Man, we’re having an amazing, amazing fall.
Tag: life
On the verge of being sick today
So the question is, will I run or won’t I?
Saturday was the Physical readiness test (PRT) – I rocked it (relatively). 10:23 for the 1.5 mile run, which is about 40 seconds faster than in the spring. More situps and pushups, too.
Afterwards, though, I out to do the 6 miles I had left on the training schedule (mile from the gym to the track, 1.5 miles on the track, and 6). THe first 3 were good, but the last three were the most painful I’ve done in a long while. But, I gutted them out.
Sunday morning, it became clear why I’d been hurting so much – the mucus in my nose and the itch in my throat were clearly a gift from my two little disease vectors, and the disease pools that are their schools. Bundles of joy, my a$$ – they’re little ponds of microorganisms.
It hasn’t developed past a cold, so I think I’m good to go to run today, but I’ll probably knock 15 or 20 minutes off of the 60 minutes I’m supposed to do today.
Bleh
Benefits of running
So, once in a while, there’s just something completely out of the blue that’s nice about being a runner. For Missy and me today, that was not having to worry about transportation when we had to drop the car off at the shop for a periodic tune-up.
Here’s how it went down:
– Fridays are commuter van days. So, I took Melissa’s car (the one that’s up to date on maintenance) to the commuter lot.
– Melissa got Jake off to school, dropped Nate off at preschool, and took my car to the VW shop.
– From the VW shop, Missy did the 4 mile run (Uphill) to the commuter lot to grab her car.
– After the boys were done with school, and my car was all sorts of good again, Missy went and picked it up at the VW shop, leaving her car in the employee lot there.
– After a full day’s work, I left my stuff in the commuter van and ran the 4 miles (downhill) to the dealership’s employee lot (the shop was closed when the van gets back to the lot).
– Picked up Melissa’s car, drove back to the commuter lot, got my satchel out of the vanpool, and headed home to my astounding children and lovely wife, who made a bit of taco salad tonite.
– Played with my new helicopter for a while
– Headed down to the Dutch Tavern in New London for a beer or two, while struggling to remember which plays Eugene O’Neil had written (Long Day’s Journey into Night and Mourning Becomes Electra for the record. I’ve acted in neither).
Anyways, none of this would have been easy without running. We would have had to inconvinience someone. Instead, we both got in the day’s workout, saved some gas, and got even more smug satisfaction than we could from driving Priusii.
Linger on, folks.
New Haven, 2008
Monday was Labor Day, so I found myself back down in New Haven for the national 20k championships and in the company of the lovely and talented Jon and the witty and interesting Dianna. As usual, the weather was on the hot side of perfect.
Missy and the boys headed down with me this year, and I think they had a good time. New Haven’s got a great setup on the green, and the kids loved running through the bouncy things.
The race started out exceptionally well – legs were good, and I was just over 50 minutes at the 10k (You can check out the results). I’d felt kind of bad – about mile 1, I ran off from Jon and Dianna, feeling good, good, good. Even down the first long, sun-baked, windless stretch, I felt GREAT.
Then, about mile 5, there started being a bunch of hotspots on my feet. I thought that it might just be cause it was, you know, HOT. ‘Cept that was obviously wrong. In hindsight, I should have stopped to re-tie my shoes. ‘Cept I didn’t.
Sometime around mile 7, the pain finally got to me, so I went ahead and pulled the heck out of my laces, and started limping. No way was I going to DNF this year. Dianna must have passed me about then – man, did she have a good race even though she said she was going to take it easy.
Just after mile 8, I saw Jon pass me thanks to the absolutely stellar hat he was wearing. We ran for a while, then I had to walk for a bit and Jon headed on down the course in his own effortless way. I continued to trudge, completely and totally resenting both the uphill in the park, and the downhill back to town.
And the f’n bagpipers were there again just before mile 11. If there’s one thing that just makes the short hairs on my neck stand up and my stomach churn, it’s bagpipe music – sounds like some sadistic evildoer sodomizing a sheep while strangling it at the same time. Which, come to think of it, is probably how they started.
