Somehow, the planets aligned yesterday afternoon and I found myself with about a 50 minute window to go running. I had just gotten home from running errands, and Meghal was just getting ready to feed el beskrownito and she said she didn't need me for anything.
Sure, I was still dealing with a lot of congestion, and my nose was running non-stop, but I've already come to appreciate how rare these opportunities can be. So I quickly threw on my shoes and shorts and headed over to the park on Robert E. Lee. It was still pretty mild while I was running errands, but the temperature had jumped up to around 80 in the meantime. I figured I'd do the Congress loop, which meant I could be back home in less than an hour.
Down I went on the trail by Barton Creek. I had forgotten how pretty Barton Creek could be. I know it had only been a week and half, but nevertheless, I was genuinely surprised to see the vivid blue-green water. I know this is gonna sound corny, but I immediately thought about how exciting it will be bring el beskrownito down here in a few years for swimming and canoeing, and that it's pretty damned nice to only be a mile away from all this.
Once I got on the main trail where there were lots of other runners, I thought more about running. Mostly what I thought was there was no way I could have my usually Saturday 10-miler. I felt decent enough, but you know how it is when you've had some time off... You just feel kind of sluggish.
My goal was just to try to stick to an 8 minute pace since my head was so full of mucus, but I got caught up in passing some college students on the north side and ended up running the last 3 at 7:30 or less. It's kind of ridiculous how much I hate to get passed when on casual runs. Nevertheless, the effort level was comfortable. I was always breathing once per four or six strides, which I think is pretty relaxing.
It was nice to get out.... I'm not familiar with the runner's high that has been being discussed as of late, but it does settle my mind. And since I've pretty much written off any goals for the immediate future, I didn't fret about times or pacing.
Hmm, that reminds me, I kind of like this New Balance commercial called "Love/Hate". It's worth checking out.
After my run, I got home and M was done feeding and el beskrownito was drifting in his food coma... I had enjoyed being outside so much, I figured I'd take him for a walk around the neighborhood. So I buckled him into his car seat, plopped it on to the Bob, and away we strolled for a 1 hour trip through Barton Hills. Sadly, he fell asleep before we even left so he didn't get to enjoy it. But perhaps that's a good thing since I got stuck in a 10-15 minute rain shower. I closed both canopies as much as I could, and I guess it was good enough, but I was still stressed enough to find a spot under a tree and call Meghal in hopes of getting picked up. (She didn't answer since she was also taking a post-feeding nap.) The rain passed soon enough, but I felt like a little bit of an idiot for getting stuck in the rain with my one week old.
Another thing I noticed, it's not like I haven't walked/ran/biked around my neighborhood before, but people have never really acknowledged me before. When they see you with a stroller, they all want to say hi and ask how you're doing. I don't recall ever wanting to befriend people who were pushing strollers, so I found this a little weird.
Finally, I had hoped to get out this morning to cheer on the people I knew who were running the Cap 10K. Since M and I were awake so much last night, I slept through it, but I must offer kudos to DV for running a ridiculously fast 37-something and finishing in front of several people I don't think he (or I for that matter) would have ever thought he'd finish in front of. (Just imagine how fast he could have run with me cheering him on, ringing the little bell on my bicycle as he passed...) Way to make the leap!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
not about running
Since my disappointing-but-I'm-not-motivated-enough-to-care performance in the Daisy 5K, I've managed to go running once. I could feel myself getting sick all day at work, so I skipped Wilke the following Tuesday. On Thursday, I couldn't tell if I was getting better or worse, but it was a beautiful day and my legs needed the exercise, so I jogged out to the track and ran some easy 1000s. I managed to keep myself from needing to breathe heavily, and but got a little bit of a workout --- it was great!
Duane mentioned that he liked the running content of my blog, but that he skips any mention of Obama or Arsenal. Fair enough. I figure since reading this is a volunteer endeavor and you know you're only reading it because you're so bored at work, I can write what I want. But I can at least warn you that the rest of this entry will not contain any running content.
After the workout, I got home and started watching "Lost" when Meghal called and said she was coming home because she "felt something leaking". Wait --- what does that mean? "I don't know," she said.
So Meghal gets home and calls Felicia, her OB who happened to be on call. Basically, she said her water may have broken, but in a very half hearted way. She was instructed to lay down and see if there was anything else coming out and to call back with her observations. The waiting and further discussions were still inconclusive, so we were instructed to come on down to Seton Hospital and get to the bottom of this mystery.
We got there and were ushered into one of the L&D rooms. I had heard from Meghal (and other friends of hers in the medical field) that the rooms at Seton were not nice (they're currently in the middle of a big renovation), but this room was quite nice. Very roomy, hardwood floors, a comfy looking couch-bed-like contraption. If we were going to have to stay, I could live with these accomodations. But we were pretty sure we were not going to stay. Felicia would do her tests, and then we would go home rattled by the thought that we almost became parents. "Whew!" we would think to ourselves, "that was close."
There are 3 tests that are performed to determine if the amniotic fluid is leaking. Please don't ask me how any of these work. The first is a pooling test --- negative. Next up was a pH test. Um, we're out of litmus paper, the nurse told us. Well freaking find some, Felicia sternly replied. We were comforted by her bad-ass-ness. Finally the pH test was performed --- negative. At this point M was getting dressed to go home while Felicia checked a sample under the microscope to look for ferning. (I found a description of the test here. Warning: the word vagina is used a lot.) Sooner than expected, in marches Felicia announcing that we're staying because it is indeed amniotic fluid. I'm not exactly sure what the point of the first two tests is if you're going to overrule their results with the last one. Why not just do the last one?
Anyway, at this point our decision to leave Meghal's bag of clothes and toiletries is looking like a bad choice. At the time our thinking was that we didn't want to have to unpack the car when we got home. Genius, right?
So I head back out to the car to run home and bump into Chris Rains who is headed back to work in the pharmacy. Looking pretty sporty in that gazelle gear, Chris! So quite by chance, Chris becomes the first person I tell that el beskrownito's arrival is now imminent.
I run home and grab everything, including a pillow and blanket for myself since I'm told I might want to get some sleep. Yeah, right. M wasn't very dilated or having contractions, so they had started her on pitocin almost immediately. It was just after 11PM at this point, and they hoped to deliver the baby around 8 or 9AM.
While I'm at home, I text my brother. Don't ask me why I don't just call, but I'm too freaked out to talk. Texting is easier. I finally pack as much comfort clothes for M as I can (cozy socks and slippers, etc) and her laptop (they have wireless at Seton) and 3 different cameras, and head back.
When I get there, M is starting to feel her contractions, but she hadn't requested her epidural yet because once she does, she's stuck in bed for a good long while. I can't remember what we sat and talked about, but after an hour or so, she makes her move for the drugs. In comes the anesthesiologist, a little bleary-eyed, but in good spirits. I never really knew what numbing half of the body entailed, but I kind of figured they just gave you a shot. It's a little more complicated than that. I think it took 30 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get her set up. The end result is an IV dripping fentanyl directly into her spine. (In case you didn't click on that wikipedia link, fentanyl is 80 times more potent than morphine.)
Shortly after this, Meghal realizes she's really comfortable. It's late now... maybe 3AM or later, so she decides to take a nap. I pull out the bed but mostly just sit there, fidget and stare at the monitors.
A side story to all of this is that Meghal's parents were kind of stuck in San Antonio because her grandmother (who her parents take care of) was injured and Meghal's mom had to stay to take care of her. There were lots of phone calls over the course of the night, but the final plan was that her mom would drive up the next day. While we didn't want them to make a big fuss, but Meghal was a little sad that her mom couldn't be there with her.
The hours literally crawl by. Meghal naps. I stare at the ceiling. The nurses come by occasionally and turn on the lights, do their thing and turn the lights back off on their way out. I nod off for maybe an hour at the most around 5 or 5:30, but am awake the rest of the time.
Once Meghal is up at around 8, she seems pretty chipper. Being a doctor and having delivered babies, she's pretty familiar with how everything will go. I only know the rudiments. I keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong, like the recent story of a friend of ours who almost bled out when she delivered her baby.
It took a while, but at 10:15, she's finally ready to start pushing. It's kind of weird how casual all of this is. I'm thinking of the Hollywood-image of the angry mother-to-be screaming in agony. With an epidural, it's decidedly different. With each contraction, they'll do 3-4 pushes, and then look at the monitors and make sure the fetal heart rate looks OK. If there are abnormalities that concern them, they'll reposition the mom (by turning her on her side, for example) to put less stress on the baby. To me, this adds a little a tension. But to Meghal, Felicia and M's nurses Rachel and Brittany (who were awesome, by the way), it's no big woop. Anyway, no one is screaming.
So Meghal is going through this process of pushing between every minute and a half to two minutes and, in between, she and the nurses just chat about whatever. Meghal wants to hear about the most outrageous birth plans that patients have brought in, and the nurses want to hear about crazy ER stories. So they laugh and casually talk about stuff that would make most people grimace, then every two minutes get down to business, and then return to the conversation they were having before being interrupted.
M makes a ton of progress very quickly. The baby's head is visible, and you get the impression that they all expect things to go smoothly based on how things are developing. This makes me happy.
About an hour into the pushing, something surprising happens, Meghal's mom shows up. Hooray! That makes M happy, and it makes me happy as well.
