Phyzrunnidad

brief and typo laden

2008-08-03T19:46:00.002-05:00

Moved into our new place in NY about a week ago but we don't have internet yet. My only connection is my new snazzy iPhone, which is not the most efficient means of typed communication. DSL may be on the way, but we're in a pretty rural area which means "the Google" is hard to come by. Training has so far consisted of loops around my land and a nice trail run with a couple of good friends. That was a bit longer than I planned on though, and it ended up being my longest run in a while (2.5 hours). Life is good. I've spent a lot of time clearing monstrous amounts of overgrowth in the yard. That has probably been my main source of fitness gain since getting through the trip and closing. Now it's on to getting back my trail running skills so that I can hold my own in an upcoming trail relay. I'll try to get a bit more consistent about posting as we get settled and connected. Happy running all!

2:06.2 and 57.5

2008-07-18T10:29:00.004-05:00

So I've got a goal, and my times in the title at a local track meet yesterday are sufficiently close (and far) to make this realistic and challenging. I'm turning 30 next summer, and I want to shoot to beat my 17-18 year old shadow self (preferably the latter, of course). The times to beat are on the right. The 800m and mile are what I care about, since I think the 400m was in a relay. I think I might have to subtract .2 from the 800m PR though, since my HS coach said I ran 1:59.2 in an 880y race (they were just switching over to metric in high schools when I was running). So 1:58.5, here I come.

I was hoping for 2:10 yesterday, but it seems I had more in me that the recent 8x200m workouts I've been doing have indicated. Most of those were at 32-33 seconds, and they felt pretty darn hard. The race was a lot of fun, and it brought me back.

I started out easy, and took a slot at the back of a pack of high schoolers and local college guys, and sat on the shoulder of the guy in front of me, since I knew some guys would be slowing down soon. At 200m I had let a couple guys slip behind through the gap I had left by sitting on the shoulder, and on the downstretch I picked things up, and quickly got into a 3rd place position. At the bell lap, I was somewhere in the 61-62 second range, which was a surprise. It never feels as fast as it is that first lap. The guy in front of me I knew was a very fast guy just out for a fun jog, basically, but I worked on reeling him in anyway on the 3rd 200. This is the part of the race where things get interesting. I remember in high school starting to feel not so good at this point, after the first curve of the second lap, but there wasn't too much burn yet. I kept the turnover going, and was catching up, but when I hit 600m, I remembered how this race ends.

A mental panic sets in with 150m to go. You're suddenly convinced that you burned everything too soon, and you're going to basically be crawling past the finish line on your hands and knees, bleeding from the ears and with every organ failing. It's a real life dream sequence where you're being chased, but your legs won't move. You are convinced that the people behind you are strong and fast, their legs light and limber. They will pass you, feeling both triumph and pity simultaneously as they leave your mangled and twitching frame behind for the vultures.

It's not the way it usually works, unless your competing with Nick Symmonds. They're all feeling the same thing. I held on to my place, doing my best to hold form down the backstretch to the finish. I was a few seconds behind the leaders, and very jealous that they got to stop this insanity before I did. I crossed the line, got to the side, and did my best to take in the oxygen my body wanted so badly. A quick glance back at the finish as I crossed the line told me the remainder of my competition was about 10-15m away.

It was awesome.

For fun I joined the 400m race as well, which was about 20-30 minutes after the 800. I was barely recovered for it, but it only lasts a minute, so how bad could it be. I was passed very quickly by a bunch of guys after the first turn. A sprinter I am not. I had been talking during the meet with this guy named Willie Johnson, who was apparently a 45.x and 20.x guy in the 400m and 200m back in college...very very very fast. He's 48 now, and is in incredible shape. Still has the legs of a 400 guy, and the chest of a 20 year old. I hope I look anything within a hundred yards of that at that age. At the second curve, I could feel him behind me, and I caught his white singlet out of the corner of my eye with 100m to go. I held on, and apparently he burned out at that point. I crossed the line in 57.x, quite pleased. To be under 60 seconds is a good sign at this point. So I'll keep on working on my turnover, and putting in miles, and next month I'll start doing some tempo runs.

And hopefully I'll post a little more often after next week, when we'll be getting settled in our new house.

Big Ben, Parliament!

2008-06-04T22:17:00.009-05:00

June 3rd was the 29th time that my body, confined to this planet, circled around the sun. If you got the title of this post, then you are a big dork. I've been working on this blog post off and on since then...

The birthday was good. Very good. It started out with a new Dama Bialetti espresso maker from my darling wife, which was immediately put to use in preparing mochas for me and the wife. Yummy. Also a couple of needed odds and ends. I also got to sleep in somewhat...I am normally in charge of the boy for the first hour or so of the day.

I went to work for a while, came back for a quick and uneventful checkup for the boy, went for a run, and then got all jazzed up for a night on the town. I need to put this night into writing somewhere, so it might as well be here. The dinner was something to remember. A very very good friend of ours decided we simply must experience this restaurant called Moto, and so my present was a dinner with the wife (she also baby-sat for us) at a this incredibly hip downtown establishment. The whole thing was a surprise for me...I had no idea where we were going, although I did know that it was all on our friend's tab.

When we arrived, the decor was simple, but elegant. Off-whites, modern but comfortable furniture, and soft lighting was the setting. The menus arrived, and it was clear this was going to be a whole lot of fun. The menu itself was printed on an apple wafer, served next to a piece of asparagus and asparagus puree, accompanied by lemon-truffle creme-fraiche, and a slice of black truffle. There are three choices...the 5 course, the 10 course, and what they call the GTM...we were also ordered by this friend to get the 10 course meal, with the accompanying wine progression. Eating the menu is the cue to the staff that you're ready to order, so we dug in. Immediately the waiter came, took our order (the wife got a single cocktail as she would be driving), and we were off and running.

Greek Salad:
The first course was the "Greek Salad" which was hard to see in the dish we got, but who the hell cares when you're served incredibly tender marinated north african octopus tentacles, accompanied by a puff type cracker made from puree of kalamata olives. It was served with pureed creamed parsley. The accompanying wine was a 2005 Torlesse Sauvignon Blanc from Waipara, New Zealand. It was clean and sweet, without much of palate cleansing acidity I've come to expect out of S.B.'s. Perfect with the dish.

Greek Salad, Again:
The second course was basically a shot of dressing. It was a palate cleansing bouquet of lemon, light oils, and some other crisp flavors that I couldn't quickly identify. It went by too fast to really describe it much better.

Nitro Pineapple:
This was a very good dish. It was two pieces of pineapple, with an allspice type of rub, freezer burned onto a "grill" that had been brought down to -320 degrees F with liquid nitrogen. This paired excellently with a glass of August Kessler Rheingau Riesling 2004, which was actually a bonus glass, according to the staff. Next to the cold grill was a plate containing a lightly fried piece of black sablefish (an atlantic catch) served in two sauces/purees that I couldn't identify by taste, but which were delicious. The slight crisp to the fish was amazing, and a good pairing with the buttery soft texture of the flesh. This was perfect with the pairing of the Sayuri Nigori sake (an unfiltered sake with a very floral bouquet). The sake was creamy in texture and taste from not being filtered, and was a good companion to the texture of the black sablefish.

Eggplant Parmigiano:
A "tomato" was fashioned from a sundried tomato gelatin outer, and inside was an eggplant puree with 15 year aged parmesean mixed in. The "leaves" of the tomato were made of basil, and it was suggested that we have a small piece of basil with every bite of the faux tomato. It was a good suggestion. On the far left corner of the plate was a dab of 100 year aged balsamic vinegar. Apparently there were only 3 bottles of it from some guy or distributor named Drake, and they got one of them. The staff suggested just tasting the balsamic on our finger a bit. It was intense. A well aged port kind of flavor dominated for me, and the staff told me there were hints of mediera [sic?] in it as well. At the end of the dinner they gave me a glass of the Mediera to taste, but I confess I couldn't make the tie-in with flavors such a long time after having the balsamic. There was a scattering of young arugula leaves on the plate, which had a nice bite to them, and it was all on top of a parmigiano type spice rub that wasn't rubbed. A pretzel stick cemented vertically to the plate with 15 year aged parmesean was delightful. This was the worst wine pairing in my mind, which is not to say it was bad at all. It was a 2006 Cote-De-Brouilly Beaujolais. It was very very good with the balsamic vinegar, but not as good with the other items in the dish.

BBQ pork and beans:
This dish was quite good, and marks the beginning of the main course type dishes. One of those morsels of meat that is incomprehensibly satisfying given its size. The kale was actually delicious! I say "actually," because I've never had good kale before. It was steeped in flavor, but I have no idea how it was cooked. It sort of informs me about kale though...the next time I cook it, I should maybe treat it like something that's supposed to absorb flavors, as it doesn't stand well on its own. The beans were tasty, but weren't as remarkable as the pork. They were good mixed with the meat. The wine was a pinot noir.

Pasta and Quail:
A high end play on the comfort food end. Moto's version of Mac and Cheese may well have been my favorite dish of the evening. On a small amount of denatured macaroni with 5 year aged greuere cheese, a delicious piece of crispy quail was served. I would describe quail as a light version of duck. The meat was incredibly tender, but not as fatty and thick as duck tends to be. Not a bad thing, that, but I just thought it the best way to describe it. A white truffle powder was sprinkled over the entire thing, and the dish was dominated by the flavor of the quail and of the truffle. The mac and cheese part were more of the canvas for the dish. I think this wine was my favorite as well. It was a granache wine (Betts and Scholl, Barossa Valley).

At this point, I was truly close to the peak of a gastronomic high. When I've been eating really good food, and getting a delightful buzz on from good wine, a smile starts to creep onto my face that I'm not really able to remove except by a strong exertion of will. I wasn't about to go and do that, so I was starting to grin like a damn goon at this time.