I made it through to the end. I’d walk for about a quarter mile through each water stop, and run easy for the next three quarters. It really, really, really sucked, but I made it. Not a terrible race – finished at about 1:53. So, it wasn’t my slowest finish, but it wasn’t my best, either. (I’m pretty psyched, though, as I’d thought I was even faster in 2005).
We hung around for a while after the race. I was slow, so the beer line was painfully long. The ice cream line was pretty short, so I went through that twice.
The rest of this week’s been great. I started night class at the War College – man, I dig me some Sun Tzu.
Taking it easy on the last half of the race seems to have worked out pretty well – speedwork on Wednesday rocked. Honest to gosh, it just felt great to run.
Today was another day on the bike. Ever since seeing Rudi in DC a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been back in love with riding. Last week rocked – I actually broke a spoke during a bit of out-of-the-saddle time, which was the first time I’d had to replace a piece of gear due to use-induced failure instead of wrecking it while trying to do routine maintenance on the bike.
Last Saturday was a great ride. The highlight was coming over the hill just past Dean’s Mill School. They had one of those radar displays, and it read 18 MPH as soon as I saw it at the top of the hill, and I managed to roll it up to 25 before I passed it. Caught my breath for the next three miles…
Tomorrow’s an easy run, and then somewhere between 7 and 14 on Saturday, depending on how I feel. I’m trying to really treasure these runs, as Missy’s sidelined with ITB troubles, so I can see how precious good legs are.
Rats
So, I wrote a good post (that hopefully will make it up soon) about the great run this weekend.
And then I promptly miss today’s run.
Sometimes I feel like I suck.
But I’ll make it up tomorrow.
I rock.
It’s good to be the dad
Hey, y’all.
I’m still here. Doin’ well, in fact. Running. A lot.
But, I’ve been working. Work is good. Really good, in fact. But, time is short (I’ve been sleeping).
I got to catch up with RandomDuck (aka Rudi, who’s got a great new theme) down in DC. Good food, great conversation, and a neat trip around Dupont (who, interestingly enough was Navy). Man, I need to get on the bike.
I will pass on one tidbit, both bike and running related: Sometimes, being a dad is an amazing thing. A couple of weeks ago, I had 8 miles on the Saturday long run. I was getting ready to go, and said “Hey, Jake (oldest boy) – do you want to try to ride your bike around the river with me?”
“Sure,” said Jake.
I thought “Crap” – my initial fear was that this was going to be disaster – 8 miles for an 8 year old boy on a BMX-ish bike is a long, long frackin’ way. But, I figured there wasn’t much to lose, so we laced ’em up, and went for the run.
Let me be honest for a bit – my goal at San Antonio is to finish, as it’s been nigh unto 3 years since I’ve done 26.2, I’m still above 170 lbs with the hard part of marathon training just kicking off (the bit where you’re ravenously hungry all the darn time and can’t really lose any weight and still focus for more than 30 seconds), and I haven’t been completely on schedule until about 3 weeks ago (and I still missed an easy run last week).
So, part of the loop around the Mystic River (not the one from the eponymous movie, but the one from the Pizza) included a stop at the coffee shop to say howdy and get a drink. About 10 or 15 minutes of break, then back to the bike/sneakers.
Jake’s great to ride with – full of questions, and starting to “get it” as far as riding in traffic goes. We’ve been watching the ospreys that nest on the river all summer, and it’s been fun talking to him about their recovery. Actually, the questions get kind of old about the 7 mile point, but they keep him engaged.
The first trip was great. Jake pooped out on the hill on River Road and had to walk, but there wasn’t any complaints until he realized we were about a half mile from the house. And then, the complaints were about being hungry.
The experiment’s been a success – the next week, he started asking if we were going about Wednesday, and last week was great – he just wanted to be sure we’d had breakfast first. The last two weekends, we’ve actually done the double – Jake and I would do the long run, then Nate (the younger) would beg to go for a bike ride. So, we headed down to go see the Art festival one weekend, and just to look at the river the next.
