Archive for September, 2004
Oph Taupick
*If I smoked pot and then painted my naked body blue before running and slamming myself into a white wall, would I be a high performance artist?
*If a brook dries up, is it x-stream?
*If I’m a restaurant critic, can I go into a food comma?
*Are calculators weapons of math destruction?
*If I dislike calculators, does that make me a calcula-shun?
*Should we now call him Johnny Cashed Out?
*If I fall in the forest, can I hear the trees?
9 Freezing Cold Miles
It’s getting chilly out there at 4:50AM. I even wore the long-sleeved shirt, but man, it was a bit nipply.
Here’s what I did. I geared up, and ran from my house to the forest where I usually run. My intent was to get there at sunup, then run around the trail, and then run home. Nope. Still dark as hell. I ran a little while down the trail, got spooked, annoyed that it was still so damned dark, and then turned around and ran home.
That turned out to be nine miles, but they were okay. Except for wearing trail shoes (which aren’t as cushioned as road shoes), I just looked slightly overgeared for road running (I don’t normally pass other people with headlamps and Camelbaks). But whatever, I ran some miles, threw some more down in the book. Fast ones, too. Well, for me.
One thing I noted: It’s amazing how ubiquitous the blue glow of television is. Sometimes I’m wrong, and it’s someone surfing the net. But whichever way, we are a nation of screen-zombies. Sad, really. Do we really not equate the 65% obesity level in the country with our typical pastimes?
Hey! Come back here with my soapbox!
A Little Lazy
I didn’t go out to the trails to run in the rainy pre-dawn darkness this morning. I just couldn’t find the juice. Instead, I hit the gym.
I’ve rebuilt my workout program into three separate days, and as I can’t really stand to read details of other people’s workouts, I’ll skip them (unless one inquires, and then I might email the details or something).
But suffice to say that I kicked my own ass a while, and then ran a 5K on the treadmill for giggles. I was really pumped up by the workout, and thrilled that my muscles are behaving and growing into plump little monkeys. I wasn’t happy to use a treadmill, but I was just not anxious to run around in the rain.
I’m short on miles by a ton this week. I’m going to try and fix that, but it seems harder and harder to fit them all in. Maybe I can just go back to spreading them over more days. Whatever. Sounds boring, talking about this today.
I had heinous dreams about spending time with my grandmother during the last week of her life, intimate details of some undiscovered shame or guilt about my conduct. They really colored my rainy shit-ass commute-miserable work-challenged day.
Fitness Goals
I find that my goals shift often. Do yours? I am constantly adjusting the path I’m heading towards. Of course, one problem with this approach is that I don’t really know when I’ve reached a milestone. The upside, however, is that I keep adjusting them into more challenging goals.
Since it’s been a while between goal-setting moments, I think I’ll take the time to figure out my fitness goals for the last quarter of this year.
Weight: I want to lose 10 more pounds by 12.31.04. I think this is do-able, because I’m doing something to measure my caloric intake, and that by seeing my intake matched against my efforts of the day, I’ll realize and adjust appropriately. 10 pounds in 3 months is exceeedingly do-able.
Running: I’m going to keep with the races I have scheduled at present. That’s a 4.1 mile trail run in October, and a trail marathon in November. I’m going to continue to tweak the Hal Higdon version of my training, but still hit the mileage goals as best as I can. Ultimately, I’m just readying myself for the 2005 running season, which will be my breakout year.
Fitness: I’m going to do more to formalize my workout, as I’ve just been kind of ambling into the gym and hacking out a half dozen exercises on gym day. I want to focus on a few areas: multi-muscle movements (like squats), core strength (like ball exercises), and general cardiovascular improvement. I’m going to work out three times a week on those key areas, and I *might* work out extra specific to “bodybuilding” type shaping stuff. (Focus on the engine not the chrome, in other words).
As goals require measuring to determine their success, I’ll try a few measuring sticks here.
Weight: 10 pounds. Easy to know.
Running: Marathon in 5 hours or less.
Fitness: Solidly executed specific workouts w/results measured.
That’s it. I’ll just keep these goals in mind over the next three months and see how things turn out.
Brief One
Back from our visit to Maine, and to the fair. When I went down to see the race path of the 5K, I was sadly disappointed. Here, in the middle of all these rolling farmlands and beautiful vistas, someone spraypainted out a stupid road course that ran us down some backroads, up into a parking lot, and then back the same way we came. Lamest road race I’ve ever seen. So, I ran the entire route before the gun went off, took my shirt, and ran back to my car. I got six miles out of their stupid 5K by running to and from the course, and reminded myself why I’m through with road races.
The rest of the trip was the best vacation I can remember taking. Great fun, great friends, camping, and all that stuff.
Hope you’re all well. I’ll check in later.
Recovery
I’ve not run since that race on Sunday, but that’s part of my plan. My body says to recover, and that’s far more important than the hard black ink that says I should already have clocked in 11 miles. Hell, I can do that tomorrow in one shot. I’m thinking of 10, instead.
But I haven’t been idle. That’s the difference between recovery and slack. Do what you can. Work with what you’ve got.
I’ve done the gym three times, working out places on my body that killed me during the run. I found that my back, my ass muscles, and a few other places needed a little more work.
