I’m enjoying my first cup of coffee this morning wondering how I can be sooooo sore. It’s like I spent a day in the gym lifting weights! My back, quads and shoulders are screaming at me today. No - I’m not getting a cold or flu. The pain I’m feeling today is that “good” pain. As in the “no pain no gain” type of pain. I’m just wondering why. Yesterday’s run was kind of normal. Nine mile aerobic run on my now normal Corona del Mar to Crystal Cove route.

I ran by heart rate.

My first 10k race is going to be the Deseret News 10k happening July 24th. As of a couple weeks ago I am officially signed up to race. I have been following my 8 week training program and only have about 3 1/2 weeks until I run. I am switching weeks and days around a bit. And I have yet to run the 4th day. I just have a hard time fitting in that 4th run with all the other things I have in my life to do. I feel pretty comfortable I should be able to run a 10k.

I had a very interesting problem yesterday - one that I don’t think I’ve seen before. I was out for a five mile recovery run. I have my Garmin programmed to chirp me if my heart rate leaves “Zone 2″ (65% to 75% of max heart rate) when on a recovery workout. Normally, when I hear the chirp, I’ll slow down and I’ll hear another chirp letting me know my heart rate has dropped back into the desired range. Well, yesterday I had trouble with that second chirp.

The run started out fine. Mile 1 in 9:45 in the target heart range. Then a chirp. I slowed down.

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I’m being a bad bad dieter - I am in the process of brewing up a batch of rock sugar candy in the kitchen. It was something I dearly loved as a kid, my mom would get it on occasion from a little store somewhere. I hadn’t had it in years, then found it when I was in Washington and, well… I decided to try my hand at making up a batch of it here at home.

I just made a sugar concentration of 1 part boiling water to two parts sugar.

I’m feeling pretty tired today. But then maybe if I didn’t stay up until 12:30 playing poker I wouldn’t be so tired! Why am I bringing up poker? Because, believe it or not, there are a lot of similarities between running and poker.

Yesterday for example - I made the final table of an online tournament. I got there by taking a few calculated risks along the way, but mostly by outlasting my opponents. I made it by maintaining my concentration through hand after hand after hand. As I was sitting there yawning, I couldn’t help but think about how much like marathon training this was.

If you’re a baseball fan you may have noticed one of your favorite baseball players wearing what looks like a piece of cord around their neck. More than likely, he is wearing a Titanium necklace made by a company by the name of Phiten.

I was introduced to Phiten while visiting the New York Marathon Exhibition Hall last fall. It so happened I had a crick in my neck and the gentleman manning the Phiten boot gave me a sample pack of Titanium Discs. Believe it or not, after a while of wearing the discs, my neck started to loosen up.

I was so excited by this product I asked Phiten if they would sponsor a Jillian Michaels Bootcamp I was participating in and low and behold they donated 50 Titanium Disc sample packages for distribution to our bootcamp participants.

So, what’s the technology behind Phiten’s products?

Unlike Saturday - I did get out for my 15 mile run yesterday (yeah!). I needed to freshen things up a bit, so I decided to try a new route. What I found was a bit of a hilly challenge, but one of the prettiest runs I’ve been on in quite a while. I though I would spend today’s blog giving you all a little tour. (And - Easterners - note how green everything is here in Southern California!)

I started the run at Bonita Canyon Park, about a mile from home.