Here’s the sunset…
Made it in for a swim on Friday; Saturday and today were busy and gnasty, so I blew it off. Not a huge week, but again, I’m in maintinence stage for the near future. Swim was great – only had time for 1000 yards, but it was much like Thursday’s night run – I was able to keep accelerating without heading into the anaerobic zone.
Little Desparate Housewives tonite, little reading H2G2, and an early night to get a jump on the week.
I have taken the most extraordinary pictures of sunset this evening but alas the margin of this blog is too small to contain them…
Sorry, it made me chuckle. But then, I’m a math kind of guy.
I really did intend to post east coast sunset pictures tonight to do kind of a dueling banjos kind of thing with Jeff, but I cannot find the cable to connect my camera to my computer. I’m not quite sure the pics from tonight are going to come out, but it doesn’t matter. Not one tiny bit.
I’m still a little strapped at work, but my head’s above water, not just my nose. I’d only done one extra night at the office, mainly because I needed to decompress a bit, but also because I got a revised schedule that does not include my getting a peptic ulcer. I was going to head straight to the office late this afternoon after I finished up with my client today. But, it’s drill this weekend, and supposed to rain Saturday and Sunday again to boot, and the grass has been growing like crazy. So, I swung by the house to chew on some pasta salad and cut the lawn. The lawn ended up being festive – the five year old was chasing me, then running away when I’d swing around for the next stripe, and baby and mommy were playing in the swing. Finished up (ahem, you ran out of gas with about a quarter of the back yard to go, says the wife) at bathtime, and while Missy went to tuck the kids in, I headed off to the office.
Via Bluff Point. I got to the parking lot just as the sun’d gone below the horizon. Hit the trail toting just the camera. And almost instantly felt just plain good.
Everything Tuesday’s run was, today’s was the exact opposite. The muscles felt loose, the ground was rising up to meet my feet, my breathing was good. Cosmic alignment, I’m guessing.
I’d left the iPod in the car, so had nothing but my thoughts to keep me company on the trails. Oddly enough, my mind turned to music, specifically meter. I’ll preface this by saying I couldn’t carry rhythm in a bucket, and my knowledge of music theory stops after trebel clef, bass cleff, and “This one goes to eleven”. But, while planning this entry in my head, I thought back to one of the runs last year at Pequot Woods where I’d mentioned that jazz went best with trail running, since both involved improvising around a regular meter. In Jazz, it’s called swing; in running it’s called trying not to trip.
Anyway, the thought tonight was in musical development. I started wondering why most “popular” music throughout the ages – rock, R&B, blues, even many hymns – had 2/2 or 4/4 time. The question popped up just as I’d come to a flat, wide section of the trail, and a song had popped into my head, and my feet were providing the bass drum line. Hmmm, go figure – most people used to walk a lot; it’s the rhythm in their heads.
So I started thinking about waltzes. Not sure if it’s accurate, but I associate them kind of with something-teenth century European aristocracy. And I started wondering – maybe they spent lots of time on a horse galloping from place to place. And started hearing and picturing a gallop in my head – front feet, back feet, glide, and hearing how that could work out to be 3/4 time.
I’m sure I’m smoking crack, but it was an interesting thought experiment.
As I came around the point and started heading back to the car, something lifted. I was leaning forward, and somehow, I was running FAST. I did it for a while, and started expecting the usual lung ache, gasping, pounding heart, etc, that I get at this speed, but there was just a nice, measured effort. clearly I had more in the tank. Good stuff.
I’m logging 5 miles for the day since i mowed.
Oh, and it is springtime in Connecticut – ran through some tall grass, and found two deer ticks in the shower.
OH, and to put the icing on the cake: I got a cool, cool, Einstein Brother’s Bagels jersey off of EBay today. Dig the pics:
First, huge thanks to Chris, whose “Look inside a little, I think. You’re really on yourself lately. Why?” comment last week kind of cracked open something I’ve been sitting on at work for a while. Completely unrelated to running, but it’s far closer to being done. What remains to be seen is if I’ll take the time to breathe after that stone’s lifted from my chest, or if I’ll grunt out another “More Weight” like Giles Corey.
