Happy end of 2010!

Haven't been the most inspired blogger of late...  Oh well.  Despite the lack of updates, the workouts haven't suffered, on the whole; I just haven't been all that diligent about getting here to post them.  I've actually enjoyed the break, at that. 

I'm not big on resolutions, but I do have goals for 2011: 

Number one, of course, is to get into graduate school.  I know what I have to do, and I just have to stay out of my own way and keep on doing it. 

Number two is to do my first ultra.  I am actually only planning on doing trail races this year, although if my sister and I can work it out to do a road race or two together, I'm game for that, as well.  But the biggie for the year will be a 50K trail.  I'm also looking at two 15K trails, and maybe a trail half, a 12 hour trail, or possibly a second 50K trail.  We'll see, and of course it's all dependent on my staying healthy.  I'm very, very encouraged by the fact that I had no real physical issues this past year; I credit that to my strength training program and I plan to keep that up to the maximum extent I reasonably can throughout the year. 

And that's it for the biggies.  I'd also like to tweak the nutrition a bit, mostly because I think I've gotten into a bit of a culinary rut.  I've been reluctant to change much because I feel good and my weight has been rock steady - why mess with success, right? - but my shopping list has been the same, more or less, for several months now and I know I should work in some more variety.  I've started working on this already, and need to make it a point to keep it up.

I'm looking forward to a challenging and fulfilling year, and I wish everyone who is reading this the same in 2011.

Hey, it's me!

I didn't really mean to be away this long, but c'est la vie.  This will be short, so I can get to the good stuff.

-  School's done, obviously!  Got an A in Psych, and while I haven't gotten my final grade for A&P, I would have had to have seriously screwed up the final exam - which I didn't, thankyouverymuch - to have NOT gotten an A.  So, well done, me.  Heh.

- One good thing about school - coming out of exams like that, I had plenty of momentum to do the holiday stuff.  Shopped and decorated Saturday, did family stuff Sunday, shopped Monday and yesterday, and wrapped today.  Tomorrow, I bake (chocolate peanut butter cup cake and cookies).

- Workouts have all been going well.  I reread parts of the RDR book recently (I always seem to be pawing through the source material when I'm following a program) and realized something pretty cool.  I have pretty much always done programs that set you up with a given slate of exercises that you do for a certain period of time, anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks; usually, of late, 3 - 4 weeks (the 12 is definitely an outlier).  And this program generally periodizes the REP scheme in three week segments, so in my mind, I just figured I'd do a certain set of exercises for each of those segments.  Well, I don't HAVE to do that.  In fact, he encourages you to change up what you do often, even every workout, so long as you follow the basic template.  Which I think is pretty cool, and certainly allows me a lot of freedom especially for those days when I do weights at home & don't have access to pulleys & a proper cage.  So, yay!

-  My birthday was last week, and I got a TRX!  It is a very cool toy to have in the arsenal; adds a nice dimension of difficulty to things and a different dimension to training in general.  I'm planning to take it to the gym on Friday to get a better feel for it.  At home, I've been hanging it from my pull up bar and from the door, which limits my space somewhat, so it should be fun to test drive it in a more spacious area.

- It has been a great week to be a Philadelphia sports fan.  'S'all I'm gonna say.

It seems I can't do anything around here without tons of feline assistance.  The holidays are no exception.  I give you decorating and wrapping, chez moi:

Tree in a bocks?

This thing NEEDS somfin'...

I know, ME!

You can has empty bag - I have stocking suffers!

He's looking at me...

Bugger!

And now this little brat is bothering me!

RAWR!

A kitteh's work isn't done until he's messed up the wrapping supplies...

Conspiracy Theory

Or, Jesse Ventura is batshit crazy.

I’m an Occam’s Razor kinda gal.  I can more or less date my skepticism to pre-Kindergarten or there about, when introduced to the idea of Santa Claus.  I recall briefly pondering the overall mechanics of the thing (around the world in one night using flying reindeer?), taking a good look at the fireplace, and thinking something along the lines of, “Hmmmm - prolly not.” I figured the whole thing was a story, and not something I was expected to believe.  I was wrong about the latter, apparently, but I never made any pretense about believing and knew enough not to spoil it for those who did.  In short, I learned early on that when it came to explaining things, the simple and direct almost always trumped the convoluted and complicated. 

I have a great aunt, though, who has always been inclined to prefer those convoluted and complicated explanations; she buys into just about every conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard, and probably many I’m not familiar with.  She lives on the computer and believes that if it's on the intertubes, it's probably true.  So it was with her in mind that I started to sample a show on TruTV called Conspiracy Theory, hosted by Jesse (the Body) Ventura.  Ventura, who leaves his wrasslin’ career out of the mini bio he presents in the opening of each episode (but - why?), is apparently on a quest to further every quacktastic conspiracy theory he can find.  Thanks to vertigo-inducing leaps in logic on The Bod’s part, I haven’t been able to make it through the every episode, but I found Friday night’s concoction just so richly bizarre, I had to share. 

This one was about the gulf oil spill, and how it was part of a government conspiracy to depopulate the south coast of the US so that that area might be turned into an open drilling zone for the oil companies. 

Oh, you didn’t know?  Well, let me enlighten you. Jesse didn’t exactly present things in a logical, progressive, or chronological order, but as I reconstruct what appear to be the salient facts, we have:

- Hurricane Katrina was a dry run.  Of something, although I’m not sure what; Jesse didn’t ‘splain that.  However, clearly, we (we being President Bush and possibly Dick Cheney, near as I could gather) caused Katrina to hit the gulf coast, so something something something, something something.  Or other.  But it IS part of the conspiracy.

- Subsequently, BP planned the oil spill.  They were in cahoots with Halliburton, the source of all evil in the modern Western world, who BOUGHT AN ENVIRONMENTAL CLEAN UP COMPANY mere weeks before the accident, and also controlled the company that did the drilling itself.  You see, they could make more money by causing a natural disaster than by drilling for oil.  And BP KNEW.  (I guess Jesse doesn’t know that Halliburton has been in the environmental clean-up business for decades, or that many large petrochemical companies - I’ll give you DuPont as a more neutral example - have in-house or closely affiliated remediation companies.  So for a company that is in the drilling business to have a remediation arm...  makes sense.  But hey, he’s on a roll.)

- President Bush was a Manchurian Candidate installed into office by an international conglomeration of oil interests that is In On the conspiracy.

- Democrats, don’t get too smug: So was Barack Obama.  Hey, don’t look at me.  Just ask Jesse’s expert.

- The Army Corps of Engineers (motto: “We flatten mountains! We straighten rivers!”) is In On the Conspiracy.  In fact they have a 40 billion dollar plan to evacuate the gulf coast, to get the people out of the way so the oil companies can do their thing and not have to answer to anyone.

Frankly, the woman from the ACoE who he interviewed made the most sense of anyone on the entire program.  It was very obvious - to me, anyway - that she is one of those painfully earnest types for whom the truth just lands you in deep shit, because you’re prone to laying out facts, not equivocating, and the listener tunes you out after you (probably unintentionally) give them a tidbit or sound that "proves" their point.  (I have been that woman.)  She spoke to what I presume is an emergency evacuation plan, most likely prepared at the specific request of congress, that dealt with the unfortunate reality that a lot of the New Orleans area is in a flood plain, below sea level, and very vulnerable to natural disaster.  She had the unmitigated gall to suggest that we may, as a nation, one day realize that perhaps living in such areas isn’t all that bright an idea because nature tends to remind us of who’s boss from time to time. (Seriously, can you believe that?  Never mind that our population growth has vastly outpaced that of our infrastructure, which makes emergency planning a real bitch.)