Braised Duck:
Roadkill platter! I find it great that such a good restaurant doesn't take itself seriously. I think that is part of making really good food. It's supposed to be fun. This was pulled duck meat "splattered" on the plate with beet puree making for a puddle of blood. The road lines were made with a yellow bean puree. Gin foam scattered on the "carcass" was the unfortunate creature's brains. Hawai'ian volcanic rock salt (by itself intensely delicious!) was the asphalt. I was almost starting to giggle now, I was so intoxicated with the meal. The dish was served with Muga Reserva, Rioja 2004. I remember it going quite well with the dish, but not much more detail than that.

Grapefruit:
A respite from the intensity of the main course. This was something like a jello shot, actually. Gin and tonic was encased in a grapefruit semi-solid gelatin, which was placed on a spoon. Underneath the spoon was a pile of grapefruit vesicles (seperated by hand!) next to a grapefruit foam served with a bit of sweet coconut candy.

Popcorn ball:
I kind of lost it on this one. This dish went by fast, but it was hilarious. There's these two balls of candy in front of you. A soft candy outer shell was encasing a very sweet sugary liquid that somehow managed to have a popcorn flavor (in a good way). The thing that made me start laughing a little insanely was that they managed to have the thing full of poprocks, so soon after eating one of these, my mouth was full of poppy crunching noises.

S'mores:
Dessert was great. A flourless chocolate cake was formed into a hollow ball which contained this graham cracker flavored syrup. The dessert was actually set into tiers, with the cake and syrup on the top level just next to a ledge. Underneath the ledge was a "pool area." The diner's job is to cut into the cake, letting the syrup drain into the waiting pool below, which was formed by a loose arrangement of marshmallow and graham cracker. The drinks served with dessert were a very young tasting port (Sutton Cellars, La Solera 2nd bottling) and a glass of mediera which I was supposed to compare with the 100 year aged balsamic that they served earlier in the dinner. I didn't honestly make the connection between the mediera and the vinegar, mostly because they were a bit too seperated. Too many flavors inbetween. The mediera was awesome though, and I was insanely intoxicated, both by the wine and the food.

A fantastic birthday present!

42.4 Miles

2008-06-01T13:50:00.002-05:00

This week. Lots of stuff going on, running still isn't at the forefront, but 40+ miles ain't bad, I suppose. The clock's now ticking towards closing on our house, which is a really sweet place. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing (else) goes wrong, and that the place will be our's (or our bank's) in a matter of weeks. We'll have our own private pond, 7+ acres (with a trail going around which I'll mark out 400m), and oodles of other great stuff.

In the meantime, I have a serious running goal looming in the future: The Triennial, a trail relay along the Fingerlakes Trail which is very close to where we'll be living. It's tough to train specifically for this at the moment, since there are no serious trails to speak of in Chicago, but some decent aerobic building should be good, and I'm going to try to be hitting the weight room from time to time. Technical trail running really is a significantly different sport in comparison with road racing. There are muscle groups that you never knew existed until after a good trail race. The stabilizers are heavily recruited. When we arrive in NY, I'll have some time to hit the trails and get some good tempo style backwoods running in.

I'm starting to look forward to my new job, too. Teaching is something I really need to get back to. It gives structure to the life of research, which is inherently unstructured, and stop and start so far as progress is concerned. It will be busy though, and it's going to take some time to find out how to "git 'er dun."

Anyhow, now that home buying stress should be leveling off, I want to try and get back to the grindstone so far as training is concerned. 60+ weeks would be nice. We'll see what I can manage.

World Record!

2008-05-07T21:16:00.004-05:00

So have I mentioned that I'll be working in the same department as a former world record holder?

I will be!

Indoor mile, female 45-49 age group. Pretty cool.

So I wasn't tagged, but I found this interesting. I really liked Tusca's. Here's my unsolicited "six word novel":

Walking feels wrong, so I run.

I could explain it, but it's fairly transparent. The thing I liked about these is the fact that there are usually lots of ways to interpret just six words, and these interpretations will likely vary from person to person based on experience.

Hemmingway's is pretty damn dark...copied from Tuscaloosa:

For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn

Running is happening. I often have been skipping the watch, and I haven't been logging, but I'm keeping it up about 4-5 days a week. 30-40 miles, probably.

Offer -- Counter-offer

2008-05-04T09:28:00.003-05:00

Round one of home offer is complete, buyers losing. With a pretty reasonable opening bid, only a bit below what we know they paid for the place, these bastards counter-offered with a sum only negligibly below their asking price, which is over 10% more than what they paid only a few months ago. Good luck to them trying to find a complete sucker.

Unfortunately, we really like the place. We might not bother moving to another home. So we put our cards on the table, told them what we're willing to pay, take or leave. Hopefully they'll come to their senses.

I should run today, since I haven't the last two days. A little air will do me some good. More sleep would do me better, though. Getting the boy to sleep has been difficult these days.

Identify Yourself

2008-04-30T20:55:00.003-05:00

"I'm a physicist, a runner, and (most recently) a dad."

This is what I wrote to shortly and sweetly identify myself. The middle one is not really a very big part of the picture at the moment. That's not to say I'm not identifying myself as a runner any longer, but in life's ebbs and flows, running is in a cryogenic freeze these days.

So what's been happening that I might let this blog fall off? The three weeks in Santa Barbara were extremely productive physics-wise. I've got a really cool new project that I'm working on now because of it. I also "learned" to surf (I at least managed to stand up and ride a wave as far as it would take me). Then I had family visiting as soon as I got back. The next weekend was this most recent one, where the whole fam went on a house hunting/interviewing/job settling trip. My wife interviewed for a job (and got it! She rocks!) We found a house we love, and are now trying to put together an offer that will chain us to a hefty mortgage. A couple of decisions remain, but the paths are narrowed down to all the most promising ones, and everything is looking sunny, to our great delight.

I ran with some old friends, and had dinner with some others. Very good fun. Realizing we're really sick of Chicago has been an important step.

So why the title? We've been struggling to identify ourselves these days. What kind of place do we want to call home? Are we the type of people who want to live in a little friendly neighborhood? I don't think we are, in the end. I'd rather live on 7 acres, build a trail-style track around my land, swim in my pond, and chop wood than get together with "the guys" for poker on thursday nights or whatever. I guess for some of the same reasons that I chose a rather solitary pursuit as a hobby, I'd rather keep the neighbors at a decent arms-length.

So to wrap things up:
Sorry for disappearing so suddenly.
I'm still running a bit (a nice 4x800m 2:42 - 2:37 -2:35 - 2:37 yesterday).
Shit's still crazy, but it's all good shit.
Hopefully I'll post again sooner rather than later.

Still Alive

2008-03-22T17:04:00.003-05:00

Yo.

Things are nuts. I've got a job offer from those interviews last month, so I've been on a crash course about faculty negotiations, and I've been trying like all hell to finish a long overdue publication. The bigger negotiation, however, is the one involving the family. Do we move? Does my wife stop her current program? It's hard not to feel like a dick, dragging her around the country like has been happening over the past 8 years.

I've been running a bit. I miss a day here and there, but 50 miles a week isn't terrible.

This week I got back to something resembling what Will had me doing before I hurt my back, got sick, and traveled afar for the interviews. I think today was the first day I felt like I was really getting back into things. I ran too fast though.

It was supposed to be WU 1600 in 5:40 1600 jog 4x(1600 400rest) cutdowns from 6:10 to 5:55. The first two "hard" miles were spot on, but I was running into the wind, and on a slight incline. The remaining two hard miles (I'll get to the lost #5 in a moment) were then 5:40 and 5:35. I didn't feel like I was pushing it though...3-2 breathing and pretty smooth. Then I unfortunately had an "emergency" and had to find a private spot in a very public area. Bloody hell. I couldn't bring myself to resume the workout, and, full of shame, I jogged back home.

Thursday was also right on, the 200-400-600-400-200 workout all at 4:48 pace. My pacing was just about exactly on for those, and it didn't feel tough at any point.

Tuesday's workout didn't happen...in an emotional rut due to all the stress lately...I ran it on wed instead. It was okay....8 miles at 85%. Very windy conditions, 6:30-6:40 into it, 6:00-6:10 with it behind me. Not that great.

Looks like the Shamrock shuffle won't happen for me, which is a bummer, since it's been my big spring race for the last two years. Oh well.

I head to Santa Barbara, CA in a week. Fun in the sun, here I come! I'm gonna miss my wife and kid like hell.

Crawling Back

2008-03-02T12:22:00.002-06:00

Hola Amigos. It's been a while since I rapped at 'ya.

And if you don't know Jim Anchower, that made no sense to you at all. It's been a couple weeks of insanity, and very little running. I was sick as anything for my first interview, and still recovering through the second, but I managed to get in about 24 miles this week. The first two runs were rough, since my lungs still hadn't completely healed, but this weekend I got through a couple 8 mile runs lung-pain-free. My weight is still really low. Part of this is surely lower plasma volume due to de-training, but a large part of it is probably also bad diet during my travels, and poor appetite due to illness. I'll probably rebound soon.

7.5 minute miles feels kind of tough after 5 of them (at least tougher than it should), but I'm sure I'll be fine again after a week or so of training. My hope is to get back on the 3 week cycles after this coming week. My plan is to just do 50 or so miles of easy running, and then hop on to a maybe slightly modified program.

The storm is mostly over at this point, so hopefully there won't be any major setbacks for a while. It's tough to keep up the running when there are so many other things going on.

Week:
Wed 4 easy - pretty lousy, but felt a little better mentally afterwards

Thu 4 easy - still not great, but better then Wed

Sat 8 easy - felt okay, but was tired after 5 miles

Sun 8 easy - felt okay, but same as Sat...

