life – Page 11 – Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Cycle, Cycle Too

Freakin’ Awesome!

Man, there are some days when running’s a pain, and other days, like for me this Saturday, when it’s the absolute greatest thing in the world. Then today strikes, and I’m in the throes of a week that’s been greater than anything in a long time.

For what it’s worth, I’m astounded that I haven’t blogged about Saturday’s run, as it was phenomenal. Good things can happen when sneakers are strapped on, dear readers. Good things. I managed to eak out 20 miles last week, and it didn’t feel like a thing.

This week is off to a kind of inauspicious start – I’m busy, busy, and my schedule’s thrown off kilter. So, I’ve had a three day break after the great week last week. But I think I can salvage it. I have, interstingly enough, done pushups and crunches two of the three days, though.

Interestingly enough, though, I’m far more invested in Melissa’s 20 miler this weekend in preparation for Hartford than I am in anything else going on in my life. I’m completely pumped for her.

News from Mystic River

Hello.

It’s been a quiet wee in Mystic, my hometown, out here on the edge of the Ocean. School’s back in session, and Terry Gross has just done an amazing interview with Alice Cooper. I’ve been busy, busy at work, sometimes doing great and creative things, and other times just trying to keep pushing the boulder up the hill. Not sure if I’m happy or sad about that; just worn out.

I will write about New Haven at some point this weekend – it was one of the best things to happen to my running in a long, long time. Now to capture that energy and keep moving.

Wasp Nest Saga

So, the wasps are finally gone.

I was amazed when I tipped over the basketball hoop and saw the nest. Huge, but, once I was sure I wasn’t going to get swarmed, what struck me was the different color pulp that the critters had used, and how it was a neutral brown color, not having been weathered by the sun.

Threw the old Gallery Furniture basketball in the frame for size.

What knocked me out, though, was that even after two separate poisoning attempts, there were still wasps and larvae wriggling around. Look at that thing – big as a shovel!

I’m also grudgingly in admiration of the pests. They’re amazing architects, and the structure is phenomenal. Just enough material to make it stable, no waste. All recyclable by the user.

Four miles yesterday, even though I spent the whole day building on the boys’ playscape. The roof that should have gone up two or three years ago is finally up. The four miles was good running, but miserably physically. It is wet, wet, wet.

Stung

Augustathon is over, or at least chalked up as a not quite achieved goal.

I actually dropped it last night – really, really long day at work, and all I wanted after the kids were asleep last night was to be asleep too. So, I slept. Clear on through from 9 until 5:30, 8 and a half hours of bliss.

I’d intended to pick it up again today, maybe even see if I could leg out six miles to make up for yesterday’s slack. I got home even before supper was ready, got to enjoy some sunshine and green grass with the boys. Life was good.

We were shootin’ some hoops on the driveway, when, suddenly, we were surrounded by wasps. Turns out that some yellowjackets had built their home under the middle basketball hoop (We’ve got three – a 10 footer for me, a mobile 8 footer for Jake that one of the neighbors was giving away, and a tiny plastic hoop for Nate), and were making even more of an objection to our playing basketball than folks who knowingly buy homes in the flight path of an airport’s runway do to holiday air travel.

I got stung twice – once on the temple, and once on the left pinky. Luckily, neither of the boys got stung (again – both of them had gotten stung this week, but I hadn’t had a chance to find the nest). We zipped on down to the General Store, bought some heavy-duty Raid, and sprayed the nest.

After supper, as the sun was going down, I tipped over the hoop so I could make sure to saturate the nest. It’s huge. I took a picture, and will get it up on flickr this weekend. It’s really pretty cool – can’t wait to dig it out. I hadn’t realized that the wasps would burrow like that.

So, again, tonight, I don’t feel much like running. I don’t necessarily count this as a failure, though – I’ve been doing an install at work the last couple of days, and have been fetching this and moving that – very un-engineer like, but enjoyable. I’m most proud of having figured out how to get lumber out of Shipping and making a protector for our power cable so it doesn’t get crushed while it’s crossing the pier.

The remaining 9 days of Augustathon should be no sweat – I’ll be rested, and I think I can reach the 93 miles for the month that I would have if I’d done a straight 3 miles per day. My legs feel strong – no twinges from the PF at all.