Unfortunately, the pushing drags on. It seems that after the first hour and a half, not so much progress has been made. M is still fine, and the baby is still fine, but after 3 hours, it definitely seems like everyone's getting tired. Felicia and Meghal discuss the options. Felicia doesn't think she can vacuum the baby out, but she thinks forceps are a possibility. This doesn't bother me since I've read about what a great tool forceps are in the right hands. M has apparently seen some bad forceps deliveries. (There was a time when forceps revolutionized child birth, but it's become something of a dying art since it's a finesse skill and can be difficult to teach. It doesn't help that OBs are one of malpractice lawyers' favorite targets. Anyway, some residencies apparently don't even teach this technique any more so many doctors are forced to go straight to a C-section. I feel like it should offer the disclaimer that I am no expert on the field of obstetrics and that this is what I've picked up from listening on a few conversations and reading a few articles and I could be totally misrepresenting the facts.)
Felicia assures Meghal that she feels comfortable with forceps, and that since the baby is right there, she thinks it's good option. M trusts Felicia so she says "let's do it." Felicia also explains that if, for some reason she fails with the forceps, they'll have to move to a C-section and they'll have to move pretty quickly.
The only people in the room are still the two labor and delivery nurses, Felicia, Meghal, me and M's mom. I didn't notice anybody say anything to anyone about rounding up the troops, but out of nowhere, another 7 people come into the room. They don't huddle up or anything, they just immediately start setting things up: Felicia is gowned up, M is draped, someone is setting up the C-section cart, someone else brings the forceps, another nurse is prepping the baby receiving cart, etc. The hubbub seriously rattles me. A minute ago it was all light-hearted banter, and now, it's business time.
I'm not going to go into the gory details here, but highlights of the next couple of minutes are this: forceps look like giant salad tongs, Felicia has to pull harder than I would have expected but successfully pulls the baby part way out, and then Meghal pushes him out the rest of the way. Voila! Baby!
They lift up the baby and his head and arms limply fall to the side. I totally gasp and feel all the blood drain from my body, which is stupid in retrospect because everyone knows that babies can't hold their own heads up. Anyway, el beskrownito is fine. He's crying within seconds. They wrap him with a towel, plop him on Meghal's chest and he immediately starts pooping. I feel a little overwhelmed.
Apparently M is going to need a few sutures, so I stay with her while the baby is taken over to the receiving table and cleaned and checked over, etc. M's mom goes over there though is the first to hold him. She looks so happy. We're so happy. And relieved. It's been a tense 15+ hours since we arrived the night before.
I could go on about the week that's passed since then, but I don't think it would be all that interesting. It's lots of sleep deprivation, diaper changing and feeding. And a lot of learning on our part.
Oh yeah, in case you like sappy baby photos.
By the way, el beskrownito is formally known as Avi Mehta Beskrowni. (If you think it would be funny to make a joke related to his name and Windows file formats, um, it's been done.)
Duane mentioned that he liked the running content of my blog, but that he skips any mention of Obama or Arsenal. Fair enough. I figure since reading this is a volunteer endeavor and you know you're only reading it because you're so bored at work, I can write what I want. But I can at least warn you that the rest of this entry will not contain any running content.
After the workout, I got home and started watching "Lost" when Meghal called and said she was coming home because she "felt something leaking". Wait --- what does that mean? "I don't know," she said.
So Meghal gets home and calls Felicia, her OB who happened to be on call. Basically, she said her water may have broken, but in a very half hearted way. She was instructed to lay down and see if there was anything else coming out and to call back with her observations. The waiting and further discussions were still inconclusive, so we were instructed to come on down to Seton Hospital and get to the bottom of this mystery.
We got there and were ushered into one of the L&D rooms. I had heard from Meghal (and other friends of hers in the medical field) that the rooms at Seton were not nice (they're currently in the middle of a big renovation), but this room was quite nice. Very roomy, hardwood floors, a comfy looking couch-bed-like contraption. If we were going to have to stay, I could live with these accomodations. But we were pretty sure we were not going to stay. Felicia would do her tests, and then we would go home rattled by the thought that we almost became parents. "Whew!" we would think to ourselves, "that was close."
There are 3 tests that are performed to determine if the amniotic fluid is leaking. Please don't ask me how any of these work. The first is a pooling test --- negative. Next up was a pH test. Um, we're out of litmus paper, the nurse told us. Well freaking find some, Felicia sternly replied. We were comforted by her bad-ass-ness. Finally the pH test was performed --- negative. At this point M was getting dressed to go home while Felicia checked a sample under the microscope to look for ferning. (I found a description of the test here. Warning: the word vagina is used a lot.) Sooner than expected, in marches Felicia announcing that we're staying because it is indeed amniotic fluid. I'm not exactly sure what the point of the first two tests is if you're going to overrule their results with the last one. Why not just do the last one?
Anyway, at this point our decision to leave Meghal's bag of clothes and toiletries is looking like a bad choice. At the time our thinking was that we didn't want to have to unpack the car when we got home. Genius, right?
So I head back out to the car to run home and bump into Chris Rains who is headed back to work in the pharmacy. Looking pretty sporty in that gazelle gear, Chris! So quite by chance, Chris becomes the first person I tell that el beskrownito's arrival is now imminent.
I run home and grab everything, including a pillow and blanket for myself since I'm told I might want to get some sleep. Yeah, right. M wasn't very dilated or having contractions, so they had started her on pitocin almost immediately. It was just after 11PM at this point, and they hoped to deliver the baby around 8 or 9AM.
While I'm at home, I text my brother. Don't ask me why I don't just call, but I'm too freaked out to talk. Texting is easier. I finally pack as much comfort clothes for M as I can (cozy socks and slippers, etc) and her laptop (they have wireless at Seton) and 3 different cameras, and head back.
When I get there, M is starting to feel her contractions, but she hadn't requested her epidural yet because once she does, she's stuck in bed for a good long while. I can't remember what we sat and talked about, but after an hour or so, she makes her move for the drugs. In comes the anesthesiologist, a little bleary-eyed, but in good spirits. I never really knew what numbing half of the body entailed, but I kind of figured they just gave you a shot. It's a little more complicated than that. I think it took 30 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get her set up. The end result is an IV dripping fentanyl directly into her spine. (In case you didn't click on that wikipedia link, fentanyl is 80 times more potent than morphine.)
Shortly after this, Meghal realizes she's really comfortable. It's late now... maybe 3AM or later, so she decides to take a nap. I pull out the bed but mostly just sit there, fidget and stare at the monitors.
A side story to all of this is that Meghal's parents were kind of stuck in San Antonio because her grandmother (who her parents take care of) was injured and Meghal's mom had to stay to take care of her. There were lots of phone calls over the course of the night, but the final plan was that her mom would drive up the next day. While we didn't want them to make a big fuss, but Meghal was a little sad that her mom couldn't be there with her.
The hours literally crawl by. Meghal naps. I stare at the ceiling. The nurses come by occasionally and turn on the lights, do their thing and turn the lights back off on their way out. I nod off for maybe an hour at the most around 5 or 5:30, but am awake the rest of the time.
Once Meghal is up at around 8, she seems pretty chipper. Being a doctor and having delivered babies, she's pretty familiar with how everything will go. I only know the rudiments. I keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong, like the recent story of a friend of ours who almost bled out when she delivered her baby.
It took a while, but at 10:15, she's finally ready to start pushing. It's kind of weird how casual all of this is. I'm thinking of the Hollywood-image of the angry mother-to-be screaming in agony. With an epidural, it's decidedly different. With each contraction, they'll do 3-4 pushes, and then look at the monitors and make sure the fetal heart rate looks OK. If there are abnormalities that concern them, they'll reposition the mom (by turning her on her side, for example) to put less stress on the baby. To me, this adds a little a tension. But to Meghal, Felicia and M's nurses Rachel and Brittany (who were awesome, by the way), it's no big woop. Anyway, no one is screaming.
So Meghal is going through this process of pushing between every minute and a half to two minutes and, in between, she and the nurses just chat about whatever. Meghal wants to hear about the most outrageous birth plans that patients have brought in, and the nurses want to hear about crazy ER stories. So they laugh and casually talk about stuff that would make most people grimace, then every two minutes get down to business, and then return to the conversation they were having before being interrupted.
M makes a ton of progress very quickly. The baby's head is visible, and you get the impression that they all expect things to go smoothly based on how things are developing. This makes me happy.
About an hour into the pushing, something surprising happens, Meghal's mom shows up. Hooray! That makes M happy, and it makes me happy as well.
Unfortunately, the pushing drags on. It seems that after the first hour and a half, not so much progress has been made. M is still fine, and the baby is still fine, but after 3 hours, it definitely seems like everyone's getting tired. Felicia and Meghal discuss the options. Felicia doesn't think she can vacuum the baby out, but she thinks forceps are a possibility. This doesn't bother me since I've read about what a great tool forceps are in the right hands. M has apparently seen some bad forceps deliveries. (There was a time when forceps revolutionized child birth, but it's become something of a dying art since it's a finesse skill and can be difficult to teach. It doesn't help that OBs are one of malpractice lawyers' favorite targets. Anyway, some residencies apparently don't even teach this technique any more so many doctors are forced to go straight to a C-section. I feel like it should offer the disclaimer that I am no expert on the field of obstetrics and that this is what I've picked up from listening on a few conversations and reading a few articles and I could be totally misrepresenting the facts.)
Felicia assures Meghal that she feels comfortable with forceps, and that since the baby is right there, she thinks it's good option. M trusts Felicia so she says "let's do it." Felicia also explains that if, for some reason she fails with the forceps, they'll have to move to a C-section and they'll have to move pretty quickly.
The only people in the room are still the two labor and delivery nurses, Felicia, Meghal, me and M's mom. I didn't notice anybody say anything to anyone about rounding up the troops, but out of nowhere, another 7 people come into the room. They don't huddle up or anything, they just immediately start setting things up: Felicia is gowned up, M is draped, someone is setting up the C-section cart, someone else brings the forceps, another nurse is prepping the baby receiving cart, etc. The hubbub seriously rattles me. A minute ago it was all light-hearted banter, and now, it's business time.