A Few Moments of Calm

2008-02-23T20:27:00.000-06:00

Running has not existed since last Sunday for me, and that run was probably not a good idea. I've been extremely sick for the past week, and the two of those days were spent in the psychologically grueling experience of an interview for a university faculty position. I woke up Thursday morning feeling the worst I have in a long long time. I have a feeling, though, that this was more from overdosing myself on various cold medicines to get myself through the interview process than anything else. I also stepped on the scale this afternoon, which read an eye-popping 142.6 pounds. This is at least 5 pounds below my normal low end fluctuation in weight.

Hopefully I'll be back to running soon. The sickness is clearing out now, although my tubes are still pretty scratchy. If any of you have Riccola stock, you might want to sell now though, and buy back once it stabilizes again after my candy sucking spree.

I actually slept (off and on) until 1-2 pm today. That was pretty awesome. The whole family was all napping for the whole morning. We're gonna have to make that a Saturday tradition until R grows out of it.

So running....last run was Sunday, weather was really nice (which is why I went out against better judgement). It was about 4 miles, and I didn't even bring the watch.

It's gonna be a little while before I'm back up to speed, especially since I've got another interview this next week, but hopefully I'll at least be healthy by the end of that.

Thank you kindly for the bum-rub

2008-02-11T12:30:00.001-06:00

So yesterday I cashed in on an old gift card for Spa Nordstrom that my wife gave me for our anniversary some 6 months ago. An hour of full-body deep-tissue massage seemed appropriate given my recent meltdown. It was an interesting experience at the spa...a little too frilly beforehand. I didn't feel 100% right being the only male in the pre-massage room sitting on a bunch of oversoft chairs with my feet soaking in some herbal tea or some crap like that, but in truth it was very relaxing, and I didn't care. The massage itself was just awesome. The masseuse spent a little extra time on my calves (which have been giving me trouble in recent months), and on my stabilizers (read "my ass"). My IT band also had an up-close-and-personal with the woman's knuckles. No surprise to me, my upper back was also pretty tight from doing mind-numbing calculations and editing my presentation 12 hours a day. I was a little sore in a couple spots afterwards, but nothing too bad. I could definitely feel the scar tissue in my left calf for about 40 minutes after, so that still needs some work.

I ventured out for a run this morning, and it went pretty well. I didn't keep it super easy, but I didn't run hard either. 6 miles at 6:50-7:00 pace. I really needed a generic run to get my mood up again, and this did the trick. I probably should have been running 8 minute pace, but my brain needed a recharge. My back didn't feel bad at all, so hopefully I'm just about over this little setback.

So thank you, stranger who rubbed my bum, and thank you, wife, for the great present that I put off using for far too long.

A Perfect S*** Storm

2008-02-10T10:05:00.001-06:00

So I'm out of the running picture this weekend, and next week will probably be fairly laid back. After a speed workout last Thursday, I pinched a nerve, or something, in my upper back. An attempt at jogging on Friday resulted in pretty severe spasming and pain. Ibuprofen has done a good job of helping with the pain, and presumably the swelling and inflammation. Hopefully I'll be good enough to jog tomorrow.

This is in the middle of the wife and son both being sick. His fever was terrible for us to go through, especially since he had an infection when he was 10 days old, and the hospital experience was *NOT* a fun one. He's also old enough now to get very scared in hospitals. Thankfully the fever faded pretty quickly, but now it's replaced by the less stressful, but still very non-fun stuffed up baby. The biggest issue is that the little guy needs his nose to breathe while he eats. Most of you guys have kids, so I'm sure you're familiar with all this. So we've had the humidifier going full blast all week.

It's also in the middle of me trying to finish a project and get this job interview together. Tough stuff this week.

So this week has really sucked runningwise. I've only run on Tuesday and Thursday, and the little 3 miler jog on Friday.

Oh well. Time to get back to work.

Stop...Nanny Time

2008-02-02T12:28:00.000-06:00

even more awesome than Hammer Time. We had a new nanny start this week to help out so my wife can actually work on her Ph.D. She seems absolutely great. Like night and day compared to our last nanny. Now we have to make sure we can keep her. Boy's sleeping habits have been adjusted slightly, just in time for the nanny to be able to put him to sleep for naps. Phew.

Yesterday we woke up to another 5 inches or so of snow on the ground. Ugh. It's a big sloppy mess in my neighborhood right now, and nobody seems to be interested in plowing our street (it's been two days, and still nothing). I've been doing too much running on the indoor oval and treadmill, so my Saturday aerobic intervals were done on the lakefront path, despite there being a cm layer of snow everywhere, making it pretty slippery. I was extremely surprised to find myself hitting the prescribed paces, and even a little faster.

2m WU
1600m (5:28) 1600m rest
3x(2000m on 600 rest) with the 1st mile of each 2000 at 6:11, 6:08, and 5:54
20 min CD

HR averages were 167 - 164 - 170 - 172 for the timed miles.

The other workouts this week were pretty decent.

Thursday saw a 4x(300m fast, 300m rest) 49s-49s-50s-51s

Tuesday saw a 10 miler at 80% (6:32 pace)

The other days were recovery / strides.

Tomorrow will add a 15 mile long run to the week, putting the total precisely where it has been for the last 4 weeks...60.X miles. I've been a little disconnected from the other posts this week. Getting to be crunch time for these talks I have to prepare.

I got yo' Hadd test right heeeah!

2008-01-27T12:03:00.000-06:00

Bizzizzatch!

I was pretty psyched on my long run today to find that my pace at 65-75% has dropped dramatically. 131bpm put me at 8:10-8:20 pace, 140 put me at low 7:40's, and 151 put me under 7. This is compared to 9min pace, 8:10 pace, and 7:30 pace, respectively, 2 weeks ago. For reference, my max HR is probably about 203 (taking a measurement from 3 years ago and subtracting 3). It just happened...just like that...all of a sudden. It's interesting to note that I'm now the "magic" 6 weeks into training again. Daniels and others have said that 6 weeks is the time it takes the body to adapt to a given training load. 3 weeks of that have been under Will's instruction, and the 3 weeks before that were 60-70 miles a week of aerobic running. We'll see what happens after another 3 weeks. My resting HR has plunged as well. I'm back under 40bpm again, for the first time since last winter.

Thus ends the first 3 week training cycle.

I'm fairly used the pattern now:

Mon easy running with strides at 5k-10k race pace

Tue hard aerobic run (8-10 miles 85% or 80% respectively)

Wed recovery

Thu mini-workout - mile race pace intervals 200m-600m in length + easy running

Fri recovery

Sat focus workout - tempo/speed/10k drill

Sun long run - 15 miles starting at 65, slowly building to 75%, 12 if 10k drill on sat

The 10k drills are the major workouts. I had my first one yesterday, and it went fairly well. Yesterday was 400m at goal 10k pace, 400 float (6-7min pace). Every 3 week microcycle, the length of the on parts increases, so in 3 weeks I have 800 on 400 float. Eventually, this gets all the way to 1600 on, 400 float! This will be sometime after the Shamrock Shuffle in late March.

Food is the topic of the week it seems. Part of being an athlete seems to be an obsession with food. What do I eat to be healthier? What about to be faster? I've come to the conclusion that nutritional science is too young and complex of a field to take much of the recommendations seriously. I do my best to stay as far away from foods born from recommendations made by the diet industry

I'm kind of tired of hearing people say "Calories in = calories out! It's so simple!" While the first part is true, in principle, the "simple" part is complete bull. Metabolism and appetite are extremely complicated things. People understand some parts of it, but the complex interaction of different food products with the human body seems very poorly understood. For now, I'll stick to "real" foods, stuff that great-grandma would recognize as food, and try to get a good share of veggies. I think that's good enough.

Have a great week everyone!

The White Stuff

2008-01-26T15:59:00.000-06:00

Just keeps coming. The temps were real low the second half of this week, and there was a good hard snow on Monday night. I ended up running on Tuesday for 10 miles at a pretty hard effort, running over a minute slower a mile than I would have on flat, non-snow-covered ground. Thursday's mini workout was 6x200m with 200m float inbetween. That was run at a temp of about 3 deg F. Yuck. Wed and Fri were recovery, and today was the Saturday bear workout.

I wanted to head to the indoor track again, but varsity softball girls were practicing...so back to the damn TM for a hard workout. 6 miles of 400 on (1:20) 400 float (1:40 avg). This was tougher than last week's workout, but not gut-busting until I took the float parts faster (1:37) in the last couple miles of intervals. Having a friend running next to me helped, but conversation was somewhat limited as I got to the later stages of the run.

I've managed to complete destroy my Leopard installation on my new mac (I'm used to linux as a primary OS, and there it's pretty damn hard to do something that will not allow your computer to boot). By attempting to downgrade Quicktime to an older version that could handle flash, the system was completely hosed, so far as I can tell. This is the best way to learn how to do things with a computer though...kill it and fix it...kill it again, fix it again. Very time consuming though.

How do you folks put your kids to sleep? Our boy is 5 months now, and we're trying to wean him from needing to fall asleep while feeding. There doesn't seem to be any other way that he'll go to sleep except crying himself out of consciousness, and this is exceedingly painful for all involved. Any ideas?

Third Time's the Charm?

2008-01-21T20:14:00.000-06:00

It was cold again on Sunday. 4 deg F when I eventually left the house, -12 or so with windchill. 2 hours out in the cold was on the agenda. I dressed up, and hit the road, where dressing up involved wearing wool socks. At about halfway through my 15 miles, my middle toe on my right foot started throbbing a little. Uh oh. This is the toenail that I've lost twice already, once after a 20 miler in racing flats that were a tad too small, and the second time on a very humid day when I raced a half marathon. Every time it comes back, it's just a little bit uglier.

Maybe this time it's just going to decide that enough is enough, and not bother growing back. Not like I would deserve any better, the hell I've put that little guy through.

The cold wasn't actually that bad. A few times the wind was on my face, and it was annoying, but otherwise I was dressed plenty warm enough. The toe is still pretty unhappy, and will probably be splitsville in a couple weeks. Hope I didn't ruin anyone's dinner.

