After the About page, this page is the most popular page on this blog. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t get hits from people searching for “baby chipmunks”. For some reason, this drives me crazy. I’m half tempted to remove the post so I don’t have to see it at the top of the most trafficked pages every single day.
Filed under: everyday life | 1 Comment »
Today marked the end of my third week of coach-assisted basebuilding. I’m officially convinced that working with a coach was the right thing to do.
I’ll post my usual recap of the week’s training tomorrow morning, but I wanted to post about a few things specifically.
I’ll start by saying that I was initially a little worried when I saw the plan Kevin gave me. I knew I could handle the workload, but it seemed a bit intense for just the basebuilding phase. Specifically, it looked more like marathon training, not basebuilding. I no longer feel that way after having spent three weeks easily being able to handle the buildup in mileage and doing three hard runs a week.
Dang. This really works. Witness:
But today’s run is the one that sold me. It was the last run of an 80 mile week and one that I’d been, well, not dreading, but ruminating about during the latter part of the week: 18 miles “steady” pace, which translates into an 8:15 pace (or about 90% marathon effort). That is a long way to run at that effort.
To prepare, I did a two day mini carbohydrate load (not a ton, but basically making sure I had enough stored away) and made sure I was well hydrated. I also took care to get adequate sleep.
I did a leisurely warmup for the first three miles (9:17, 8:53, 8:27). Then I got down to work. For the next six miles I average 8:11. Then I backed off for two miles (hills and headwind), running around 8:25 each — I also took in some carbohydrates at mile 10, which gave me a lift shortly thereafter. Then I ran the next seven miles at an average 8:07 pace, finishing up with an extra half mile for which I motored along at 7:48.
I felt great during the entire run, despite brisk, shifting winds and a face full of snow in the last two miles, and had no problem picking up the pace. Despite the slow early miles, my average pace for the run was 8:17. Pretty much right on the nose.
Side note: In addition to having a great run, I also was a good Samaritan today. As I was pausing at my car at mile 10 I witnessed a woman take the paint off the side of a Volvo with her Mercedes SUV during a botched parking attempt. She proceeded to park in another space about 30 feet away. I waited to see if she would post anything to the windshield of the car she’d just done significant damage to. Not surprisingly (but no less appallingly), she didn’t, although I did notice her take the time to see what the damage was to her own car (minimal). So I posted her make, model and license plate number to the damaged car myself. I’ve had damage done to my car by people like this and it really pisses me off.
Filed under: basebuilding, coaching, drinking, eating, everyday life, training | 9 Comments »
For all who have been curious, I’ve posted a photo (highly stylized) of me with my new blonde locks on the About page.
Filed under: everyday life | 8 Comments »
Saw this great little PSA from the creative minds at ACT this morning on Euronews.
Filed under: eating, everyday life, humor | Leave a comment »
About two months ago I decided to cut all my hair off. Well, not all of it. But it’s pretty short. But still very feminine. I would describe it as pixie-ish.
That apparently set off some sort of chain reaction in my brain because I then began flirting with the idea of going blonde. I was a towhead for the first few years of my life, so I figured I had the right coloring to start with to not end up looking like a freak.
Yesterday I took the plunge. Having never had my hair colored, it was a real education. Over the course of three hours, I had bleach spread on my head in two separate sessions, some heat lamp time, non-culinary use of Saran Wrap, then the spreading of blonde dye color, and the renewal of my pixie haircut, with multiple washings inbetween. I caused quite a stir, since I’m known at the salon as a normally quiet, reserved person, and my hair is — while not brunette — a subdued brown to start with. Such a radical departure ran counter to their expectations of my personality, it seems.
The intial bleaching revealed an interesting color — sort of an Edie Sedgwick/Annie Lennox white-blonde with buttery overtones. We debated keeping it that way, but ultimately decided it didn’t go with my warmer skin tone. So we went with a straw-colored blonde. It’s very light. So light that I’m practically Finnish. An interesting side effect is that my normally mushy-colored hazel eyes now look very green.
I’ll post a picture or two soon.
Filed under: everyday life | 9 Comments »
As in 2007, winter has arrived a month early in an instantaneous, nostril-freezing blast over the last couple of days. We had one of the longest winters in the quarter-odd century I’ve lived in New York last year, and I’m wondering if this year will be a repeat.