But the ex-mayor, ex-governor, ex-wrassler, posits that it’s all part of a plan to destroy Our Way of Life, destroy Our Homes, and give it all to big oil.  And hey - the show is on TruTV, and their motto is, “Not Reality: Actuality.”  You do the math.

So far, so good

I've done both the A and B workout of my new program, and so far, I like.  They're taking a little bit longer than I'd prefer, but right now I have the time, so, so be it.  I picked exercises that I could do as easily, or with only slight mods (bands instead of cables, for example) at home.  Today, because I was at home, I did front squats using kettlebells instead of a barbell.  I actually wish I could do that all the time; I really dislike doing front squats with the bar, which kills my wrists no matter what hand position I try, but it's such a great exercise, I'd hate to NOT use it.  Front squats with kettlebells, though, I love.  Hard as hell, great ROM - talk about ass to grass! - and no wrist issues.  Can't ask for much more.

And I have a new favorite exercise du jour - the one arm pulldown.  I've done it at the gym using a cable and at home with the band; I think the cable is a bit harder.  But I think this is probably the first unilateral vertical pull exercise I've ever done, and I really like the change of pace.

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Hard to believe, but I only have three more days of school! Tuesday I had my partner oral presentation in psych - our topic was PTSD, something I knew very little about going in.  I thought it went pretty well, and I hope it graded the way it felt, because it's 20% of our grade.  Tomorrow is my last "easy" day; next Tuesday is the last psych test and A&P lab practical, and Thursday is the last A&P test.  So, I will probably be scarce for the next week.  Not that I've been a blogging juggernaut of late... 

Up next - muscles?

Yeah, well, maybe. 

As usual, I've spent probably an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out where to go next, so to speak, in terms of training.  I so totally enjoyed the trail run that I definitely want to do a spring trail run, a 15K held in late April.  This one is supposed to be a bit more challenging, in terms of hills/terrain, than the race I just finished.  What this last race told me is that my current mileage for this distance is fine, and that I could use more hill and technical work.  I also don't think I have to go crazy in that direction just yet, since I have nearly five months to prep.  So, for now, the plan is to keep the same basic running schedule, with an eye to finding some new hill challenges and incorporating more of them into the program come late winter/spring.  And as I think about it, my winter running program will be in part dependent on the weather, so I guess to a large extent I'll take what I can get - but those are my basic intentions.

Soooo, that left me really wondering what kind of weight program to do.  This past week I did a video as an entire workout, first time I've done that in quite a while.  It was fun and for a brief time I was thinking that what I might do is lift Monday and Friday and leave Wednesday as a "do whatever" day - video, kettlebell, gym, run, or even (gasp!) rest.  But - meh.  Somehow that sounds disjointed and ultimately unsatisfying.  Plus, if the weather this winter turns to crap, as it did early and often last year, I'll have my share of days where I have to figure out some alternative workout anyway, so it seems like as good a time as any to focus on weights. 

So I played (a lot, I confess) with the workout plans in the Dos Remedios book, and ultimately decided to do a three day a week, total body hypertrophy program.  Why hypertrophy?  Curiosity, mostly, plus I haven't done a hypertrophy oriented program since I was working with Jan years ago.  I don't really expect significant muscle gains in 12 weeks - between the running and my relative training age, I'd be lucky to put on a pound of muscle in that time - but it would be interesting if I were wrong about that, and even if I'm not, it's still a significant enough change in overall protocol that it'll be fresh.  I did a test run of what has become my "B" workout on Friday, and it was a nice step up in workload; I found it very pleasantly tiring without being deadly.  (But I'm glad I don't want to do anything with my running workload right now!)

I am also rethinking the first of the two ultras I'd been planning for next year.  I took a second look at it and realized the course is a 2.5 mile loop - meaning I'd have to do it 12 times during the race (plus an extra mile on a dirt road).  Um.... not really appealing.  What I may do instead is a trail half marathon (known as the Half Wit Half - the course is reputed to be challenging) that happens a week later, and do the other ultra as planned.  Makes for a nice progression. 

Heh.  I'm getting way ahead of myself, I suppose - but it's good to be healthy and feel strong and able to take on these challenges. 

Dirty Bird Trail Race Report

So, I lived!  Obviously.

My three questions going into the race were, would I get the breakfast portion of the program right, would I dress more or less correctly for the conditions, and was I as prepared as I needed to be to get the job done?  The short answers are, yes, nailed it; yes, with a notable exception; and yes, but with a lot of great lessons learned.

It was a gorgeous day for a race.  It was clear and around freezing when I left, small bowl of cereal on board hopefully to stay.  (Which it did, without troubling me, to my immense relief.)  I dressed as I would for a normal road run at that temperature - tights, 1st layer, jacket, gloves, and hat - and brought a few lighter/heavier options along, plus a post-race change of clothes.  The drive out was lovely - the race was in truly beautiful hill country - and faster than I expected, so I was there over an hour before the race began.  Had a great chat with a gal from California; she was an experienced trail racer out there but this was her first east coast run.  She was planning to run with her dog, a border collie; I never saw her out on the trail but I believe they made people with critters start after everyone else.

I wound up running in exactly what I'd set out in.  Took off the hat and gloves at some point on the trail and was a bit warmer than I'd have liked (race time temp was about 40F), but overall, close enough.  I find standing around in the cold prior to the start the worst part of cold weather racing, and in this case, there was none of the usual clothing shed/pickup stuff you find at larger races, so it was a little bit of pick your poison.  (If you've never run a big race in cold weather - it's common for runners to wear an extra layer to the start area, and discard it as the race begins.  The discards are collected, washed, and given to a charitable cause.)  The only problem, turns out, was my shoes.  But I'll get to that.

I don't know how many people ran the race; my guess would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 400.  Considering much of the race was on single track trail, it's probably a good thing there weren't tons of people out there.  We started on a road, though, and I have to say I was worried at first that that's where we'd be spending out time.  Not that the hills wouldn't have been challenging, but that wasn't what I was after. 

Silly me.  In less than 1/4 mile, we turned off the road onto a leafy, rocky trail, a good preview of things to come.  We went up a very long, steep hill, EASILY as steep as any of the hills I'd been running at home and far longer.  My cardio was fine, though, and I was very, very happy that I'd done all of those seemingly masochistic hill runs during training and even more happy that I do some stair climbing every school day.  I honestly never thought of that as training - more just my stubbornly refusing to take an elevator up a mere five stories - but a good half or more of the ascents were far more like running stairs than running hills (which I very duly noted for future training reference), so I was glad that work was in the bank.  Of course, what goes up must come down, and plunging down steep, rocky, leaf-covered trails was just something I hadn't been prepared for, mentally.  So I went down with the brakes full on at first, which is actually a great core exercise.  However,  as I was burning down my brake pads, gazelle-like experienced trial runners were FLYING down past me, and I finally remembered that brakes-on is not the way to go down hills, something I learned eons ago when hiking.  (Relax, let gravity work for you, watch your footing, and try not to overspeed your abilities.) 

One of the lures of running trails for me is the idea of being in the woods, in the hills, in some kind of incredible natural setting.  However, when you're running a trail race in said woods and there are rocks and slippy spots about, you can pay a price for looking up and enjoying said natural setting, and I did.  I was very careful on my ascents/descents and any other territory I felt was potentially tricky, but when I thought I could relax a bit and did?  I bit the dirt.  Actually, I bit the dirt four times.  (Another fact, duly noted: keep your eyes/concentration on the trail!)  I scraped an elbow on one fall, something I didn't even notice until I showered later, but otherwise was unscathed.  The only real damage on the day was to a big toe, and that was from a callus that kind of got detached, to put it gently, due to a blister that formed under it.