I'm not going to go into the gory details here, but highlights of the next couple of minutes are this: forceps look like giant salad tongs, Felicia has to pull harder than I would have expected but successfully pulls the baby part way out, and then Meghal pushes him out the rest of the way. Voila! Baby!
They lift up the baby and his head and arms limply fall to the side. I totally gasp and feel all the blood drain from my body, which is stupid in retrospect because everyone knows that babies can't hold their own heads up. Anyway, el beskrownito is fine. He's crying within seconds. They wrap him with a towel, plop him on Meghal's chest and he immediately starts pooping. I feel a little overwhelmed.
Apparently M is going to need a few sutures, so I stay with her while the baby is taken over to the receiving table and cleaned and checked over, etc. M's mom goes over there though is the first to hold him. She looks so happy. We're so happy. And relieved. It's been a tense 15+ hours since we arrived the night before.
I could go on about the week that's passed since then, but I don't think it would be all that interesting. It's lots of sleep deprivation, diaper changing and feeding. And a lot of learning on our part.
Oh yeah, in case you like sappy baby photos.
By the way, el beskrownito is formally known as Avi Mehta Beskrowni. (If you think it would be funny to make a joke related to his name and Windows file formats, um, it's been done.)
Sunday, March 16, 2008
daisy 5k
So yesterday morning I ran the Daisy 5K. The course was on the east side, starting at the Rogue store on East 5th, running down to Lady Bird Lake around Martin Middle School and back. It was slightly downhill on the way out, meaning it was slightly uphill on the way back, but I'd say for an 5K in Austin, it's about as flat as it gets. It was definitely less hilly that the Starflight 5K I ran last weekend.
It was kinda warm. It was supposed to be in the low 60s, but it was really more like upper 60s. But on the plus side, there was very little humidity. Nevertheless, after doing my 2 mile warm-up, I was warm enough that I ditched my shirt with Pat, who was loitering around by the start/finish.
I had shown up the same time as Lou, and when I asked him if he wanted to warm up, I found out something interesting... He doesn't run before races. He just stretches. (It apparently works for him as he got second in his age group.)
Even though he had already done some warm-up, Rogers jogged part of the way out with me. I tried to make some mental notes about the course, but the only notable thing was that the last straightaway after turning onto 5th was about 600 meters, which seems like a pretty long way to go for a finishing kick.
There was a kind of odd format for this race. They let the women start 3:00 minutes early. I was guessing that this meant we'd be running into traffic pretty quick once we started running, but I figured maybe the race organizers had accounted for this and would try to help some of the faster guys get through without too much trouble. It turned out that it wasn't actually crowded enough to be too much of an issue. The group I left with started catching up with some of the women before we got off 5th (~600m or so), and though we had to snake our way through, it wasn't so packed that it slowed you down that much.
As expected, I was tight and sore from this week's workouts, but I felt decent enough during the first mile. So I was bummed to hit the first mile marker at 6:12. Granted, finding my way through the slower runners cost me a little time (as did almost stopping to ask a woman about her stroller/baby seat combo), but 6:12 was slower than I expected.
I have a vague memory of deciding that I need to try to sustain this pace and not slow down too much, but I must have backed off a little once I started to feel less comfortable. The second mile was 6:30. Hmm, once again, much slower that I would have expected. And I was falling into the same pattern as last week. Damn.
For the final mile, I resolved that I at least wasn't going to slow down any more. I had gotten passed by 3 guys at about 1.75 miles, and I managed stick with them all for the time being. I wasn't feeling great, but I don't remember ever thinking that I wanted to stop (which is a feeling I often have, by the way).
I passed 2 of the 3 guys that had passed me, and then as I got close to the corner of Comal and 4th, I saw DV and Pat waiting for me. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I swear they had a "where the hell have you been?" look on their faces. My first thought when I saw them was, "oh crap, I'm not ready to pick it up yet". We were probably about 800m from the finish. Nevertheless, I'm glad they were there because I needed a little motivation. I picked it up a little and continued to surge when I went down 5th and finally caught the 3rd guy who had passed me earlier right around the 3 mile marker. It wasn't fun, but I kept up my pace until I hit the finish.
Mile 3 was a pretty mediocre 6:23, and I ran the last 200 in 35 seconds. My final time was 19:40, so it's a good thing DV and Pat paced me for that last stretch, because I probably would have been 5-10 seconds slower if they hadn't.
Obviously, I wasn't happy about being 10 seconds slower than last week, but based on how tired I was from the workouts this past week, I didn't have very high expectations. Lou ran a little slower as well, so maybe the workout excuse has some legitimacy...
I saw a couple of other Gazelles who ran pretty good times: Kyle ran 18:19, Jesse Devlyn (who I met for the first time) ran 18:18, Rogers ran 18:41 and Lou ran 19:14. I also got to see Michelle and Ashley Maton for the first time in a while. They ran 20:36 despite Michelle hardly running at all lately. I was expected to see some other nooners, but perhaps they had trouble waking up so early.
I think the main thing I learned from this race was that I need to just suck it up. I've kind of become a huge wimp, and seem to backing off the moment I start to feel uncomfortable. The problem is that, in a 5K, you get that feeling pretty early on. What happens is that I worry that I need to save something for the finish when what I should be thinking is that it's only 3 freaking miles and it will be over soon enough. I need to trust my fitness a little more. When I first saw Pat and DV, I didn't think there was any chance I'd be able to pick it up because my legs were feeling so heavy for the last mile and a half. But thanks to the extra motivation, I found a way to make it happen. So in the future, I need to remember that I probably have a little more left than I think. I mean, I've run substantially faster than this, and I'm definitely in better shape right now than I've ever been.
Normally, at this point I'd throw in a little bitching about the Arsenal game, but this entry is already to freaking long, so I'll just mention that they played a disappointing game against a mediocre team and came away with a tie. As a result, Man U is now in first place in the Premiership.
To make up for my lack of a long run this week, I ran 6 easy miles with my co-worker Kurt this morning at about a 7:40-7:45 pace. Since I now have less than a month before taking some time off, I'm considering trying to work in some kind of tempo-y run this week to make up for my lame 5K, but I'll consult with Gilbert to see what he thinks.
In other news, I put together our jog stroller this afternoon. Of course, I won't be able to run with it for 7-8 months but, you know, I needed to make sure I knew how it worked. Less than two weeks to go until el beskrownito moves in.
It was kinda warm. It was supposed to be in the low 60s, but it was really more like upper 60s. But on the plus side, there was very little humidity. Nevertheless, after doing my 2 mile warm-up, I was warm enough that I ditched my shirt with Pat, who was loitering around by the start/finish.
I had shown up the same time as Lou, and when I asked him if he wanted to warm up, I found out something interesting... He doesn't run before races. He just stretches. (It apparently works for him as he got second in his age group.)
Even though he had already done some warm-up, Rogers jogged part of the way out with me. I tried to make some mental notes about the course, but the only notable thing was that the last straightaway after turning onto 5th was about 600 meters, which seems like a pretty long way to go for a finishing kick.
There was a kind of odd format for this race. They let the women start 3:00 minutes early. I was guessing that this meant we'd be running into traffic pretty quick once we started running, but I figured maybe the race organizers had accounted for this and would try to help some of the faster guys get through without too much trouble. It turned out that it wasn't actually crowded enough to be too much of an issue. The group I left with started catching up with some of the women before we got off 5th (~600m or so), and though we had to snake our way through, it wasn't so packed that it slowed you down that much.
As expected, I was tight and sore from this week's workouts, but I felt decent enough during the first mile. So I was bummed to hit the first mile marker at 6:12. Granted, finding my way through the slower runners cost me a little time (as did almost stopping to ask a woman about her stroller/baby seat combo), but 6:12 was slower than I expected.
I have a vague memory of deciding that I need to try to sustain this pace and not slow down too much, but I must have backed off a little once I started to feel less comfortable. The second mile was 6:30. Hmm, once again, much slower that I would have expected. And I was falling into the same pattern as last week. Damn.
For the final mile, I resolved that I at least wasn't going to slow down any more. I had gotten passed by 3 guys at about 1.75 miles, and I managed stick with them all for the time being. I wasn't feeling great, but I don't remember ever thinking that I wanted to stop (which is a feeling I often have, by the way).
I passed 2 of the 3 guys that had passed me, and then as I got close to the corner of Comal and 4th, I saw DV and Pat waiting for me. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I swear they had a "where the hell have you been?" look on their faces. My first thought when I saw them was, "oh crap, I'm not ready to pick it up yet". We were probably about 800m from the finish. Nevertheless, I'm glad they were there because I needed a little motivation. I picked it up a little and continued to surge when I went down 5th and finally caught the 3rd guy who had passed me earlier right around the 3 mile marker. It wasn't fun, but I kept up my pace until I hit the finish.
Mile 3 was a pretty mediocre 6:23, and I ran the last 200 in 35 seconds. My final time was 19:40, so it's a good thing DV and Pat paced me for that last stretch, because I probably would have been 5-10 seconds slower if they hadn't.
Obviously, I wasn't happy about being 10 seconds slower than last week, but based on how tired I was from the workouts this past week, I didn't have very high expectations. Lou ran a little slower as well, so maybe the workout excuse has some legitimacy...
