Perhaps "hardest" is the wrong word to use there. They're mentally difficult. At this point in these training cycles, an interesting thing begins to happen. It's all in my head. I get less and less excited about going on the runs that are marked on the schedule as "easy" days. Yet I get more and more excited about doing the runs that are considered "hard". I look forward to the quality workouts as they get increasingly difficult, and the long uns as they get increasingly longer.
Steady state? Tempo? Hills? Cool! 1.5 hours of running before dawn on a Saturday, with another 1.5 after the sun comes up? Let's go! Forty-five minutes "easy"? Ugh.
I'm not sure why this happens. There's always a threshold where the harder workouts just get really rewarding and the others turn into something very chore-like.
Thankfully, I've had a fair amount of company on many of those runs this time, including "runnin' the dog" with Adam an Moses on Sunday mornings, "lunchtime buddy" Brent on the T-days, and even "surprise guest" Gundy on a couple of random occasions. The company makes those runs much more palatable.
Now with all that company, the only run that's a (mental) challenge is the Monday "medium long run". It's hard to fit that one into the schedule. Lately, it has been 10 miles which have to be completed before ~6:15 AM. That means the alarm has to be set for roughly waytoofreakin'earlytobewakinguponaMondaymorningo'clock.
It's shorter tomorrow, so I am going to accept a couple additional hours of precious sleep and run at lunch. If that doesn't work out for whatever reason, I will go tomorrow evening. However, it goes back to normal next week.
So I'm looking for volunteers! Anyone want to wake up well before the buttcrack of dawn to keep me feeling accountable and motivated? You don't really have to run - you can ride a bike if you want. Or a Razor scooter. Anything without a motor. But you have to show up, or give at least 24 hours notice. It doesn't work if you flake at the last minute. Think about it. Yes, you. Did the crickets outside just get louder? Well anyway, time for bed.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Friday, September 6, 2013
Running for Health
I have some catching up to do. I promised myself I'd be posting at least once a week, but it's been a couple weeks since my last one. I won't make excuses.. there's been other things on my mind, and writing became a very low priority.
Which as it turns out, actually sort of relates to the topic of this post!
Running for health. A lot of people "run for their health". And most of the time, when they say this they are referring to their physical health. They want to lose weight, get fit, stave off a heart attack, or just be prepared for when the zombies show up (the fast ones anyway). I've never run for any of those reasons, except for the zombie thing. And usually when someone makes a comment implying that I must be so healthy because I run all the time, I am quick to correct them by pointing out the poor food choices I made for the previous three or four days, and my sleeping habits, during those times when I am not, in fact, running.
But I think I am going to stop doing that.
I was reminded last week (and this week as well) just how powerful a good run can be for my mental health. That is certainly one of the reasons I run. Whether I am stressed out, angry, grieving, frustrated, anxious, nervous or feeling any number of other negative emotions... being alone with my thoughts on a good run just seems to help me find the center again. And I can do it in public. I can go out with my angry face on, and (I imagine) people just think I'm really working hard. I can have tears and snot streaming down my face and (again, I imagine) that it just looks like sweat and allergies. Or maybe they aren't fooled, and I just look like a nut. Regardless, when I am running I don't actually care.
I'm not saying that's the way it works for everyone. For me though... yeah, I suppose I run for my health. My health and the zombie thing. And occasionally for better standings in online race records. Maybe a few other reasons too.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Choices
Ahh... I am going to miss my long run on Saturday. I mean that in two of the many possible interpretations - miss as in "not be in attendance" and as in "feel the absence of". It is one of my favorites this weekend, the one they lovingly call the "Run from hell, up North". People may be tired of hearing me say it, but I will forever call it by the name Chris christened it with, which is "Left on Mesa".
They call it the Run from Hell, because if you take a cross section from the side, turn it 90 degrees, duplicate it, flip the copy, and then give it an awesome-looking purple-and-black color scheme, it will remind you of the first time you used the lathe in 8th-grade wood shop:
You had spectacular plans for that turning project. It was going to be the most beautiful salad bowl the world had ever seen. The thing you later called a "candlestick" was hellish, indeed. Yes, when I say "you" I mean you. No, I do not mean "me". My Lilliputian baluster was dope.