Which brings me to the shoe thing.  I ran in an older pair of my regular road shoes, figuring even if they weren't the best thing, they'd get me through the day and I could take things from there.  And they probably would have been perfectly fine - if I'd had them tied tightly enough.  And I don't mean around the top, I mean around the toe box, where I generally LIKE to have a ton of room to move and groove.  However on the trail, my feet slid around in the shoes to the point where they cost me traction and were definitely a factor in some unsteady moments, if not one or two of the falls.  And of all body parts, my feet came out of the thing feeling most beat up, so I definitely thing some well-fitting trail shoes are in my future, considering my race plans for next year.

So overall the race went very well.  I expected to finish in maybe 2 hours, and finished in 1:49.  Although I did walk up the last hill, I had a lot of gas left at the end and ran the last mile and a half or so, which was over less hilly ground, at what felt like a normal road clip.  So overall, I had a great experience, and gained a lot of useful knowledge about how to better prepare for similar races in the future.  In fact, I already have the next one planned out - this same organization runs a 15K spring trail race (nicknamed a mud fest) which is on my calendar.

My race T shirt, commemorative glass, and bloody sock.  Forrest and Jack had to get in on the photo op, of course.

Yes, Virginia, there will be a race report

But probably not for a few days - back to school realities intrude! 

Trail Run Eve

As I think about it, I suppose this isn't really my first-ever trail run.  Most of the tris I've done have had the run either completely or partially on trails.  I can't say they were very technical trails, though, and while I don't expect a super-technical trail tomorrow, I don't expect a pretty much flat path through the woods, either - more like a hiking trail.  I guess.  At this point, I have three main questions, none of which I'll really know the answer to until after the race. 

The first is - how do I dress for this thing?  It's supposed to be cool and on the windy side, which alone isn't an issue.  Today was cold and on the windy side, and I'd probably wear a little bit less than I did today for a longer, harder run on roads or on the local trails.  But will that be right for tomorrow?  I usually wear tights - is that a stupid idea?  Will there be snags that might make them a liability? Would sweats, which I loathe, actually be LESS of a liability?  Somehow, I think not.  I suspect the pace will be considerably slower than a road run - so, should I dress more warmly?  Or will more challenging terrain make up for the lesser pace?  The only answer really is, wear what you think is best and be prepared to shed and carry a layer/accessory or two as needed.

Second, what on earth do I eat before the race?  I don't usually eat much before I run because having much of anything bouncing around in my stomach makes me nauseous, and I'm really not a big fan of nausea.  So I tend to do either a sports drink or shot blocks before/during a run that approaches/exceeds around 2 hours.  However, I also usually run first thing in the morning, and this race doesn't start until 11 am (WTF???).  So, I'm not going to get away without some sort of breakfast.  I'll probably go with cereal and hope for the best.

Finally, and most importantly - did I prepare adequately?  My only goal is to finish the thing, and I am heading out there figuring that even if I have to drag my ass over the finish line in a sling, I WILL finish, but it would be nice to come out of it feeling as if I did a half decent job getting ready for this with but a half-assed notion of what to do (run hills, run trails, lift weights).  And so, we shall see!

Yesterday I did a fun workout at the gym.  I have been looking at the RDR book, thinking about my next strength rotation.  I didn't want to do a killer workout so I picked out a bunch of unfamiliar exercises that I think I'd like to put in my program at some point and gave them a test drive.  I'm so glad I did that because a couple of them really didn't work out well, spatially, in the gym, so what I may do is sub them in on days I do my strength work at home.  (Truth: I actually expect to freeform a bit when I do strength workouts at home, subbing in slightly different exercises or kettlebell exercises with similar movement patterns, just because somethings are harder to set up at home, and frankly there's better safety equipment at the gym.)  Anyway, I plan next week as a recovery week (by some miracle, I have no exams, so it's a school recovery week, too), so I have plenty of time to sort things out a bit more.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Of all of the holidays, Thanksgiving and 4th of July are easily my favorites.   I love this day in particular because it is all about food and family (yeah, and football), and as crazy as it can get?  It's still no where near as crazy as Christmas, while to me it's every bit as festive.  In fact it's nearly all the good things about Christmas in a single, much less stressful day. 

I just had breakfast with my folks - simple stuff, fresh fruit, delicious eggs and hash browns and good coffee.  I took over my cold contributions to the dinner (a dessert - pumpkin cheesecake - and an app - hummus) and will take over a side (corn pudding) later.  My sister and family as well as my aunt and cousins will be there for dinner, with more family expected for dessert.

I've been thinking about all of the things I appreciate and am incredibly thankful for on this and every day:

My family.  Somehow we are very close without being overentangled, if that makes any sense.  I guess it's a combination of love and respect and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

My critters.  A part of my family that deserves special mention, because they're the ones I live with.  They're my little daily doses of happy, my little anchors, my companions.  And they probably think I exist to serve them.  Go figure.

My health.  Having lost it, I'm incredibly grateful to have it again.  This year has been about rebuilding myself, and I'm happy to have been able to have patiently done that.

My brain.  Which still seems to work.

My amazing friends and even acquaintances, who always seem to be there when I really need it, whether they know it or not.  I hope I am at least as helpful to them in return.

I wish everyone a safe, happy, and hopefully delicious holiday.

Oops, version some high number,

Or, In Which the Racing Calendar has the Gall Not to Conform with My Plans.

Yep, despite careful wishful thinking on my part, there's no 24 hour or 50K trail race within a reasonable distance from home when I was planning to do one.   This, I discovered whilst pouring over the interwebs while semi watching UFC 122 (summary: the fights I expected to be good, were; the fights I expected to be boring, were; and the fights I didn't expect to see - time fill-ins - were the best, in terms of raw action). In fact it seems they tend to be in spring or fall.  The lone exception was an early January race - it was either a 12 or 24 hour deal - that consisted of doing endless loops around a trail that was less than a mile long, and looked like it was set up in an industrial park.  Um, seriously???  Why not do an endurance race on a treadmill while showing repeating loops of outdoor scenery?  Maybe set up a few fans to simulate wind, and set off the fire sprinklers once or twice to simulate rain?  No thanks. 

But in backcalculating realistic training schedules for an ultra (minimum distance, 50K), I realized that to do even the latest reasonably local run, which is in mid-October, starting training in April from a pretty much non-existent mileage base (where I'd be if I followed MS pretty much to the letter) would be theoretically but probably not comfortably doable.  Whereas, if I just run through winter to the extent practicable, assuming this winter isn't like last winter, I'll start the season with a decent mileage base and will be able to pretty much do what I want.  And, I have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR races in mind, two 15K's and two 50K's.  Which would be a helluva a nice place to leave a running career that will probably have to go on hold for a few years after that.  And, I'd still have time to play with Cressey's program after that and before grad school, once again, assuming all goes according to Hoyle.

Believe it or not, I find it very difficult to change plans and spent sleepless time last night and some of my road time this morning justifying this change in my mind.  I guess I forget that I set the schedule, it's my schedule, and there's no reason I can't change my own damn plans if I feel like it!  No one else decides my training schedule or goals.  It WILL be easier, as pointed out, to just keep rolling with the running rather than to take a hiatus and restart in spring, and honestly?  It's not as if I decided last week that I wanted to do trail runs/ultras.  I've been wanting to go there since I was a kid, and this just looks like a good time.

Most importantly, though, I am really enjoying what I'm doing and want to keep doing it.  So I'll be spending some time with the Dos Remedios book and figuring out what amounts to an off-season training schedule.  I sort of see myself maintaining my current schedule for a while but I sure would like to reincorporate a rest day somehow. 

And speaking of enjoying what I'm doing - holy smokes, did I have another beautiful run this morning.  I went further than planned because I just didn't want to come off the trails.  The leaves are a bit past peak but there is still plenty of color out there, and I had color coming off lakes and streams and from a clear blue sky...  It was a true joy to be out there.

