Today was really bad, a bad run. I should have gone to Nate’s house for soccer & beer like he suggested, instead I almost managed to give myself heat stroke on the side of the river. In retrospect, I also should have eaten breakfast or lunch before starting out. The only thing that saved me was an espresso flavored Gu I found in my water belt, of questionable vintage. F’ing ghastly nasty stuff, but it worked. Seriously, I’m very grateful for that bit of disgustingness, coming over the Eliot Street bridge.
ps. Daily Mile says I’ve burned off 117 donuts in this training cycle. I find that encouraging. You can track me there, if you’re the kind of person who enjoys adding extra manual encouragement into the mix.
I’ve made an executive decision that hiking miles count towards marathon training goals despite not technically being running. The reality is, I am the boss and get paid the big bucks for these sorts of decisions. Six of this week’s total were of the mountain climbing variety (my photos from our long weekend to Acadia are here, the one I’ve used for this post is stolen from hondo’s massive set).
This week was pretty abysmal for running, weekly goal less than half met. But regardless, here it is. Thanks, accountabili-buddies.
Today was an interesting day – I scored Marc’s # for the BAA 10K and ran the Warrior Dash in Amesbury. Of the two, the latter was by far more difficult. My legs are tired, my body more dirt than dirty.
Still trying to get my numbers up. Next week will be better, if less exciting.
Despite their URL, the official name of the Baltimore Marathon is the Baltimore Running Festival, which is fortunate, from an acronyming perspective. Today marks the end of week 1 of 18 weeks of preparation for that event (you can follow my training here). Today is also Father’s Day – to celebrate my dad & I went to Fenway last night to watch the Red Sox lose 4-2 to Milwaukee. We had a pretty good time, I think it’s the first game we’ve been to since 2009, when my old people came to San Francisco & we went to see the Giants beat the Braves. The highlight last night might have been the bus ride back to Allston where we sat behind two moderately to highly inebriated Irish kids, one of which was sporting a 5cm wound on his scalp from an injury of indeterminate origin. The discussion centered around whether the proper solution to such a situation was a trip to the ER to have it stitched up, or whether “lots more beers (and vodka!)” would make things better. Given their professed lack of health insurance I believe they went with the latter option. I woke up this morning wondering how that dude was feeling, & glad I was not him.
Despite LZ being gone off & about in France this past week, I’m little short for week one. Next weekend, the Warrior Dash!
I don’t have a lot to add to the most excellent and less excellent… :O liveblogs my people have put up about Ragnar. The race itself was a challenge unlike any I’ve done, fairly difficult physically but also requiring a different sort of social navigation than a typical day for me does. Being stuck in a van with some semi-strangers for 36 hours requires not getting angry, or making anyone else angry, despite lack of sleep and free will. I woke to leave Boston at 3:30am on Friday and didn’t have any real sleep until I found myself napping on the grass outside some suburban Chili’s late afternoon post-race (this guy eventually woke me up).
One thing I was particularly happy for was getting to run with a different set of friends, people I hadn’t necessarily run with before but who I hope will stick with it and race with me again. Next year – and I’m pretty sure there will be one – I’d like to run another relay out west, say Ragnar in Las Vegas or the original in Utah. Or Hood to Coast. Hopefully a bit faster than almost DFL, but either way. In the meantime, my sights are shifting back to the BAA.
If you haven’t seen and would like to, here are some other photos from our race. A short video is forthcoming.
This is my last weekend prior to Ragnar; the next week will entirely be subsumed with details and preparation. I’m more than a little nervous, as we’ve probably forgotten something critical for the team’s (or my own personal) success (OMG WHUT NO SOCKS?!?!). Fortunately, this past week YJP flew into town so my small training pod (& dog) could have our first non-virtual run together, a leisurely 6 miles around Brighton Saturday.
To revisit the concept – Ragnar is a massive relay race, 12 runners, 191 miles, ~30 hours, New Haven to Boston. We start at 9am on Friday morning and run straight through until Saturday afternoon/evening. My friends and I been talking and planning and scheming about this race for most of the year now. Each runner gets three legs (mine will total around 16 miles) and off we go. I was reading through the race bible and came across this bit which I rather hope comes into play at some point.