Today:
6.5 miles or so, mostly on grass with 4x200m strides on the Jackson Park track (41-40-39-38). Pretty nice progression down in time as I loosened up.

Sun:
15 miles starting at 65%, working up to 75%. Kind of tired by the last 4 miles.

Running Fast, Going Nowhere

2008-01-19T13:19:00.000-06:00

Weather said "3 deg F, -15 with wind chill," and I replied, "&*^% you very much!"

I was going to do todays pre-10k drill workout on the indoor track, but an invitational was happening, so no go...headed to the treadmill to do an equivalent workout. Will said 6x(800m (2:48) 200m rest 300m (57) 300m rest), and I said, that's just fine. I felt pretty good today, and I didn't even get bored on the TM, what with the pace switching up so much. I started the .5 mile repeats at 5:36 pace (1.5% grade), and eventually took the pace down to 5:27, since I was feeling good. The "300"'s started at 5:07 (probably should have started a little faster...57s is 5:04 pace), and I did the last couple repeats with 5:00 pace. I just sandwiched the 300's on at the .6 mark of every mile, and kept it up for 1:00 at pace.

The other workouts this week were pretty chill.

Wed
~50 min easy (65-70%)

Thu
2m WU, (400m - 400 rest - 600m - 400 rest - 400m - 400 rest - 200m) (70.1s - 1:52.3 *ugh* - 71.2s - 35.1s) - 30min jog
Weather was terrible. Rain and snow during the day froze about 200m into the first 400m due to a sharp drop in temps. Track ended up pretty slippery. Wind was 19mph or so. Workout wasn't so bad considering.

Fri
~50 min easy (65-70%)

I finally received a computer on order for work, so my productivity will be increasing, which means I'm gonna be busy as hell the next couple weeks. Publication deadline, and a few major talks in the next month to prepare. My first colloquium...that should be fun.

Just in Time

2008-01-15T19:46:00.000-06:00

Saturday's workout was pretty tough. The times Will lay out for me were 2 wu, 1600 in 5:36, 1600 jog and then a slower set of cutback 1600's with 400 rest, ending with a 6:00 final 1600. Then 20 minutes of jogging afterwards. I was feeling a lot too frisky at the starting line of the first 1600, and blew out a 37.5 sec. 200...nope...I'm not gonna make a 5:00 mile happen on this one, time to slow it down a bit. I ended up hitting 5:32, so the rest was more or less on pace.

Then 6:24, 6:10, 6:04, and 5:57. Not too bad. I was happy with the workout, but I was feeling pretty flat by the end. Another 2-3 miles later put me at home. Later that night I felt the soreness creeping on, and by the next morning, I was stiff as hell. The Sun long run went okay...I ran the first 4.5 miles at 9 minute pace, but I could really feel my hamstrings. There was a lot of microtearing in them, especially on the right side. I slowly picked things up from 65 to 75 percent MHR over the course of 15 miles, and was running 7:0X by the end, although there were definitely some twinges.

I relayed my slight worry about the tightness to Will, and he calmly asserted (if one can assert in any way but calmly in an email without using all caps) that with the Mon easy run + light strides, I'd be 95% by Mon night, and ready to rip out a good Tuesday workout the next morning, just in time. Sure enough, the pain was light by Mon. night, and completely unnoticable when I hit the indoor track this morning for 8 miles at 85%. The weather was cold, and there was a slick layer of snow on the ground. A scan of the treadmills at the gym showed that I had too many undergraduate girls to compete with for space. I headed over to the indoor track, despite the wear and tear that 128 turns in 8 miles can inflict.

Again, I was too big for myself in the beginning of the workout. The first 1600 went by in 5:42...yikes. I put on the brakes a bit, ran 5:57, 6:00, 6:06, and then took things back under 6:00 for the remainder. 47:36 for 7.95 miles = 8*(1600m). The lactic burn settled in at around 5-6 miles, but my body learned to love and accept it, and I loosened up again a bit later. A lactic acid stomacache over breakfast was my body reminding me that I shouldn't be so rough on it. Overall, it was a really nice workout. My legs feel fine 12 hours later, and tomorrow's a nice relaxing easy jog. Tremendous hills, deep deep valleys... Thanks Will.

How to Run Easy Days?

2008-01-11T22:09:00.000-06:00

This has been the hardest part of the schedule so far. My body just doesn't feel right when I try to run at 65-70% HR. Too much clunking around, and I never get to hit a stride. It's fine, since I get lots of opportunities to run fast in this schedule, but I just thought it was interesting. It could be that I just need practice, though, and I'll become more economical at these efforts. My pace literally varies by a factor of 2 between the fast reps and the beginnings of easy runs.

Yesterday was pretty easy, with some 300m repeats thrown in, and today was a slow jog on the treadmill to get ready for tomorrow's somewhat tough workout.

Runs:
1/9/08
Very easy 49 min jog, a lot of it on grass. Kept HR around 135.

1/10/08
2m wu with a couple 100m strides to get loose, then 4x300m with 300m-400m rest (50.9 - 52.0 - 50.8 - 49.8) and then an easy 30 or so minutes, keeping HR below 150.
( Will's been reading the blog, and pointed out that only the Monday workouts are supposed to be scaled back a bit, hence the 1500m pace stuff again ).

1/11/08
Jog to gym, jog 4 on treadmill (since it was well after dark, and my neighborhood isn't so nice in the later hours) and then jog back home.

Steady State

2008-01-08T22:24:00.000-06:00

Not too much time to blow...just the basics for now. Will has already pulled back on the reins a bit, and told me to go easier on the 200m - 400m repeats on Mondays and Thursdays to make sure I'm not zapped for the more serious Tuesday and Saturday workouts.

So today was "serious." Unfortunately, I packed everything except the transmitter for my heart rate monitor when I prepared to run from work later in the day, so no technical feedback. I went by feel, and probably went a little too hard, based on the numbers I ripped off (intended 80%MHR). On the Waterfall Glen course (see side-bar on right), I ran 6:22 average for 9.5 miles on rolling terrain, some of the few hills we have in the Chicago area. I kept a 3-3 breathing pattern for everything except for the longer uphills, so I probably wasn't doing too bad. In the last mile or two, my stabilizers were feeling a little sore, probably since the path was pretty rutted due to the recent thaw.

I'm going to appreciate tomorrow's easy day.

One Down, 83 to Go

2008-01-07T20:39:00.000-06:00

Workouts that is, in my 12 week plan leading up to my mid-season race, the Shamrock Shuffle 8k.

Today's workout was great, with the insanely high temps we've had the last couple days. The thermometer read 66 deg F when I went out the door to head to the track for a fartlek with 4-6x200m at 1500m race pace thrown in. I did 3 on + 1 lap rec + 2 on + rest of lap rec + 1 on + rolr, and then got into the 200's. 34.6 - 35.9 - 32.7 - 34.6 - 33.5, and after a couple more minutes of jogging, another 3 on. "On" started at around 5:50 pace, at the beginning of the workout and came down to about 5:35 pace by the end. Total of about 6.25 miles. The 200's are oscillating because of a pretty strong wind from the South, probably the same wind that brought the near 70 deg heat wave our way.

Tomorrow sees me running at 80% MHR for 10 miles. We'll see how the legs feel tomorrow (and the foot after dropping a pot lid on it while cooking tonight's oven baked risotto).

I really love food, by the way. I'm definitely not a run-to-eat guy, just a runner who happens to really like food.

"This may look pretty intimidating..."

2008-01-05T18:12:00.000-06:00

are the words Will used in his email before laying down my next 3 months of training. I have a feeling this is not what Tom has in front of him, since we likely have different strengths to play off of, even if our PR's are scarily similar. The schedule does look intimidating, to say the least. This is how it starts off:

Monday 7-Jan 45-60 fartlek w/ 4-6 x 200m strides at 1500m pace with 400 jog

Tuesday 8-Jan 10 @ 80% (or marathon pace)

Wednesday 9-Jan 45-75 easy (65-70% max)

Thursday 10-Jan 2wu + 4 x 300 (51) w/ 300 jog + 30-40 easy

Friday 11-Jan 30-60 easy (65-70% max)

Saturday 12-Jan 2wu + 1600 (5:36) w/ 1600 jog + 4 x 1600 (6:00) cut downs w/ 400 jog + 20 warmdown

Sunday 13-Jan 15 miles (start at 65% build to 75%)

and it does not get much easier. This looks like 60-75 miles a week of volume, with a lot of rather high intensity running. This is a very small window, of course, into the training plan, and it is open to change. Will is working under the assumption that I'm like other "middle distance" type folks, and I am able to recover fairly quickly from the fast paced work (the liberal scattering of 68-70 second 400's throughout the schedule for example), and so I have a large number of workouts with mile-5k race pace intervals.

This actually looks a lot like a "grown-up" version of what I was doing in high school, sans the snowball fights and tree climbing when we should have been doing recovery runs.

There are some things to be ironed out, but a season is manifesting itself. It will be interesting to see how my body responds to this experiment. I have a feeling it will hurt pretty bad the first week as I'll be recruiting some different muscle groups to do the fast stuff, but that it will become business as usual after 3 weeks. We'll see!

Runs:

Today
1/5 9 miles easy (141 HR avg, 7:33 pace)

1/4 8 easy through snow (145 HR avg 8:30 pace)

1/3 6 easy (7:27 pace)

I've been doing some extra stretching to prepare myself for the faster stuff. It requires a much larger range of motion, which is why I think I get so sore after doing it for the first time in a while. Maybe it'll help.

Waiting with 'bated Breath

2008-01-02T20:41:00.000-06:00

for my workout schedule from Will Steele, (also Tuscaloosa's coach) who is seemingly becoming the "bloggers coach." I sent him an email on New Years Eve, had a 10 message long email exchange, discussing what just the hell I thought I was doing with the training I was doing, and now we're working together on coming up with a plan for 'aught-eight that starts on Monday.