Melancholy moment

Not too many years ago, I found myself in a nice circle of bloggers - a group of women of similar ages with similar interest in exercise and fitness.  We were at similar points in life and generally supported one another, commented on one another's posts, and what I guess you could call an interwebs kind of way, felt kind of close.  Well, I did, anyway; I can only speak for myself, but it was kind of like having a nice group of friends.  People would drop in and out for various reasons - life getting in the way, basically - but that happens.

And today the last one seems to have dropped out, gone private, or closed her self up, or something.  Whatever, I can no longer read her blog.  I'd write and request access again, but somehow, it seems - not right.  Maybe I have a warped sense of friendship but I'd think if you were going to drop out of sight and you wanted to keep a friend, you'd give them a forwarding address; not doing so means you no longer value the friendship.  Sooo... Adieu, to the last of the group.  Makes me sad.

I'm not really sure who treks through here any more.  I'm not all that fond of my stat tracker - its data conflicts, internally, and I don't think it picks up all of the traffic, so I'm probably going to ditch it.  Frankly I almost decided to ditch the blog entirely, but it has, interestingly, become a bit of a record for me.  I started it around when I started in karate, and I can sift back through the posts to see when I hit certain milestones.  It's also a race record - I never really raced before I was blogging, save one four miler - and I'm sort of sorry I didn't have this kind of quasi diary back when I was doing the horse trials.  THAT could have been a whole lot of fun, having a blog-circle of barn mates, riding club members, and assorted friends and acquaintances.  Then again, I don't know that blogging was all that big back then (which wasn't all that long ago!)... hard to believe the things we take for granted these days.

So, any way - onward I go, and I wish my erstwhile friends well.

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I've been mentioning jiu jitsu class in my Saturday workouts for a while.  I frankly haven't really known what to say about this; I'm being taught off the books and I don't want anyone to get into trouble about it, although as things have been progressing, it's looking less and less likely that that might happen.  Essentially what is happening is someone who is taking formal classes is teaching me, in turn, everything he learns and we practise together.  I find it absolutely fascinating, and the more I learn the more I like it.  I can definitely see pursuing it more on my own when I have the time and resources to do that. 

The "am training" I speak of on Wednesdays is a bit different; I'm being taught Kyokushin by an actual Kyokushin sensei (sensei J).  We focus mostly on fighting (which is apparently how you spend most of your time in a Kyokushin dojo), including foundations, technique, and sparring, sparring, and more sparring.  It's actually a little intimidating but it's helping me tremendously.  While I value what I've been taught in Shotokan, it's a bit - less gritty, for lack of a better descriptor.  We have all of the same techniques in our kata but don't get into (or haven't yet gotten into) the nasty, direct application of those techniques.  So it's a process for me, putting the things together, sparring with sensei then sparring in class.  For a while I felt like a complete mess in both situations but things are starting to make sense to me - meaning, I'm definitely still a mess but at least I can see that I'm learning now.

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Hard to believe running season is almost over.  I've been contemplating tomorrow's long run - actually probably my last long training run of the season.  I'm repeating a route, something I rarely do, but it's a good route, a five town, five park tour that is mostly off road, which is always a good thing, and I really enjoyed it first time 'round.  I figure next weekend I have the 5K Saturday so I will probably do a shorter run on Sunday (I'm thinking 8 miles or so) and the following week is the trail run.  Wow.  It seems as if it's been a long running season, but it's been a good one, I think. 

I've been thinking a lot about next year, and it has occurred to me that IF everything goes according to Hoyle and I am starting grad school in the spring of 2012, it would be pretty darn cool to get that first ultra (I'm thinking either a 50K or a 12 or 24 hour race) under my belt before then.  I'm more or less thinking that the way 2011 will go is that I'll finish Max. Strength in March and then go right back to being a runner again, using routines built from the Dos Remedios book for strength training.

Nice to have the next year semi-sewn up before Thanksgiving, eh?

OK, OK

OK. Lifting straps work, very well.  I did a bit more reading on them before I used them and the take home message I got was, get over yourself and do the muscles you're trying to work a favor by using the damned straps.  If you feel the need to work on your grip, fine, do it, but don't do it at the expense of working your big muscle groups.  Point driven home.

I'm still wrestling a bit with the whole "no long steady state cardio during MS" thing.  I guess my main area of resistance is, I'm USED to doing running at my current level; I've been at it or even higher for months now - hmm, actually since around May.  Plus, it's not like I haven't been running for something like 30 years.  I'd think whatever physiological adaptations that were going to be made will have been made, but then again, what do I know?   What I do plan to do is to research the issue a bit on my own.  Heck, I have access to two college libraries - may as well make use of them.

Speaking of college - had an exam and a lab practical this week, hence my scarcity.  The test was in psych, and it was an open note/open book test. 

I hate open note/open book tests.  I like to study stuff until I KNOW it; having the book there just makes room for me to second guess myself and waste a lot of time paging through the stupid book.  Which I did, of course, because I'd have felt like an idiot to have gotten something wrong with the book sitting right there beside me.  Bleh.  Well, it's over and I don't expect to see another one of those any time soon, so I'm happy.  The lab practical went well; unless I somehow misread a question, I should have a very good grade on that one.  We have a regular A&P exam next week, and after that I'll feel like I'm in the home stretch for the semester. 

Yet another beautiful Sunday run

I'm almost afraid to say that, for fear of jinxing myself, but wow, have I had some really, really great long Sunday runs.  The weather has been perfect.  The paces I was expecting of myself over the summer are coming very easily now and I guess it just goes to show how much the heat was impacting things over summer.  I mean, I'm running half marathon pace or better and it feels easy, even slow.  I definitely have to remember that for next year if I find myself being frustrated by training pace in summer.

Did a lot of thinking on the run about, well, running, my goals/intentions for next year, and Maximum Strength.  I guess I was selectively forgetting some aspects of the training plan there for a while, as I had intended to keep up running on the non-lifting days of the program (Tuesday and Thursday and possibly Sunday, if I felt itchy) to the extent practicable over the winter to avoid having to do a complete re-start-up next spring.  And as I said in my last post, I understand why he doesn't want a person to do this (heck, we're currently studying muscles in A&P and have just recently gone over physiological response of various types of skeletal muscle fibers to different types of exercise).  Which all generates the following random thoughts, which I'm not even trying to reconcile at the moment:

- Speaking purely as a science type person, I enjoy doing programs as written just to see what, exactly, a particular protocol will do to/for me.  I mean, how else do you know? 

- I am a believer of beginning with the end in mind, that is, having a goal, even if it's just to see what a training protocol will do for you. Again, how else do you know?

- That all said, I also believe there are no rotation/program police, and there's no law that says you actually have to follow a program exactly, particularly if you have an overarching goal that isn't the same as the program goal, and yet the program compliments your goal.  SEE what I've been doing with FBB.  I sure as hell haven't been following the program but I believe the workouts have served me very well.

- I love running.  I think of myself as a lot of things, but "runner" usually comes out first.

All of which probably sounds like I'm trying to justify doing what I want to do - that is, running through MS.  And yet while I was running, I was trying to figure out a way I could convince myself to NOT do that, to run the pure experiment - and then in another turn of the mind, I wondered why I felt the need to do the pure experiment in the first place.  Which lead me to goals for next year, which lead me to a schedule for next year...  yeah.  Thought soup. 

I suppose I could do MS the way I want to and just accept that I'm compromising the experiment and may not achieve the best possible outcome - at least until winter dictates exactly how much running I'll be doing through the ugly months, anyway.  If this winter is like last winter, that will be very little; OTOH, in a typical year, a person might miss a week here and there but be able to keep up some semblance of a schedule.

I don't know.  I haven't made a decision either way and probably won't until I have to, which isn't until next month.  Between now and then I should pick out a key race for next year and backfill from there.