Second – Hmm, key to weight loss may completely be calories. I’ve been working my tail off last week, eating only three squares a day, and I’m down about 4 lbs. I’m blowing that this weekend – stopped by Target on the way in to pick up snacks yesterday, but think I’ll end up net loss from last week.
Third – This does not, by any means, mean that training is derailed. Matter of fact, I’m chomping at the freakin’ bit. But I had a choice to make this week between family and fitness, and decided to pick family. It was the right choice – Jake started t-ball (baseball without pitching) last week, and I was able to make his practice and game; I made it to the church’s spring clean-up, and I’ve tucked the boys in every night this week except one. Plus, I’ve been averaging 7 hours of sleep, which is a net gain (and could have something to do with the weight loss, too…)
Fourth – The major effort at work ends tonite. I’ll still be REALLY busy for another couple of weeks, but should be able to fit in family and fitness in addition to working for the Man.
Goals for the next week –
1. Catch up on y’all’s posting. Tomorrow night, most likely, after the wife and I catch up on “Desparate Housewives”.
2. Move to WordPress, probably Wednesday. No later than Saturday.
3. Rough Schedule:
Monday – Bike – maybe 20 miler on Jamestown before work?
Tuesday – Run 5, LSD
Wed – Run 5, Intervals
Thu – Run 5, try to hit sub-8’s on each mile
Fri – Swim
Sat – Run 5 (Drill)
Sunday – Ride an hour or 20 miles, whichever is longer (my bet is 20 miles in about 75 minutes)
Is what Houston Bill would be calling New England Bill. (New England Bill would counter “lardass”, but that’s neither here nor there)
Why all the harshing? ‘Cause today was hot. Seems like we jumped straight into summer. Lunchtime run was 5 miles in about 43 minutes in a temp of about 80 degrees. I wanted to do the 5.4 that I did last Tuesday, but the relative heat really did a number on me. Blah. Still it’s a 5 mile run at better than a 9 minute pace, so I’ll keep it. ‘Especially since I’ve only got 4 days left to run 15 miles to hit 20 for the week.
Tuesday was a rest day after Monday’s bike ride. As pumped as I was after the ride, I didn’t realize how much it’d taken out of me until I started waking up Tuesday morning. I wasn’t sore, just really, really tired. I grabbed a decent breakfast (coffee and granola bars), and headed out the door. By 10 I was starving. Like crazy hungry. I was hungry all day – must have really tapped into fat stores by pressing past my typical endurance threshold and going about 90 minutes instead of my regular 40. Again, I wasn’t sore, per se, but I was starved. I did avoid the monster, though.
Five is still the new three – today’s run, while tough, was not a huge stretch. Tough, but just right.
Responses: Jon – I do the shorts and jersey for much the same reason I do running shorts and shoes when I run. Good gear takes away at least one excuse. I do not, however, go whole hog for current team kit. Why? ‘Cause I’m cheap. I’ve got a couple of beer jerseys, a UTexas jersey (family connections, not that I went there), and a couple of jerseys from the team I rode with in Houston. I am, however, thinking of picking up a Kappa/Saeco 2004 jersey –
1) It’s got trucker chicks on the sleeves
2) Saeco makes coffee makers. I like coffee
3) I was a Kappa (frat boy) in college
4) Cippolini rode for Saeco. Gilberto Simeoni rode for Saeco. Cunego rode for Saeco.
5) My shiny road bike is a Cannondale
6) Saeco’s not sponsoring the team any more, so it’s like a Houston .45’s or Brooklyn Dodgers jersey.
7) Did I mention they make coffee makers?
Susan rocks. Running to the gym is oh-so-much-cooler than driving. (But driving still beats the snot out of sitting on the couch)
Warren – I’m pretty aggressive about “On your left”-ing as appropriate. And as a rule, I avoid “multi-use” paths when cycling. Multi-use is f’n hazardous, especially when you’re talking orders of magnitude differences in speed such as between bikes and runners/walkers especially. My gripe was about peds randomly wandering off the sidewalk onto an actual street, like in a downtown kind of area. In the case of your running group, a stick to the spokes (of the rear wheel for safety’s sake) would likely be appropriate if there was no warning.
