Thursday, September 27, 2007

An Ian Marcus Experience

9 Workout around IF. Did 3X4min with 2:30 rest. Felt good to get the legs moving , but my upper body seemed really tired. Felt much better than I have the last few days, but I didn't feel particularly fast or tough. I hate to blame the Chic-fil-a shake, but I crapped my brains out. I did strike out against the coporate world by hitting up the starbucks bathroom. Unfortuatley I also struck out against some poor person's lawn. Either way it was good to put in some work. I met Andra and Quincy who were out playing flag football. Some terrible frat is in going to get absolutely lit up. Felt pretty good on the warm down. I think I can start going to the well a little more.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

No I will not go out with you

6. After work and pretty tired, so when I ran into another guy running quickly I overlooked his heart rate monitor and asked where he was going. He was a nice guy who just started a job as vice principal at an elementary school. I ran his 4 mile loop with him which he hammered. I've been feeling really slow and I figured I was just tired and a bit sick. After running with this guy I'm worried that if some yahoo trying to break 3 hours for the marathon is the one pushing the pace he's either hammering or I'm in even worse shape than I thought. He ended up peeling off after a few miles, I think because he was hammering and wanted to cool it, but not in front of me. All in all, it felt more like asking a girl out in junior high than I would have expected. I should have known when I saw the heart rate monitor. A shame, it would have been nice to have someone who was willing to run when I got home from work.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Le Tour

7 after work. Frustrated, so I ran a little fast. Breathing still a bit labored and some general fatigue from yesterday and being sick. I did some strides on IF and raced some girl in a golf cart. I did not win.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Kinda Long Run

13- long run on the greenbelt with Dave and Steve. Nice and cool to start. Good run although the greenbelt is still pretty wet. Still feeling a pretty sick and not really sleeping.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

I left my car downtown

10 with Owen out Scenic (a quiet paved hilly loop) to town lake and back to my car. I've deputized myself the czar of making sure Owen runs slow on his easy days. He's doing 90 minute recovery days so it's the least I can do to jump in and run slow. I'm a bit sick too, but didn't feel terrible at that pace.

Also, my watch came in the mail! It is awesome. Now I'll start saving up proofs of purchases for some micromachines.

Song of the week

Lifter Puller- Nassau Colosseum

Singer Craig Finn and his buddy were watching a Grateful Dead show at Nassau Coliseum. Halfway through the show his buddy starts tripping balls and throws up all over Finn and everything else. After fleeing the scene, Finn drove around trying to calm his buddy down. When driving didn't work, they snuck into Ninja Turtles II. After some overblown, if genuine concern about Donatello, Finn finally got his buddy back to earth.

Nassau Coliseum is an outdoor venue in Long Island (last line of the song) nicknamed the "Nassau Mausoleum” in the 80s and 90s for its state of disrepair and "Bust Palace" in the 70s for the frequent drug busts. Considering Nassau Coliseum, was released on Half Dead and Dynamite in 1997, Craig Finn was probably at the concert during the Mausoleum era although it sounds like he was in on the Palace scene as well.

The song starts as a relationship dirge about boozehound romance. It moves to the fallout, the accompanying binge--the euphoria (bigger than Jesus), bottoming out and then the realization that you were never able to get away.

Finn idolizes the Replacements, another bar band from Minneapolis. The Replacements drank themselves to death while touring and treating their fans like shit. Lifter Puller was also a hard drinking bar band but they genuinely appreciate their audience. However, there are a few exceptions: the hippies, the hipsters the indie kids.

Hippies are clearly the villains in Nassau Coliseum, stealing girlfriends and casting themselves as martyrs. In the Hold Steady song Positive Jam, Finn calls out the "sniveling indie kids" and the "clustered up clever kids" who I take to be the hipsters. By rejecting the dominant groups that make up his audience, Finn pulls a reverse sell-out refusing to ground his music in the tired worldviews of hippie martyrdom, indie know it all-ness, or hipster superiority.

Instead, Finn's music comes from the everywhere and nowhere place of a hard living drifter. In Nassau Coliseum, Finn travels from Jamaica to Alaska, from being kicked out of concerts to kicking kids with cops. The only constants are uncertainty, an inability to boil the world down into a worldview and an ultimate ideal of hanging out.