Call me a weenie

but I finally broke down and bought myself some lifting straps. 

I'm a HUGE believer in developing grip and have never been one to wear gloves for sports (unless, of course, they were part of the equipment, like a baseball mitt), but my hands have been sore for a few weeks now and it's probably going to get worse during Maximum Strength.  Cressey, in fact, recommends using straps, I presume because grip can be a lift-limiting factor, and this program isn't about pressing that particular limit. What pushed me over the edge was doing offset squats (similar to the kettlebell exercise called suitcase deadlifts) today with a 55# db; the bod was able to comply (with effort), but my hands were KILLING me to the point where I almost dropped the weight at the end of a set.  And of course the next exercise superset included high rep RDLs; by the time I was done that, my hands were very sad claws.  I should have the straps next week and we'll see how it goes. 

And, YAY!  The sun finally came out.  Should be a beautiful, if cool weekend.

Bleh.

On top of the past couple of less than fun days, we get an almost-cold rain & some serious drearies.   Thanks a lot, weather.

I did get out and run this morning, another relatively short one at a bit over 5 miles.  I've enjoyed this step-back week, despite the cold Tuesday and the rain today.  I guess if the weather were feeling really spiteful, it would have been around freezing and raining both days (in which case, I might have bagged it, although I do find the hardest part of running on real shit weather days to be getting one's ass out the door, not the run itself).  Whatever, I have some extra time and energy on my hands this afternoon and may try a DVD I picked up called Power Systems ICE, or something close to that.  I'm guessing the "power systems" part refers to the fact that the cardio component is all higher impact plyo-type stuff, and the ICE has something to do with core.  It's only a 30 minute DVD, which frankly was a big selling point for me because I don't need to add anything of significant length to my day.  I like plyometrics and I like creative core work, which was another selling point for this DVD; I've gotten pretty bored with the core work I know and need something fresh.


Jeez - just erased a bunch of ramblings.  I don't know what's with me today.  My schedule is off - normally I have A&P today but the professor is at a conference so she canceled lecture, and I've already completed the assigned lab.  I got home very early and spent some time studying for next week's lab practical instead, and now I'm just at loose ends.  I wish it were a nice day; I've gotten rained on a few times and I'm disinclined to go back out before I have to, but I don't have a ton of stuff to do here.  I guess it's a rare luxury, to actually be a bit bored for a change.  Anyway, my random thoughts:

- 'Tis eating season, and I'm happy to be going into it at a happy weight, with a good base diet and no questions about what I'm doing for exercise for quite some time.

- Signed up for A&P II for next semester and have been debating taking Abnormal Psych.  I don't need it to apply to grad school, but it looks interesting to me - however, I haven't quite brought myself to part with the bux for something that really isn't necessary.  If I don't decide to do it soon, though, the decision will be made for me by virtue of the class filling up.

- I need a haircut so badly it's not even funny.  I'm trying to hold out for two more weeks so I don't need a bangs touch-up (trim) between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Wish me luck.  I was about ready to shave my head this morning.

- There is a guy in A&P who has apparently taken a shine to me.  He's about 25, and thinks the world of himself.  I wore a sweatshirt to class that had our dojo logo on it (nothing ostentatious, just a name tag sized thing on the breast) and he started asking me about classes, etc.  He wants to train at a place where there's Real Fighting (of course) so I told him about Sensei J, etc.  When I told Sensei J about it, he absolutely cracked up and informed me that I was this kid's Mysterious Older (but not that much older) Woman.  Go, me.

- On that note my sparring does seem to be continuously improving, although I still tend to over-intellectualize the process, and thinking is generally not something you want to get frozen by when limbs are flying.  I'm sure I'll unlearn this over time, and have to be patient with myself for now.

- And, I'm generally liking what I've been doing for weights, now that I'm a couple of weeks into my plan and the dust has settled. 

- Am having a big HMMM as I've been re-reading Maximum Strength; I had been planning to continue running through the program and possibly even do a few trail runs over the winter, but he suggests very little cardio (particularly compared to what I've been doing) for my somatotype.  I'm wondering if that will drive me crazy.  I do understand why doing significant amounts of cardio is completely counter to the program's aims, and since this is really all about truly seeing what I can do in terms of adding strength I should probably just do exactly. what. he. says.  I also realize he's not my mother, I won't get arrested for not following the program exactly, and so on...  Guess I have to pick my priority, eh?

All right, time to try this Power Ice thing.

RIP, Romeo

Yeah.  The other elder passed away this afternoon, quietly in his sleep at age 19. 

Romeo, I have literally known since the day he was born.  He's also from that horse barn, born to Wanda, the official farm barn cat, who wanda'd down the road one day and made her home there.  She was a skinny thing, and as happens to skinny young female cats on farms all over the world on a daily basis, she started gaining weight, which we first took as a good thing - and then we got the picture.  Ro was one of five kittens; my mother adopted him, along with one of his brothers, who passed on a few years ago due to congestive heart failure.  Ro was a lapcat and a true sweet heart, and a fearsome slayer of birds.  He and his bro were destined to be adopted by my ex and myself, who were getting ready to cohabit on our first farm and wanted a couple of barn cats.  Well... my mother would have none of that, and took them both. 

Like Clyde, Ro lived an obviously long and healthy life, and was well-loved.  He'll be missed.

RIP, Clyde

Remember those cats I was sitting around the end of August - a couple of very old guys, whom I was afraid would pass under my care?  One did finally pass, today, at the age of about 20, in his sleep of natural causes.

Clyde belonged to my parents, and my father was his person from day one.  I first met Clyde when he was dumped at the barn where I was boarding a horse.  A lady who kept a pony there for her granddaughter had adopted Clyde from a shelter and was HORRIFIED when he persisted in jumping on her kitchen counter.  (Um, it's a CAT.  Cats jump on things.)  So she brought him and an even younger kitten, a little girl tortie later named Bonnie, to live at the barn.  I almost immediately talked my father into adopting them.

Clyde was a cool guy, one of those cats with enough personality for several.  He was always a prodigious jumper and loooooved to climb the Christmas tree.  First year with my father, he took delight in breaking every ornament on the tree, which my father took with good humor.  As he aged Clyde went deaf and later developed feline dimentia, but he was otherwise robustly healthy and lived a long and happy life.  He'll be missed.

Never say never, part somewhat or other

Heh, guess what I'm doing?

Driving for over an hour to run for less than half an hour.

Yep, I've actually entered a 5K, first time ever.  It's a Turkey Trot, to be held weekend before Thanksgiving, benefiting my nephew's school.  Not at all something I'd normally do, but then again, it's not something my sister would ordinarily do, and when she asked if I'd like to join her - seriously, how could I pass that up?  How often do you run a race with your sister?   Sis actually ran cross country in high school, but didn't continue on as anything other than the occasional recreational runner and to my remembrance, hasn't run a race since then.  Something new and different for both of us.  What a hoot!

Today was weights at the gym, one of the FBB workouts.  I liked it, although the rep scheme, which blends a bit of low rep with a lot of high (similar to the final phase of NROL/W), is not my favorite, mainly because counting 15 or so reps gets old fast.  I guess I could vary the rep scheme (d'oh), but OTOH sometimes it's not a bad idea to do what you don't like, and it's not as if a more endurance-like rep scheme isn't what they suggest for runners, anyway.  And, it'll be on to strength soon enough.

Bon weekend!