The good news is that I have very good foot speed, so it looks as if I have a long way to go before my aerobic capacity meets my HS 400m PR of 52 seconds. I hope it works like that.

The best part of this so far is that I feel like I have a direction for the first time in a while. Going at this on my own was becoming a bit of drudgery, even though I enjoyed my workouts. I just wasn't up to the challenge of sitting down, getting an idea of the big picture, and coming up with a plan that involved races. Also, I'm certain that while what I had in mind would have worked to some extent, that there is a better experiment to do, based on knowledge that I don't have about what has worked in best in the past for people with my running background.

Anyway, things are off and running well so far. I started a new job today also. New beginnings.

So what happened training-wise in 2007? I missed 140 days of running, and ran a total of 2210 miles. On the days that I ran, this is an average of 9.8 miles. 35 days were double days, so 260 total workouts. Each workout was an avg of 8.5 miles then.
A straight average yields 6.05 miles a day, or 42.4 miles a week.

Last few runs:
1/2 8
1/1 8
12/31 10.3
12/30 8.6

The most recent two were through slow snowy conditions.

Wrapping up 2007

2007-12-29T12:03:00.000-06:00

The year is coming to end, as all good things do. My training was good this year, but not great. I definitely broke through to another level after last winter's high mileage experiment, and something changed with that training that I don't think I've lost, despite the setbacks I went through over the summer, and the life change this fall that hampered training, but could in no way be called a "setback."

My son was born, and life is quite different as a result. The ups and downs of being a parent are exhilarating. When things are good like in the picture from my last post, life is awesome...when he was sick soon after he was born, I don't remember ever being so down. Intense stuff, this life.

My 8k in the spring was a full 1:42 faster than the same race in 2006. I set a ~20s PR in the 5k on a very windy day on a track, on a training run, running solo with my wife timing me.

By Dec 31st, I will have logged a little more than 2200 miles. Almost 500 less than last year, but not terrible given the circumstances of this year. I'll probably put together a "data" post after the new year, so I'll refrain from giving more stats at the moment.

Today's run was pretty darn good. I ran on the asphalt for a change, on the lakefront. Pretty soon I found myself hitting 6:30's, and I stuck with it.

Run:
13.1 with 10 miles in 1:05:20 (6:32 pace)
lakefront (asphalt) 23 deg windy from west
total time 1:27:30
I kept to a 3-3 breathing pattern, resorting to 3-2 from time to time in the last couple miles (where I was running more like 6:15's). I'll note that in fall 2004, I raced 10 miles in 1:05:11, and that was a decent race for me at the time. Neato.

Since Christmas:
12/26 10.4 on grass aerobic
12/27 8.4 on grass aerobic
12/28 10.2 on grass slow recovery

Merry Happy Day

2007-12-25T12:32:00.000-06:00

My son's first Christmas was today. Loads of fun. He made it through about 3 presents before he got fussy, so he's napping now with the wife after we had champagne mimosas while opening gifts. Maybe he'll get to the rest of them this afternoon.

Hope everyone's having a good day. I made it out for an early am run on the grass along the lakefront.

Run:
28deg 15mph wind sunny lakefront path
8.4 miles 59:30 (7:05)

2 Week Streak

2007-12-24T22:21:00.000-06:00

I was recently reading about streak running. No, not this kind...more like this kind. Mark Covert is the current leader, having run every day since July 23rd, 1968. That man has been running every day since almost 11 years before the beginning of my existence. This ESPN article is mainly about a guy named Kraft, but it also mentions Covert in a paragraph. Not only has he been running every day for more than 14,000 days, he's also been averaging 9.7 miles a day while he's at it. Unbelievable. He also finished 7th behind Frank Shorter in the 1972 Olympic Trials Marathon...a rather special year.

I'm not worthy. I've been running every day since Dec 11, 2007.

Run:
~25 deg and a little windy on the lakefront
10.7 miles 1:16:00 (7:07)
almost all on grass

The lake was completely calm as the wind was out of the West. It was almost eerie. Not Erie though. God that sucked.

Coolrunning is Back

2007-12-23T21:42:00.000-06:00

So I've been checking in on the Coolrunning message boards this week, in the hope that order will be restored, and it looks like things are coming together again. AndyHass is back posting, Nobby is still there, and all of the old threads are back (with full search functionality).

While the look of the active pages leaves much to be desired, the part of the CR community that I engaged with seems to still be there.

Today I was hoping to go to the university gym for a treadmill run (17 deg and 40mph winds driving sparse snow was what I saw out my window), but alas there are no students left to swipe my card, and so I headed out into the wasteland. It wasn't actually bad at all. The wind was biting when it hit my face, but I dressed in a full winter running suit I was lucky enough to receive a couple of years ago for x-mas. I wore my old XC Championship gloves from my old team in Ithaca new York..."Upstate NY XC / The Provin' Grounds" screened on the knitting. Good memories. The snow was all gone from the 53 degree weather we had just yesterday.

Run:
cold and windy ... slow on grass
7.9 miles 1:01:45 (7:48)

Week in review:
57.3 miles 7.1 hours 7:26 avg pace

Christmas Crunch

2007-12-22T15:32:00.001-06:00

Procrastinators unite! Okay, so we're trying to do all gifts, send out Christmas cards, and simultaneously clean the apartment up from its current dismal state. The Christmas cards that I picked out without my wife present are apparently hideous beyond all rational possibility, and so we had to go out and buy new ones.

Last night, after the fake tree that I bought made my dear wife cry, I went out and bought the real deal. I'm much happier with the result anyway. The smell of a Christmas tree is just too ingrained in my happier childhood moments to be satisfied completely with the plastic. It's a little tree, but a really full one. It's actually our first Christmas as a family unit. In previous years, we've always traveled to either of our places of origin. Somehow the prospect of airline travel this year just didn't appeal.

Running has been reasonable.

Today:
45! deg wind from south Lakefront Path
10.1 in 1:11:00 (7:01)
Felt kind of crappy on the way in. Probably dehydrated.

Friday:
35 deg no wind
7.75 through snow 1:03:00
Nice run on the snow. Not really anything hardcore. A lot of it was melted already, but there were a few spots with deep drifts to wade through.

Not Much

2007-12-20T11:24:00.000-06:00

to report. Calf is feeling good, I'm behind on x-mas cards and gifts, and a tad hung-over from a party at a friends house last night.

Run was uneventful except for a mid-course pit stop. Trudged about a half mile through the snow on the golf course to see how it was before getting back on the lakefront path. I might do an easy run through the snow sometime soon. I have a very talented Russian master's running friend who swears by deep snow running for improving efficiency. Once upon a time this guy ran 10 marathons in 10 days, all right around 3 hours. I was impressed.

Run:
34 deg Lakefront South light breeze
Aerobic 7.4 miles 54:00 (7:12) Avg HR 158

Philosophy of Science

2007-12-19T08:20:00.000-06:00

“Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds,” said Richard Feynman. I just read this good NY Times article about this bad one among other things. While it is certainly fun to wax philosophical about the implications of some of the equations that seem to describe the universe pretty darn well, it isn't productive scientifically. If it can't be tested, it ain't science. That's the basic litmus test anyway.

The calf felt pretty good today, and the butt soreness I've had from doing the one-legged squats is happily gone.

Run:
Lakefront Path North 28 deg slight breeze
8.3 miles, 57:30 (6:55)

Slow Road to Recovery

2007-12-18T14:00:00.000-06:00

So I felt good yesterday...this means that I didn't feel that good today. I was feeling peppy, and like I was past this calf injury thing, so when I hit the indoor track for what was going to be an easy run, I decided to pick things up for a mile. That mile went by in 5:47, and felt pretty good. The rest of the workout also felt good. Well, except for the fact that I forgot socks to wear, and so I went sans...a couple of hotspots afterwards, but nothing major.

Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning, the calf was tight and sore again. Hence a recovery run this am...mostly 8 min miles.

Today's run:
28F 10mph wind
7.3 in 57 minutes (7:48)

Yesterday:
Indoor track
~8.5 with 1 fast mile (5:47)
mostly around 6:50's otherwise

Cross Training

2007-12-16T15:31:00.000-06:00

= Shoveling 6 inches of snow. Someone was supposed to come and clear up the condo building where I live, but they apparently had an injured foot. I helped out for a while after a morning trip to the gym. Today was a day for the treadmill, I decided, since it snowed pretty heavily last night. It looked like fun to play in, but I decided not to risk injury with a trudge through the winter wonderland.

I don't know what it is with this new neighborhood we live in, but it seems the city really doesn't care about us. The plows have not come by even once on our road, or most of the adjoining roads. Frustration...

Wife is out shopping while I watch the boy. This is a first, actually. She's been really nervous about leaving him. It's really good that she's getting out though. Don't want to make the wife crazy by being cooped up all winter like good old Jack!

Run:
7.5 on the treadmill at the gym. 52 minutes.
Core + weights afterwards, and then about 30 minutes of snow-shoveling.

Slow in Snow

2007-12-15T11:56:00.000-06:00

So I'm starting to compile a list of running map links. This will make things much easier since now I won't have to copy over my bookmark list for every computer that I use (and there are quite a few).

We got a dusting last night, and so today's jog was very slippery. I stayed on grassy areas, since the roads were much worse for traction. It was about as uneventful as a run can be. Lonely windy and slippery, I seemed to be the only fool out there. With the Jackson Park Lagoon frozen over, and golfing an impossibility, there's pretty much nobody who wants to be in the park.

I took one little spill on some ice that was underneath the half inch of snow we got, but it wasn't a bad one.

I'm surprised I don't see other runners on the golf course in general (even when the weather's perfect). It's a lot nicer than the lakefront path, both scenery-wise and weather-wise.

