Spring has Sprung: 70F & Sunny! (Week 11)
Vol 4. No.19
Spring is in the air and in my shoes.
0430 on Monday arrived swiftly and was a shock to my circadian rhythm. The Daylight Savings time-shift played a significant role throughout the week. Having more daylight well into the evening kept not only the sky illuminated longer but brightened my mood later into the evening.
It really was a great week of running. From cool morning runs with the song-birds beckoning the sun over the horizon, to warm evening runs with friends. We were treated with a few blazing sunsets that perfectly blended the fading day into the approaching night.
This was a successful week for me in many aspects.
🏅1 Mile PR | 🏅3 KM PR | 🏅5KM PR
My weight has dropped to a 10-year low, tipping the scale at 205lbs. The last time I was near this weight was February 21st, 2015 when I got down to 206lbs. Prior to that the lowest I got was 199lbs back in 2013 while I was stomping around Afghanistan. In all honesty I haven’t been below 200 since at least 2009 or 2010.
In addition to decreasing weight and increasing speed I also increased my weekly mileage totals to the highest it’s been all year to 35-miles. This was in part to my Sunday run that turned from a nine mile run into 11-miles.
There is increasing potential to set a new Half Marathon PR next weekend when I take on the All American Half Marathon along the hallowed streets of Fort Bragg, NC. My current lifetime PR is 1:57:52 back in November, 2023 at the Richmond Virginia Marathon when I averaged an 8’59” mile for the first half of the race in my attempt for a sub-4hr Marathon. I feel I’m in a good position to set a new PR.
All in all this was a great week of running. Running in great weather. Running with incredible people and running with the best Run Club in The South.
Enjoy this weeks edition of The Long Run! Subscribe below to get weekly updates and follow my journey to Mesa, Arizona where I’ll be making my attempt at a BQ Run.
Monday: 3.10.2025: (JD 69): 5 at 5.
4:30am is already early, but when it follows the Daylight Savings Time jump, the alarm is just a little more jolting. I rolled out of bed and fell into auto-pilot. Socks, Shoes, Shorts, Shirt, Watch, HR Monitor, Water, ID and phone. All the items I need to get on the road. A quick glance at the weather bug and it’s 45℉, however once I step outside I can tell we are in the 30’s. An about face, unlock the door and grab a long-sleeve shirt and I’m back out the door. It’s going to be a busy morning.
My timeline on getting to the run has no room for error. Thankfully the roads are empty at this time of day and I arrived at the start just 2 minutes early. Andrew was the first person there, soon followed by Mike, Maureen and Becca all arriving within 30 seconds of each other.
5am is early.
Nearly everyone looks tired. Hell, when I looked at Mike for the first time he looked utterly confused, like he didn’t even know how he got there, with his running shoes on. But there he was, ready to roll.
After a very short discussion, the plan was made to get in three miles with Becca before the rest of the group split off to finish up a complete 5-miles. Becca’s goal pace was a 10’00” mile and we finished up the first three miles with a 9’59” average.
The group continued on and picked up the pace for the next 2.22 miles at an average pace of 9’10”. It was an easy run with with flowing conversations and everyone sticking together for the duration of the run.
It’s great to see our Monday Morning “Early Risers” group growing in size. The first two times it was Maureen and I and today we welcomed three more runners. As the summer months warming up, the only way to beat the heat is for early morning runs. After that it’s all heat, all the time.
When the run was over I made my way to the YMCA and got in another 30 minutes in the squat rack with back squats and calf raises. I can tell I’m getting stronger, the weight felt light. More strength training means a decreased risk of injury.
5.22 miles | Avg Pace: 9’40” | Avg HR: 125 | Best Mile: 9’01” | 37°F at 82%
Tuesday: 3.11.2025: (JD 70): Unplanned Two-A-Day
There’s only one reason why I am smiling in the picture above and that’s because spring has finally sprung!
Discipline prevailed this morning, but barely one the battle today. My internal thoughts at 5:15am were devious and deceitful. Thoughts of comfort crept in, teasing me, testing my resolve. The idea that a cup of coffee and writing in the morning would be better for me than going to the YMCA and strength training. The lies between my ears, enticing me to get just another hour of sleep and I could simply run at lunch time. The reasons were making sense. It was another cool morning, my legs needed the rest, they were sore.