No matter. Except for the problem of ice and the demonic drivers who hurtle over it with aplomb in their two ton deathmobiles (we have precious few sidewalks in our suburban hamlet), I love winter training. The colder the better.
Racing in cold weather is even more delighted squeal inducing, and I’ll have a chance to race in wind chills of around 13 degrees tomorrow morning. I ran my measly five recovery miles this morning at embarrassingly slow pace in anticipation. Race report to come.
For now, it’s almost 4PM on Thanksgiving Week Eve, which means everyone I work with has ceased to care about anything, a situation that I happily embrace. I’m technically working today, but it consists of cleaning out my email inbox and addressing the 14 inch high stack of crap that’s accumulated on my desk over the last 11 months. My manager at Massive Nameless Corporation just dragged me into gifted me with two more months-long projects, so I’m feeling fairly confident that I’ll be able to continue to pay for running shoes, quality beer and interesting cheeses for another year.
Filed under: drinking, eating, everyday life, racing, training | 3 Comments »
…a pox on both your houses!
I’ve managed to pick up my second cold of the year. Unusual for me since I rarely get sick. Or, rather, when I get ill, I get seriously ill. But that only happens about once every 10-15 years or so.
So, here I am, semi-horizontal, alternating between feeling sort of okay and feeling like garbage. My sister has introduced me to Gan Mao Ling, a Chinese herbal remedy for colds. I can’t say it’s helped with the malaise, but it has kept my head from turning into a phlegm machine. I’m sure it’s loaded with something like benzine or mercury or formaldehyde. Being from China and all.
Sister and niece are done with the rounds of colleges and are off gallivanting in the city. I skipped the Sarah Lawrence tour on Friday since I got sucked into three hours of phone meetings, then decided to go for a nine mile run. I’m sorry I missed it, because it sounded hilarious. It’s the most expensive private university in the country, with a tuition of $57,000 a year (that’s not a typo). The kids take three (three!) classes a year, one option of which is Playground Games. Yes, they actually play dodgeball, etc. with each other as part of the curriculum. The student tour guide also touted the vegan bar and its once per week availability of avocadoes. It’s hard to believe that Rahm Emanuel went there (dance major, no less), but truth is often stranger than fiction.
It’s actually probably good that I didn’t go, since I’m sure I would have had giggling fits and embarrassed my poor niece. So, it’s settled now — NYU is her first choice, Barnard second, and she’ll apply to some California schools as backup. I’m pleased that not only did she get the wanderlust gene, but that she’s wandering in the direction of New York. I think she should not stop here, but continue straight on to Europe. But it sounds like she’ll have ample opportunity to do that for a bit if she ends up at NYU.
I felt so crummy today that I decided I may as well do the work that’s been hanging over my head like a Microsoft Office-based sword of Damocles for the past few days. I have to give a presentation to an executive on Tuesday morning about my progress on a project that deals with a knowledge area in which I have very little understanding. In other words, I must do the corporate equivalent of faking my way through a tap-dancing audition. This is the second time I’ve been put on this project at my contracting gig at Massive Nameless Global Corporation. The first time around, I failed spectacularly (or at least I thought I did), but here I am, putting on my tap shoes again. I think it’s just that no one else wants to deal with it. At least it paves the way for another 12 month contract renewal for 2009.
Anyhoo, my PowerPoint presentation is done, my pithy speaker’s notes written, and the whole pitiful mess sent off to my manager for any last minute critiques. In other news, I had a nibble of interest on a content strategy/writing project at Huge Well Known Non-Profit Foundation — something that’s been dangling in mid-air for about four months. I figured it was dead in the water, but, no! It lives!
Also — I like to bury the lead — I hired a running coach. More on that in an upcoming post…
Filed under: everyday life | 4 Comments »
Not much posting of late as I’m playing host to my sister and niece as they tour some NYC area colleges for said niece to attend in about a year and half. It seems like just yesterday that my sister was visiting me while five months pregnant with Annie. Gads, how did I get so old so quickly?