Run:
7.4 miles slow on snow (HR avg 145)
1:00:45

The boy is doing great these days. There's been a recent phase transition, it seems. Suddenly he's realized that there are objects around, and that he can explore them. So he's been needing toys just in time for the holidays! It seems like his learning curve just got really steep all of a sudden, since he's interacting so much more with his environment. I'm sure all you folks with experience in this department already know all of this, but perhaps you remember how cool it was to see it happening for the first time in your first kid.

Hats On to Winter

2007-12-14T15:47:00.000-06:00

Today was the first day I felt like I had to wear a hat. 25 F, -4 C. My butt is a little sore from the weights yesterday morning, but not too bad. Another sign that winter is here is that it is a lot more lonely on the morning runs. There are the couple brave souls that I see out there every day I make it out for a run, but not much more. I just read about this guy. 12,000 miles in one year is *damn* impressive.

Run:
5.5 easy HR avg 155
6:50's

Easy Days

2007-12-13T09:08:00.000-06:00

Well, the day after my last post, my calf was really sore again. Too much too soon, probably. So I took the weekend off, missed monday because it's hard for me to get back in the rhythm again, and have been running easy since Tuesday. I've got to get this thing healed.

On a sad note, a completely out of reach goal has been put even further out of reach. To qualify for the 2012 Olympic Trials, one now must qualify with a 2:19 or better. A 2:19 is quite a bit faster than 2:22.

Runs:
Today:
5.5 easy...running 6:40's or so
weights and core afterwards

Wed
5.5 easy about 6:50's

Tue
5.5 easy about 7:10's

Back Again

2007-12-07T17:54:00.000-06:00

I've been out of the 'sphere lately...mainly due to injury and work. After Thanksgiving, a tempo run strained my calf (the same one I strained a couple of months ago), and I had to take some time off for it to heal. It's just about back to normal now, although it still creeps in during some runs. I'm also feeling a little under the weather at the moment, so I'm keeping this one short.

Run:
7 miles with a 4 mile tempo-lite thrown in
1.5 WU 6:23 (with hill), 6:07, 6:05, 5:57 1.5CD
Felt pretty relaxed and strong.

I've been doing some good strength training in the gym lately. Lots of core, and some weights. I think it's helping, but we'll see. There's snow on the outdoor track now, so I'll probably be heading to the indoor track once a week to get my "running economy" workout in.

The Calm After the Storm Before the Other Storm

2007-11-21T21:43:00.000-06:00

So there's a bit of down time now as we dropped off my sister-in-law and 2.5 year old nephew at their hotel. Due to the nasty weather here in Chicago-land, my brother-in-law won't be arriving until tomorrow morning. My MIL and FIL are fading fast on the couch after arriving a few hours ago. Tomorrow will be even busier though, since I will be stuck driving around more than I expected.

One thing I can say with 100% certainty at this point is that wife and I are NOT ready to deal with toddler + infant. It may be in large part due to us not yet having toddler-proofed the house. It's interesting that something I'm looking forward to so much (crawling, forward progress for the boy) can also be dreaded in some ways.

I've been getting pretty stiff. I think it has more to do with the driving than with the workouts, but we'll see how tomorrow's planned tempo goes (especially with the crappy weather we've been having).

Anyway, enough blogging while under the influence of Fat Tires.

Run:
45 deg raining and very windy
10 miles AM slow (1:17:00)

Strength Training

2007-11-20T21:15:00.001-06:00

Another strength workout today. Did the 4x(200 200 400) workout again, in about the same times as before. Then I headed to the gym for a long core strength session. I worked from Tuscaloosa's links to the running times winter strength training article (and , this one in particular) and added some moves to my routine. The one legged drills were quite nice. I really felt like I was getting something done, especially since I was falling over towards the end of some of them.

Also, I picked up family at the airport, and met with a perhaps future coach. I'll talk some more about it when I get a chance.

An Easy 10

2007-11-19T14:11:00.000-06:00

Not too much time to write anything but the minimum.

Run:
10.2 miles easy
1:18

Did a bit of a progression again, but not as aggressive as yesterday. I ran with a guy who works in the same department as my wife, so things went a little faster in the beginning than I wanted. Due to fall closures of public bathrooms in the parks, I had to pay a visit to a cafe. Thankfully they took pity on me.

Progressions to Progress

2007-11-18T12:31:00.000-06:00

I ended up running another progression run today. This is to be distinguished from a tempo run style progression...I guess I would call it an aerobic progression. I used the heart rate monitor today, and started out very easy, at 130bpm (about 65%), and over the course of 10.2 miles, worked up to 165bpm, or about 82 % max. It was a nice run, and it left me feeling refreshed.

My wife's family is making it into town this week, so it's time to scour the apartment, and make it look like we live like self-respecting citizens. Welcome to turkey week, everyone.

Run:
42 deg F windy
10.2 miles, 1:19 (7:45 pace, although much faster/slower towards the end/beginning)

WEEKLY TOTAL
74.5 miles total at an avg of about 7:40 pace

Thanks for Nothing

2007-11-17T11:38:00.000-06:00

I already railed about this on a post on coolrunning some time ago, but I'm going to vent again. What is wrong with people's minds that they get it into their heads that a perfectly nice hard packed trail through the woods needs to be "improved" by dumping ton upon ton of that grey gravel bike path crap on it?

I'm referring to the Sag Valley Trail system in Palos Hills, Illinois. This ongoing project to "fix" the path (I run on the yellow trail) is a complete and utter failure. Even their intended purpose of making the footing better on the trail has backfired. This is due to the somewhat heavy use of the trail by people walking their horses. The new gravel stuff is churned right up by the shoes on the horses, leaving a path full of pits. The footing is now awful.

To add to this, they seem to be adding fancy bridges over streams that were never more than a tiny trickle. The heavy use of the path by construction vehicles has destroyed sections of the woods adjacent to the path (probably where they're turning the vehicles around). Just ridiculous. A large expenditure of effort and money to ruin something beautiful. Thanks for nothing.

The run went well:
38 deg F no wind
16.2 miles over somewhat hilly terrain
1:55:30
I ran the first half slow (62 min), and picked it up quite a bit on the second loop, (53:30).

More than a Hobby

2007-11-16T21:35:00.000-06:00

I really enjoyed a recent post by Mike. The first paragraph was especially poignant, and I think it would be for many of us runners who have chosen to go above and beyond weekend warrior status to really see what we are capable of. The line that really got to me was: ...this running thing is still way more than a hobby.

I thought of it as I laced up my shoes after a morning physics workshop meeting, and headed out for an easy 8-9 mile run. I also thought of it as I was grunting with effort in my fourth minute long plank hold while doing core work at the gym this evening. Yeah, I guess it's a bit more than a hobby.

You can tell I'm getting tired when I just summarize somebody else's post. Goodnight.

Run:
42 deg F and windy
11:30 am
8.5 miles easy, 1:01
GI issues...probably due to weird schedule today (up early to get to workshop before first talk, and running close to noon, rather than early am, or before dinner)

Later:
7 min jog to gym
1 hr of core and weights
7 min jog home

Sleep, Relief, Farts, and Fartlek

2007-11-15T10:44:00.000-06:00

For the first time in the past few nights, I slept somewhat restfully (save for a 5am waking due to my son explosively passing gas, at which point I was voted most able to change a diaper). The soreness of the past few days was making it hard to get to sleep and stay that way, but now I'm pretty much over it. Time to tear myself down again!

The workout this morning went very well. I ran an aerobic fartlek on the lakefront, and stayed on grass. I'll also make this an opportunity to give a shout out to the newest Nike Free's, the 3.0, which are fantastic. They are worlds better than the 5.0 (no more stupid stretchy sock heel material, more flexible, much lighter, lower heel). The only beef I have is that they pick up sticks and rocks even more than the 5.0's, but this is the price to pay. I wear them on grass, and on the track. They are perfect for those venues. They don't work on trails where there are mid-sized rocks...they almost punched straight through the sole when I tried.

Run:
38 deg F, windy out of north
8.4 miles with 4.5 miles of aerobic fartlek on grass
1:01 total time
5x(5min on 1min off)

I clocked a half mile split at 2:46?! on the second to last repeat.

Finding a Coach

2007-11-14T21:52:00.000-06:00

So I may join Tuscaloosa as a non-school afiliated runner with a coach. We meet on Tuesday, and we will go over some of my plans and goals, and how to modify former to achieve latter. It should be interesting. He's got over 30 years of experience with triathletes and just plain runners. He seems to value core and strength work a great deal...something I definitely need to work on (seeing as it still feels like there is still an animal trying to claw it's way out of my abdomen from Sunday's workout).

Anyway, we'll see how Tuesday goes.

Run:
10.2 Easy jog on grass
1:18:30
HR avg about 150 (just for aharmer ;-) )

DOMS

2007-11-13T15:51:00.000-06:00

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness...is what happens when you throw an hour of core and weights at a body that hasn't seen them in about a year. It feels like somebody has been trying to force open my lower ribs with one of these things.

Running seems to help it, as it does many injuries. My chronic achilles tendonitis is actually absent when I'm running more than 50-60 miles a week, but it is terrible after a week or two off. Nobby has suggested on coolrunning that this is due to increased blood flow. That is probably part of it, as well as the flexibility of muscles and connective tissue that increases with training. Sometimes rest and recovery is not the answer, but it can be hard to pinpoint when this is the case.

Today's workout was another 4x(200m - 200m - 400m) with full recovery.

Run:
58 deg. 15mph winds out of south
8 miles total with 4x(200m - 200m - 400m)
1:10 total
33.3 - 34.5 - 72 - 34 - 35.4 - 71.9 - 35.5 - 35.9 - 72.6 - 35.2 - 34.1 - 69.2

The wind was a factor on the finishing stretch of the 400's, but not a big one. I'm happy with this workout, seeing as I'm still recovering from the weight session on Sunday.