Chris – sucks to be you :). Lance? I’m really not disappointed that he’s retiring. He won the Tour six times. As I see it, he had two choices: retire, or go completely psycho this year and next and try to do a year in the mold of Eddy Merckx, trying to win everything from the spring Classics to the Giro, the Tour, and the Vuelta. While I am completely amazed at his drive and success, and could care two shakes if he’s really a jerk or not, and admire his contributions both to the cancer community and cycling in general, Armstrong’s continued presence in cycling brings the words of Kevin Costner in Bull Durham to mind: “Strikeouts are boring, and besides that they’re facist. Throw some ground balls. They’re more democratic.” What that means, I don’t know, but it seems appropriate.
Tyler – Frankly, this breaks my heart. First, it took the USADA way to long to rule on the case. Second, there’s a decent amount of dissent to his 2 year suspension. BUT on the whole issue of doping, I’m completely in favor of failing really conservative. IMO, it’s better to ban some innocents with freaky blood from sport than to risk letting some cheats through. Yeah. Register all the mutants. In any case, it’s not like sport is something that requires equal access – by definition, almost everyone in the world is excluded from being a professional athlete by some genetic reason. I’d still like to think that Tyler is innocent – I cannot fathom someone making as big a deal out of charitable foundations as he or Lance do, hold himself out as a poster child for youth racing, etc, and risk staining all the people he touches by cheating. Call me naive, but people that evil just do not exist in my America.
Lee – Sorry for leaving you out. Warren’s really got me thinking about the whole ped thing and wondering if I’ve been one of those riders who turn people off from cycling. And I really hope not.
He’s completely right, though, that the responsibility for looking out and avoiding conflict really does fall on the cyclist. I don’t know that you need baseball cards in your spokes, or a bell or horn, but do be vocal early. And I’d even recommend taking some time to learn how to jump curbs, ride on grass/gravel/dirt, and even practice taking a dive off the bike at a decent speed to avoid hitting pedestrians.
TTFN!
(Yeah – this one takes some explaining. First, though: Dianna – five is the new three, not the new six, because I did feel that the last mile on Thursday was a little bit of a stretch. Five would have been a completely effortless effort. Six required a little bit of endurance pushing)
Ok. All Right. Now that we’ve got that out of the way – Two workouts to sum up. Saturday was yard day. Broke up some of the potholes in the driveway, slung around 60 lb bags of asphalt patch, blah, blah blah. Got a good nap in the hammock. Scratch that – got a decent nap in the hammock while Jacob played pirate in same.
Sunday morning, the boys were up, the wife was well rested, and there were two hours before we had to be out of the house for church. My soulmate and partner says “Hey, why don’t you go run?” Why not indeed?
Saturday – nice, but still a little chilly. Sunday was quite literally perfect. High 40’s/Low 50’s, sunny, little to no wind. So I decide to do the 5 mile loop from the house around to River Road. Headed uphill first – as I headed up the trail to the old school, Louis Armstrong and Ella were crooning, the sun was shining, and it hit me exactly how good life was. Cleared the top of the hill, made a little bit of a wrong turn and about a quarter mile detour, and headed down the hill towards the river. The sun was clear of the hills on the other side, and, no lie, there were robins singing.
No other real implications – more than 5 miles, about 40 minutes, give or take.
Other than the iPod, I’m taking a decidedly low-tech approach to running for a little while. Or at least until I recharge the batteries for the Forerunner. Seriously, though – I’ve been enjoying running without the continual feedback from my little GPS guided nursemaid. Maybe it’s spring, maybe it’s a complete rejection of the treadmill mentality, maybe it’s just yet another random flight.. whatever, it’s working. Last week was 21.4 miles total, which is the biggest in a while.
OK, on to the 23 being the new 25 – I’d picked up a new cassette (a SRAM PG 970 12-23) for the Cannondale (part of upgrading the old Trek to nine-speed).
It’s beautiful.