Then I remember one crucial universal truth: “Comfort is a lie”
The thoughts never ended, even as I was driving to the YMCA. The thought of turning around and having a nice relaxing morning was still there. Like a small splinter, just under the realm of conscious thought.
I drug myself to the YMCA. Drug myself inside then commenced into 30 minutes of strength training. Physically I felt strong, mentally all I wanted to do was check out, sit on the couch with a fresh cup of coffee and relax.
To counteract the desire to just “relax” and find comfort on the couch with coffee, I decided to get in a 5k run this morning.
The run itself was a mental and emotional struggle. Physically I felt great and spiritually I couldn’t feel more blessed to have a fully functioning body. Mentally I wasn’t in it. That is until the songbirds drew my attention away from my own self-induced misery and I started to take notice of the amazing spring morning coming to life all around me. The path took me past the lake, so I stopped for the photo you see above. Why was I smiling? Because nature, in all it’s grandeur changed my mind and the run became enjoyable.
Not every day is sunny and 70℉ - Andy Frisella
Yet today was that day! Temperatures rose nearly 30 degrees from this morning and with an ever present sun, this spring day turned out remarkable. Humidity dropped to below 25% which is rare and conditions for a club run couldn’t have been better.
It was a long day on the job and when it was time to clock out, I checked out. I headed to my Garage Gym to get it organized and ready for my fast approaching shift in periodization. Starting April 1st, I’ll be in the garage doing a lot of H.I.I.T workouts and working on my speed and core strength.
With just enough time to spare, I kitted up and took off for the Tuesday evening run with the Clayton Area Runners. I arrived on sore legs with five minutes to spare before we stepped off.
**There is a difference between “sore” legs and “tired” legs. Mine are only sore, not tired and I have plenty of gas left in them.
I expected this evenings run to be “slow” with my legs still in recovery. However, once the blood started flowing through my legs, it turned out much better than expected.
The weather was absolutely incredible and I was lucky enough to run side by side with Brian, who is a consistently strong runner and someone I’ve been running with throughout the last few years. We kept the pace conversational and enjoyed the almost perfect spring weather. With humidity below 25%, I barely broke a sweat on this 3.2 mile run.
AM Run: 3.32 miles | Avg Pace: 10’51” | Avg HR: 113 | Best Mile: 10’23” | 44°F at 74%
PM Run: 3.21 miles | Avg Pace: 9’02” | Avg HR: 131 | Best Mile: 8’46” | 71°F at 23%
Wednesday: 3.12.2025: (JD 71): Wednesday 5K
Wednesday’s are my no-fail, no-miss run of the week. Unless I’m out of town, this weekly run with the club is a must in my life. It’s nearly a non-negotiable event in my life. Even when I’m not home, I will continue the Wednesday 5K routine as best as possible. It is one of my benchmark runs.
The plunging humidity and rising temperatures combined to make a dry and warm Spring run, a true oddity of weather here in The South. While I generally enjoy running in cooler weather, this was about perfect for anything 10K and below. It was truly an amazing day to run.
The statistical anomaly of weather brought out a big crowd to our Wednesday run from Fare Game. The next 90 days will provide some incredible running weather with incrementally increasing temperatures and green leaves sprouting around us. Then overnight Summer will arrive, without warning and with a ferocity that seems almost impossible to comprehend.
This evenings run started with Jackson, a young man who has become a regular at the Club Runs. There is an unspoken competition between me and this young man half my age as he is in a continuous effort to beat my 5K or 10K times. He hasn’t done it yet, but he absolutely has the potential to bury me. The day will come soon.
After a mile with Jackson, I noticed Laura wasn’t too far behind so I slowed down and decided to get some steps with Laura. I’m always amazed at her tenacity and strength with running. Often seen in Sandals, I sometimes wonder if she owns a pair of running shoes. I’ve been running on Wednesday’s with Laura now for five years and over that time she’s become a friend. An incredibly strong runner, she’s earned it all through grit, determination and tenacity.
Once we hit the turn around, I decided to catch up to my friend Mike, who for some crazy reason has decided 2025 is the year he’ll run with a weighted vest on all runs 5K or less. It’s working for him. He’s getting stronger and faster. I had to step it out to a 7’15” pace to catch him, and once I did we continued a pressing pace.
Mike thought he was going to take it easy on the last mile.