So, thanks for the support, feel free to mock if necessary, and go read Jeff’s post on confidence. If anything, even an attempted Augustathon and a resolve to salvage makes me think that this has been a great month.

21 days is a habit, right?

Augustathon continues, with the 21st day (22nd, actually – I ran on 31 July). Ali said that this ought to be a habit by now. Not sure that I’m buying that, but, in the idea’s defense, I haven’t exactly been in a routine. Catch as catch can isn’t conducive to forming habits.

I almost blew it last night, ‘cept Melissa, my lovely and talented wife, “encouraged” me to hit the road. So I did, and legged it out for 4 miles! Yeah, baby. Felt fine this morning.

Busy, busy, busy at work today. This evening it’s 56 and raining, so I did 5K on the dreadmill. AND, even though it doesn’t count, I came within one second of my Nike+ personal record – 26:06. Not fast, by any means, but something to shoot for.

I’ve been thinking about goals for the next year. Dave, over at Eager Feet (Another engineer/runner) used his 34th birthday to set goals. My 35th (AHHH!) is just around the corner; New Haven, my recurring race, is just around the corner; and I’m about to gear up for another Marathon campaign. So, here goes:

Two hours at New Haven. Not ambitious – it’s on par with what I did last year, 15 minutes slower than my 2005 PR, and a minute/mile slower than I’ve been averaging. It’s also slower than I ran the Blessing of the Fleet (9:30 miles). But, I don’t think I’m going to get a longer run than 5 miles before the race, and I think the second half of New Haven is going to kill me. In a good way
20 miles per week base Assuming that I survive Augustathon, I like the idea of maintaining a 20 mile/week base. It’s three five milers during the week, and a 5 miler on the weekend. Or three four milers and an 8 miler on the weekend. Add two days of cross-training, and a day of rest, and it should be good. Again, the assumption here is that I can finish Augustathon healthy, unlike the last time I sustained 20 miles/week
Stick to a training plan. Yeah, this is going to be a tough goal. My achilles heel, so to speak, in the past
Diet. Yep, I think that it’s time to accept that running alone isn’t going to get me where I want to be. So, 1 September, I go back to counting calories. My goal is 160 by 1 December. After that, I’ll have 5 months to train for Oklahoma City
4 hours at Oklahoma City This is a long, long stretch. I plugged my recent 5K times into a race time calculator, and 26 minutes predicts a 4:30 marathon. Hmmm – checks with chart (4:34 at Mystic Places in 2005, and 5 hours at NYC two weeks later). Both of those races were at 165 lbs, give or take. Maybe if I can take off another 15 lbs and hit 155?

WOW – kick butt. Mystic Cycle is running commercials on local cable. Good spots, too.

So, I think that’s about it. Check out Chris Lydon’s interview with William Gibson. I’ve just started reading Spook Country, and it’s good. Re-read The Difference Engine while I was waiting to get Spook Country from the Groton Public Library, and really enjoyed it. The new one’s taking a little bit to get going, but that’s one of the things I’ve found from Neuromancer on.

I serve the Fairy Queen

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;

Man, I think I need to hit the trails when I get back east.

I almost, almost punted this morning. The flight last night got in about 90 minutes late, so I left the airport well after midnight, got to the hotel after 1, and collapsed into bed about 1:45, taking into account the need to despin.

Then, the fire alarm goes off at 3. Yep, I kid you not – after not sleeping well the night before, I had taken about 15 seconds to drop straight into deep sleep once my head hit the pillow.

So, we’re standing outside waiting for the fire truck to arrive. Bunches of disoriented folks in various states of PJs or crumpled clothes pulled off of the floor. After a half hour or so, the night manager goes and calls them again, and, no lie, the fire truck got into a wreck on the way over. So, they’re having to sortie one from a neighboring fire district, which arrives after we’ve all been standing around for a half-hour or so.

So, I hit the rack at 3:45, needing to wake up about 0700 to actually start working. No way was I going to get up at 6 to get in a run.

Today at work – absolutely great. F’n phenomenal – good results and loads of new opportunities. Got back to the hotel, and instead of collapsing, went to do today’s three in the office park. Was doing pretty well until I rolled my ankle at about mile two.