I skipped the Barnard walkthrough yesterday in favor of a 12 miler, some shopping and a few hours of work. But today I went in with them to tour NYU. I went to NYU for my grad degree in the mid-nineties and it was interesting to see how differently they market to teenagers vs. adults. Teens (and parents) get an emphasis on safety, social/club opportunities, studying overseas and the ubiquity of free food. Graduate school prospects (at least in my dept.) were sold on professional networking, potential for good incomes and more professional networking. Snacks were never mentioned.
The rest of the day was spent at a display of gothic fashion at the Fashion Institute of Technology (which was a great show, actually; I have a new appreciation for haute couture). Then a trip to TKTS to get them tickets to a show and then a stop at one of my all-time favorite places in the world (after the Swiss Alps), the Oyster Bar in Grand Central, where we ate very expensive oysters and I had the rare martini.
Tomorrow I’ll tag along on a tour of Sarah Lawrence, which is just down the road from us. Then the academic vetting is behind us and we can go have some more fun. Fortunately, my sister and niece share my morbid genes, so we have not one but two graveyard visits on the agenda (the Hartsdale Canine Cemetery AND Woodlawn!), as well as some more typical touristy stuff, like Ellis Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, et al.
Since this is a running blog, here’s the relevant running portion of this post: I ran around 48 miles last week, including two easy runs of nine miles (8:45ish pace) and a delightful 11 miler on Sunday that started slow and ended at an 8:00 pace). Not exactly hard running, true, but enough to feel like an effort. I expect I’ll have around the same mileage this week. My legs feel good and I’m looking forward to gearing up for the next training cycle as well as doing some winter racing.
In other notes, I’m always reading a running-related book. On Ewen‘s recommendation, I picked up an out of print copy of “Guide to Running” by Grete Waitz and Gloria Averbuch. This book is utterly charming. It’s a combination of memoir, training guide, cultural criticism and “lifestyle” guide (which has the effect of making me wish I lived in Norway, at least circa 1980). There are even recipes for making Norwegian snacks (although you’ll need to find gjestost).
English is not Waitz’s native language, obviously, but that’s part of what makes her writing voice so appealing. She is also remarkably frank when talking about what it was like to be thrown into world-stage competition as a teenager, the pressure to medal “for country,” and her discomfort with fame. As an added treat, you can pick up lots of great little Norwegian sayings (“It’s so secret; it’s no secret” and “Hurry slowly”). Maybe it’s having a distant Norwegian heritage that makes me slightly biased, but this is a great little read.
Filed under: eating, elites, everyday life, inspiration, reading | 3 Comments »
I’ll let my political beads drop. I am ecstatic — ecstatic, I tell you — with Tuesday’s election results. A blue sweep across New England, a blue sweep of both houses of Congress, and…a black family on the White House Christmas card!
I went out for a run on Tuesday morning to try to get my mind off the fact that it was pointless to watch television until at least 8PM. There was definitely something in the air. People were walking around with smiles on their faces. We all knew. We all just knew. And we were all in really good moods.
If this keeps up, we’ll have a woman and an atheist president (perhaps in the same person?) in my lifetime. The only dark cloud was the passage of gay marriage bans in states that should know better. So I’ll add “gay, lesbian or bisexual person” (heck, let’s throw in transgendered as long as we’re dreaming) to my list of people who need to be president before I die.
Filed under: everyday life, inspiration, westchester | 4 Comments »
What’s more exciting: running a marathon or watching one? You can’t do both at the same time. But you should do at least one or the other once in your life. I’ve done the former four times, and now, the latter once. Here, I provide my awestruck impressions of watching the fastest people in the world running within 10 feet of me yesterday morning.
First of all, it was a total pain in the ass to get to the Bronx yesterday. I did it the wrong way, taking a train to Fordham and then walking about a half mile along Fordham Rd to the 4 line. That took forever to arrive and then I discovered that it doesn’t stop at 138th St, where I wanted to be. So I had to get off at 149th, walk into the bowels of the subway system to catch the local 5 train and endure another 15 minute wait in a rat- and cockroach-infested dungeon. I found myself wondering if it was all worth it.
Here’s the right way to get there from Westchester: Take the train to 125th St, walk two blocks, then hop on the 6 line north for one stop to 138th St and 3rd Ave in the Bronx.
I arrived at about 10:30 and milled around for 20 minutes, carefully setting up my camera to take poor quality pictures. I planted myself on 138th, just east of 3rd Ave (and just after the 20 mile mark), before a water table, thinking perhaps they’d slow a bit at that spot.
