge steel cats who quickly lose interest when they realize how little fun it is to catch you.

Even better than an empty road is a brand-new road that hasn’t been opened yet. The MacArthur Extension is a perfect example. I’ve run it twice this week, and though I’ll be excited to use it when it finally opens April 30, I’ll be disappointed when it becomes well-traveled by cars and likely too dangerous to run. I ran it Monday before dusk, when a few workers were still hanging about, apparently to time the stop lights. They gave a friendly nod and wave when I passed, so I assume they didn’t mind my presence, along with the handful of cyclists and a walker or two. My roommate Kevin and I ran it again last night, just after dusk, and it had an eerily beautiful quality that you only find by observing vast developed spaces of concrete and steel completely devoid of human life. It evokes thoughts of a post-apocalyptic world or a zombie film.

From the intersection of South MacArthur Boulevard and West North Street to the top of the overpass deck is just over 1.5 miles, give or take a tenth. Doing that distance back and forth should give you a pretty decent 5K run. (That’s according to my wrist pedometer, which may be slightly off.) It is completely flat for most of the way, until you reach the overpass bridge, where you’ll find a long and steady incline of perhaps two percent. (That’s just a wild guess. It may be way off.) If you’re running only the length of the extension, the hill shouldn’t be a concern at all. When I’ve run it, I’ve already done about 2.25 miles just to arrive at the start, and even after tacking on the extension, it wasn’t too awfully challenging. Anyone who knows the Lincoln half marathon route will be relieved to know the overpass isn’t even remotely as steep as any of the big hills on that route.

It should go without saying, but in case you decide to run the extension, don’t touch any equipment left at the site, NEVER throw anything off of the overpass on to the highway, and please respect the environment by not littering. We as runners have a duty to represent our ilk in a positive way, and we have a special connection with the environment because of our proximity to it, so let’s be sure and honor those obligations. Also, be sure and give a friendly wave to your fellow runners, cyclists and walkers. This world could use a little more cordiality.

Hope to see some of you out there!