Probably the greatest lesson I’ve learned in Augustathon is when to say “Enough”. I walked the last mile, and will be able to run again tomorrow morning.

Had a chat with someone. You may have seen part of it earlier. Anyway, he asked what my race plans were for the rest of the year. Here goes:

Probably do the last Terramuggus next week, even though it WILL suck, as I haven’t been swimming or riding. There’s a better than even chance this will get dropped, as next week will be killer at the office
New Haven. My goal there is to run in the same vicinity of April Anne as long as I can until she drops me, and then try to hold on to beat Jon. ‘Cause if I don’t, there won’t be any more ChaBaso bread when I finish
I’ll probably do another half on a not-to-interfere with real life basis
November/December will be the start of Marathon training for the OKC Marathon, and a chance to run with my baby brother
A guy at church has hatched an idea in my head of a 20 mile race they do on the Vineyard in February. This has the intriguing qualities of: a) being somewhere I’ve been looking for an excuse to go; b) being potentially positioned well as a marathon tune-up race in about enough time to get my stamina safely up to 20 miles, and enough in advance of OKC to let me get some serious training in after this long run; and c) an excuse to say ‘the Vineyard’ and sound like I belong up here
And my long-term goal is the Oklahoma City Marathon on 29 April, 2008. I’m committed, too, as I’ve just redeemed my first set of frequent flier miles ever for the ticket to the race. That, and my little bro, the barrister, has a couple of pounds to lose (but don’t we all).

So that’s it in a nutshell. Five more days and this is a habit. Then I start working on getting up consistiently at 0500, on purpose.

segway

So, the airport cops here are all riding Segways.

Creeps me out to no end.

Now I know how a dog feels when a bicycle goes past.

Illusion,

We’re still trying to dig out of the piles generated by letting the carpet folk in. The up-side? Looks like we’ll have a yard/garage/tag sale later this summer, and then a trip to GoodWill, and then a massive trip to the dump.

We had really, really cheap berber carpet up on the second floor – the guy who came to do the measurements said “I did a lot of this in kitchens in the 60’s”. We got pretty decent plush carpet, and a decent pad. So tonight, I had to take about a half inch off the bottom of all of the doors. Not so terrible – I just set up the sawhorses in the yard, walked the doors out the front door, trimmed, and popped them back in. There was one door that needed a second cut, but otherwise I surprised myself.

I ran at lunch again. If I’m going to be insanely busy, I’m going to take a half-hour in the middle of the day to blow all the ill humor that I could otherwise be hurling at (contracts, purchasing, legal, tech writers, junior engineers – take your pick) out of my legs. Tried to run with Jon Klink again today, but our schedules were off somehow.

The run was great again – probably 3.5 miles running, but with a trip to the Naval Academy Prep School track. There’s a nice new building right there that I can only hope is going to house Navy Officer Candidate School (OCS) when it moves up from Pensacola. I know I’m going to sit next to the 5AM PT with a lawn chair and a cooler – watching Marines yell at people is an art form.

The Forest of Dean / Pints and Fish / Perfect

So, we’re finishing up this afternoon, and one of the Daves I’m dealing with (Yeah, of the 6 or 7 guys I deal with over here, four of them are named “Dave”) mentions that he’s running this evening. Having spent the last four days studiously trying HARD to avoid being the “Ugly American”, I decided that it was time to play the “Rude” card. So, I asked if he minded that I tag along?

“Well, it’s a bit out of the way…” No, I insisted, I had nothing to do but get a good night’s sleep before heading into London in the morning for the flight back home. “Ok, then – we usually run for an hour or so in The forest of Dean.” I got directions to his house, and headed out.

Driving on the left – I think I’m getting the hang of it (I’m pounding on the table in the hotel bar as I type this – it’s big and wooden, and hopefully I won’t wreck on the way to Heathrow in the morning). So, the drive out was wonderful – the Severn in England beats the snot out of the one in Maryland. We headed out into the forest, and – well, man, we RAN. Instead of the usual constant effort that I run for, the folks I was running with were big fans of picking a path – pushing HARD to the end of the path, waiting for the rest of the group, and picking another trail.

