Catching Up
Been a long time since I rock n rolled. . .
As often happens when I travel, I have a hard time getting back into the rhythm of running on my return. Tuesday it was an early travel-late teaching double whammy and yesterday was exhaustion. But I had anticipated that and didn't let it stress me out. Besides, all my other blogging peeps were bellyaching about how hot it was, so it looks like I picked a good two days to rest.
It was supposed to be back to the grind this morning, but the alarm went off at 5:30 and I got up at 6:30. So my planned BN loop got drastically shortened to a 5 mile Franklin Field loop. I shouldn't have taken my watch (but I did; 43:34), but I 'm glad I took my iPod, as I got to listen to Tarika, a band from Madagascar that I got turned onto by a happy sequence of circumstances. Tarika's music is African enough to be exotic and pop enough to where I can orient it to things more familiar. At times they remind me of acoustic Los Lobos or a zydeco jam without the washboard. But a better description comes from a review that described them as having "an intoxicating sound." I prefer to call it aurally administered exuberence. If I had a mix tape of anthems for this training cycle, I would put Koba (franglais version) in the middle, at the point when a steady cadence is called for but I still have some of that beginning-of-the-race enthusiasm left.
So that was the morning. Because I am starting to fall behind on mileage, I looked to do a second workout this evening. Parenting demands were working against me, but I got in an 8-miler that started at 30th St. Station and ended at the UC Swim Club. I won't go into details except to say that I give myself an 8.5 in creativity for squeezing this one in. I will brag, however, that despite the conditions, both within and without me, I hammered out the MLK miles such that 3.5 miles went by in 19:58. That's about a 5:42 pace which for me is worthy of fist pumping and well within tempo range. Especially after the hiatus of the past few days, this puts my head right back into training mode.
Like Steve McQueen, all I need is a fast machine. That is now my ringtone and mantra!
What follows will come as a bit of a non-sequitur, and to some as a surprise to some I haven't yet told. If you're one of those folks I either haven't seen you recently or haven't had a good time or place to bring it up so I might as well announce it. Cindy and I have been separated. Keeping in mind that this is a running blog, I'm not going to go into details other than, as these things go, it has been fairly devoid of any Springerian drama and we remain amiable towards each other. But I'm starting life on my own again. This has been building for awhile, and I've dropped frequent albeit subtle allusions to it in these pages.
Its a tough process, but there are silver linings. One worth mentioning here is that I'm sure that this stuff is in large part responsible for the jolt my training has received in the last six weeks. I go in to a workout these days thinking "this is hard, I can do it," and leave telling myself "there, I'm stronger for it now." And I know if I got a head full of sad, angry or obsessive thoughts, I can go out for a run and at some point all that shit will just lift. Works better than alcohol, I daresay, and I'm on track to be in awesome shape in the fall.
I'm getting the @$% out of town for a long weekend, heading out to Iowa to visit old friends, check out some live blues, and run down long straight farm roads. I don't know if I'll have internet access, but I'll write all about it next time I make it back here.
Oh yeah, the eight evening miles went by in 61:45.
As often happens when I travel, I have a hard time getting back into the rhythm of running on my return. Tuesday it was an early travel-late teaching double whammy and yesterday was exhaustion. But I had anticipated that and didn't let it stress me out. Besides, all my other blogging peeps were bellyaching about how hot it was, so it looks like I picked a good two days to rest.
It was supposed to be back to the grind this morning, but the alarm went off at 5:30 and I got up at 6:30. So my planned BN loop got drastically shortened to a 5 mile Franklin Field loop. I shouldn't have taken my watch (but I did; 43:34), but I 'm glad I took my iPod, as I got to listen to Tarika, a band from Madagascar that I got turned onto by a happy sequence of circumstances. Tarika's music is African enough to be exotic and pop enough to where I can orient it to things more familiar. At times they remind me of acoustic Los Lobos or a zydeco jam without the washboard. But a better description comes from a review that described them as having "an intoxicating sound." I prefer to call it aurally administered exuberence. If I had a mix tape of anthems for this training cycle, I would put Koba (franglais version) in the middle, at the point when a steady cadence is called for but I still have some of that beginning-of-the-race enthusiasm left.
So that was the morning. Because I am starting to fall behind on mileage, I looked to do a second workout this evening. Parenting demands were working against me, but I got in an 8-miler that started at 30th St. Station and ended at the UC Swim Club. I won't go into details except to say that I give myself an 8.5 in creativity for squeezing this one in. I will brag, however, that despite the conditions, both within and without me, I hammered out the MLK miles such that 3.5 miles went by in 19:58. That's about a 5:42 pace which for me is worthy of fist pumping and well within tempo range. Especially after the hiatus of the past few days, this puts my head right back into training mode.
Like Steve McQueen, all I need is a fast machine. That is now my ringtone and mantra!
What follows will come as a bit of a non-sequitur, and to some as a surprise to some I haven't yet told. If you're one of those folks I either haven't seen you recently or haven't had a good time or place to bring it up so I might as well announce it. Cindy and I have been separated. Keeping in mind that this is a running blog, I'm not going to go into details other than, as these things go, it has been fairly devoid of any Springerian drama and we remain amiable towards each other. But I'm starting life on my own again. This has been building for awhile, and I've dropped frequent albeit subtle allusions to it in these pages.
Its a tough process, but there are silver linings. One worth mentioning here is that I'm sure that this stuff is in large part responsible for the jolt my training has received in the last six weeks. I go in to a workout these days thinking "this is hard, I can do it," and leave telling myself "there, I'm stronger for it now." And I know if I got a head full of sad, angry or obsessive thoughts, I can go out for a run and at some point all that shit will just lift. Works better than alcohol, I daresay, and I'm on track to be in awesome shape in the fall.
I'm getting the @$% out of town for a long weekend, heading out to Iowa to visit old friends, check out some live blues, and run down long straight farm roads. I don't know if I'll have internet access, but I'll write all about it next time I make it back here.
Oh yeah, the eight evening miles went by in 61:45.
posted by seebo | 10:24 PM
2 Comments:
Your entries have blown me away before, but usually because of ridiculously high miles or fast times. I hope you're doing alright. Let me know if you need anything.
regarding your non-sequitir, I thought you had mentioned something about this during one of the Saturday runs, but I wrote it off to my lactic acid-induced haze. Sounds like you're keeping your head up...
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