All over the board Monday

I’m having that “missed the boat” feeling…  wow, sigh. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about spring semester for school what I want to do, what I need to take, etc.  And I decided (finally – hah!) that it might be in my best interest to get myself some academic advisement, preferably someone who has a clue as to what I want to do and how I need to get from here to there.  So I went poking around my alma mater’s website, and found that they have a post-baccalaureate program for career changers going into medical or dental professions…  but it’s limited to doctors and dentists.  Blah.  I did call to talk to them, and the referred me to the college’s sport science program, which I didn’t even know EXISTED when I was there, and if I did, I probably would have considered it a gut major, something for jocks who wanted to become gym teachers or something.  Yes, I was ignorant, mea culpa! I would LOVE to go back in that major now, but that’s seriously water under the bridge.  Still, it makes me sad to think that if I had been a bit more patient and thoughtful back then…. Although, who knows, really. 

Oh well.  I’ve had my moment of regret – not much I can do about this now but continue on from here.  I should have plenty of opportunity to study the same and other topics either in grad school or in continuing ed afterwards, and frankly it’s not as if I haven’t been educating myself in some capacity along the way as it is.  So I’ll see what, if anything, that program office can do to help me at this point, and if they can’t, I’ll start calling the grad schools, although to me that seems to be working the process backwards, not forward.

Segue.  When I was in college, I had a good friend named Dan.  Dan was a physics major, and a total physics enthusiast.  He in fact talked my best friend at the time (a writing major, as was I at the time) and I into taking physics and calculus.  He and I also used to play guitars until all hours in the stairwells of the dorm; we screwed around with all sorts of funky scales and got an appreciation for how math intermixes with music.  I tend to think about him a lot this time of year because one of his favorite sayings was, “It’s always darkest just before it goes completely black.”  Which is about how I feel this time of year, when there practically isn’t any morning sunlight to speak of.   And by morning, I mean before 7 am. – I think civil twilight is right around then right now, meaning, of course, one who runs at a normal-ish, morning-person-hour runs in the dark at least part, if not all the way.  Being one of said people, I love, love, love the day we set the clocks back to normal time and I get the morning light back, at least for a while.  Used to be they’d have been set back by now, but unfortunately that won’t happen for nearly two more dark weeks.

All of which is a very long way of saying, I’ve decided that next week, when it’s darkest, I’m going to cut myself a little slack and have an overdue running cutback week, knocking a mile or two off each run.  That will leave me with two hard and one easier week before the race, a decent final push, I think. 

So far, I’m liking the new weight workouts.  The FBB workout I did on Friday was good, different and satisfyingly challenging, and I’m looking forward to doing its “B” counterpart on Wednesday.  Today was Give Legs a Break day, so I did the Precision Nutrition workout a go, and have to say, it was a bit of a Fail.  The exercises themselves weren’t bad; in fact the thing felt pretty well put together for what it was (upper body, multi-plane push/pull), but it took me just over half an hour for the whole thing, including five minutes of rowing, which was the recommended warm-up.  When I was done, both my legs and core felt neglected in a “where’s the REST of the workout?” manner, something I totally hadn’t anticipated, so I added on a couple of things (overhead squats, Roman chair squats because they amuse me, and some killer reverse abs/core on the tiltly board thing) to round out the session.  I like the base workout enough to keep it, and next time I’ll know to have a plan to finish it off.

Day of Rest Not Very Restful, Akshully...

But at least I'm not on a jury.  They only called in groups for two jury pools, and my number didn't come up either time.  So I spent most of the day in a noisy, crowded area with other equally bored, distracted, and restless people and tried not to be too bored, distracted, and restless, myself.  Got in a bit of (probably poor quality) studying for tomorrow's exam, and managed to get out for a decent walk at lunch.  Also finished a book and read most of a magazine, and chatted up a couple of people who were also getting can't-sit-still-itis.

At least I wasn't called, and I'm off the hook for the next three years.  Yay!  But I do think my brain is turning to mush.  I'll be very happy when classes are over tomorrow, although I'm looking forward to A&P; we're starting on the muscles.

Speaking of which - I did decide to go with the modified FBB/PN UB workout scheme for the next five weeks.  I didn't have to change all that much, as it happens; three exercises, total, all things I have been doing and will do again in the first stage of MS.  (Front squat, incline bench, and one other, I forget what.  Plus I messed with the planks, because I'm up to two minutes on weighted planks and it's time to switch that up.)  I also got a new (well, used) book today, this little puppy:

I keep seeing Robert dos Remedios' name popping up, and having quickly reviewed the plans, I can see why: his approaches are similar to those of the Cosgroves.  I don't know what the relationship between those parties, if any, might be, but they've drunk from the same well, no doubt.  In any event, I only had a chance to briefly peruse the programs, but there's plenty of flexibility and variety, and I can see having fun playing with this at some point.

Whew.

Glad that test is over.  I thought it went really, really well, too.  And I got an A on my lab practical.  So, one more exam this week - maybe - and I can breathe for a little while.

The "maybe" - I have a psych exam (yes, yet another one) this Thursday.  I also have jury duty tomorrow.  Normally I don't mind jury duty - it's a change of pace, sometimes interesting, sometimes not - but this time 'round, I really want nothing to do with serving, because if the trial goes more than one day (and seriously, with the kinds of hours they courtroom seems to keep, that's almost a given), I'll miss class AND my test, and Ms. Psych professor doesn't give make-up exams.  What she DOES do is drop your lowest exam grade on the semester and compute your grade based on the remaining scores (so, it's based on 7 out of 8 exams), so in essence, if I miss the exam that would be my dropped grade.  Which I suppose is fine, but what if I screw up on my own, down the road?  From what I understand the court really doesn't care about this kind of thing (school is not one of the recognized hardship excuses from petit jury service), so we'll just have to see what happens.  Not much sense in worrying about it, I guess.

This morning was a rainy, and therefore muddy run.  It also wasn't particularly fast, mainly because a good section of it was on trails, so I was squishing through stuff and trying not to land on my ass or do a face plant (which I almost did, woo! that would have been fun).  I figure, good practise for the trail race, since you never know what kind of weather you're going to face on a given date.  I saw no one else out on the road, or on the trails, which I guess isn't all that surprising since it was around 50 degrees, but honestly, it wasn't all that bad once you got going.  The hardest part of a rainy (or very cold) run is getting your ass out the door in the first place.

Might skip karate tonight.  I am assuming I will be taking my psych test and need to study, and it's going to take a few more hours before my brain quiets down enough for me to do that.  Right now, I sort of have post-test fog.

Go Phillies!!

My text book has a website

How cool is that?  I didn't realize it until just this past week. The book came with a CD, which I tried to use on my computer but didn't have much luck.  It says it's Mac compatible, but when I popped it in, it tried to run Windows on my comp via Parallels, which is not a good thing, Parallels being amazingly flaky and crash-prone.  So I pretty much gave up on using the computer as a study aid, and just figured I'd do it all the old-fashioned way.  Which, frankly, hasn't been working all that badly for me thus far.  But one of my classmates put me on to the book's actual website, and it's pretty damned useful!  It has all kinds of interactive tools plus several tests per chapter, as well as bonus materials.  It has really helped me figure out what I have down and what I need to look at more going into my next exam.

Got me thinking about "back in the day" when I first went to college.  I went to Carnegie -Mellon University, which at the time was referred to as Computer U.  They had a vision - a computer in every dorm room.  They weren't there as of the time I left, but they were still well ahead of the times in that regard.  EVERY student - and we are talking a diverse lot, everything from music and drama majors to hard science and engineering majors - had an account on the schools mainframe (remember those?) and had to take a programming class.  We learned Pascal, which I believe is actually still in use, not that I could actually still write a program in it.  It was actually a pretty cool class in that it taught you a bit about thinking/thinking things through/testing your work.  The computer could only do what you told it to do, so if your program didn't work, well, you f'd up, and had to tease out your own mistake.  Debugging became one of my favorite things there for a little while. 

And now, textbook publishers have book-specific websites, and people carry powerful computers to the actual classroom.  A-mazing.