*Finders fee goes to Welsh and Ring

Friday, September 21, 2007

3 IF loops

5 Easy run around IF with Owen after work. It's getting cool enough that running easy around 7pm doesn't' seem like a life or death struggle. Pretty sore from strides and some new exercises. I think I'm also getting a little sick. Now I feel like less of a pussy for having an easy week.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Coming up with a plan

7 mile tour de fields. I did 6X strides uphill. Really more like plyometrics since the hill was so steep. I'm going to try to do some easy running and strides this week. I'm usually tired from my job, so I'm going to try to combat that by running slower on runs by myself. It doesn't feel any easier, but it's bound to be good for me. There is a big 10k in Austin in about a month. I'm thinking of trying to set a reasonable goal (somewhere between 33:00 and 33:30) halfway between embarrassing and ok and trying to get motivated about it.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Fat Camp

5 miles with Owen and Jimbo. Felt bad for calling Jimbo out for the yuppie love fest that is Austin running. He organized a 5k I won on July 4th. He claimed that they didn't make any money despite the fact that 550 people ran, it was $25 bucks each, and there were no porta-potties. He claims that after all the comps, costs are pretty high. I just feel like Austin (or at least Run-Tex race organizers) would rather comp 50 18:30 tri-athetes (and not me) than offer up a few bucks for quasi elites. I really don't think it's a coincidence that Western Mass has a few teams at club XC nationals and Austin (supposedly a running hotbed) has none. This is the reason I haven't been running road races in Austin, not the reason I'm in shitty shape.

Did strides and a few exercises after the run. When it's pretty hot out substituting supplemental things for a few miles is pretty easy.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Sweet Mother of God



-6 warm up with Shaw, Nark and Tom. Got accused of hammering, didn't feel very good. Terrible night of sleep. Embarassing race with splits of 455,508, 510sh. My legs actually felt pretty good and it seemed like my breathing was the weak point. Usually I have the opposite problem. Great weekend, but a shitty race. I can't blame the race on the few "coffees" I had the night before or the bad night's sleep. I think I just didn't have what it took and I knew it.

I'm going to keep running, but do a little scheming on a gigantic plan and a daily schedule that make sense for where I am right now.

Saturday Shake out

5( No running on Friday) Ran around in Wellsley. I actually found a some trails that made me realize just how much I miss running in New England. Actually felt better than I excpected trying out Owen's flats for some strides.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Song of the week

I'm jumping gun a little bit here, but I'm headed back to the northeast this weekend and may be incommunicado. It was hard to resist "shipping off to boston" or "the ice of boston" or "for boston." But, I've been listening to this song a lot lately. It reminds me a lot of Andre 3000's great "love in war." As a whole I think this album is undermined by Kanye trying to outdo himself. I think art is a little like faith, if you start thinking too hard it just slips between the cracks. This song epitomizes that theme; "what will I do now that I'm happy/famous/ with nothing to prove" Usually when a rapper discusses their fame it's their last good album and a last ditch effort to shake off the bed bath and beyond boredom. I hope this isn't the case with Kanye. http://www.box.net/shared/bii69qkyez

7 at 7

7 Did tour de fields with Owen, Dave and Raul this morning. Felt better than I expected after the kind of tough, kind of long day yesterday. I've been stealing Erik's protein powder trying to make shakes then follow them up with a sensible dinner. According to my stomach, karma is on a pretty short cycle; it doesn't help that my sensible dinner is usually a burrito. At least it gives me something to do at work.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The Hills!