So, yeah, I’m digging life. It’s cool when you don’t have to work getting the kiddos to like fun stuff.
Conundrum
So, I didn’t get in the long run this weekend – camping kind of got in the way. We hiked a ton, and by Sunday afternoon, I was feeling awful sore – knee and ankle especially.
Yesterday afternoon, I hit the road on Jamestown after work, and had a pretty good 5 miler (except for a little bit of heat). Amazingly enough, my legs feel great this morning, which makes me scratch my head.
Anyway, it’s back to work after a long-ish lunch. Had dental work this morning – only one more quadrant of the mouth to get re-filled. Will swim this evening, and then go see The Dark Knight.
CubScout Campout
So, I’ve been running pretty regularly. Work’s been busy, so most (if not all) of the cross-training days have been dropped lately, which is kind of fine. It’s been hot. I’ve notched up a Jamestown run in each of the last two weeks – still cannot believe how lucky I am to have that on my drive home, especially now that it’s possible for a human to immerse himself in the North Atlantic without a wetsuit.
Anyhoo…
This weekend was CubScout campout weekend, so of course it was HOT, and there were bugs, and skinned body bits and a bit of sunburn, and of course, tears from . But other than that it was great. The pack headed up to Gay City State Park – about three-quarters of the way up to Hartford. My boys and I went up Friday night to check out the place.
I’ve got to say – there are advantages to car camping – namely a cooler and fresh food, but, all-in-all, I think I prefer a good old-fashioned backpack trip. Just something nice about leaving stuff behind and stripping to the essentials.
Like a ground pad – which I did forget.
Vermont is a cult
We’ve been summer-vacationing up in Stowe for, oh, let’s call it three years. Absolutely great – few mosquitoes, great hiking, spectacular views, good food, great roads for riding, good paths for running. We dig it. I’m tempted to buy 15 acres and start raising organic goats and sheep, making cheese, and growing my hair long. Go off the grid, and all that sort of stuff.
My brother-in-law says “Vermont is a cult.”
Ah, so be it.
But it’s been good up here so far. The boys are having a blast riding the bike path – Jake made the entire 11 miles on Sunday, and Nate’s cranking on the trail-a-bike, such that I really don’t have to push other than to go up and over hills. Pretty stinking cool.
Running is good. Sunday morning, I did 9 miles, looping through Moscow and back through the village to pick up the toothbrush that I inevitably forget when I go on travel. The upside is that I’ve now got a toothbrush in pretty much every bag I travel with, provided I don’t clean out the bags before I go.
Yesterday, 45 minutes, or 5.1 miles on the path. I didn’t really want to push myself, so I didn’t. Nice how that works. We then drove over to the Cabot Creamery, getting only slightly lost along the way. On the way home, we stopped at the Green Mountain Club headquarters to pick some maps. One of the guys stopped me on the way out, and pointed me towards the Short Trail, a quick 1 mile loop behind the hiker center. The boys had a blast.
Have I mentioned I love my wife? She sent me out fishing last night. Two stocked rainbows on dry flies. Cannot beat it.
Vermont is a cult.
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Postscript: I’m kind of surprised – “Vermont is a cult” seems to be an original phrase. I could have sworn I’d at least seen it on a t-shirt before my BiL said it.
Down…Up!…Down…Up!
So, marathon training is going pretty well, all things considered. I missed a couple of runs while Missy was in Houston. But then I cracked open the 20 week “official” plan for the San Antonio Rock’n’Roll marathon, and saw I was ahead of the game for where they want me to be. Worse things possible, I suppose.
This morning, I actually managed to make it out the door, ride for 40 minutes or so, and catch the commuter van. Didn’t get in a run at work, but hey – who needs bricks?
And, lastly – Missy’s goaded me into doing the Hundred Pushup challenge!
I think that at one time, like after getting chased around by the USMC’s finest for 13 weeks, I could probably do 100 pushups at a sitting. But that’s a while ago, and many cans of beer under the bridge.
So, you in?