(which reminds me that I need to take and post more pictures)
Quite literally beautiful – all chrome and shiny plastic, all kind of bits cut away – even the teeth that attach to the spline are only square on the edge that transmits force to the axle – the backside is nicked off to save grams. Will grams help me out? Heck no – I’m still dealing in pounds off of my backside. In any case, I’ve been avoiding switching to the new cassette out of caution – my old cassette is a 12-25, meaning that the “granny gear”, i.e. the biggest cog in the back, has 25 teeth, and the new cassette only goes to 23 teeth – I’m losing two inches of chain leverage to make the rear wheel spin one revolution.
(this is the part where everyone but Warren, Christian, and Fixedgear say “Uh… yeah…” and start reaching for the button back to Bloglines)
Anyhoo, the last time I rode Newport, I ended up bailing out into the 25 tooth cog on a couple of the hills. This time – not so much. Not at all, in fact, and I managed to avoid the 23 tooth cog most of the ride.
All the way into the office today WGBH, the NPR station out of Boston, was pimping the Marathon and Patriot’s Day. Yep, folks in the Bay State get an extra holiday, and miss no opportunity to rub it in. I’d feel bad about it, but I spent eight years as a Federal Employee, and got more than my share of cheesy holidays. Plus, the folks up in MA do it right – a Marathon, an 11 AM Red Sox game that gets out just in time to cheer on the runners, and commemorations of revolution, democracy, and all of that stuff that the rest of us take for granted.
Me, I was into the office early to make sure I finished up some stuff for a client and to make an 8 AM meeting. Round lunchtime, I really thought about heading out for a short ride (wanted to get a day’s rest – my shins were twinging a little bit Sunday evening, likely from swinging an 8 lb sledge on Saturday), and thought “It’s just going to get windier…”
It did. Finished up in time to easily finish the 14 mile loop I’d done on the east side of the island a couple weeks back, so I headed out. And I felt good. When I got to the turn at the Middletown line, right before you get to First Beach, I checked the clock on my cell phone (no Forerunner, no computer – just legs, lungs, and 18 or so pounds of aluminum, steel, rubber, and leather) – Wow. I’d only been out for 30 minutes, and had only about 10 minutes back to the office. Hmmm. What to do?
Hey, I thought – why not loop the other side of the island and finish the day with about 26.2? It’s appropriate, right?
A brief gripe – The biggest threat to cyclists is not, as many would propose, automobiles. Nor is it, as others would counter, crappy road conditions. Automobiles are, for the most part, easily seen, observable, and even more closely tied to good pavement than cyclists. Crappy road conditions – Well, bikes were invented in the 1800s when roads were by definition, crappy, and were (on average) faster than cars until the 19-teens and ’20s. Crappy road conditions are a figment of riders’ imaginations. Or an indication that you’re riding in Northern France/Southern Belgium.
No, dear hearts, the biggest threat to riders is pedestrians. Not joggers/runners/other folks exercising. Like cars, folks out for their health are predictable, and usually worried about playing in traffic. Random pedestrians, however, are interested in shopping, snacking, talking on their cells, chatting with their companions, and only marginally aware of anything outside of a 3′ sphere. If it’s making engine noises, maybe they’ll pay attention; definitely if it’s making honking noises.
Bikes, as any dog will tell you, are completely unholy – they move silently, without any discernible means of locomotion. So pedestrians ignore them, much like people ignore anything that does not fit into their world view, such as UFOs, etc. And pedestrians are quite happy to stroll out into the middle of a street as soon as the last car in a cycle has passed, and remain there until the next batch of cars patches.
Downtown was near suicide – it’s school spring break for most schools in New England, and Newport is spectacular as the annual flowers begin to come out and temperatures moderate. It’s all right, though – commuting in Houston lead me to perfect the bike bail-out; the key is to lunge at the pole or ped you’re about to hit, grab on, and try to get your body beneath theirs to cushion their fall… Didn’t hit anyone this time, but it wasn’t for lack of opportunity. I did nicely use that stretch of road to recover from really pushing on the first part of the loop.