12 ran with the guys and bombed a workout. Guys did 16 X 200 uphill and I only did 12. We started out around 42 second pace and worked down to 35 by the time I'd had enough. Just didn't have the zip to stay with them. Had to go to work instead of doing the tempo, but that probably would have been a little too much milage this close to the race. I think I would have done a little better doing a tempo with them on the track. Not an encouraging workout, but about the effort I was

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Stormy Weather

(3/7) Got up to do the workout with the Texas guys but after watching Dopplar, Vig called the workout off. I cursed them all for pussies and started running home. Then the skies fell in. It was like Zeus himself was after me. A motion sensor light came on at the end of my run, I thought it was lightening and almost shit myself. Ran 6 in the pm with Sullivan. We realized that we're both as fat as we've ever been although, push come to shove, he's fatter than me right now.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Easy Shoal Creek

8 with Dave in the early evening. It was a little cooler than expected and I felt a little better than I thought after a hard thursday and friday. Thinking about a workout tomorrow, but I need some good sleep, we'll see how I feel.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Easy IF Run

5 with Craig recapping last night. Some high school girls soccer team gave us some gentle heckling. Since it's about a one mile loop I told them to think of something clever we'd be back around in 10 minutes. Fortunately for us a couple of them think sexy dances are clever.
Craig said this happens to him all the time in New York.

I'm going to start doing song of the week. The Handsome Furs are a Dan Bockner (co-singer in Wolf Parade) side project. http://www.box.net/shared/anhhm0b612

Friday, September 7, 2007

Trial by Fire

14 kinda with the team. 1.5 miles with the team @5:15 pace on town lake then ran 6min pace until 4 miles. Felt pretty hard though. Legs pretty tired from yesterday. Then did 4X300 in 52 200 in 50. Good to get the legs moving. only did 4 because I had about 3 miles to home, I think it's close enough to the race that I have to be thinking about recovery and I had to rush to make it to work. Tough day if not too encouraging. Going to take a few days really easy.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Town Lake Lizzle

13 6:30AM Town Lake loop with Owen. Picked Dave up at his house. I was unexpectedly a little tired from yesterday's easy run. If I can get in a routine after the race where I do a few runs like this a week, I'll be in bangin shape pretty quickly. I think I wanted to go the fastest out of the three of us, but only because I had to make it to work on time. I don't think we ever ran under 6:45. Good run although feeling a little more tired than I should be. I just checked out the roster for the race in Providence and there are a lot of guys about as good as me, hopefully they're in bad shape too. Right now I think the over under is optimistically set at 15:20. Not good.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Greenbelt with the team

9 miles part on greenbelt part on town lake. Felt great after an ok night's sleep and a couple days off. Unfortunatley I can only really run about an hour, then I have to go to work. I tried waking up early to get in a good 15 minutes beforehand, but no dice.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Town lake loop

11 at 1pm. A cool day, but still hot. I ran in sunglasses not because it was light out, but because the light hurt my eyes. Pretty tired from boozing. Decided to not run long and save it for a workout on Tuesday. Calves are so sore they feel like they shake independently like tits. 60 miles this week. I'm taking such shitty care of myself I'm not sure I'm getting in better shape, I'm just getting sore.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Run with Dave

10 Mr. Burnham said the magic words "I don't want to get up early." Ran out to town lake did the 4 mile loop. Ran into Habben who got us some gatoraids from the team room. Got water at every opportunity and ran nice and slow.

Fila Relays

8 or 9 miles. My friend Raul called me to sub for him on his relay team. The Race is 4X2.5 miles on the roads around Zilker Park. I didn't know my team until right before the race. I wore the black hat; it was like a blind date. The team was me, Justin, Meg and Dee. They were all really nice. I think Meg was my favorite, she is an ex-cheerleader who now recruits software engineers. I'm pretty sure those nerds don't know what hit them. She got so excited during Dee's leg that she busted a cheerleader move. I led off, getting dragged out a little too fast by a Ugandan who died about a mile in. Afterwards he proudly told me that he "wanted to make the race hot." Through the half in 2:20 then no splits till the finish where paul got me at 12:23. I kind of ran like a bitch, I got 4th, but I didn't lose to any triathletes. Not bad considering I only got about 4 hours of sleep. I forgot my flats and I had to come right from work so I ran in dress socks; I too made the race hot. I think our team was 3rd in the coed devision and 1st in the "not wearing a douchebag uniform and visor" division.

Better than I expected. I think with some flats, a few workouts and sleeping a few hours I can keep the pace up for a 5k and put my hand on 15:00's ass if not take it home.