June 27 - 28
6mi and 4mi, some yoga, some pullups, and some sore shoulders. This morning especially felt faster than I've been running lately, a sensation confirmed when I arrived back at my apartment in 1896. Like usual, I had to wade through four squeamish old white dudes and an indignant black man to get to my coffee. One hundred and eleven years of time travel gave me a few spare minutes before I had to leave for work, and I listened to their deliberations:
Elaine: Well, what do you think?
Jerry: What? About you datin' a black guy? What's the big deal?
Elaine: What black guy?
Jerry: Darryl. He's black, isn't he?
Elaine: He is?
George: No, he isn't.
Jerry: Isn't he, Elaine?
Elaine: You think?
George: I thought he looked Irish.
Jerry: What's his last name?
Elaine: Nelson.
George: That's not Irish.
Jerry: I think he's black.
George: Should we be talkin' about this?
Elaine: I think it's OK.
George: No, it isn't.
Jerry: Why not?
George: Well, it would be OK if Darryl was here.
Jerry: If he's black.
Elaine: Is he black?
Jerry: Does it matter?
Elaine: No, course not. I mean, I'd just like to know.
Jerry: Oh, so you need to know?
Elaine: No, I don't need to know. I just think it would be nice if I knew.
The coffee wasn't that good, either. Kind of weak, and it was hard to tell if the dull ache in my brain was because I hadn't bothered to use the french press or from squinting at what my guests ultimately concluded:
Close your eyes. Picture a convict. What's he wearing? Nothing special. Baseball cap on backward, baggy pants. He says something ordinary like, "Yo, that's shizzle". Now slowly open your eyes again. Who are you picturing? A black man? Wrong. That was a white woman. Surprised? Well shame on you.
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June 28
10 (1:03:04) Franklin-Lake+
Much cooler today. In fact, weather felt like it couldn't get much better (even though it was near 80 when I ran). Maybe I'm acclimating to the heat. Anyway, did a 2-2-1-1-4 today, aiming for about 5:25s and trying to stay relaxed. Ran 5:20, 5:30 (10:50) for the first one, which was relaxed, but not as even as it could have been. The "hill" crossing the Franklin bridge was more than I thought, and uncomfortable. Jogged a mile down almost to Lake St. and then ran 5:22 for Pat's third mile backwards. This one wasn't quite as comfortable as the first mile of the 2 mile, but it was ok. I haven't gone that fast in a workout in a long time. Felt good to be moving quickly again, though, even if it was a pretty short workout.
June 28
Track meet. C'ville track club. UVA track. Good small time fun. The entire order of events was efficiently completed in 75 minutes, making no need for warm downs and ups. Mile: 4:56 to win. Predict your 800: relaxed 2:25 (predicted 2:35) to prove my inability to feel odd paces. 4x400: 4:03 (anchoring in 60) in an even keeled, but real effort. Gentle rain starts now, on cue. 2 mile: 11:07 trying to pace a guy to 10:40. This guy was a D3 runner 5 years my senior from Mary Washington College. He had a good time hanging out. It kind of fell apart when he dropped off the back.
June 28
10.25 (1:04:14)--A bit hot by Alaskan standards (75). More than that, felt the fact that my running has been anything but consistent for almost three months now. Hopefully that will change.
Church--Less depressing and also on Slate.com is an essay explaining why yipee-ki-yay motherf.... is the best action movie one liner ever. Good stuff.
Monday: 5, with LSCC, including Special Guest Matt Hooley. Slimed Hooley with my sweat. Then, a concert in which the band members talked (entertainingly) between songs, including many a momma joke.
Wednesday: 8.5, Lake of the Isles with Nick and Phil, stopped at Phil's for some chess, then walked home until I got bored and ran a half-mile. Ran fast for a bit and it felt like crap.
Thursday: Learned that the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Wow. Fuck. Wow. Holy Fuck. Wow. Holy Trinity Fuck. Fuck times one fucking thousand. Fuckety fuck fuck.
Fuck.
June 28: Slept the fuck in.
June 29: Left my watch upstairs, was too lazy to retrieve it. Ran to the pool, got in 35 mins, ran home. Felt like dog crap. Something about 5-6 hours of sleep that just isn't doing it for me. Hence yesterday's neglect. Still wasn't enough to get my rear to bed on time last night though.