So I did the western side of the island. There was a pretty stiff breeze out of the southwest, but I used a little topography to my advantage. I cut through downtown and headed west on the north side of the island, past the old fort, using the island itself to create a lee. As I made the turn at the State Park at the western tip of the island to head east on Ocean Avenue, I battled the breeze up the hill, then swung left.
The Atlantic was brilliant blue on my right, and the sun and the wind caressed my back. Honest to god, I have never been so right with the cycling gods. My legs were turning circles, not mashing and pulling, breathing was regular, not panicked and painful, and there was only the slightest sound of chain clicking on teeth over rubber crunching sand. Over the rough patches of road somehow I was able to unweight not only my butt from the saddle, but also my wrists from the tape and my feet from the pedals – I swear, I was flying.
As I came back into Newport proper and rounded the corner onto Bellair/are? amongst the mansions of the Gilded Age, there was a car of Mass. tourists down for Spring Break (middleschoolers and their parents, not college) poking along, seeing the sites. I rode up behind, and was considering doing the jerk thing and whipping around them. The driver caught me in his rear-view, and started to accelerate away. I jumped, and drafted him most of the way up the road, loving every minute of maintaining what must have been better than 20 MPH, uphill.
Pulled back into the office parking lot after about 90 minutes in the saddle. Haven’t figured out mileage, but I’m pretty confident that 26 ish is a good number. There was a detour all the way out to Third Beach along roads that give the cobbles of Flanders a run for their money. The biggest difference this time was no fooling around with maps.
But WOW. What a ride. I finished strong – the last four corners featured voices screaming in my head “The American’s approaching the finish line after a long day in the saddle. The Sprinter’s teams have really put on the pressure, but Jankowski ought to be able to hold them off…” Yep, I rode it like I stole it. So nice.
The silly thing is that I’m really looking forward to getting another 20 running miles in this week, though.
Also known as “A Heartbreaking Tale of Relying on the Kindness of Others”
Monday, I’d written a post so breathtaking, so stunning, so mind-bogglingly beautiful that I seriously considered not posting it. It had pathos, it had descriptions so true to life that the woman walking behind me while I wrote it had to be broken out of her reverie with old-school smelling salts. I was contemplating the “Post Me” and “Delete” buttons with equal consideration after I heard our IT guy sobbing tears of enlightenment while reading it, and heard his computer’s overload pop when the screening software recognized for the wonder of modern literature that I had created.
As I recognized that the clouds were going to part and pass a heavenly chorus to touch the earth, and I was going to hear the angles sing, I decided that I had a moral obligation to share my enlightenment with the world. Anticipating the slew of book offers and speaking engagements about to be hurled my way, I grabbed a box into which to pack my personal effects as I knew I would not have a chance later. I ran a comb through my hair and chomped on a mint, then made sure my shoes were tied so I could outsprint the women who were sure to begin to throw themselves at me once the post went live.
With a deep breath, I hit “Post” on the Blogger interface.
“We’re sorry, but we’re experiencing technical difficulties. Our software engineers are working diligently to correct the problem.” Whaaaaa??? I wondered?
I hit the Back Arrow on Firefox to see if I could salvage the post, but all that remained was a blank page. “Nooooooooo!!!!!” I screamed.
For a heartbeat I considered attempting to reconstruct the post, to pass on my enlightenment to you, the unwashed masses. But the moment had passed. Truth and Beauty, only seconds ago framed on my laptop’s screen, had again passed into Reality. And my lunch hour (and a half counting actually eating) was past and a meeting awaited.
So I apologize. And I promise I will use pen and paper next time if my beloved iBook is not handy, with MacJournal fired up. (Seriously, MacJournal is quite possibly the best bit of software I’ve run across in a while – interfaces with MT, Blogger, WordPress and a bunch of others if you want, and works like a champ as standalone. PC’s may have a million applications, but the 10,000 for Macs are much higher quality). But don’t worry too much – my muse seems to have headed north; you can get most of the gist over at Brogan’s Blog.