I went and got a massage. If you still think of this as a luxury, and you’re logging some decent miles and racing, think again. You’re oldschool and not the cool kind of old school if you’re not trying to squeeze money out of the lunchbox funds to get the occasional massage to shake things back to normal.
I played tennis last night. Man, asskicking. I got a whole lot of sprinting in. I’m really enjoying this, now that it’s officially cool to play tennis. Can’t serve for crap, yet, but I’m a fairly decent player.
So, I’m off for a bunch of days. Going to the Common Ground Fair up in Maine. There’s a little 5K there, but mostly it’s about taking the kid around to see livestock, eating all kinds of organic and whole grain stuff, and doing all kinds of crunchy stuff like hanging out with fiddle bands and the like.
I hope you’re all well. See you Monday or so.
It’s a MOUNTAIN, stupid.
The Pisgah Mountain 23K trail race.
Okay, I admit it. I just raced something a little over my fitness level. It’s a MOUNTAIN. I kind of forgot that when I signed up. I figured, well, a hilly trail run, right? with elevation changes of 900 feet at a time over a mile or so, you get the feeling really quickly that you’re on a MOUNTAIN and not a hill.
(Did I mention this was a MOUNTAIN).
The announcements were: it’s really wet up there, so get ready to swim. There are pink trail marker ribbons up. At one point, it looks like we’re asking you to run through a pond. We are. Oh, and a tree fell a few miles in, so you have to jump over that. Ready, go. (nothing more).
The first mile or so was on pavement, and that chewed, especially since for whatever reason being on a MOUNTAIN was causing my heart rate to flip out. I was up to 90% within the first 500 yards. Okay, yeah, whatever. I’ll just keep running. There were 52 people running the 23K and about 53 running the 50K. I was next to last out of the gate (mostly on purpose). It was me and this older guy who looked cooked before the first big hill.
Almost immediately into the second mile, I found myself running with a girl whose boyfriend had split off to do the 50K. She’d done three of these already, and we were perfectly paced, so I went with her. It made the running exceptional, because we talked about this and that race, and careers, and crap like that, for the whole race (except when I was wheezing up the steepest parts of the mountain).
The mountain (MOUNTAIN!) was beautiful. There were streams and brooks everywhere. Trees of all colours. We saw a little orange salamander that looked like something out of a kid’s toybox, but was real. There were these huge red mushrooms and tons of moss.
Technically speaking, the race was amazing. There were all kinds of roots, rocks, mud, moss, steep descents where you ran and prayed, and huge killer inclines that you just had to walk. There were two really well-stocked aid stations with all kinds of treats, including fruits, ClifBars, m&m’s, fig newtons, etc.
The last mile chewed, because it was onto this super hilly carriage road and then, back onto cement. But we were really feeling great from making a decent pace of it, and hey, this was 14.1 miles of MOUNTAIN behind us. We raced into the finish line, and I was thrilled to be the last finisher of the 23K distance (not counting the old guy, who I’m not sure if he finished).
But then I wasn’t last, because some girl got lost at an easy place to get lost, and she ended up adding eight miles to her race. So, she was last by about 30 or 40 minutes more than me.
Time: 3:14:20 for 14.1 miles of MOUNTAIN.
And then afterwards, the wonderful people had a barbecue, with pots of chunky vegetable soup, burgers and dogs, a sheet cake, and all kinds of other goodies. I had a burger and a 1/2 cup of soup, and then hit the road. I stopped a little later for a real victory meal of steak tips done bloody rare, fries, and a 25 ounce Newcastle Brown Ale.
It was a KILLER perfect day, and the only thing I have to do better for next year is remember that it’s a frickin’ MOUNTAIN!
Thanks to everyone for their support and kindness.
Race Day
39 Degrees, and coming up to 61. Aieeee. I had a waffle *and* a bagel with peanut butter for breakfast, as there are HOURS between my breakfast and the race. I might have a Clif bar just before, too. To make sure I’ve got my food. I’ve had 40 ounces of water, and some tea (Egyptian Licorice). Here’s hoping. I’ll give you results audibly some time later today.
Race Day
I’m in the most expensive Super 8 motel in the world. It cost me $109 for one night. I said, “Are you kidding? Where I’m from, these places are last resort.” Obviously not exactly sealing my friendship with the front desk. But I’m in butt-fk nowhere, and I’m paying city rates for a crappy motel? Anyhow…
It’s 39 degrees fahrenheit right now. Oi.
Talk to you after the race.
9 Miles and Switching to Radio
I did nine miles this morning. I really only meant to do eight, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I wanted to see where a previously unnoticed piece of single track went. Well, it went somewhere neato, but then I forgot to figure out which direction was ultimately the way I needed to go afterwards. Yeah, whatever. I had a great time, and it didn’t matter.
When I go out racing this Sunday, I’ll post via Audioblogger a quick recap of the event. As I’ll have no access to a browser (I don’t think), that’s probably the best way for me to do it.
**WARNING TO DIAL-UP USERS: Audioblogs record into .mp3 files, and are usually kind of big and bulky. Skip me if you see that icon.
Okay, that’s all I have. I hope you’re well.