Swim was pretty good today, despite feeling gross. Really getting a good feel for the water and the timing is getting better every day. The arms are finally starting to get sore on account of engaging the hips such as to actually get ahold of the water and pull on it. While it's easier on the shoulders to just slip one's hand through the water without much resistance, it's faster to get a good catch and really yank oneself forward with each pull. Halfway through my pool training though, so I've got that to make me happy :)
Bedar.
June 29
8.5 (57:18) Ford-Lake.
Tried to run slow. Thought I was, but it turned out I was actually running 6:45s. I thought yesterday's workout would leave me feeling worse than it did, so that's encouraging. Sunny, but nice out- a little under 80 when I returned. Supposed to warm up this weekend, so we'll see how the LR goes this weekend...
June 29
6.25 (43:55)
For my brother's summer soccer training his new college coach is requiring him to do "aerobic training" which included a three-miler in 20:30 today. So I helped out with the pacing duties. And, much to my surprise, I actually hit everything right on and he finished in 20:28, clutching his knees. Of course the kid has run 4.4 for the 40, so I guess he can lord some things over me too. Tacked on a couple of more miles afterwards to finish out a good easy day.
June 30: 12 w/ Chap, 1:21 or something like that. Felt great, nice and easy along the riverah with a lil' detour down ye olde Lock and Dam No. 1.
July 1: Holy crap, it's July. Mark Twain Feef-Tain 1:30:17. Felt good, was pretty quick in the early stages, slacked off a bit along the riverah, then felt as though I was putting too much effort into the run to abide by anything too far over 6 mins, so picked it up again on the way in. Legs felt awesome for the most part. It was a bit difficult towards the end, but it felt more like rust than anything else.
July 2: 25 mins to the pool, 40 mins in the water, 24 mins home. Legs a bit beat, but not as much as the shoulders and back and neck from the sanding and painting of the weekend, but oh well. Swim went pretty well. Might need to actually back off the volume in the pool towards the end of this week or beginning of next week. We'll see. Bedar.
In the past week or so I rode my bike a couple of times, swam outside a bunch, and (here's the kicker) did an hour-long aquajog in the unheated, kidney-shaped, floating bug-infested pool of the Baymont Inn of West Lebanon, NH. At 7 a.m.
Mmmmm, nevergonnarunagain.
July 2: PM LSCC+ 10 miles, untimed. Felt a tad bit fatigued on the first 3.5ish miles over to Sherman's with Rube, but it was at a reasonable pace. The rest of the run was much easier. All of it was pleasant, as was Conga: A Latin Bistro, and the soccer it was serving. Pretty good day-17 miles on the hoof and 40 mins in the pool. Unfortunately, the evening wore on a bit later than it should have and the poor sleep of Sunday night did not make work a pleasant experience on Monday.
July 3: Slept an extra hour and a half, ran Water Fountain 20 untimed, then closed up the hole in the main floor bedroom wall before heading to work. Needed the sleep, like, alot. And my arms are a bit fatigued. No pool tomorrow since they're all closed, 'cept the crowded ones. But, some running tomorrow and then back to the water on Thursday. Harpsepar.
rest of last week: nothing except for a run over to first avenue to ask the ticket dudes when the main band went on, which was much sooner than I expected, necessitating a bolt back to the condo to shower and walk back to first ave. week totaled 14.5; didn't feel much like running saturday or sunday, so I didn't.
monday: 7, with lscc, nice and slow. good grub afterwards.
tuesday: 6, over to tom's for some tasty enchiladas. went up to lake and over to the footbridge and up to his place, and it was shorter than I expected. did 8x2 min on, 2 min off at some unknown pace. felt like crap for the first four or five, felt good for a couple, felt like crap on the last one. probably a combo of some residual marathon crap in the legs, some lost conditioning over the last couple weeks, and some kinks in a not-quite-loose body.
Catch up time...
June 30
12 (1:21:58) Ford-Lake+
Ran with Biz. It was awesome. Felt pretty terrible, though. The run was a little quicker, based on my estimation.
July 1
8 (56:01) Interstate Park Mystery Tour.