Had a really great day for running yesterday, and bombed myself with a really challenging run.  I strung together just about every hill I could without doing any significant backtracking, with a mix of steep ups and downs and gradual ups and downs.  I can throw in at least one more level of difficulty - more than that will require a lot of backtracking and loops, which I despise, so I'm not sure I'll go there - but even so, this one was really tough.  One of the steepest up hills was at around mile 9 (out of 10.4 or so) and I wouldn't have minded having a rope to help drag myself up.  But I did it, so I'm happy, plus the Eagles won, the Phils won, and I squeezed in some quality study time, so I can't argue with the day on the whole.

Today was weights at the gym.  I'm officially done my self-made workout block, and am considering what to do next.  Assuming all goes as planned, I have about five weeks of workouts to do prior to the trail run, after which (after a short break!) I'll be starting Maximum Strength.  I'm considering using the FBB stage 3 workouts, swapping out any exercises that also appear in the first stage of MS for something similar that doesn't.  However I also like having one day a week where I'm giving legs a total break (and they seem to like it, too), so I may do FBB two days a week and a purely UB workout one day a week.  I have until Friday to think about it, as I'm taking Wednesday as a rest day (Jury duty) and won't hit the gym again until Friday, but right now I like that plan.

Nausea!

There's something really elemental and apparently gut-wrenching about lab practicals.  They're not multiple choice tests, where you at least have a chance of getting things right if you're struck clueless.  They're not essay tests, where you can at least feel semi-good about yourself for employing the "baffle 'em with bullshit" tactic (not that it works) if you don't really know what to say.  No, you're presented with whatever - in today's case, bones - and asked very specific things, which you have to describe in the correct manner.  Basically, you know the instant you lay eyes on the bone if you know it and that's it - you know it or, well, not.  I don't know what it is about them, but many of us find ourselves extremely nervous and nauseous prior to walking into the lab.  It's like all the studying is behind a very flimsy damn that really wants to break, and is afraid of breaking at the same time.

I went in there feeling like I knew my shit but wouldn't you know?  I seem to have tried to invent a new way to screw up.  We were given a bone (or set of bones, such as part of a skull, or a hand, or a foot), and asked to name four specific parts of it.  Well, I caught myself twice simply naming things in the order in which they spilled out of my head, rather than in the order in which they were asked.  So I had, say, radial tuberosity where I should have had troclear notch, hamate where I should have had fifth proximal phalanx, etc.  I caught a THIRD instance of my doing this when I went back over my test, and am hoping I caught them all.  Jesus H. Christ.  The results of that exam may be way more interesting that I'd like them to be.

Speaking of which, I got a 101 on my psych exam.  I'll take it.

Today was back to the hills.  I strung my route together a bit differently, essentially doing the key/hardest hills the opposite way from what I usually do.  (Incidentally, reversing a route is a great way to freshen up any run.)  Usually I route my hill runs for maximum uphill steepage, and for just about all of the hills I have, the normal down side is generally of a gentler grade than the up.  But, since running down a steep hill is actually pretty challenging in its own right (as is running up those long grades), it made for a nice change of pace and a good reminder to self to do that more often.  Tonight will be karate, as usual. 

The tibia articulates with the...

Yeah, that's what I'm studying.  OK, not at this moment - the brain needs a brief recess.  I've frankly come to appreciate how well they - the recesses - work, as opposed to just pounding away at stuff until the pages get blurry. 

This morning was the usual am workout with Sensei J, followed by yoga class.  Spent much of the afternoon studying and found myself really just wanting a simple push-up/pull-up style workout (part of my "legs mostly off" day).  The mind was feeling uncreative so I grabbed P90X Chest and Back off the shelf and did that, plus Ab Ripper X. I haven't done THAT type of volume in some time, so I expect to feel it tomorrow.

I hope the legs appreciated their mini-break; it's back to hills tomorrow.  Heh.

Test mode

Today I handed in a psych paper, the first "paper" I've done in, well, a long time. 

Which is not to say I haven't done a shitload of reports over the past, well, few years, but they've all been very formal, structured reports, prepared according to a very formal template, reviewed by at least one and up to a dozen or more (yes, seriously) other people, containing data tables, maps, diagrams, and appendices out the ass, and packaged by someone else into a glossy, bound package.  I didn't find it particularly difficult to write, but in re-reading it, I had to wonder what the instructor will make of my voice, which was incredibly formal. I didn't really give any thought to an appropriate writing level for the thing, and perhaps I should have.  Oh well, done is done.  Also had a psych test today, which kicked off the next testing cycle (why, oh why do these things happen in cycles?).  Anyway, today was psych, Thursday is a lab practical for A&P, Tuesday is an A&P exam, and next Thursday is yet another psych test.  So if I'm not writing much, you'll know why.

Overall, the workouts have been going well, but I'm about ready for a break.  I've been waiting for a rest day to present itself to me, but so far, no dice.  I felt pretty draggy this morning toward the end of my run this morning and may take a pass on karate tonight.  Might also give the leggies a break in tomorrow's weight session and do upper body only.  I found a pretty cool workout on - of all places - the Precision Nutrition website and I've been interested in trying it.  Goes like:

Corner barbell press
Corner barbell row
Seesaw press
Pullups/pulldowns
Machine Flyes
Cable seated row

I honestly can't remember the last time I did a machine fly...  Then again I might just pick up the kettlebells and do a grind style day.  It's all good, right?

Exercise Theory of Relativity

Had a great (and challenging) run this morning.  It's part of a series of runs I'll call the Hill Maxes that I've been looking forward to doing, but really hadn't been able to put in the schedule to date, due to the locations of the hills relative to my usual starting points, the distances I needed to run (often too short to incorporate a ton of hills), and the fact I needed pace more than hill training.  But they are a perfect fit for me now, and I've been having fun putting them together.  Today's run was especially nasty (and even while doing it, I though of a few ways to make it even nastier) - about seven miles of hills and then off through the woods. 

While running I got into this pensive mood (doesn't always happen - more often than not I don't think of anything at all in particular when I run).  It stuck me how relative exercise and effort are, one person to another.  I was thinking, here I was doing what I call a seriously hilly run, and someone from someplace that is considerably hillier than southern NJ, oh, a TON of places, would probably find my run not all that challenging.  I do think I am making the best use I can of what I'd call limited resources, but they are just that - limited resources.  And still, for me I'm able to come up with challenging runs, hopefully runs that will get me through this trail race, which will take place in actual hills.

So, as flat vs. hills vs. Hills goes, so, generally, does exercise duration and intensity and difficulty.  My normal day is another person's overtraining is another person's walk in the park.  Your light is my heavy is another person's impossible.  My average running pace is someone's fast and someone else's pathetically slow.  I've heard it said that you really can only compare yourself to yourself, and sometimes I think every exercising person should have that plastered somewhere that they'll see it often because really?  Those are the only measurements that count. 

Another thing which has brought this to mind is watching people going through the Insanity program.  (Incidentally, I'm glad I took a pass on this for now - I'm really enjoying what I've been doing, otherwise, and it would be too much on top of that.  Still might try it sometime in future.)  I've heard a ton of criticisms of the program and also a lot of praise, the latter in particular from people who really seem to enjoy effort (as I do). In fact my general impressions of the program was that it was geared toward in-shape people who wanted to get ripped, and no one else need apply.  The only reason I was even considering doing the program was because I heard people saying it was the hardest thing they'd ever done.  So, I had to know, you know?

Of course, my impression is based on the takes/experience of people who have been doing exercise videos for a long time, often more than a decade, who have their own expectations of the program based on the hype, the infomercials, the perceptions of like-minded individuals, Beachbody's reputation, and so on.  And yet the people who I see doing the program 1) by and large, are not advanced exercisers, by any common measure, 2) are not vidiots, 3) have heard none of the hype, 4) haven't seen the infomercial, and 5) didn't come into this knowing anything about Shaun T. (or any of the other BB trainers, for that matter).  And guess what?  So far, no one has dropped out, and they're all improving relative to their individual starting points. 