I saw a couple of other Gazelles who ran pretty good times: Kyle ran 18:19, Jesse Devlyn (who I met for the first time) ran 18:18, Rogers ran 18:41 and Lou ran 19:14. I also got to see Michelle and Ashley Maton for the first time in a while. They ran 20:36 despite Michelle hardly running at all lately. I was expected to see some other nooners, but perhaps they had trouble waking up so early.
I think the main thing I learned from this race was that I need to just suck it up. I've kind of become a huge wimp, and seem to backing off the moment I start to feel uncomfortable. The problem is that, in a 5K, you get that feeling pretty early on. What happens is that I worry that I need to save something for the finish when what I should be thinking is that it's only 3 freaking miles and it will be over soon enough. I need to trust my fitness a little more. When I first saw Pat and DV, I didn't think there was any chance I'd be able to pick it up because my legs were feeling so heavy for the last mile and a half. But thanks to the extra motivation, I found a way to make it happen. So in the future, I need to remember that I probably have a little more left than I think. I mean, I've run substantially faster than this, and I'm definitely in better shape right now than I've ever been.
Normally, at this point I'd throw in a little bitching about the Arsenal game, but this entry is already to freaking long, so I'll just mention that they played a disappointing game against a mediocre team and came away with a tie. As a result, Man U is now in first place in the Premiership.
To make up for my lack of a long run this week, I ran 6 easy miles with my co-worker Kurt this morning at about a 7:40-7:45 pace. Since I now have less than a month before taking some time off, I'm considering trying to work in some kind of tempo-y run this week to make up for my lame 5K, but I'll consult with Gilbert to see what he thinks.
In other news, I put together our jog stroller this afternoon. Of course, I won't be able to run with it for 7-8 months but, you know, I needed to make sure I knew how it worked. Less than two weeks to go until el beskrownito moves in.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
track!
Thursday's workout was a speed workout at the track. We did 600/400/200 repeats, where each repeat consisted of the following:
600m run/200m jog/400m run/200m jog/200m run
My legs were pretty sore from Tuesday, so I was a little bummed to see so many people line up for doing a pace of 1:20/lap. That's a little fast for me, but what the hell, I figured I'd try. A co-worker Kurt who has done a lot of running had suggested that I trying running more often at pace considerably faster than my 5K goal pace. (FYI, my goal pace is 6:00/mile) Makes sense right? Only I certainly had avoided doing much of that in the past. In general, I've been happy to just do tons of repeats at a 6:00 pace and maybe slightly faster, but I usually don't push myself enough. So anyway, 1:20/lap is about 5:20/mile, so that would be in line with Kurt's suggestion. And I could always slow down if (when) I get too tired. Also, Gilbert did mention that people running the Daisy 5K should only do 2 sets, but that sounded kinda wimpy to me so I tried to pretend I wasn't paying attention.
Lemme see, my pace group consisted of about 9 people (NINE people, can you believe it? it's a good time to be a nooner.), and I was pretty much in 9th place the whole time. The first set I just tried to suck it up, assuming it would get less painful once I got used to it. Unfortunately, it never got less painful, and the second set almost killed me. My legs were feeling completely shot, and the fact that it was hottest day so far didn't help.
I started on the 3rd set, but I noticed a couple of people running the 5K had called it day. Hmm, suddenly Gilbert's suggestion of 2 sets wasn't sounding so wimpy. In fact it was sounding kind of appealing. Plus, you know, I didn't want to show up my fellow runners and make them feel bad for cutting off their workouts while I kept going. That would be really uncool of me. So I cut off the 600m I had started after 400m and did one last fast 400m after a little extra rest. (I figured my legs were already toast, so what's the harm?)
600/400/200 #1 : 2:03, 1:21, :40
600/400/200 #2 : 2:03, 1:23, :40
400m x 2 : 1:20, 1:13
If there's a silver lining to how tired I now feel after the workout, it's that I have a good excuse to run a crappy time at the Daisy 5K. My legs feel much worse than they did after running 2 tempos last week. Plus, I'm not sure what to make of the weather, it's supposed to be in the low 60s, which is kinda warm, but the humidity isn't supposed to be that bad, so maybe it will turn out to be OK. My goal remains to improve 15 seconds over last week's performance of 19:30. But whereas last week I felt pretty confident about hitting 19:30, this week my confidence is pretty low. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I'll try to go out fast and see how long I can take it.
The fun part of the workout was talking about snowboarding with Karen (who apparently has the same issues with her lead calf that I did) and ultimate with Sam (who seems to have had a much more illustrious ultimate career than I did). If we could have worked in some talk about Arsenal and Obama, my evening would have been complete. (By the way, Arsenal plays Middlesbrough at noon on Saturday on Fox Soccer Channel.)
As for primary news, Hillary was interviewed on NPR yesterday morning claiming that the Michigan primary, in which she was the only candidate on the ballot, was a fair election. Um, and that's from a person who might be next president of... not some third world dictatorship, but of our country. Ugh. Interesting standards about fairness to say the least. The interview can be found here. One of the comments about the interview that I thought was pretty accurate was: "We've suffered enough with a president who interprets reality to fit their own selfish goals. We don't need another one." One of my co-workers described the Clinton strategy of late as scorched earth, which seems apt to me. She seems to making sure that if she doesn't get the nomination, she's taking the whole party down with her. Anyway, regardless of who you support, you've got to admit that Republicans must be cartwheeling with joy about the self-destruction going on with the Democratic candidates.
OK, so expect an excuse-laden race report sometime this weekend. Hopefully getting to watch the Arsenal game after the race will cheer me up.
600m run/200m jog/400m run/200m jog/200m run
My legs were pretty sore from Tuesday, so I was a little bummed to see so many people line up for doing a pace of 1:20/lap. That's a little fast for me, but what the hell, I figured I'd try. A co-worker Kurt who has done a lot of running had suggested that I trying running more often at pace considerably faster than my 5K goal pace. (FYI, my goal pace is 6:00/mile) Makes sense right? Only I certainly had avoided doing much of that in the past. In general, I've been happy to just do tons of repeats at a 6:00 pace and maybe slightly faster, but I usually don't push myself enough. So anyway, 1:20/lap is about 5:20/mile, so that would be in line with Kurt's suggestion. And I could always slow down if (when) I get too tired. Also, Gilbert did mention that people running the Daisy 5K should only do 2 sets, but that sounded kinda wimpy to me so I tried to pretend I wasn't paying attention.
Lemme see, my pace group consisted of about 9 people (NINE people, can you believe it? it's a good time to be a nooner.), and I was pretty much in 9th place the whole time. The first set I just tried to suck it up, assuming it would get less painful once I got used to it. Unfortunately, it never got less painful, and the second set almost killed me. My legs were feeling completely shot, and the fact that it was hottest day so far didn't help.
I started on the 3rd set, but I noticed a couple of people running the 5K had called it day. Hmm, suddenly Gilbert's suggestion of 2 sets wasn't sounding so wimpy. In fact it was sounding kind of appealing. Plus, you know, I didn't want to show up my fellow runners and make them feel bad for cutting off their workouts while I kept going. That would be really uncool of me. So I cut off the 600m I had started after 400m and did one last fast 400m after a little extra rest. (I figured my legs were already toast, so what's the harm?)
600/400/200 #1 : 2:03, 1:21, :40
600/400/200 #2 : 2:03, 1:23, :40
400m x 2 : 1:20, 1:13
If there's a silver lining to how tired I now feel after the workout, it's that I have a good excuse to run a crappy time at the Daisy 5K. My legs feel much worse than they did after running 2 tempos last week. Plus, I'm not sure what to make of the weather, it's supposed to be in the low 60s, which is kinda warm, but the humidity isn't supposed to be that bad, so maybe it will turn out to be OK. My goal remains to improve 15 seconds over last week's performance of 19:30. But whereas last week I felt pretty confident about hitting 19:30, this week my confidence is pretty low. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I'll try to go out fast and see how long I can take it.
The fun part of the workout was talking about snowboarding with Karen (who apparently has the same issues with her lead calf that I did) and ultimate with Sam (who seems to have had a much more illustrious ultimate career than I did). If we could have worked in some talk about Arsenal and Obama, my evening would have been complete. (By the way, Arsenal plays Middlesbrough at noon on Saturday on Fox Soccer Channel.)
As for primary news, Hillary was interviewed on NPR yesterday morning claiming that the Michigan primary, in which she was the only candidate on the ballot, was a fair election. Um, and that's from a person who might be next president of... not some third world dictatorship, but of our country. Ugh. Interesting standards about fairness to say the least. The interview can be found here. One of the comments about the interview that I thought was pretty accurate was: "We've suffered enough with a president who interprets reality to fit their own selfish goals. We don't need another one." One of my co-workers described the Clinton strategy of late as scorched earth, which seems apt to me. She seems to making sure that if she doesn't get the nomination, she's taking the whole party down with her. Anyway, regardless of who you support, you've got to admit that Republicans must be cartwheeling with joy about the self-destruction going on with the Democratic candidates.
OK, so expect an excuse-laden race report sometime this weekend. Hopefully getting to watch the Arsenal game after the race will cheer me up.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
2000 meters of ugh
We did 2000 meter repeats today, which I'm pretty sure is my least favorite workout. Meriden can suck sometimes, but it at least the distance goes by fast, the scenery is nicer and there's a lot less traffic. That 2000 meter distance just seems to long enough to make me really uncomfortable, and you get to fight afternoon traffic running down Barton Springs Drive to boot. (This workout is really much less painful in the morning due to the traffic issues.)
Today we had lots going for us though. It was a beautiful afternoon, we had extra sunlight thanks to the early arrival of DST, the temperature was just right --- warm but not too warm, and we had a good turnout. (Though no Paul, who said he would there when I bumped into him on Tuesday.) Normally, I would try to do more repetitions at the Pace of Reason, but today I was just hoping to do 3 at around a 6-ish pace.