15.L) Wildlife/Open Range Rules
If a runner encounters any wildlife that are aggressive on the course, get your runner off the road and into your
support vehicle. The vehicle should drive ahead and let the runner out at a safe and reasonable distance ahead of
the wildlife to continue his or her leg. Keep track of how far your van drives ahead by .10 of miles and report the
mileage and speed traveled at the finish line (reporting forms will be available). We will take your team’s overall
average pace, the mileage and speed driven and adjust your team’s time accordingly.
Anyway, if you’re interested in following along with the race you can here on quasify until I run out of juice on my phone, or possibly on my long abandoned twitter account.
I’ve got a pretty good one. Sorry for the rest of ya’ll. Hondo explains it better, but a belated happy momma-day to her too.
Also, since it’s Sunday, a brief Ragnar update. I’ve switched legs with VK such that I’m now runner #5, 17 & 29. This thankfully cuts about 4 miles off my total distance (much appreciated dude). So if you want to see me, here’s the mongo map (pdf). Given our 9am start time on 5/21, you might expect to find my slots starting around these times:
Leg 5 12:14pm, 5/21 6.0 miles
Leg 17 09:33pm, 5/21 6.4 miles
Leg 29 08:00am, 5/22 5.2 miles
A sad but realistic mileage sunday today – a fat zero miles this week. I’ve got two braces for it now though, and things seem to be improving. But tomorrow is the day I’m planning to treadmill test and hopefully will be able to decide if I have to withdraw from Ragnar.
MILEAGE UPDATE: April 19-April 25
Miles to date
Past week
Three week average
Annual pace
Miles to go
140.1
0
5.6
444.7
859.9
In better news, LZ and I got to kick around both at Walden and the Public Garden this weekend.
I had intended to go to work this morning but my bus wasn’t able to cross the race course in Coolidge Corner and the next think I knew I found myself down by the Prudential watching the elite men and women. The best thing I learned today is that the Robert K. Cheruiyot who won is not the same person as four-time champion Robert K. Cheruiyot.
Anyway, some of my photos of the race got used here, possibly interesting, or possibly I waived my creative commons rights for no real reason.
On to the inevitable accountability. I ripped something in my right ankle last Wednesday, putting my entire Ragnar master plan in a moderate amount of jeopardy. I’m going to give it another week before I try to run on it. Cheers teammates!
I went up to Vermont this weekend (forgoing both my Saturday and Sunday runs), so pre-emptively, the miles below are mega-suckage.
Things I learned up on the farm:
1) Maple syrupin’ season is over for the year. You’re all too late.
2) Wide angle lenses (#4, check!) rock my socks. Particularly useful for covered bridges.
3) NH is considerably less attractive than VT.
4) Hungarians get really excited about Tokaji.
5) There is a limit to the amount of sharpness I want in my cheddar cheese. The 8-year “rat trap” sample? Too strong.
6) I’m not embarrassed to admit I drink my tea from a dainty cup.
7) Pygmy goats are less evil than the normal sized buggers.
8) Maija may very possibly (and lamentably) have it in for my parents.
My ankle isn’t working right. There’s a sharp pain on flexing my foot upward, quite noticeable when doing crazy out-there stuff like standing up from a chair, walking down stairs and trying to stand upright on the bus. So I took Sunday off to eat chocolate eggs. WEEKLY TRAINING GOAL FAIL. WEEKLY CHOCO QUOTA EXCEEDED.
I’m still under 20 miles for the week, but it’s within spitting distance. Given her gimpiness last week I didn’t bring the dog along very much, just the last short one yesterday. It’s really dawning on me that she’s dang old. There’s no other 80 year olds lining up to run with me. Instead I let her sleep in then come along on a hunt for pre-passover hamentashen bites.
The goal for the forthcoming week is to do both morning and evening runs on the same day day, twice.
After last week’s lethargic effort, an improvement in my mileage this week. At almost 20, I’m finally close to where I needed to have been back on January 17th when I started the 1000 mile goal. It may seem like I’m too far behind pace to reach that goal, but I’m not. With 40 weeks to go in 2010, I’ll have to bump the generic weekly goal up to 23 or so. In other good news, I scored two new pair of kicks at the New Balance, at 25% off the outlet price. Those should carry me through the rest of the year.