Again to Carthage

2007-11-10T16:30:00.000-06:00

So I've been out of contact for the last few days. Traveling with a 12 week old is not as relaxing as I thought it might be. Overall he's a great kid though, a real trooper. The only tough spots were getting out of the house, and getting back in at the end, so I can't complain. Anyway, here's my rather crummy review of Again to Carthage. I just don't have the time to do this awesome book justice, but hopefully I'll whet your appetites. It is a must read for every person who calls themself a runner, just as "Once a Runner" has become.

I purchased the book last Thursday night, and had finished it at 2am Saturday morning, just hours before the start of the men's US Olympic Trials Marathon. As with "Once a Runner," "Again to Carthage" is going to be a cult running classic. The novel continues on with the story of Quenton Cassidy, the runner who had been to the mountaintop and back. The runner who has submitted himself to the Trials of Miles, the Miles of Trials and come through with a trinket, an Olympic Silver medal from the 1500m.

Quenton has left running competitively, although goes out for the occasional 5 minute per mile "sanity run." No longer are zeroes in the running log viewed like tumors. 10 pounds of weight have decorated the body that, years earlier, had no part which would interfere with the fluid motion of running. Quenton is living his life, and is a successful lawyer.

While "Once a Runner" was a story of Cassidy the boy, Again to Carthage is certainly about Cassidy the man. The story is much darker. There is politics. Friends are lost. In the whole damn mess of it all, Quenton begins feeling his own mortality, and questions his place in the world. He decides to make another go at olympic glory, but in a much different kind of race. Quenton again submits his body to the day in - day out trials of rigorous training.

Denton is back again, as a friend, and as a coach. Andrea makes cameos. The issue of doping is brought up in a very amusing scene. The final race is told in chilling fashion, and I have to admit my eyes were not completely dry by the end.

There is no question that this is a book that is close to, if not the superior of "Once a Runner." It is the story of the incredible comeback, which I have a soft spot for.

I strongly advise you all to find your way to your local Fleet Feet Sports, and get a read, or wait for it to finally be available on Amazon (the end of the month, I think?).

Workouts the past few days:

Nov 9
10 miles high aerobic on the hills of Galena, IL after a long drive.
69 minutes
It was quite dark by the end, and I came close to getting myself good and lost. A fun run, but extremely hilly. My knees were visably swollen after the run from taking the steep downhills a bit too fast.

Nov 10
5 easy in the AM
Hungover from partying too late with graduate students in genetics the night before.

Nov 11
7 easy after driving home
was going to do a long run before leaving Galena, but I decided my knees weren't going to like it much, so put it off until after the drive home.
Did weight training for the first time in months, and now my lateral muscles are sore as hell. Once upon a time I could bench press 225 pounds at the meager weight of 145 pounds. Once upon a time...

For a rather crummy week of 45 miles. I was hoping to hit 50-55, but scrapped the long run plans on Sunday AM.
Time to begin a new week.

Nov 12
10.2 easy in the AM on grass
1:19
avg HR 147

Last 400 is always fast

2007-11-09T10:13:00.000-06:00

So I'm backlogging workouts. This week has been rough with a local physics workshop, and my wife having a deadline to make a poster to present at a retreat we're going on this weekend (also work related). Blogging is the first thing to go, I guess, if I'm short on time.

Wednesday's workout went very well:
35 deg F slight breeze sunny
10 min jog, 10 mins of drills
4x(200-200-400) (sound familiar?) with only one 200 over 35s, the rest 33's and 34's. The 400's were 71,70,68,65
15 min cooldown

I felt pretty good, and there's none of the soreness that I had after a similar workout last week (this speedy stuff recruits a few different muscle groups and requires a bit more flexibility than the normal basebuilding workouts). The main point of my doing these workouts is not to train any particular metabolic system, but more to work on neuromuscular connections and strength. To become efficient at faster paces, I need to run at faster paces. So the rest between intervals is very long. A little less than 2min between 200's, and a little less than 4min between 400's.

Thursday:
42 deg F light breeze sunny
1:00 jog, with a friend in town for the workshop
probably about 7.5-8 miles
Kept HR under 150, but under 145 for the most part (aharmer will be proud!)

I'm struggling with the Again to Carthage review. I want to give it a great one, but I also don't want any spoilers in there. I'll have lots of free time this weekend, I'm hoping.

Goose Eggs and Baby Boys

2007-11-06T15:46:00.000-06:00

Today is a zero, or a goose egg so far as running today is concerned. I was planning a day off at some point this week, so it might as well be the day that I'm coughing up unmentionables.

Today is my son's 12'th week birthday, and he's doing great these days. He's about 85'th percentile for weight, and a little above average for length. His smile is awesome, and his laugh is one of the funniest things I've ever heard, an uncouth mixture of open mouthed snorting and bleating that may be responsible for a respectable percentage of global heart warming.

I can't wait until he's old enough to watch his Daddy race. In the meantime, today's exercise consisted of a walk through the park with the boy in a sling type device, and embarassingly avoiding the stares and smiles evoked by the maternal instincts of passing female strangers.

No, no, not in the chest!

2007-11-05T11:09:00.000-06:00

Okay, so now this annoying little illness that's had me under the weather the past week and half has made it's way into my chest. So tomorrow is off, and this morning I had myself doing the slowest running I've done in a while. My son caught a little bit of it, but seems to be better now, and the wife is so far healthy.

My mantra this morning was "Run Easy to Run Hard."

I kept my HR under 140 (avg 138)

Run:
49 deg F slight breeze
7.5 recovery miles, 1:03 (~8:26mpm)

I working on my review of Again to Carthage, so keep tuned. I actually finished reading it on Friday night, about 32 hours after I purchased it, and 5 hours before the start of the olympic trials marathon.

Getting in the Groove

2007-11-04T21:52:00.001-06:00

Today's run was one of those where in the first 50 steps, you know it's going to go well. The weather was perfect this evening, just a bit before sundown. Not too chilly, and just a bit of a breeze out of the north. For this reason, I opted to go to the bike path, run on asphalt for a change, and do a measured aerobic run to evaluate my fitness after these 4 weeks of training. I kept my HR under 165 for the most part (80% of max), and ran 7 marked miles out of a total 10.

It's great when things align like this...your form and rhythm are just right, and your steps feel effortless despite the tempo. Getting in the groove is a big motivation for running for me. When these days come along, running is a complete joy. I don't think you can get the same feeling without banking the miles. It's a gift from the running gods for the hard work that you've done. And, more importantly, a gift from my wife and son, who let Dad take out an hour each day for an admittedly anti-social hobby.

Run
10 miles aerobic running
2m buildup to pace
2m 13:14 (HR 161 avg)
2m 13:05 (HR 163)
2m 12:46 (HR 164) wind now to my back
1m 6:27 (HR 164)
1m cooldown back home

I'm very happy with this (esp. after the 71 mile total in singles for this week...more than I've done in a while).

So now I'm at my target mileage. I'll see-saw again these next two weeks, and then try to remain at 70mpw for a bit doing a 2-1 or 3-1 base to recovery ratio depending on how things go.

Triumph and Tragedy

2007-11-04T20:23:00.000-06:00

Saturday was a crazy day for me, so here's my Olympic Trials Marathon post a day late. It was well worth waking up at 6am on a Saturday morning, that's for sure. I went to NBC sports, and was able to get the live streaming video working correctly using Mozilla on an aging and close to non-functional laptop (IE just failed miserably).

The race went out slow, and things were bunched up for a while, but then a few of the "hopefuls" broke loose and started running some respectable mile splits (around 4:50-4:55). This group was made up of Hall, Ritz, Meb, Abdi, and later on, Dan Brown. During the race, they announced that Ryan Shay had been taken away in an ambulance, which definitely gave me pause, but I didn't dwell on it.

Sell hung back in the chase pack. Eventually, Cox, and then Khalid Kannouchi broke away, and started giving chase to the lead pack which definitely could have become interesting. Cox wasn't in it for long, and KK was doing a good job of eating up ground on the lead pack. Then at Mile 17, Hall changed the race. He dashed up a hill, and in the course of about 1 mile put 20 seconds or so on the pack. A few tried to give chase, but there wasn't much hope. Then the pack fell apart. Ritz did the best job of maintaining the gap that Hall just kept building. Abdi DNF'd, and Meb had trouble holding form due to calf tightness. Dan Brown similarly had some issues (and even stopped at one point to stretch) and eventually sacrificed his third place rank. Sell just ran "slow" and steady throughout the race, and it paid off as he eventually passed KK and Brown.

Hall was in a class of his own the second half of the race. Throwing in a 14:28 5k from 30-35, and running a 1:02:47 second half...an incredible negative split. That performance has to strike much fear into the hearts of his international competitors in Beijing. I just don't know what to say about him. He looked like he was out on a darn workout. His form was loose and completely relaxed, even in the final miles. It was like he didn't even run the first half of the race.

This glorious moment didn't last. It was soon learned that Ryan Shay had in fact dropped to the pavement with a heart attack, and was pronounced dead at the hospital soon after. I was in complete shock...here was as prime of a human specimen as you could find, 28 years old and in contention for a spot on the olympic marathon team. I just can't understand how it could happen, especially with the slow early miles of the race. Hell, my 5k time is faster than the time they ran for the first one...it should have been a walk in the park that soon in the race. Something doesn't add up. What was so special about those 5.5 miles compared to the thousands he's logged over the course of the years?

At any rate, this really shook me up. We try and project ourselves onto our heroes, measure ourselves against them, and their goals in a way become our own. To see the dreams of such a hero dissolve in the worst way possible is a blow. To those who knew and associated with Shay the grief is, of course, far more real and shattering. Along with the entire community familiar with Ryan Shay, I offer my condolences.

Run:
45 deg. F slight wind
16 miles at a very slow pace on grass
2:11 (8:12mpm)

Kept HR below 140 for first 8, under 150 second 8.

