Lie la Lie
Well I'm back. About as long an absence as I've had from this blog.
Various reasons for the sabbatical. I will process this as I start blogging again, but for now I'll just say I've been hit with various things - a move, a ton of work, travel, kids, heat and other intangibles that have made running more challenging. The thing that intrigues me is that they have not been insurmountable things, just things that have made it harder to get out and I have not really been up to the occasion. Now it feels like I've pretty much blown the prospect of being as competitive as I was last fall. Strangely, I don't feel bummed about that, and will likely use this blog to keep processing that. Hopefully this spell is over, at least for the next week as things have let up a bit. But I'll take it a day at a time.
For starters, I will try to reconstruct my running for the past few weeks, starting with the most recent. Doing this is the thing that seems most daunting to getting back to blogging, so I'll tackle it first.
This morning - some folks I'm doing work with from out of town are were in from Columbus yesterday and today for meetings. One of these folks, Barb, asked me where some good running places were and ended up meeting at 6 this morning and took a variation of the Art Museum loop. Gave me the chance to play tour guide on this loop. Came in a bit under 7.5 in 71:39. We were taking it easy but definitely faster than that pace.
Monday (8/13) - ran Tinicum, looked to do 60 and got in about 58. Ran a new variation of the trails, with the full bottom half of the figure 8 and an abbreviated top part that took me past bulldozers that are being used to clear old Delaware River dredge used decades ago to fill the marsh in a project to restore the marsh. Funded in part by reparations from Sunoco for the oil spill they had in Tinicum several years back. Call it 7 miles.
Thursday (8/9) - ran a 6.5 mile Art Museum loop. Nothing spectacular, say 52 minutes or so. This was the first run I ran out of the house I just rebought, and the old starting and stopping points brought about a ton of old feelings. More on this in some future blog entry.
Tuesday (8/7) - 800s on the Washington & Lee HS track in Arlington. Godawful hot and humid the way it that characterizes a DC summer, even at 7 am. Looked to do 8x800 in around 2:40. First one was in 2:39, but I knew that wouldn't last. Climbed down the ladder, 2:41, and so on down to about 2:57. These felt slow but were really difficult, and I thought I should be able to at least get one rep faster than the previous one. But I did negative split, running the first 400 relatively slow and speeding up on the second one for reps 5 through 8. Left feeling good about sticking it out for the 8 reps I had set out to do, and blowing off two of the cooldown miles. Cooldown was an oxymoron on a morning like that, and so I got in 8 miles.
Sunday (8/5) - in Stony Point at my mom's. Ran 3 Rockland Lake loops of 3 miles apiece as Rebecca walked around the lake. Negative split each loop, starting in 26 something, going down to 23 something, and finishing in 20 something. This is where I started my running back at age 14, and it was fun to show it to Rebecca. 9 miles total.
Saturday (8/4) - in Central Park. 3 loops around the jogging path. Call it six miles apiece. Early morning, but still hot and humid. Each loop faster than the last, but for the life of me I cannot remember what I ran. This is hallowed running ground, and although three repeats got a bit tedious I just drank in being among all the NYC runners. 18 miles total.
Friday (8/3) - getting fuzzy now. Ran an extended airport loop with at least four of the miles at tempo/marathon pace (sub 6 minute). I took down splits at key checkpoints here but have long forgotten them. Finished in a good time for this loop, but again that is lost to posterity. 15.5 miles.
That brings me up to date. Lots of thoughts and details lost to posterity, but I'm glad I at least got down the bones of these runs. Enough of looking backwards, time to look ahead. The song that is running through my head is trite enough to where I hesitate to write it down, but it describes my sentiments.
In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries a reminder of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him, till he cried out in his anger and his pain
I am leaving, I am leaving but the fighter still remains...
Lie la lie, see you on the roads.
Various reasons for the sabbatical. I will process this as I start blogging again, but for now I'll just say I've been hit with various things - a move, a ton of work, travel, kids, heat and other intangibles that have made running more challenging. The thing that intrigues me is that they have not been insurmountable things, just things that have made it harder to get out and I have not really been up to the occasion. Now it feels like I've pretty much blown the prospect of being as competitive as I was last fall. Strangely, I don't feel bummed about that, and will likely use this blog to keep processing that. Hopefully this spell is over, at least for the next week as things have let up a bit. But I'll take it a day at a time.
For starters, I will try to reconstruct my running for the past few weeks, starting with the most recent. Doing this is the thing that seems most daunting to getting back to blogging, so I'll tackle it first.
This morning - some folks I'm doing work with from out of town are were in from Columbus yesterday and today for meetings. One of these folks, Barb, asked me where some good running places were and ended up meeting at 6 this morning and took a variation of the Art Museum loop. Gave me the chance to play tour guide on this loop. Came in a bit under 7.5 in 71:39. We were taking it easy but definitely faster than that pace.
Monday (8/13) - ran Tinicum, looked to do 60 and got in about 58. Ran a new variation of the trails, with the full bottom half of the figure 8 and an abbreviated top part that took me past bulldozers that are being used to clear old Delaware River dredge used decades ago to fill the marsh in a project to restore the marsh. Funded in part by reparations from Sunoco for the oil spill they had in Tinicum several years back. Call it 7 miles.
Thursday (8/9) - ran a 6.5 mile Art Museum loop. Nothing spectacular, say 52 minutes or so. This was the first run I ran out of the house I just rebought, and the old starting and stopping points brought about a ton of old feelings. More on this in some future blog entry.
Tuesday (8/7) - 800s on the Washington & Lee HS track in Arlington. Godawful hot and humid the way it that characterizes a DC summer, even at 7 am. Looked to do 8x800 in around 2:40. First one was in 2:39, but I knew that wouldn't last. Climbed down the ladder, 2:41, and so on down to about 2:57. These felt slow but were really difficult, and I thought I should be able to at least get one rep faster than the previous one. But I did negative split, running the first 400 relatively slow and speeding up on the second one for reps 5 through 8. Left feeling good about sticking it out for the 8 reps I had set out to do, and blowing off two of the cooldown miles. Cooldown was an oxymoron on a morning like that, and so I got in 8 miles.
Sunday (8/5) - in Stony Point at my mom's. Ran 3 Rockland Lake loops of 3 miles apiece as Rebecca walked around the lake. Negative split each loop, starting in 26 something, going down to 23 something, and finishing in 20 something. This is where I started my running back at age 14, and it was fun to show it to Rebecca. 9 miles total.
Saturday (8/4) - in Central Park. 3 loops around the jogging path. Call it six miles apiece. Early morning, but still hot and humid. Each loop faster than the last, but for the life of me I cannot remember what I ran. This is hallowed running ground, and although three repeats got a bit tedious I just drank in being among all the NYC runners. 18 miles total.
Friday (8/3) - getting fuzzy now. Ran an extended airport loop with at least four of the miles at tempo/marathon pace (sub 6 minute). I took down splits at key checkpoints here but have long forgotten them. Finished in a good time for this loop, but again that is lost to posterity. 15.5 miles.
That brings me up to date. Lots of thoughts and details lost to posterity, but I'm glad I at least got down the bones of these runs. Enough of looking backwards, time to look ahead. The song that is running through my head is trite enough to where I hesitate to write it down, but it describes my sentiments.
In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries a reminder of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him, till he cried out in his anger and his pain
I am leaving, I am leaving but the fighter still remains...
Lie la lie, see you on the roads.
posted by seebo | 9:04 PM
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