But, I digress. Certain runners have been known to call me a masochist for enjoying this particular run. Of course, certain non-runners have been known to call me a masochist for enjoying any run, so... it's all relative. I like it. It's scenic. It's interesting. There's always deer and stuff.
Why will I miss (not be in attendance) it? I will be out of town, in a not-really-foreign-but-might-as-well-be-foreign city, where I'd rather not have to make an attempt to wake up early and run eighteen miles on my own. I made that same attempt last summer, and was only about 75% successful.
So this time, I have choices!
The not-likely-to-happen choice: Go run the candlestick on my own. It would require a level of planning and forethought that I'm simply not equipped for that early in the morning. Dropping off water bottles in strategic locations, remembering where I left the water and using it... most of all, not getting lost... I have trouble enough staying on course when there's people to follow and a map in my hand. The only thing I know for certain is that at some point I would make a left a Mesa, and that would be the correct turn (possibly at an incorrect intersection).
The think-about-it choice: Map a simple route from my house to some point about nine miles from here, with at least two public water fountains or convenience stores on it. Bring a water bottle and some cash in a ziploc baggie, and restock on fluids mid-run.
The boring choice: Do a 3-mile out-and-back 6 times and leave some water on the porch. Ummm.. no.
The most-likely-to-happen choice: Have no plan, run aimlessly around areas I am very familiar with until the total is 18 miles, bring a bottle, and take advantage of any water I can find along the way.
They call it the Run from Hell, because if you take a cross section from the side, turn it 90 degrees, duplicate it, flip the copy, and then give it an awesome-looking purple-and-black color scheme, it will remind you of the first time you used the lathe in 8th-grade wood shop:
You had spectacular plans for that turning project. It was going to be the most beautiful salad bowl the world had ever seen. The thing you later called a "candlestick" was hellish, indeed. Yes, when I say "you" I mean you. No, I do not mean "me". My Lilliputian baluster was dope.
But, I digress. Certain runners have been known to call me a masochist for enjoying this particular run. Of course, certain non-runners have been known to call me a masochist for enjoying any run, so... it's all relative. I like it. It's scenic. It's interesting. There's always deer and stuff.
Why will I miss (not be in attendance) it? I will be out of town, in a not-really-foreign-but-might-as-well-be-foreign city, where I'd rather not have to make an attempt to wake up early and run eighteen miles on my own. I made that same attempt last summer, and was only about 75% successful.
So this time, I have choices!
The not-likely-to-happen choice: Go run the candlestick on my own. It would require a level of planning and forethought that I'm simply not equipped for that early in the morning. Dropping off water bottles in strategic locations, remembering where I left the water and using it... most of all, not getting lost... I have trouble enough staying on course when there's people to follow and a map in my hand. The only thing I know for certain is that at some point I would make a left a Mesa, and that would be the correct turn (possibly at an incorrect intersection).
The think-about-it choice: Map a simple route from my house to some point about nine miles from here, with at least two public water fountains or convenience stores on it. Bring a water bottle and some cash in a ziploc baggie, and restock on fluids mid-run.
The boring choice: Do a 3-mile out-and-back 6 times and leave some water on the porch. Ummm.. no.
The most-likely-to-happen choice: Have no plan, run aimlessly around areas I am very familiar with until the total is 18 miles, bring a bottle, and take advantage of any water I can find along the way.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Let There be Grapes!
I may have picked the wrong week to give up sitting. Or maybe it was the right week. It is hard to tell. I hopped on what appears to be a small bandwagon and got a stand-up desk at work. Mainly in the hopes that it might help me avoid any more of the psoas-induced three-day lockups I've experienced three or four times in the past two years.1 So far, I like it. I didn't go for any transition period. I just stood all week. One side effect: tired legs. I am (mostly) sure I'll get over that. Another side effect: I feel like I walk differently now. Sort of in a good way... I feel kind of "light". I don't know how else to describe that. Sort of like gravity isn't quite as strong anymore. Then again, I seem to be tripping over my own feet2 more often, which is a constant reminder that gravity is still out there.