A Family History

2007-11-01T22:28:00.000-05:00

Alberto Salazar has been all over the news lately with his recent spat of heart troubles. Most recently, John Brant (author of Duel in the Sun, the famous story of the 1982 battle between Salazar and Dick Beardsley in the Boston Marathon) has written a fantastic NY Times article about Salazar's life, his world-view, and the brushes with death that he has had.

This set of stories has brought to focus one of my reasons for keeping up with running and overall fitness. Many runners have at some point heard of the Fixx phenomenon. Jim Fixx, author of The Complete Book of Running, became an icon with his inspiring story of going from an overweight 2-pack-a-day smoker to a fitness guru. However, a massive heart attack during a 1984 run in Vermont ended his life at the relatively premature age of 52. A genetic predisposition as well as his mid-life health transgressions may have played a significant role, as his father had suffered from a heart attack as early as age 35 (and died at 42 of another cardiac arrest).

Salazar has a similar genetic background, and (so far as I know) did not have a period of very unhealthy behavior besides his tenacity, and willingness to sacrifice himself for his racing goals.

I'm now 28 years old. My father at age 52 already has a stent put in, after suffering a heart attack at age 50. My uncles on my father's side (there are 4) are not faring that well either. My grandfather had several bypass surgeries (although he survived to a rather ripe old age). Genetics may not be on my side. The episode that I described two posts ago really scared me.

Can I outrun my genetics? I don't know the answer. Fixx might have left this world at 45 had he continued on without turning his life and behavior around. I do know that I want to be around a lot longer than 22 more years. I feel like running is doing something good for my body even if it occasionally sends me into the red-zone (or drives me anemic).

While less running would probably do the trick of giving a layer of protection, it's not in my personality. To be honest, I have to say I probably wouldn't run at all if it were only for my health. I'll save motivations for some other day.

Run today:
1pm 55 deg. F slight wind
10.6 miles moderate effort
1:12 (6:47 avg)
Just felt like going kind of hard today. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I plowed through 106 pages of Parker's new novel last night.

Things are looking grim weather-wise for our strongest men marathoners tomorrow. 45 degrees, 27mph winds, and rainy. Things look better the next day. I'm really looking forward to seeing Paula racing again.

Not in the Chest

2007-11-01T08:42:00.000-05:00

There's a rule of thumb for running while sick. The "rule" is this: Go ahead if the cold is above the neck, but take some days off if the cold is in your chest. Fever is the trump that says no running no matter where the cold is. I've been feeling a little under the weather for the past week, but in the last two days the symptoms have reared their ugly heads...thankfully above the neck. 10 miles yesterday was just fine.

Happily, the boy and wife don't have what I have (yet).

I let myself sleep in a little later this morning, so I put in my run after work. It was actually a nice run, and it was the best I felt all day. My sinuses cleared out, and I kind of got into a groove.

After the commute back to the city, I stopped by Fleet Feet and picked up my copy of Again to Carthage, John L. Parker's sequel to the cult running classic, Once a Runner. It's still pre-order on Amazon, but Fleet Feet Sports has advance copies. Also, Fleet Feet is the only place I know of where you can get brand spanking new copies of the original book, Once a Runner, for cover price. Look forward to a review sometime in the near future.

Today's Run:
5pm about 55 deg. F no wind
8.2 miles 59:30 (7:12 pace)

My Heart Works!

2007-10-31T09:45:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd put into writing what I went through earlier this year with doctors, big machines, and radioactive isotopes in my bloodstream.

Background:
I'd been running quite a bit over the course of winter '06-'07. I maxed out at 112 miles per week, and averaged over 100mpw for 4 weeks straight. Coming out of winter, I was feeling awesome. I had started adding tempo runs, and was hitting 5:40 pace with my heart rate below 175. I ran a 16:41 5k on the track while my wife filmed and timed me. A week later I ran a 27:01 8k.

One more week later I was toast. I couldn't run tempo anymore below 5:55 pace or so, and I felt like crap doing it. The temperatures were fine, but I couldn't muster aerobic runs below 7:30 pace without feeling like I was pushing it.

I scheduled a doctors appt, convinced I had a some early stage anemia. The numbers were:
RBC 4.70mil/mcL (a little on the low end of normal)
Hemoglobin 14.9 g/dL (right in the middle of normal)
Hematocrit 44.6 % (right in the middle again)

Iron panel:
Iron 88 mcg/dL (low end of normal)
IBC 277 mcg/dL (low end of normal)
% saturation 32 % (middle range)

Ferritin 27 (below normal range of 30-300)

This was all after about 2 weeks to a month of recovery period where I was just resting and recuperating. It looked like I might have had some mild anemia.

But...they also did an electrocardiogram to check my heart out, and there were some abnormal readings. This set off lots of warning bells for the doctor (they don't like having 27 year olds who have funny ECG's). So they had me go in for some more advanced testing.

The first test was a transthoracic (through the chest) echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of the heart. This was maybe 2 weeks after the first visit where the bloodwork was done. They took all kinds of pictures and videos of my heart in action. I also brought along my own blank CD, and they gave me the complete data set as well (I was going to mail it on to other doctors in case there was bad news...and get a second opinion). This is fun to look at. Thankfully the test came back with normal results. No problems there. The doctor wanted to make absolutely sure though.

So I then went in one month later for a nuclear stress test. It sounds like something that goes on at Los Alamos National Lab...but the procedure was this:
At rest, they inject me with a trace isotope which follows blood flow, and they are able to see how blood gets to my heart at rest. Then when the imaging is done (under a rather claustrophobia inducing device). Then they put me on a treadmill and try to take me to maximum exertion. This was fun. I lasted 20 minutes on the TM before they decided I was done (I had at least 3 minutes more left in me!) and injected me again with a new isotope. They were really impressed with my treadmill test...apparently Michael Jordan only lasted 16 minutes. The imaging was repeated, and now they had a picture of how blood was getting to my heart when it really needed to do some work.

Again, no problems, and I was given the free and clear to run again. This was great news, although I was disappointed to lose so much fitness in the meantime. At any rate, the fatigue issues were mostly gone by this point, and now I was just out of shape. For completeness, I also got my cholesterol profile done:
Total 156 (optimal < 200)
HDL 54 (optimal > 60)
Triglycerides 74 (optimal < 150)
LDL 87 (optimal < 100)
Again, no issues, although it would be nice to get the HDL up higher.

After all this, I put in a month of decent training (50-60 miles a week). I ran a HM in 1:19:14 which wasn't that bad considering I hadn't been training very much. Then my son was born. A few days off, and I tried to get back. Then my little boy spiked a fever, setting off an awful chain of events that happily ended well, and will maybe make for another post later. But that killed running for another month.

I've been back running for 3 weeks now, with mileage of 52 - 63 - 52, and all seems to be going well. I'm trying to decide what exactly I'm training for at this point...do I run Boston, or do I hold off until fall for another marathon, and pick up where I left off this spring. That is, do I spend some months working on my speed while building up more base. I'm currently leaning towards the latter. I don't feel like running a marathon again until I think I can go under 2:40, and I don't think I can do that until I have a low to sub-16 5k, a 33:30ish 10k, and a 1:15ish HM.

Run this morning:
7:40am (late) about 55 deg. F medium wind
10.2 miles easy, 90% on grass
1h 15 min (about 7:20 pace)

I felt really tight and sore from the workout yesterday, so I started out pretty slow, but gradually found my stride about 3-4 miles in.

The Principle of Least Action

2007-10-30T16:17:00.000-05:00

The principle of least action is a concept which has proved quite useful in physics since the days of Isaac Newton. Essentially, the principle is a statement that whenever the universe does something, it does it in the laziest way possible. In flat space, the "best" way to get from point A to point B is a straight line. The action for a particle (or field) is a mathematical function of things such as its velocity, and by minimizing this function, you can derive the previous (rather obvious) statement.

This is a horrible way to live your life, however, so far as I'm concerned. We know that point A is birth, and point B is death. I'll leave point C up to whoever has knowledge about such things (as a devout agnostic, I firmly believe that the set of such people has measure zero).

So one of the principles I try to apply to myself and the points between my own personal A and B is a principle of most action. I'm a theoretical particle physicist, a mediocre runner, and a father of a really awesome 2 month old baby boy. I commute about 2.5 hours to work. I'm trying out this blogging thing because I also like writing, and writing is something that I don't get a chance to do much of in my other occupations.

I'm choosing not to put up my name just so this page won't show up under a web search of my family name. I have my reasons. Any reader could find out who I am through 2 minutes of homework anyway.

I'm not going to go into detail about my work. I'll let that part of my life just manifest itself as an unbearable geekiness in my writing style. I'll probably focus on my running and the experiences of fatherhood, and the struggle to make it all somehow work.

A quick runner bio:
In high school I ran "middle distance," and this is when I posted my 800m and mile personal bests. I grew up in Massachusetts, and ran for a Division I high school that was a testosterone-fest run by the Xavarian brothers.

In college (California) I ran for about 1 month, and then quit to focus on school work and trying to maximize the time spent not doing schoolwork. I resumed halfway through my Ph.D. program in the land that letsrun.com now occupies (about a 6 year break), and took up longer distances since nobody that isn't elite or in school trains for anything shorter than a mile in the US. Since then I've run as much as 112 miles in one week. I've run a few marathons, but I've only left one 26 mile and 385 yard long course with my dignity intact.

I ran this morning:
7:30 am 48 F
14 minute jog to track
6 minutes of drills
4x(200m - 200m - 400m) at mile race pace with equal distance rest
Times: (34.6 - 36.6 - 73.6 - 35.3 - 36.4 - 71.0 - 35.6 - 36.1 - 70.3 - 34.6 - 34.3 - 69.0)
15 minute cooldown

I called it 8 miles for lack of anything better.

I also did lots of sit-ups. I have an 8-pack. Maybe if I do enough, the hair on my head will grow back.