The major, major bummer of the day is the critter seems to have developed an injury of some sort. She wouldn’t let me finish our 5 today, stopping on the homestretch. I thought I was going to have to carry her the rest of the way home – she didn’t even want to walk after stopping to rest. Tonight she’s moving with a considerable rear-leg gimp, having trouble walking and getting in and out of the car. I’m hoping things will be better in the morning but if not we’ll have to go see the vet. Either way it’s a sobering reminder of her age and mortality. It’s also making me rethink my whole “make her run the whole damn thing” plan for Ragnar.
Not a good week for training. It’s been (understatement) raining, and I’ve been unpleasantly sick. So instead, I made cookies with a recipe I stole from Jenny at Snackreligious.
Nutella Cranberry Crisps (hazelnut) — I don’t do a lot of recipe development, but I did create these cookies based on a simpler chocolate cookie recipe. I wanted something with Nutella and something using dried cranberries. After a little internet searching, I decided to combine the two, base it all on a recipe that called for melted chocolate (but substitute Nutella) and see how things tasted. I made a couple of test cookies before I stirred in the entire amount of dried cranberries, and found that I was willing to take the plunge. (adapted from this recipe)
10 oz. Nutella brand chocolate hazelnut spread
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, or chocolate chips
1 cup all purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 oz unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup dried cranberries
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.
In another bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Beat in eggs, then vanilla. Beat in the Nutella. By hand or with lowest speed of a mixer, stir in the flour mixture. Add cranberries and chopped chocolate or chocolate chips. Stir to combine.
Scoop the dough up by teaspoons and space mounds of dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake one sheet at a time on center rack for 10-12 minutes or until edges are dry. Tops should crack and cookies should spread out quite a bit Let cool on cookie sheets for about 1-2 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool.
I’m rather enjoying a little controversy that’s brewing within my running circle as to whether our real Ragnar team name is Sole Survivors or Funkstrong. I’m hoping the latter wins. I had originally registered us as Funkstrong before we settled on the consensus alternative but apparently the waivers going out are still saying the old name.
Either way, we’ve got a website now. Eighty percent of success is showing up, and the other twenty is having a dope website*.
MILEAGE UPDATE: March 1-7
Miles to date
Past week
Three week average
Annual pace
Miles to go
60.6
10.0
10.7
335.1
939.4
*not that our POS blog thing is dope, but it’s better than nothing.
I’m in New York for the weekend, ostensibly to see Péter Esterházy speak tomorrow. The snow here isn’t nearly as bad as the news made it out to be – it’s been rather nice weather actually. I went to see Billy Elliot today, which made me notice we’ve covered this ground before
Mileage this week was not impressive. None of the last few weeks has been actually, and I may need to reassess the feasibility of the 1000 mile goal. Extrapolating my current three week average forward for the next ten months leaves me several hundred miles short of the goal. Changes need to be made, somewhere.
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but YJP’s visit has given me the push I needed. By semi-voluntary consensus our official Ragnar team name is Sole Survivors. Thanks for the suggestion Hondo!
Just FYI, we still have a single solitary open slot on our 12 person Ragnar roster. Email or comment below if you’re interested. The race itself is May 21st-22nd, and the fee is $155 (which will cover our entry fee and van rental).
It’s become clear to me that I won’t reach my annual mileage goal of 1000 miles (#1) without more accountability. Towards that end, I’m bringing back mileage sunday tag.
MILEAGE UPDATE: February 8-14
Miles to date
Past week
Three week average
Annual pace
Miles to go
28.4
12.3
7.1
241.0
971.6
A second idea that I’m playing with is revisiting the same 18 week training goals I used for San Francisco last year. If I started that now, I’d finish June 21st*. So, huh, that’d put me in good position for Kona.
Anyway, regardless of whether or not anyone actually reads this, it’s helpful to have it put in print, as statement of fact. This is what I’m going to do, this is what I’ve done, this is where I am now.
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