Why might it have been the wrong week for this? Well, we also started working a little harder on some of our runs this week, and I'm just more tired in general. Wednesday's workout was not particularly difficult as a workout, but it became particularly difficult in the heat. Saturday's long run was in more forgiving weather, but we had a bit of extra speed thrown in at the end to even things out.
Back to Wednesday though. According to the great composer Wolfram Alpha3, it was 103 degrees when we started, but at least it had cooled down to a refreshing 37.54 by the time it was over, and the humidity was low. How hot is that? It's hot enough that I could smell myself. While I was running. That's quite a feat, considering that there was no breeze, and my nose generally leads the way. I am just glad I remembered my training towel this week.5 Why am I talking about the heat? Not to complain, but merely to set up the next thought, which is...
...And then an angel showed up at a water stop with a plastic tub full of frozen grapes. OMG. Please note the use of "OMG" here. I do not throw around my OMG's lightly. In fact, I don't throw them around at all. This might be the first time I've ever OMG'd anything in a public setting. But O.M.G. Those grapes were fantastic! They were like little purple spheres of heaven. Anyhow, the rest of the run, which wasn't much longer, was more tolerable because of the grapes. And it must be some kind of "thing"6, since someone had a tub of them after the long run on Saturday as well. They were just as heavenly then. I may have to stock up on frozen grapes.
I started this post off by talking about standing all week. Then I got all diverted figuring out how to make footnotes, then off on my grape tangent and now I can't remember where I was going with that original train of thought. So... I shall rename the post and say good night.
1. This involves a general inability to walk, stand, sit or lie down comfortably, and exactly 322 muttered curses during any given 24-hour period.
2. Or perhaps it's the feet of the tiny invisible people whose only purpose in life is to trip me.
3. Not really a composer's name.
4. Celsius.
5. My training towel is the towel I use on my car seat to protect it from the funk of forty-thousand steps. If it weren't for my training towel, I'd probably have to set fire to my car in some non-suspicious way after most of these summer runs.7
6. I am usually one of the last to know about "thing"s. Plus, I needed another footnote between the previous one and the next one.
7. So I could still collect the insurance money, of course.
Why might it have been the wrong week for this? Well, we also started working a little harder on some of our runs this week, and I'm just more tired in general. Wednesday's workout was not particularly difficult as a workout, but it became particularly difficult in the heat. Saturday's long run was in more forgiving weather, but we had a bit of extra speed thrown in at the end to even things out.
Back to Wednesday though. According to the great composer Wolfram Alpha3, it was 103 degrees when we started, but at least it had cooled down to a refreshing 37.54 by the time it was over, and the humidity was low. How hot is that? It's hot enough that I could smell myself. While I was running. That's quite a feat, considering that there was no breeze, and my nose generally leads the way. I am just glad I remembered my training towel this week.5 Why am I talking about the heat? Not to complain, but merely to set up the next thought, which is...
...And then an angel showed up at a water stop with a plastic tub full of frozen grapes. OMG. Please note the use of "OMG" here. I do not throw around my OMG's lightly. In fact, I don't throw them around at all. This might be the first time I've ever OMG'd anything in a public setting. But O.M.G. Those grapes were fantastic! They were like little purple spheres of heaven. Anyhow, the rest of the run, which wasn't much longer, was more tolerable because of the grapes. And it must be some kind of "thing"6, since someone had a tub of them after the long run on Saturday as well. They were just as heavenly then. I may have to stock up on frozen grapes.
I started this post off by talking about standing all week. Then I got all diverted figuring out how to make footnotes, then off on my grape tangent and now I can't remember where I was going with that original train of thought. So... I shall rename the post and say good night.
1. This involves a general inability to walk, stand, sit or lie down comfortably, and exactly 322 muttered curses during any given 24-hour period.
2. Or perhaps it's the feet of the tiny invisible people whose only purpose in life is to trip me.
3. Not really a composer's name.
4. Celsius.
5. My training towel is the towel I use on my car seat to protect it from the funk of forty-thousand steps. If it weren't for my training towel, I'd probably have to set fire to my car in some non-suspicious way after most of these summer runs.7
6. I am usually one of the last to know about "thing"s. Plus, I needed another footnote between the previous one and the next one.