COMFORT IS A LIE. -Wicked Trail
We averaged an 8’45 mile on the way back! An incredible pace for a man wearing a 20lb vest and who last year was comfortable running a 10’30” pace. The improvements have been remarkable.
It really was a great day to run and I got to run with three different friends at different paces. It’s “Survivor Night”, so I didn’t have the time to stick around to socialize, so I picked up a few pizza’s for my wife and son and made it back to the house for the 8pm Start Time.
3.11 miles | Avg Pace: 9’18” | Avg HR: 131 | Best Mile: 8’17” | 77°F at 22%
Thursday: 3.13.2025: (JD 72): Pi(e) Day Social
Yes, I know tomorrow is actually 3.14 or Pi Day, but we decided to celebrate our annual Pi(e) Day run and social at our Thursday run. Runner arrived with all kinds of Pies from traditional dessert pies to cookie pies and even a pizza pie!
Despite the overcast sky, we had a great showing and I even saw some faces I hadn’t seen in a long time. I think a lot of people go into hibernation or hit the gym in those colder winter months, but with the weather this week, they are drawn to the sun like a bug to the light.
I linked up with Robert for his 5-miler and it’s good to see he’s still putting in comfortable miles despite his lingering injury. The conversation was good and it’s great to hear my friend doing so well in life. While his running fitness has declined recently, he’s stacking life wins and for that I can celebrate as if he ran a Sub 4-hour Marathon.
Like the changing of seasons, life has it’s seasons. Nothing in this life really stays constant, with some extreme highs and extreme lows and a variance of smaller ups and downs along the way. Running helps me be physically strong enough to withstand the harsher seasons and appreciate the nicer ones. It also gives me the emotional resiliency to remain relatively level and aligned with wellness, despite the fluctuations of life.
Right now, Robert and I have flip-flopped on our running fitness. With his lingering injury and my BQ goals, our running capacities are on inverse trajectories but this doesn’t stop us from logging the miles together. Many times over, Robert has ran with me while I lamented out loud about dragging him down. He would reassure me he was “just there for the miles with a friend”. Now it’s my turn.
Running with friends is better!
It’s a statement that I find to be true, time and time again. While I could have easily ran this route at an 8’30” pace, it would have been miserable. As a former Leader of Paratroopers, I enjoyed “leading from the front”. Being up front had meaning. I find now, if I’m up front during this Thursday Run, I’m alone and it sucks. So I stuck with Rob, and honestly our pace just under 9’00” had us up front anyways and if I’m going to be up front, I’d rather be there with a friend.
**The ever present goal of the Deep River 5-miler is to finish in under 40-minutes. A standard you will see in my earlier post this week. I’ve never done it, but I see it in my near future.
5.04 miles | Avg Pace: 8’57” | Avg HR: 139 | Best Mile: 8’32” | 67°F at 59%
Friday: 3.14.2025: (JD 73): Fast Feet Friday on Pi Day
🏅1 Mile PR: 7’10”
🏅3 KM PR: 13’19”
🏅5KM PR: 22’42” (7’18” Pace)
When you feel good, GO! - says my friend Anthony.
The weather was just right for a fast run. It was cool and the humidity wasn’t stifling. Luckily the trail was empty and I could step it out and should I need to puke, nobody would be there to witness it.
So I took off and pushed hard, logging the first mile in 7’14” and I knew I may have gone a little fast out of the gate. I convinced myself to keep the pace as best I could and clocked in Mile 2 at 7’16”, a mere two seconds slower.
Mile three started to get difficult with a few small inclines and I could feel the pace slowing but I kept pushing. Mile 3 clocked in at 7’27” and for the last 0.14 I slowed just a little more to 7’32”.
To be clear up front, this one was a burner, but I could have gone a little faster. How do I know, because I wasn’t puking or laying on the ground when it was over. I could have gone just a little bit more. Even so, this was the fastest I’ve ran in a long time!
This was a big confidence booster because I successfully ran my BQ Marathon Pace for a full 5K! Even better, when it was over I wasn’t thrashed. Now I just need to stretch this out another 23 miles in exactly 11 months! The Mesa Arizona Marathon is on February 14th, 2026!