There was a really big lead group. I knew I couldn't run with most of them (people like Eric, DV, Kyle and Rogers, for example), but I figured it worth trying to tag along. And I have to say, for the most part it was. I certainly didn't enjoy it while I was running, but I was happy enough afterwards.
Before I get carried away talking about myself, I must admit that I was impressed with Duane and Arthur's showing, since they both did the workout this morning and then showed up again this afternoon. They each did two more repeats this afternoon, and it's not like they were loafing.
Also: Rudy sighting!
OK, so I ran 7:27, 7:19, 7:23. For some reason that was never explained, Gilbert didn't have us run the full 2000m, but instead we stopped when we completed the loop. I'd probably add another 10 seconds on to those times for the full 2000, so my mile pace for each repeat would have been around 6:05, 6:00 and 6:02 respectively. All I know is, I never run mile repeats that fast. The breathing felt good, the legs not so good.
I was toast after those three, but more than half of my group decided to do a 4th. Eric, Sam and DV all ran the last one in less than 7 minutes. Crrrazy.
In the hmm-what-a-funny-coincidence category, after the workout there were four of us sitting around at RunTex chatting and stretching (we allow talking during stretching in the afternoon) and enjoying the extra sunlight, and all of us were wearing the same red/black/silver asics nimbus shoes. Funny, eh?
Obligitory Obama update: another big win in Mississippi. Nice. Unfortunately, the campaign is getting so ridiculously ugly these days I'm having a hard time keeping up my enthusiasm.
Today we had lots going for us though. It was a beautiful afternoon, we had extra sunlight thanks to the early arrival of DST, the temperature was just right --- warm but not too warm, and we had a good turnout. (Though no Paul, who said he would there when I bumped into him on Tuesday.) Normally, I would try to do more repetitions at the Pace of Reason, but today I was just hoping to do 3 at around a 6-ish pace.
There was a really big lead group. I knew I couldn't run with most of them (people like Eric, DV, Kyle and Rogers, for example), but I figured it worth trying to tag along. And I have to say, for the most part it was. I certainly didn't enjoy it while I was running, but I was happy enough afterwards.
Before I get carried away talking about myself, I must admit that I was impressed with Duane and Arthur's showing, since they both did the workout this morning and then showed up again this afternoon. They each did two more repeats this afternoon, and it's not like they were loafing.
Also: Rudy sighting!
OK, so I ran 7:27, 7:19, 7:23. For some reason that was never explained, Gilbert didn't have us run the full 2000m, but instead we stopped when we completed the loop. I'd probably add another 10 seconds on to those times for the full 2000, so my mile pace for each repeat would have been around 6:05, 6:00 and 6:02 respectively. All I know is, I never run mile repeats that fast. The breathing felt good, the legs not so good.
I was toast after those three, but more than half of my group decided to do a 4th. Eric, Sam and DV all ran the last one in less than 7 minutes. Crrrazy.
In the hmm-what-a-funny-coincidence category, after the workout there were four of us sitting around at RunTex chatting and stretching (we allow talking during stretching in the afternoon) and enjoying the extra sunlight, and all of us were wearing the same red/black/silver asics nimbus shoes. Funny, eh?
Obligitory Obama update: another big win in Mississippi. Nice. Unfortunately, the campaign is getting so ridiculously ugly these days I'm having a hard time keeping up my enthusiasm.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
starflight 5k, in painstaking detail
This morning marked the end of tempo week with my participation in the Starflight 5K. I mentioned last time that I was shooting for a 6:15 pace, but would be content as long as I was under 6:20. Did I make it? Or will I, in fact, turn into a mopey insufferable whiner who complains non-stop about disappointing running performances? Read on for the exciting (and long-winded) answer.
Despite having run two tempo runs earlier in the week, my legs felt reasonable good. But, it was COLD --- 35 degrees at race time. I spent a lot of time thinking about what to wear this morning, only to blow it by ditching my gloves at the starting line. As we stood at the start gate (behind some high school kids wearing jeans who I would see finishing 30 minutes later), I decided my hands felt a little toasty, so I ditched my gloves with Pat and Ivi. By the way, did I mention that Pat and Ivi showed up to cheer me on? That was very awesome of them. Duane, Lou Kokernak, John Armstrong and Arthur were the fellow gazelles I recognized at the starting gate, but I'm convinced Pat and Ivi were there mainly for me.
Anyway, the race started right on time. Like I said, it was cold, but the sun was out and there was only a light breeze. The course snaked through Zilker Park, and it was a little frustrating to not have any idea where you were going, but at least there were mile markers so you had some idea of how far you'd gone. Immediately after starting, we made a sharp turn, crossed Barton Springs Dr and were headed down Lou Neff --- where we run 1000m repeats on a regular basis. It became immediately obvious that my hands were freezing. Like, they hurt they were so cold. (And they never really stopped hurting, it's just there was so much general 5K-related hurt, that they weren't as noticeable by the end.) My original plan was to chase Lou from gazelles for the first mile (he was shooting for 19:00), to make sure I at least didn't start as slowly as Thursday's tempo. By the time we passed the 1 mile marker (just past where the hike and bike trail comes up by the road), he was probably 10 seconds in front of me, but my first mile was 6:07, and I was pleased enough with that. My immediate thought was that I just needed to sustain.
The second mile turned out to be a lot different from the first mile. While the first mile was net downhill, and second mile was net uphill and had a bunch of tight turns (including a turnaround on the road that leads to the Mopac lot). We crossed back over to the south side of Barton Springs Dr, did a bunch of zig-zagging and some point I passed Pat and Ivi again. They had now been joined by DV. (Thanks for coming DV! You get awesome points too!) As I approached them, I asked for my gloves but Ivi said something like, "No, just keep running!" That's demerits for you Ivi. DV actually did try to catch up to me, but I waived him off. Gosh, my legs were feeling really tired about now. At some point I hit the 2 mile marker. Goddammit, 6:30! How do you slow down 23 seconds and totally not notice it? I would have guessed that I was under 6:20. Do I really have that little awareness of how I'm running?
Well, there really wasn't time to figure out how that had happened, but I did feel a little despair. Like I said, the legs were feeling heavy, and I didn't think there was much of a chance that I would speed up on the last mile. Still I pressed on.
We were now running what was essentially the mile repeat loop that we do with the gazelles. We headed out on the road that cuts through the disc golf course, and it was kind of nice to be in familiar territory. As we turned onto the back road that goes by the day camp, I veered out into the middle of the road to avoid the annoying camber on the sides and then let myself roll down the hill, not a fast as possible, but much faster than I normally would during mile repeats. I hit the flat at the bottom of the hill and figured I had about 800m to go, tops. I also had a bit of stitch just bellow my ribs on the right. I refocused on my form and breathing, trying to just get a little comfortable. We turned into the Barton Springs parking lot, and I started to look for the finish. After the parking lot, the course had one more climb, probably the worst one of the race, but it was over before you knew it, then we turned toward the finish and hit the 3 mile marker. Pat, Ivi and DV were all there yelling and I tried to turn it up. I didn't have much left, but Ivi was yelling that someone was going to catch me and, even though I didn't believe her, it scared me enough to keep running hard and not just limp across the finish line. (It turned out the next closest finisher was 13 seconds back, so that was big fat lie. But an effective lie. Bonus points for Ivi.)
Oh yeah, mile 3 was 6:13. Cool. Once again, you'd think I'd know it if I had sped up by 17 seconds, but I had no idea. My final time was 19:30 (19:29.50 by my watch), which is a 6:17 pace. I was content with that. Man, it was freaking hard though. I hope I can improve on that next week, but it certainly won't be easy.
I bumped into DV later at RunTex and he said I looked really strong and smooth at the finish. What a sweet thing to say. I certainly did not feel strong or smooth during that last 200m, but it's good to know I can put on a good show.
Duane ran an 18:29 (nice! 6th overal), Lou ran 19:05 (also very nice), John ran 20:02 (I'm sure he'll break 20 soon) and Arthur won the stroller division in 22:05.
I liked the race over all. It's fun to run in Zilker, even if the course was little zig-zaggy. The hills made the course tough, but they weren't awful. And the turnout was small enough to make the atmosphere feel kind of homey. Oh yeah, the shirts were nice too. Technical material (by Mizuno) with cool graphics. I'll actually get some use out of it.
I love that I just wrote a 5K recap that was longer than most people's marathon reports.
Obligatory election-related comment: I just read that Obama won in Wyoming today by TWENTY THREE percentage points. I realize it's just Wyoming, and I'm sure the Hill people will point out that results are less legit because it was a caucus. But regardless of whether it's a caucus or primary, that's a pretty big margin of victory. You can't talk your way around that. Hopefully this will get the Obama campaign back on track. Fingers crossed.
Despite having run two tempo runs earlier in the week, my legs felt reasonable good. But, it was COLD --- 35 degrees at race time. I spent a lot of time thinking about what to wear this morning, only to blow it by ditching my gloves at the starting line. As we stood at the start gate (behind some high school kids wearing jeans who I would see finishing 30 minutes later), I decided my hands felt a little toasty, so I ditched my gloves with Pat and Ivi. By the way, did I mention that Pat and Ivi showed up to cheer me on? That was very awesome of them. Duane, Lou Kokernak, John Armstrong and Arthur were the fellow gazelles I recognized at the starting gate, but I'm convinced Pat and Ivi were there mainly for me.