As for me – I’m going to switch to WordPress or something similar (There’s a scandal brewing over the guy who runs WordPress’ page gaming Google to increase their AdSense revenue, which kind of bums me out – the Complete Running blogs are all beautiful, and the package looks easy to use) next week, once I’m done with taxes (not my fault, I’m waiting on the Navy to fix a bad W-2). I can’t bash Blogger too hard, after all, I got far more than I paid for from their free service. But, I’ve been meaning to learn some server-side stuff, and this seems to be a great way to do it.
Oh, yeah, RUNNING:
Re-focusing this week seems to be working. Monday I banged out 5 miles in 42 minutes (average of 8:22/mile), and felt good. I tried the whole “running on my toes” thing, but it felt like I was scraping the bottom of my shoes when my feet would touch down. It’s a good thing on the bike, since pushing forward at the top of the stroke is adding power, but in running my guess is that the little “Shhhhhsh” sound with each step is wasted energy that’d be better used to go faster/farther. So I fiddled around with my stride, easily avoiding striking my heels by virtue of a dull ache remaining in my right heel from my incident at the pool. List it as a good run.
Today, I scraped out 3.75 miles in about 32 minutes. Yesterday’s run took more out of me than I’d thought, plus, I really pushed the first two miles (15:05 for the two). I started out kind of sore from Monday, but running again today did wonders for stretching out the muscles. But it was beautiful, and there was NO WAY I was spending lunch indoors.
I’m still chasing the Runner’s High – somehow I haven’t found it the last couple of months, but I keep getting closer.
Oh, and I’m cycling tomorrow. A guy from one of the other contractors and I kept “meaning to” ride together all last year; this year, we’re not taking excuses.
Wow. I didn’t realize exactly how great things were going. The bluebird of happiness seems to have arrived with shorts weather. Hope y’all are doing as well (Don’t think CT is going to completely beat Texas out of me; besides, English is sorely lacking a second person plural pronoun, and y’all is much better than “youse guys” or just “you”. Try it.)
And no lie – go read (or re-read) Chris’s post on FOCUS. Chris, as always, rocks.
You’ve got to check out Sean Lloyd’s post today – it’s about Dean Karzanes, an ultra-runner. Great post; hits the nail on the head with the eternal struggle between work/family/self.
In other news, my heel is really throbbing. I think my ankle is fine, but I don’t think I’ll push things. Probably go sit on one of the bikes at the gym this afternoon for a while.
pestiferous \pes-TIF-uh-ruhs\, adjective:
1. Bearing or bringing disease.
2. Infected with or contaminated by a pestilential disease.
4. Bothersome; troublesome; annoying.
(More here)
Grrr… Still sniffiling; but it’s a beautiful day today, so I will get out.
OK, probably not actual flu, but some terrible head cold anyway.
The bike ride didn’t happen on Wednesday, and the dual day didn’t happen today. The bike ride was called off on account of freakish late season snow – it was cold and wet most of Wednesday.
Wednesday night I went to sleep about 8:30, right after the kids were in bed. And woke up at about 6:45, running late.
Today was a pretty busy day at work, trying to tie up what I’ve been doing enough that it’s useful. So I blew off swimming, figuring I’d run on the way home. Ah, but then I remembered that there were a couple of errands to run, so that was shot. Fortunately one involved an appliance that had been delivered without the appropriate cables hoses and doo-dads necessary to hook it up and that, after a month of waiting for it to be delivered, was going to be at least another week to get the proper gear brought out …. In any case, I called the store, made sure they had the parts, and told them I’d hook it up myself provided they’d give me the parts for free. Sure ’nuff, when I get to the store, I’m told “You spoke to who? That’s impossible since I’ve been answering the phone all day.” Grrr… I’m logging it as Cardio.
Tomorrow will be better.
It’s official – this week is a lost cause. Haven’t really met any goals since Monday. Here’s the reason why:
1. I forgot to keep training as a top priority.
There’s a bunch of reasons for why – Change in work routine (I’m on annual training); getting ready for my folks to come to town; stayed up late working on bikes and fixing the iBook. But the root cause is prioritization.
The up side is that there’s still half a week left, and that I can move the tri- training back a week. And maybe it’ll be warmer next week…