Just so you know, those PR’s listed above are not lifetime PR’s. I reset my PR stats every decade. There’s what I could do in my 20’s, 30’s and now my 40’s. The pace I did today would have been painfully slow 20 years ago, but today I was more than pleased to hit my BQ pace! My lifetime PR for 2-miles was back in 2009 when I ran an 11min54sec. I’ve never ran faster than that before or since. Can I hit another sub 6-mile in my 40’s, most likely not, but I’ll give it a good go.
3.14 miles | Avg Pace: 7’19” | Avg HR: 150 | Best Mile: 7’10” | 53°F at 81%
Saturday: 3.15.2025: (JD 74): Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be 8 miles?
This weekends Free Association Running (FAR) event was planned 5 days out and something I was looking forward to as the week progressed. The hills on this course aren’t soul crushing, but compared to the otherwise flat runs along the river the pose a significant challenge.
It was an incredible, talented group of runners who showed up this morning. Eight of the nine of us have run a Marathon and seven of us have ran multiple marathons. If I added up the amount of time I’ve ran with all of the people in this photo, it’d be well over 5,000 hours.
So I knew going into this run, it was going to be a challenging, good time.
We’re all a bunch of damn liars.
Discussions online earlier in the week were about paces and distances. With this group of people it could be a 3 mile run or a 15 mile run. We’ve ran this neighborhood many times before over the years and our usual pace floats between 10’30” - 11’00”. So when the discussion of distance was broached, we agreed upon an initial 6-miles that would end at the parking lot and then if anyone wanted to go more we’d stretch it out to 8 miles or so.
The run started as a group and we set off on a pace near 9’50”. Almost immediately I could tell this was going to be a tougher run than initially thought. With humidity at 99%, sweating was inevitable. Luckily conversations were flowing and the miles started to tick away one by one. The steepness of the hills seemed to be almost disappear when you have friends running beside you.
Before my water bottle was even half empty, the 6-miles were over and we were dropping a few runners who had to go. Robert informed us we’d get in another 2 or 3 miles and off we went. It was around mile 8.5 that we all started to realize this was going to be longer than 9.
Turn after turn, hill after hill we made the final turn back towards the start and we closed out at exactly 11-miles and nearly 1,000ft of elevation gain. The post run recovery included mimosas in Robert’s driveway while our muscles readjusted after nearly tow hours of running.
11.01 miles | Avg Pace: 10’08” | Avg HR: 131 | Best Mile: 9’41” | 50°F at 99%
Sunday: 3.16.2025: (JD 75): Incoming Storms.
With a rash of severe storms marching across the United States, today’s run was a short and simple 1-mile run in the neighborhood before the rain and wind arrived. This last mile rounded me out to 35 miles on the week.
I have every intention of getting into the garage and moving some heavy weights to continue my strength training throughout this month.
1.01 miles | Avg Pace: 10’39” | Avg HR: 106 | Best Mile: 10’39” | 67°F at 89%
Nutrition and Blood Glucose
Since December 5th, 2024 when I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, I drastically changed my diet and daily nutrition. I kept the solution simple and have kept to these basic principles.
Remove all sugars from my diet. (Candy, Cookies, Cake, Little Debbie’s, Chocolates, Soda’s & more)
Reduce carbohydrate intake to near zero. I’m not completely Carb-Free, but I have reduced my carbs as much as humanly possible.
Increase Lean-Meat proteins: Salmon, Chicken and Lean Beef.
Increase vegetables, include them in every meal.
Include high-protein, low-carb/low-sugar snacks throughout the day.
Increase water intake.
Reduce “fast-food” to near zero and when I do, it’s grilled chicken, no buns, no fries, add salads.
Sit-down restaurants: Exclude potatoes, increase vegetables as a side, order lean meats.
I have not been tracking my calories or what I eat. In the past I’ve historically used the Lose-it app to track my nutrition and caloric burn. I still have it on my phone and use it periodically, but this time around it’s not mandatory in my progress. I’ve also used the Weight Watchers app in the past and had great success with that when I did it with my wife. We both lost weight, however my habits never changed, so the weight crept back on.
I’ve been using the DEXCOM STELO continuous blood glucose monitor to keep track of my blood glucose and what foods cause spikes or continued elevated levels of my blood sugar. It’s been a great tool and has really guided me in my food decisions and controlling my T2DM.
With a goal of getting below 200lbs in March, I’m going to go back to LoseIt and start tracking all of my food for the remainder of the month. I believe this will help me dial in and expose my current eating trends in all their success and failures.
Another great write-up my man.