Anyway, the race started right on time. Like I said, it was cold, but the sun was out and there was only a light breeze. The course snaked through Zilker Park, and it was a little frustrating to not have any idea where you were going, but at least there were mile markers so you had some idea of how far you'd gone. Immediately after starting, we made a sharp turn, crossed Barton Springs Dr and were headed down Lou Neff --- where we run 1000m repeats on a regular basis. It became immediately obvious that my hands were freezing. Like, they hurt they were so cold. (And they never really stopped hurting, it's just there was so much general 5K-related hurt, that they weren't as noticeable by the end.) My original plan was to chase Lou from gazelles for the first mile (he was shooting for 19:00), to make sure I at least didn't start as slowly as Thursday's tempo. By the time we passed the 1 mile marker (just past where the hike and bike trail comes up by the road), he was probably 10 seconds in front of me, but my first mile was 6:07, and I was pleased enough with that. My immediate thought was that I just needed to sustain.
The second mile turned out to be a lot different from the first mile. While the first mile was net downhill, and second mile was net uphill and had a bunch of tight turns (including a turnaround on the road that leads to the Mopac lot). We crossed back over to the south side of Barton Springs Dr, did a bunch of zig-zagging and some point I passed Pat and Ivi again. They had now been joined by DV. (Thanks for coming DV! You get awesome points too!) As I approached them, I asked for my gloves but Ivi said something like, "No, just keep running!" That's demerits for you Ivi. DV actually did try to catch up to me, but I waived him off. Gosh, my legs were feeling really tired about now. At some point I hit the 2 mile marker. Goddammit, 6:30! How do you slow down 23 seconds and totally not notice it? I would have guessed that I was under 6:20. Do I really have that little awareness of how I'm running?
Well, there really wasn't time to figure out how that had happened, but I did feel a little despair. Like I said, the legs were feeling heavy, and I didn't think there was much of a chance that I would speed up on the last mile. Still I pressed on.
We were now running what was essentially the mile repeat loop that we do with the gazelles. We headed out on the road that cuts through the disc golf course, and it was kind of nice to be in familiar territory. As we turned onto the back road that goes by the day camp, I veered out into the middle of the road to avoid the annoying camber on the sides and then let myself roll down the hill, not a fast as possible, but much faster than I normally would during mile repeats. I hit the flat at the bottom of the hill and figured I had about 800m to go, tops. I also had a bit of stitch just bellow my ribs on the right. I refocused on my form and breathing, trying to just get a little comfortable. We turned into the Barton Springs parking lot, and I started to look for the finish. After the parking lot, the course had one more climb, probably the worst one of the race, but it was over before you knew it, then we turned toward the finish and hit the 3 mile marker. Pat, Ivi and DV were all there yelling and I tried to turn it up. I didn't have much left, but Ivi was yelling that someone was going to catch me and, even though I didn't believe her, it scared me enough to keep running hard and not just limp across the finish line. (It turned out the next closest finisher was 13 seconds back, so that was big fat lie. But an effective lie. Bonus points for Ivi.)
Oh yeah, mile 3 was 6:13. Cool. Once again, you'd think I'd know it if I had sped up by 17 seconds, but I had no idea. My final time was 19:30 (19:29.50 by my watch), which is a 6:17 pace. I was content with that. Man, it was freaking hard though. I hope I can improve on that next week, but it certainly won't be easy.
I bumped into DV later at RunTex and he said I looked really strong and smooth at the finish. What a sweet thing to say. I certainly did not feel strong or smooth during that last 200m, but it's good to know I can put on a good show.
Duane ran an 18:29 (nice! 6th overal), Lou ran 19:05 (also very nice), John ran 20:02 (I'm sure he'll break 20 soon) and Arthur won the stroller division in 22:05.
I liked the race over all. It's fun to run in Zilker, even if the course was little zig-zaggy. The hills made the course tough, but they weren't awful. And the turnout was small enough to make the atmosphere feel kind of homey. Oh yeah, the shirts were nice too. Technical material (by Mizuno) with cool graphics. I'll actually get some use out of it.
I love that I just wrote a 5K recap that was longer than most people's marathon reports.
Obligatory election-related comment: I just read that Obama won in Wyoming today by TWENTY THREE percentage points. I realize it's just Wyoming, and I'm sure the Hill people will point out that results are less legit because it was a caucus. But regardless of whether it's a caucus or primary, that's a pretty big margin of victory. You can't talk your way around that. Hopefully this will get the Obama campaign back on track. Fingers crossed.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
2 of 3
Today I ran my second tempo of the week. After looking at the forecast last night, I decided I'd try to make the morning workout. I'm not usually able to get up that early, but I figured I'd set my alarm for 5:00AM and see how it goes. I did make it (it's almost worth getting up that early to see the surprise on G's face) and, I have to say, I totally made the right decision. When I left work at 6 this evening, it was miserable outside. The rain had let up, but the temperature had dropped 15 degrees during the day and the wind had picked up quite a bit as well.
So it was a pretty small crowd this morning. I didn't really see anyone I knew I could run with, so I figured maybe I'd try to stay close to Arthur, though I didn't really think I'd be able to stick with him for the whole 4 miles.
Somehow that first mile ended up being ridiculously slow. My goal was to get as close to a 6:30 pace as possible, but when I hit the first half mile marker my watch said 3:29. Yikes! I figured I'd try to pick it up a little and maybe at least get under 6:50 for the first mile, but when we hit the bridge my watch said 7:01. Double yikes! I didn't feel like I was totally loafing. Arthur and I were (surprisingly) still together at that point, and we did manage to run the second mile in 6:40. Once we turned around Arthur took off and I pretty much let him go. I did mile 3 in 6:35. Arthur was probably 15 seconds in front of me at that point. I tried to keep grinding away, focusing on form and breathing (since I felt a slight stitch). As we got back on the trail after going under the railroad bridge, I could see Arthur had slowed down just a tad. I was gaining some ground, but there was no way I was going to catch him. Still, I put in an effort to finish strong for that last 600 meters or so and finished my final mile in 6:26.
We followed up the tempo action with a little cool down and then everyone headed off to do start the rest of their days. That is one of pities doing the morning workout (other than waking up so early): there's no post-workout loitering since everyone has to get to their jobs.
I'm sure this sounds like a broken record, but my performance was little disappointing. Nevertheless, I never had that oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die feeling that one can get during a tempo run, and my legs and lungs felt OK. Not so good that I felt like running faster, but not so bad that I wanted to stop. See? I can do the glass-half-full thing too.
I'm going to go on the record with my goals for the Starflight 5K: I'm shooting for a 6:15 pace which would get me through the course in just under 19:30. I'll live with a 6:20 pace, but anything slower than that and this blog will be taking a trip to mopey-town. You've been warned.
So it was a pretty small crowd this morning. I didn't really see anyone I knew I could run with, so I figured maybe I'd try to stay close to Arthur, though I didn't really think I'd be able to stick with him for the whole 4 miles.
Somehow that first mile ended up being ridiculously slow. My goal was to get as close to a 6:30 pace as possible, but when I hit the first half mile marker my watch said 3:29. Yikes! I figured I'd try to pick it up a little and maybe at least get under 6:50 for the first mile, but when we hit the bridge my watch said 7:01. Double yikes! I didn't feel like I was totally loafing. Arthur and I were (surprisingly) still together at that point, and we did manage to run the second mile in 6:40. Once we turned around Arthur took off and I pretty much let him go. I did mile 3 in 6:35. Arthur was probably 15 seconds in front of me at that point. I tried to keep grinding away, focusing on form and breathing (since I felt a slight stitch). As we got back on the trail after going under the railroad bridge, I could see Arthur had slowed down just a tad. I was gaining some ground, but there was no way I was going to catch him. Still, I put in an effort to finish strong for that last 600 meters or so and finished my final mile in 6:26.
We followed up the tempo action with a little cool down and then everyone headed off to do start the rest of their days. That is one of pities doing the morning workout (other than waking up so early): there's no post-workout loitering since everyone has to get to their jobs.
I'm sure this sounds like a broken record, but my performance was little disappointing. Nevertheless, I never had that oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die feeling that one can get during a tempo run, and my legs and lungs felt OK. Not so good that I felt like running faster, but not so bad that I wanted to stop. See? I can do the glass-half-full thing too.
I'm going to go on the record with my goals for the Starflight 5K: I'm shooting for a 6:15 pace which would get me through the course in just under 19:30. I'll live with a 6:20 pace, but anything slower than that and this blog will be taking a trip to mopey-town. You've been warned.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
caucus madness!
Went to the caucus tonight and, man, there were a lot of people representing. Once again, this is a good and a bad thing. It's good that so many people are voting. It's bad that I have to wait around while they get their say. (Damn them.)
The caucus was supposed to start at 7:15, but it turns out they can't start the caucus until all voters have finished. Apparently quite a few people must have showed up to vote at 6:59, because it was after 8:00 when they finished. Anyway, here's the order of events:
7:15 - I meet my neighbor (and co-worker of my wife) Scott at Barton Hills Elementary. We're led into the school and put in the gymnasium with a few hundred other people. There's a bunch of anatomy posters on the wall and Scott points out that one of them has a label pointing at the jaw that says "mandibles". He would like to tell the maker of that label that there's only one mandible.
7:15-8:15 - We sit and wait. Stand and wait. Most people are like us, and haven't a clue how this is supposed to work. At one point, we find ourselves standing next to a woman who's explaing things to another person. (It's worth mentioning she was wearing a Clinton button.) Scott asks her a question and she starts to answer, but interrupts herself. The conversation finishes like this:
WOMAN: ...Oh wait, are you a Clinton supporter?
SCOTT: No, Obama.
WOMAN: (making a face like someone just farted) Well, I'm sure you can find some Barack person to explain it to you.