The run was great. I apologize that I left my camera at the car – the picture above is about 200 yards from where we parked – I snapped it after we got done. The views from “The big chair” were spectacular, and I wished I had a chance to do the 10 mile (or so) loop around the valley the chair overlooked.

The run was a quality trail run – the biggest difference between it and my stomping grounds in Arcadia was that, somehow, unexplained to me – there are NO freakin’ Mosquitoes over here in the Cotswalds. Seriously – NONE. They try to explain it away as being too cold – but crimminey – I’ve lived through many New England winters at this point, and if that doesn’t kill mosquitoes, how can our summers bring them out in droves? I swear – if the weather had been anywhere as consistently nice as it’s been while I’ve been across the pond, I’d get eaten alive at home.

I thanked my hosts prolifically, and headed back to the hotel. Got back, showered, and headed down the street in search of cask ale and fish ‘n’ chips. THe folks at the hotel desk recommended a carryout place a couple of blocks away – unfortunately, I was looking to eat about 2100 on a Tuesday, so pretty much everywhere respectable in the city center was pretty much booked.

On the way down, I found the Bayshill Inn, and stopped in to see what was on tap. Yeah, real ale! I sat down outside, and was enjoying a spectacular sunset, a pleasant evening, and the afterglow of a great 5+ miles. I asked the barmaid if they were serving food still, and she said the kitchen was closed.

So, I hied me ho on down the road to the carryout place, ordered ups some fish’n’chips, and headed back down to the Bayshill. I made sure I set the package on the bar when I ordered another beer, and carried it back out to the beer garden. A couple of guys I’d been chatting with before I headed out to find food flagged me down, so I sat with them (One of whom I believe was Sir Toby Belch, and the other was “Lady Val”). Great discussion, great company, and an absolutely fitting end to my time in the UK.

I’m blogging this from the hotel bar – there’s Curtis Mayfield on the stereo, and a decent glass of red on the table (as opposed to the good belgian beer I’ve had the other evenings). What an absolutely great experience. I think I could get used to life in the UK….

World’s Shortest Marathon

(N.B. – Mark and Jeanne: I’m not avoiding you, I forgot to tell you I was going on Vacation)

Hey, dig this – After a bunch of years of pretty much working and going to see family, we’re on vacation! A whole week up in Stowe, Vermont, with nothing to do but enjoy the mountains, and run, bike, and swim.

Actually, it’s breaking down kind of like this: Missy is doing a TON of running. Well, not a ton, but, as expected, she’s hewing well to the whole marathon training plan. Run faster with less.

The boys and I have been doing a ton of swimming. But by swimming, we mean fooling around in the condo pool. Diving to touch the bottom, playing “Monster”, and soforth. I tried a couple of laps, but jammed my finger touching the wall. Who’da thunk that those lines on the bottom could be so useful?

And I’ve been biking – one time seriously, and a bunch of times with the family on the bike path. Good stuff. Friday, during Missy’s long run, we’ll bike down to the river that runs through town and spend a couple of hours crawling along the river bed looking for trout.

Oh, and I ran a race: Each July 4, there’s a race from Stowe Center up to a bar at noon. 1.7 miles. Missy talked me into running it – I was pretty much just aiming to go out and meander for an hour or so, but sitting at the starting line got the old competitive juices flowing.

The course is up VT 108 from the covered bridge in the village center to Gracie’s Restaurant. It starts off with a decent grade, and then kind of levels off. The initial climb felt good – I started mid-pack in the 100 or so runners, and pretty quickly got to about #25 or so. There was a woman a couple of years older than me who I used to set my pace, right on the edge of really sucking wind but not really being able to recover to a one breath (In and out) every 4 steps sort of pace.

Life was good until she passed me by kind of cutting a corner. Not an illegal move, by any means, but I stayed in the westbound lane, and she cut the corner across the eastbound lane and passed me and accelerated. All was not lost – before the finish, I picked off a guy in a blue shirt who’d gotten up to 200 yards in front of me.

After the race, I decided to try to tack on another couple of miles, but it just didn’t feel right. After about another 1.5 or so, I knocked it off and walked back to the condo. Sprinted up the hill, but slowed when I thought I was going to chunder.

Need to run more…