7. So I could still collect the insurance money, of course.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Four
At some point during the first week of this training cycle, I decided I would post something about running at least once a week, no matter how mundane it might be. And for a couple weeks, it was "weekly" on a Sunday night. Then last week it was on Monday... and it's Monday again for number four.
Bored yet?
Anyway, breaking from the format a bit, I didn't repeat the long out-and-back seaside run I mentioned last week. I ran for "square footage" instead. Something I haven't ever consciously done before, at least not in a single run. We were staying in Rhode Island in a small area whose perimeter I knew from an earlier run to be almost exactly a 5k. I had to do 12 miles, so I started off thinking I'd just do four laps around the place. Nobody knows why (probably because doing laps is kinda boring), but within half a mile I changed my mind and decided to cover as many roads as I could inside the loop as well. I did pretty good - missed a few roads, but went over several of them two or even three times. I'f I had put a little more planning into it up front, I probably would have covered all of them. It ended up turning into a rather long version of the Marshes - I found myself zig-zagging back and forth, running up and down many, many hills. I found a couple dead-ends as well. Just to spice things up a bit, here's a picture where you'd have to look real closely to identify all the roads I missed:
In other, perhaps more exciting news, I also booked our flights and hotel for November. That was kind of the last of the fundamental preparation steps. Now, I just have to run for a few more months and show up on race day. Simple.
In yet other, and quite less exciting news, I'm no longer running to the sound of surf. I was very surprised yesterday at how not-oppressive the heat felt on returning to Austin. And today, I was not surprised in the least to find that yesterday's run was but a mere illusion, pulled off by the sun, who had been using a couple cloud-shaped accomplices to hide the truth.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Sea Breeze
Week three, a little late... this time I actually am a bit closer to Philly. I overshot it by a few states though. I ran back that direction for seven miles along the coast on Saturday, which was fantastic. I don't know if it was the sea air or (slightly) cooler temperature, or just some new scenery, but that run was definitely the highlight of the week. I hope to repeat it again before heading back home. When I had to turn around, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a longer run, but then by the time I made it back it felt just about right.
The lowlight... Monday morning. I did get out and do my run early, but I seem to have been following the same formula as last summer, which is not a good one. It included a few mid-run walks and lots of sweat... mild digestive issues... lots of wondering if I'd be better off staying in bed. That sort of thing. But I slogged through it. They can't all be winners.
Next week (really, this week), maybe I'll repeat Saturday's run before I leave. It is nice to be on vacation.
The lowlight... Monday morning. I did get out and do my run early, but I seem to have been following the same formula as last summer, which is not a good one. It included a few mid-run walks and lots of sweat... mild digestive issues... lots of wondering if I'd be better off staying in bed. That sort of thing. But I slogged through it. They can't all be winners.
Next week (really, this week), maybe I'll repeat Saturday's run before I leave. It is nice to be on vacation.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Glorious
Week two is complete, and I'm several steps closer to Philly. Actually, I'm no closer at all, I am still sitting in the same spot I was this time last week. So I am not sure why I just wrote that. It was a good week, and I ran some miles (surprise!) Most of those miles were good ones.
The implied "goal" for this week was to remember how to plan out my time better, and get all the runs in. I am not sure I am any better at planning my time, but I did manage to fit everything in. I'll mark that as a win for now. For the coming week, the goal is to start the habit of getting my Monday medium-long run in early in the morning. I won't be able to do that run during lunch once the miles get longer. That probably means I should get to bed instead of spending much more time on this. We'll see how that pans out.
Lowlight of the week: Noticing RubbleTex for the first time. I am not always that observant, so it may have been that way for weeks. I was kind of sad to see the whole thing torn down. Especially the barn. I have some pretty vivid and fond memories of huddling in that barn with my teammates to stay warm and sane before a certain race in February, 2007.
Highlight of the week: The (glorious) rain! Monday and Wednesday I got to run in the (glorious) rain. It was a welcome break from the alternative. Yeah, it made things a little muggy on the other days, but this time of year, rain is just so... what's a stronger word for "great"? Wonderful? Awesome? Neat-o? No.. different, like... with angels or something. Heavenly? Hang on... it'll come to me...
Song of the week: Singin' in the Rain? I am just now realizing there aren't all that many options for "happy" songs about rain.
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