SCOTT: Really? You're not going to answer my question because I'm voting for Obama?
WOMAN: No, I'm not.
ME: So this is your attempt to disenfranchise people who aren't voting like you?
WOMAN: (scowls and turns to talk to friend about how she almost offered some Obama supporters a bottle of water.)
Anyway, that was interesting. After that, we went and sat out in the hall so we would have easy escape routes. (Kidding... it was just less crowded.)
8:15-8:45 - We get in line to sign our names. It turns out moving to the hall was a good move because we had a way shorter wait than the people who stayed in the gym. It was a very simple process. You write your name, address and who you're voting for.
Now the election results are trickling in. It's a pretty tense night. Clinton took RI, Obama took Vermont. CNN just called Ohio for Clinton where she was leading handily. Right now (10:15 on Tuesday night), it's 50% Clinton, 49% Obama in Texas.
Wow, two posts in one day. Top that DV.
The caucus was supposed to start at 7:15, but it turns out they can't start the caucus until all voters have finished. Apparently quite a few people must have showed up to vote at 6:59, because it was after 8:00 when they finished. Anyway, here's the order of events:
7:15 - I meet my neighbor (and co-worker of my wife) Scott at Barton Hills Elementary. We're led into the school and put in the gymnasium with a few hundred other people. There's a bunch of anatomy posters on the wall and Scott points out that one of them has a label pointing at the jaw that says "mandibles". He would like to tell the maker of that label that there's only one mandible.
7:15-8:15 - We sit and wait. Stand and wait. Most people are like us, and haven't a clue how this is supposed to work. At one point, we find ourselves standing next to a woman who's explaing things to another person. (It's worth mentioning she was wearing a Clinton button.) Scott asks her a question and she starts to answer, but interrupts herself. The conversation finishes like this:
WOMAN: ...Oh wait, are you a Clinton supporter?
SCOTT: No, Obama.
WOMAN: (making a face like someone just farted) Well, I'm sure you can find some Barack person to explain it to you.
SCOTT: Really? You're not going to answer my question because I'm voting for Obama?
WOMAN: No, I'm not.
ME: So this is your attempt to disenfranchise people who aren't voting like you?
WOMAN: (scowls and turns to talk to friend about how she almost offered some Obama supporters a bottle of water.)
Anyway, that was interesting. After that, we went and sat out in the hall so we would have easy escape routes. (Kidding... it was just less crowded.)
8:15-8:45 - We get in line to sign our names. It turns out moving to the hall was a good move because we had a way shorter wait than the people who stayed in the gym. It was a very simple process. You write your name, address and who you're voting for.
Now the election results are trickling in. It's a pretty tense night. Clinton took RI, Obama took Vermont. CNN just called Ohio for Clinton where she was leading handily. Right now (10:15 on Tuesday night), it's 50% Clinton, 49% Obama in Texas.
Wow, two posts in one day. Top that DV.
all tempo, all week
I was going to allude to the fact that it's primary election day in the title of this post, which really is the big news today, but I remembered that would be a violation of the self-centered spirit of blogging, so I opted for something more about me. However, since it's been brought up, yeah it's primary election day and I'm pretty stressed. Hillary has been ruthlessly attacking Obama, and you have to wonder what the effects will be on the day's outcome. I'm hoping Obama can pull through in Texas and keep it close in Ohio so the pressure will be on Hill to hang it up. But these election things seem to never the go the way I hope. I'll put in my vote at the caucus tonight (so I'll at least know I did my part) then go home and wait it out. Fingers crossed...
(Note: At some point, I'm going to talk about today's Arsenal/AC Milan game, so if you recorded it and don't want to know the result, stop reading now.)
OK, now on to the important stuff: my running. I skipped circuits today and decided I needed (as certain rocker dude might say) some "quality" miles this morning. I wasn't sure whether to do 5 or 7, but then I remembered how annoying all the construction on the north side was and figured I could do 6 (plus a little extra to cool down) running out to the east side from RunTex. Perfect.
While last night was cold and so windy there were white caps on Lady Bird "Lake", this morning was just lovely. The winds had died down, the sun was out and reflecting off the water, it was a little chilly but you only noticed it for about 2 minutes while warming up. It was so lovely that I felt sorry for anyone who might have chosen to run yesterday instead of today.
My goal was to run at about a 7-ish pace, which I did... kind of surprisingly (usually the first mile is so slow that it's hard to make up for it later in the run). The only caveat is that I did stop to use the bathroom at miles 2 and 4. I know two bathroom breaks on 6 mile run is a lot, and it probably helped my performance a little, but one can you do? 7:48, 7:30, 6:52, 6:53, 6:44, 6:25. Thanks to the never ending construction, I had to stop before hitting the mile marker just past the stinky bridge, but I added 8 seconds on to my last mile to try to provide an accurate estimate.
I'll follow today's quasi-tempo run up with the real deal on thursday, and then the Starflight 5K on Saturday morning. That should give me enough "quality" miles to get by for a while. I'm pretty sure today's run will have a negative effect on thursday's tempo, and today's and thursday's runs will join forces to undermine my performance in Saturday's 5K. But, I'm trying to think long term here, so that by April I'll be in better shape to put in a decent performance. Plus, now I have a built in excuse for running poorly on Saturday, and who wouldn't want that? It kind of takes the pressure off. (Of course, the current forecast for Thursday is really ugly --- cold, rainy and windy --- so it's possible I might sheepishly decide not to run on Thursday and thereby ruin this rationalization that I'm already counting on.)
The second leg of the Arsenal/AC Milan matchup in the Champions League was today. I followed the first half on the internet, and it sounded suspenseful. It sounded like Arsenal was getting there asses (or arses, as they would say) handed to them for the first 15 minutes, but then they turned the tables and dominated for the rest of the half. Despite all the action, the first half ended 0-0. I hadn't had lunch, and my house is only 2 miles from the office, so I figured I'd run home and catch the second half. Arsenal was once again dominating for first 20-25 minutes, but then the game seemed to settle down and you could tell both teams were just running out of gas. It was still end-to-end and exciting, but things got a little sloppy. Arsenal seemed to have a little more control, but their grasp on the game seemed fragile. It was still 0-0 and all, so all it would take is for them to give up one sloppy goal.
Finally, with less than 10 minutes left, Fabregas (who is pretty much a 20-year-old midfield genius, and who is much more inclined to pass than to shoot) uncorked a long range shot that caught the goalie off guard (perhaps he was tending to his hair) and slid in perfectly just inside the left post. It totally came out of nowhere and while it was an incredibly well-placed shot, you can't help but wonder if the goalie should have been able to do more to keep it out of the net. After that, I Milani were in panic mode throwing everything forward but with no luck at all.
There were 4 minutes of stoppage time, thanks in part to the Arsenal goalie lying on the ground and pretending he was in extreme pain. (Perhaps he was, and it's certainly possible that he had learned this behavior from watching the Italians perform similarly throughout the game, but it sure looked a little overdone to me.) Once the action resumed, someone fed a long ball up the right side to Arsenal's Theo Walcott, who is blazingly fast and had fresh legs since he came in as sub about 15-20 minutes earlier, and he easily outran the tired Milan defender. Here is one thing about Walcott that distinguishes him from other players (other than his speed), he doesn't seem to like to play for penalties. He seems to try to avoid situations that will lead to him falling to the ground, and when he gets tripped it up, instead of he trying to make his stumble look like The Most Dramatic Fall Ever to win some sympathy from the ref, he tries to keep his balance and keep running. (I'm sure someone's going to point me to some counterevidence on YouTube, but I can assure you that Theo keeps running when most people would be lying on the pitch waiving there arms in incredulously.) Anyway, so the tired Milan defend makes a pretty good effort at a desperation slide tackle and actually does get a teeny bit of the ball, enough that Walcott totally loses his balance and falls to his side. The problem is Walcott instantaneous popped back and is still at full speed, and the defender didn't get enough of the ball so it happens to still be right in front of Walcott. At this point, it's Walcott versus the goalie, with the only problem being that Walcott is so far out to the side that he doesn't have a good angle, fortunately his teammates were still involved and follow him with two cuts. Walcott dribbles the ball towards the goal, one of his teammates (Flamini) flashes to the goal as he crosses it (not sure who it was), but it's passed beyond him in favor of teammate Adebayor who comes out of nowhere (at least on the TV screen) to easily tap it in. It was textbook play --- perfectly passed and perfectly converted. Game over. I need to see if I can find that pass on YouTube. OK, there's a really low-fi replay (is there any other kind on YouTube) here. (Arsenal is wearing the white shirts and cute stripey socks.)
Whew, this was long. I really don't know how I manage to say so much about so little.
(Note: At some point, I'm going to talk about today's Arsenal/AC Milan game, so if you recorded it and don't want to know the result, stop reading now.)
OK, now on to the important stuff: my running. I skipped circuits today and decided I needed (as certain rocker dude might say) some "quality" miles this morning. I wasn't sure whether to do 5 or 7, but then I remembered how annoying all the construction on the north side was and figured I could do 6 (plus a little extra to cool down) running out to the east side from RunTex. Perfect.
While last night was cold and so windy there were white caps on Lady Bird "Lake", this morning was just lovely. The winds had died down, the sun was out and reflecting off the water, it was a little chilly but you only noticed it for about 2 minutes while warming up. It was so lovely that I felt sorry for anyone who might have chosen to run yesterday instead of today.