This little area was not the “dead zone” in terms of spectators I’d expected. There was a crowd on 3rd Ave and a band, and a few pockets of people to the west. But it wasn’t like the scene on 125th St in Harlem, where I went and hung out after I’d seen all the elites go by.
Here I will admit that I suck as a photographer. I may have learned never to experiment with new shoes or fueling strategies for the marathon, but I threw caution to the wind yesterday and experimented with the camera that I don’t know how to use properly. I tried the “burst” mode, which I thought would take a series of full sized shots of each runner in motion. Instead, I got a series of postage stamp sized shots. All of my runners are tiny.
So, I’m not going to embarrass myself further by uploading tiny photos. Especially when there’s a perfectly good series right here. Since I have no intention of running this race in the near future, I’ll go watch again next year and I’ll learn to use my camera properly by then.
The excitement builds in the minutes before the first runners arrive. Someone barked “Ten minutes!” into a bullhorn at 10:50. Then, at 10:55, a new update: “Radcliffe first, Petrova second, Goucher third.” A few minutes later, we saw and heard the helicopter, followed by the roar of police motorcycles. They came around the corner and there was so much noise and activity that the two runners (Radcliffe and Petrova) were lost in the mayhem around them. The motorcycles and camera truck passed and suddenly it seemed very quiet.
The two women passed by me and I was struck by the fact that I could actually hear them breathing. Radcliffe, although only 5’8″, seems much larger in person. And she runs like a fucking machine. Petrova was hanging off her shoulder, looking like a little bobbing tugboat, but a tenacious one. One look at Paula and you knew she was going to win. Goucher came through about 15 seconds later, also looking larger than life, and wearing a facial expression that was, paradoxically, both relaxed and determined.
Incidentally, Petrova, 40, broke Priscilla Welch’s 1987 masters world record for the marathon yesterday by over a minute, with a finishing time of 2:25:43. I don’t think this was mentioned once in the televised coverage, which was too bad.
Tune came through shortly thereafter, followed by Wami (who is one of the most light-on-her-feet runners I’ve ever seen, and tiny). I was expecting Catherine “The Great” Ndereba next, but instead saw Jeptoo. Then a few others: Simon, McGregor and Morgunova. Then a big pause and the last few women who I would recognize came through: Lewy-Boulet, Scotswoman Hayley Haining (who is built like a tank; I wonder if that’s what I look like under my 24% body fat) and 19-year-old newcomer Ilsa Paulson, who is a tiny little wisp of a woman. I was disappointed to not see Kim Smith of New Zealand; it appears she dropped out just after the 30K mark.
With the second-tier elite women straggling in one by one, the excitement began to build anew: In a few minutes, the elite men would start coming through. Once again, you could tell when the moment was near, with the arrival of a helicopter and phalanx of cops on bikes.
I was rooting for the Brazilian, Gomes Dos Santos, to win — and here he was in the lead! Goumri was right on his heels and looking very strong. Next up: Bouramdane, Tergat, Rono, Kirui, Macharia. And, finally, some Americas: Abdi, Rohatinsky, Lemkuhle. After that, I stopped recognizing people, with one exception: I saw James Carney, who looked awful. He was jogging along, looking slightly bewildered. He turned and asked another runner, who was passing, a question, and I thought, “He’s about to drop out.” When I got home and watched the coverage, I could see what happened: He went nuts and led the pack from the start, running like a rocket straight into a head wind for the first half mile or so.
Just a few: Takashi Ogawa, a friendly age group rival of Jonathan’s, was powering his way through to a 2:50 finish. He looked good when I saw him. A few minutes behind him, I spotted Zola Budd. She is no longer the barefooted rail that she was during her cross-country and track days. Perhaps 20 pounds heavier, she still managed to break three hours in her first marathon yesterday. Finally, after I switched positions to go watch the throngs in Harlem, I saw fellow running blogger Pigtails Flying (who I have not met, but who sent me a picture so I could look for her). She also ran a huge PR yesterday (42 minutes!), breaking 3:55. Go Pigtails!
*In honor of Paula Radcliffe, maybe I should say “kerb.”
Filed under: central park, elites, everyday life, inspiration, racing, westchester | 12 Comments »
Races Like a Girl 