Explored a couple of trails for about 15 minutes, while noticing that all the trails there really are about a half mile long. Found myself in some parking lot with three older guys who were also running. Turns out they were triathaletes "really working on the run" and they let me tag along. One of them had just run Garry Bjorklund in 1:17, another one was doing the Ironman in the fall, and the third is something like the 8th best masters triathathete in the country or something. They ran pretty slow, though. 8 is generous.
July 2
8 (57:10) LSCC
Also generous. Ran from Sherm's down the river to pick up Tom, dealt with the consequences for a while, and then went to Conga for dinner. Apparently this place is like a real nightclub, so they're probably not used to 6 sweaty dudes in short shorts requesting lots of food.
July 3
11 (1:10:46) Washington-Lake.
Felt good, so I extended the standard 8.5 a little. I think it's a touch long, based on the fact that I didn't really slow down any from the early 6:25 split. Got some very nice rain sporadically during the run as well.
on the off chance you, too, are in need of some cheering up this a.m., i thought i'd just remind you that today is the 180th anniversary of the cherokee constitution, written in new echota, ga, as the literary coalescence of the first european style native nation.
and while the nation (cherokee) has really fucked up a time or two, the constitution set in motion a pretty sophisticated government that included a supreme court, police, an internationally viable agrarian economy, the first native newspaper, etc. also, the system of democratic gov't established in 1827 outlasted the move west, and survives to this day.
happy holiday!
July 4: Attempted some fireworks, they fizzled. Took Rube up to the waterfountain, then rolled over to the Edison track. It did not go well. Got going with a threshold 1200, run in even 80's, finished in 4:00. Then there were 2 x 400. It was warm, and I was tres fatigued, so I eased off of the initial goals of the workout. Proceeded to display how long it's been since I've done trackwork at this pace with a 68 second lap: 30-38 for the splits on that. And I thought I was going out too slow. Turns out, beyond 200 meters my body is not interested in moving at all reasonably. The second 400 was also a 68, this time with splits of 32-36. Not much better. Then, I moved into the 800 portion of the workout, and managed to get through the first 500 meters before I acknowledged that this was just not happening today and pulled off the track. Fortunately, Rube was planning on joining in on the planned 2nd 800. So, I told him he should go, and that I'd run with him on the second lap. He came through in 66, I hopped in, he ran another 66 to finish in 2:12 and I was only able to manage another 68. It was pretty weak. We skipped the rest of the 400's and moved into the 200's. We got through 3 of them: I put down 31, 29, 28 which actually felt alright. Rube tossed out 28, 28, 29 and we agreed it was time to be done, so we jogged the three minutes back home.
July 5th: 22:30 over to the pool, 23:30 back after 35 mins of swimming. Run home was only slower on account of some intestinal issues. However, the swim was great. Was ripping off some 100's in under 1:15, a couple of 'em under 1:10, and that ain't bad. It also ain't great, but it should be ample goodness to throw down next weekend. Legs also feel real good after yesterday, so I guess it wasn't a complete loss. I'll need to keep at some of that faster stuff if Rice Street is going to happen in a good way, but there's still a little time left. Gotta get some of this marathon out of the legs before anything super-good happens. Bedar.
Last Friday: 2 slow with my sister while pushing a baby jogger that didn't want to steer straight, followed by 5.5 by myself. Too long for the day, but I know all of my loops from my house, not my sister's, so I'll blame her for the length of the second run.
Relocated to Henry's Lake, Idaho: several slow short runs with the sister, and one normal run of 4 miles with the brother in law. Not happy with the unusual heat there which meant running happened at about 9 at night. Also did a 20 mile bikeride with the brother in law in which he worked me over. I learned from this ride that 1) biking makes my butt hurt like a bitch, I still can't sit normally. And 2) I shouldn't be allowed on bikes because I managed to fall on a deserted rural highway while trying to get back on the road after swerving onto the shoulder. Even my 8 year old nephew doesn't fall off his bike anymore.
Sunday: 7 with my brother, felt like the best long run in months. Discovered that my brother is a snot soccer player who pretends to be a runner and thinks it's acceptable to run one step ahead of you the entire 7 miles. If you run side by side he speeds up. Punk. After an hour of that I was a bit cranky, so I took a 4 hour nap. Sweet.
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