My goal was to run at about a 7-ish pace, which I did... kind of surprisingly (usually the first mile is so slow that it's hard to make up for it later in the run). The only caveat is that I did stop to use the bathroom at miles 2 and 4. I know two bathroom breaks on 6 mile run is a lot, and it probably helped my performance a little, but one can you do? 7:48, 7:30, 6:52, 6:53, 6:44, 6:25. Thanks to the never ending construction, I had to stop before hitting the mile marker just past the stinky bridge, but I added 8 seconds on to my last mile to try to provide an accurate estimate.
I'll follow today's quasi-tempo run up with the real deal on thursday, and then the Starflight 5K on Saturday morning. That should give me enough "quality" miles to get by for a while. I'm pretty sure today's run will have a negative effect on thursday's tempo, and today's and thursday's runs will join forces to undermine my performance in Saturday's 5K. But, I'm trying to think long term here, so that by April I'll be in better shape to put in a decent performance. Plus, now I have a built in excuse for running poorly on Saturday, and who wouldn't want that? It kind of takes the pressure off. (Of course, the current forecast for Thursday is really ugly --- cold, rainy and windy --- so it's possible I might sheepishly decide not to run on Thursday and thereby ruin this rationalization that I'm already counting on.)
The second leg of the Arsenal/AC Milan matchup in the Champions League was today. I followed the first half on the internet, and it sounded suspenseful. It sounded like Arsenal was getting there asses (or arses, as they would say) handed to them for the first 15 minutes, but then they turned the tables and dominated for the rest of the half. Despite all the action, the first half ended 0-0. I hadn't had lunch, and my house is only 2 miles from the office, so I figured I'd run home and catch the second half. Arsenal was once again dominating for first 20-25 minutes, but then the game seemed to settle down and you could tell both teams were just running out of gas. It was still end-to-end and exciting, but things got a little sloppy. Arsenal seemed to have a little more control, but their grasp on the game seemed fragile. It was still 0-0 and all, so all it would take is for them to give up one sloppy goal.
Finally, with less than 10 minutes left, Fabregas (who is pretty much a 20-year-old midfield genius, and who is much more inclined to pass than to shoot) uncorked a long range shot that caught the goalie off guard (perhaps he was tending to his hair) and slid in perfectly just inside the left post. It totally came out of nowhere and while it was an incredibly well-placed shot, you can't help but wonder if the goalie should have been able to do more to keep it out of the net. After that, I Milani were in panic mode throwing everything forward but with no luck at all.
There were 4 minutes of stoppage time, thanks in part to the Arsenal goalie lying on the ground and pretending he was in extreme pain. (Perhaps he was, and it's certainly possible that he had learned this behavior from watching the Italians perform similarly throughout the game, but it sure looked a little overdone to me.) Once the action resumed, someone fed a long ball up the right side to Arsenal's Theo Walcott, who is blazingly fast and had fresh legs since he came in as sub about 15-20 minutes earlier, and he easily outran the tired Milan defender. Here is one thing about Walcott that distinguishes him from other players (other than his speed), he doesn't seem to like to play for penalties. He seems to try to avoid situations that will lead to him falling to the ground, and when he gets tripped it up, instead of he trying to make his stumble look like The Most Dramatic Fall Ever to win some sympathy from the ref, he tries to keep his balance and keep running. (I'm sure someone's going to point me to some counterevidence on YouTube, but I can assure you that Theo keeps running when most people would be lying on the pitch waiving there arms in incredulously.) Anyway, so the tired Milan defend makes a pretty good effort at a desperation slide tackle and actually does get a teeny bit of the ball, enough that Walcott totally loses his balance and falls to his side. The problem is Walcott instantaneous popped back and is still at full speed, and the defender didn't get enough of the ball so it happens to still be right in front of Walcott. At this point, it's Walcott versus the goalie, with the only problem being that Walcott is so far out to the side that he doesn't have a good angle, fortunately his teammates were still involved and follow him with two cuts. Walcott dribbles the ball towards the goal, one of his teammates (Flamini) flashes to the goal as he crosses it (not sure who it was), but it's passed beyond him in favor of teammate Adebayor who comes out of nowhere (at least on the TV screen) to easily tap it in. It was textbook play --- perfectly passed and perfectly converted. Game over. I need to see if I can find that pass on YouTube. OK, there's a really low-fi replay (is there any other kind on YouTube) here. (Arsenal is wearing the white shirts and cute stripey socks.)
Whew, this was long. I really don't know how I manage to say so much about so little.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
it really shouldn't be this hard...
"It really shouldn't be this hard..." I feel like this thought comes to mind far too often. Not quite every single time I run, but probably more than half of the time. During yesterday's 10 miler, it was practically my mantra. I was repeating in my head that often.
I met DV at RunTex and bullied him into running on the trail instead of doing the lollipop, but with the wrinkle that we ran from mile 0 to 10 instead from 10 to 0. It didn't take long before we both thinking, "Damn, I'm more sore than I thought from those 400s."
We made a quick stop at Mopac and I bumped into Mark Casey and Diana Damer. They're both in post-marathon mode, so who knows when we'll see them again. Diana thanked me for helping with the pacing at the marathon, and I told her it was fun for me too. I left kind of abruptly since it's rare that I have a running partner and I didn't want to piss him off. So, Mark and Diana, if you happen to read this, apologies for the rudeness.
Off we went again... Here's my token weather comment: It was crazy humid. In fact, I ditched my shirt at Mark Casey's car. It's only March and too warm for a shirt. Anyway, I think we were around a 7:30-7:40 pace, but with the construction on the north side, it's really hard to figure out. DV was testing out a footpod, but the results were a little erratic. (I'll let him comment on that sometime.)
Once we got to the east side, we picked it up, but just barely. I don't have the exact times due to stopwatch ineptitude, but I would guess we were 7:15-7:20. (Though based on how hard it seemed, it felt faster. See the title of this post...) DV suggested we try to get under 7:00 after we crossed the dam. As we sped up he commented that he felt better now. Well, not me. I can pretty vividly remember seeing the mile marker approaching and having to have a little conversation in my head to convince myself not to start walking. We finished up that mile in 6:28, which wasn't bad. Rather than stopping for water, we jogged the rest of the way back (total time for the run was about 1:16... nothing to get excited about), did a few strides and then I hurried home to watch the Arsenal/Aston Villa game.
A few years ago when we lived in Providence, I would occasionally watch soccer games with one of Meghal's class mates who happened to be a big Arsenal fan. I got hooked. OK, maybe hooked is something of an exaggeration, but I do try to watch a game once in a while. It's really easy to get into because the action is non-stop. The only time there is a pause if there is an injury or if it's halftime. No timeouts, no commercials, no referee reviews.
Anyway, on this day Arsenal was annoyingly anemic. They often blow lots of easy opportunities trying to be too fancy, but you know that they'll have so many of these opportunities that it's not a big deal to waste a few. It's not that they weren't creating opportunities in this game against Villa, but they never seemed in control and often even seemed on their heels. Still, they were only down 1-0 and towards the end of games, once the opponents' defense has tired from chasing around all those passes, they're often able to manufacture a goal. The last 10 minutes was all pressure from Arsenal, and finally at the very very last minute (3rd minute of stoppage time), they put one in. Pretty exciting.... Almost made it worth watching the previous 90 minutes of listless soccer.
Coming this week, a tempo run and 5K. All hypoxia all the time.
I met DV at RunTex and bullied him into running on the trail instead of doing the lollipop, but with the wrinkle that we ran from mile 0 to 10 instead from 10 to 0. It didn't take long before we both thinking, "Damn, I'm more sore than I thought from those 400s."
We made a quick stop at Mopac and I bumped into Mark Casey and Diana Damer. They're both in post-marathon mode, so who knows when we'll see them again. Diana thanked me for helping with the pacing at the marathon, and I told her it was fun for me too. I left kind of abruptly since it's rare that I have a running partner and I didn't want to piss him off. So, Mark and Diana, if you happen to read this, apologies for the rudeness.
Off we went again... Here's my token weather comment: It was crazy humid. In fact, I ditched my shirt at Mark Casey's car. It's only March and too warm for a shirt.
Once we got to the east side, we picked it up, but just barely. I don't have the exact times due to stopwatch ineptitude, but I would guess we were 7:15-7:20. (Though based on how hard it seemed, it felt faster. See the title of this post...) DV suggested we try to get under 7:00 after we crossed the dam. As we sped up he commented that he felt better now. Well, not me. I can pretty vividly remember seeing the mile marker approaching and having to have a little conversation in my head to convince myself not to start walking. We finished up that mile in 6:28, which wasn't bad. Rather than stopping for water, we jogged the rest of the way back (total time for the run was about 1:16... nothing to get excited about), did a few strides and then I hurried home to watch the Arsenal/Aston Villa game.
A few years ago when we lived in Providence, I would occasionally watch soccer games with one of Meghal's class mates who happened to be a big Arsenal fan. I got hooked. OK, maybe hooked is something of an exaggeration, but I do try to watch a game once in a while. It's really easy to get into because the action is non-stop. The only time there is a pause if there is an injury or if it's halftime. No timeouts, no commercials, no referee reviews.
Anyway, on this day Arsenal was annoyingly anemic. They often blow lots of easy opportunities trying to be too fancy, but you know that they'll have so many of these opportunities that it's not a big deal to waste a few. It's not that they weren't creating opportunities in this game against Villa, but they never seemed in control and often even seemed on their heels. Still, they were only down 1-0 and towards the end of games, once the opponents' defense has tired from chasing around all those passes, they're often able to manufacture a goal. The last 10 minutes was all pressure from Arsenal, and finally at the very very last minute (3rd minute of stoppage time), they put one in. Pretty exciting.... Almost made it worth watching the previous 90 minutes of listless soccer.
Coming this week, a tempo run and 5K. All hypoxia all the time.
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