To which I say, go group!  Are they working at the same level as the in-shape person who wants to get ripped?  How should I know?  But relatively speaking, it's working for them. 

I'm sure there's a much shorter way of saying all of that, something along the lines of Tony Horton's  "Do your best and forget the rest," but when you're running 10+ miles, trains of thought, when they do stay intact, tend to expand, not contract.

And now, back to my Psych paper. 

Junior and Grif, facing off.  Both are preferentially jiu jitsu fighters, and this one is going to the ground in 3... 2... 1...

Blink blink

Wow.  I feel like I'm emerging from a bit of a social tunnel, bit of an unusual place for me.  (Can't say I'm the world's most social person.)  Fortunately things all came at a point where I was very caught up with school work so it was easy just to flow with things.  And, things weren't crazy enough that workouts had to suffer.  So, other than the really crappy Eagles' loss yesterday, it was kind of a nice balancing sort of weekend.

One of the highlights was a surprise party held on Friday night.  It was for the boyfriend of a friend, although I'm sort of friends with the BF to, and have done a couple of speaking things with him (public service type stuff).  It was a good time - but perhaps the most interesting part of the night was the location, which was the house of an acquaintance.  I suspected, going in, that the house would be quite the place, and when I google earth-ed it prior to heading over, I actually wondered if they'd let me in.  We're talking gated entrance, drive with its own cul de sac, multi multi car garage, pool, tennis court, live in help... the works.  The architectural style is what I'd call quasi Italian meets nouveau riche; the interior decoration, which I'm sure was actually very tasteful and horrendously expensive, struck me as Pier 1 Imports Gone Wild, in a WTF is that, and why is it there? kind of way.

I guess my inner bitch is out this morning, because I'm going to talk smack about the hostess, too.  I've known her for a while, and my initial impression of her, and one the house only reinforced, was that there's probably no manner of plastic surgery that she hasn't met and embraced.  Now - I have absolutely NOTHING against people  having plastic surgery.  It's your body, and if it makes you happy - do it.  It's not something I look for or even notice unless I knew a person before and saw a major change.   But this woman - the changes are so NOT organic that she doesn't even look real.  Fake boobs, tummy tuck, face lift, cheek implants, and probably enough botox to drop a football team.  And trust me, if generally oblivious me notices these things, they are very noticeable.  She looks every inch the preserved rich man's wife and my overarching inclination is to feel sorry for her, especially because she really doesn't seem all that happy.

Anyway, the birthday boy WAS surprised, the company was great, the food was very good, and they had the coolest dog, a really playful bull mastiff.  (Surprising choice, I guess, for people with so much bullshit interior decoration lying around.) 

Sunday was a Special Training with the head instructor of the karate school, Sensei T.  It's taken several years but I think I've gotten to the point where I'm no longer intimidated as hell by him.  What was particularly nice about this ST is that it was just our school - usually ST's are held in one of his NY dojos, and we South Jersey people (my immediate sensei's students) are vastly outnumbered by students from his schools, not to mentioned outranked.  Because there's usually such a large spread of students at the ST's, ranking from 5th kyu (purple belt) to 6th dan (6th degree black belt), there's little specific emphasis, and while everyone gets plenty of floor time, you don't always get to work on things specifically required on your next exam.  We only have students raking to shodan (1st degree black belt) so everyone's stuff got some quality going over.  It was a fantastic opportunity.  We all went out to a late lunch/early dinner afterwards and got home in time to watch the Eagles lose ugly. 

So, back to the norm.  I have one exam this week (Psych), a psych research paper due next week, and the remainder of the skeleton to start to memorize for A&P.  Last week was the head, neck and back - I never realized you had so damned many holes in your head! - and this week is the appendicular (Norwegian for "remainder of the") skeleton. 

Workout are all boringly on schedule.  I'm thinking of changing up my weight workouts in another week or so to a sort of revolving menu of stuff from FBB.  One of the things I don't really like about making up my own workouts is that I think there is a natural tendency to include things you like and/or want to do, so even if you try to keep things honest and balanced and include shit you don't really enjoy but know you need, there's a chance you're inadvertently overlooking something.  So what I may do is use the Stage 2, 3, and 4 workouts consecutively, i.e., 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, restart.  Since the point of this rotation is mainly to keep me in the gym and working through what amounts to the end of running season so I'm not starting my next program from ground zero, I figure there's no harm in playing around a bit; it's all good stuff.

The lazy blogger signs in

Didn't mean to race and run...  Just haven't been in the bloggiest of moods lately.  Just a few things going on:

1) School is going well.  I guess it sounds a bit boastful, but the WORST grade I got on my tests last week was a 100.  Yes, thanks to the power of extra credit, my test scores ran 100, 102, and 103.  So, all the studying paid off.  But it only gets more fun from here on out in A&P: we're on to memorizing all the bones (and the attachments, holes, and funky parts there of), and will next go on to all of the muscles.  Who knew you had so many holes in your head? 

2) Instead of having a hard training calendar, I've set up a template for myself.  I have three weights days a week, three to four run days a week, yoga class, and four slots for karate, class numbers/length varying.  There is no formal off day, but I suspect off days will present themselves to me.  I had expected to take a partial day off (no run) today, in fact, because it was supposed to be POURING this morning, but it was just humid as all hell, so out I went.  When this next race is over, I plan to MAKE myself rest for as long as I can stand it.  (What that usually looks like to me is taking out the running and weights, and leaving in karate and yoga.  So, I guess it's more like a recovery period.)

3) I feel a bit odd about abandoning the rest day proper.  I've long advocated for them, but lately I've found I have a really hard time sleeping if I don't do SOMETHING reasonably athletic, and that's not so great, either.  So I will try to balance harder and easier days as much as possible.

4) I'm doing self-designed weight workouts.  I originally was planning to use the FBB stage 3 and 4 workouts, which look pretty interesting, but I made these two up to sort of fill in a time gap, and like them enough to want to continue with them for a while.  They both include a variety of leg and glute exercises, some rotational exercise, core or ab work, and either vertical or horizontal push/pull elements.  Nothing brilliant, I'm sure, but different enough from what I've been doing to be fresh and basic enough, I think, to be useful.


5) Yay, Phillies! 

Time to chill a bit before karate.  I'm feeling a bit like Grif, here, right now:

Belated, but here nonetheless, Race Report: Philadelphia Distance Run

a/k/a, the ING Rock ‘n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon.

Grif inspects my race T and finisher's medal.

It was, as expected, a near perfect day for a race.  Temps were in the 50’s when I started out for the train station, and the forcast temp for the end of the race was low 70’s.  Wouldn’t have minded a bit cooler, but after this summer, it seemed like a gift. 

I took the train mainly because I was concerned about finding parking in Philly, and as I walked over I was wondering how many other people might have had shared my brilliant idea; I’ve seen the train platforms packed at odd hours and hoped it wouldn’t be standing room only.  As it happened, it wasn’t all that bad, and to my very pleasant surprise, at the second stop, two folks from the dojo also boarded the train, headed to the race!  The first was sensei’s wife, with whom I’ve done a few tris; she was headed over to watch her sister race: the second was the mom of a kid I’ve taught, who was actually running (the mom, not the kid).  Made for a nice train ride and walk to the start.

I am not really big on getting to race events early and hanging out, waiting for the start.  I find 1) there’s nothing to do, frankly, and 2) it’s usually too cold to just stand around in race clothes.  1 + 2 = a cold and bored me.  So I usually try to time my arrival so that I just have time to drop off my gear, hit the (usually vile) jakes if necessary, and hit my corral running, so to speak, and I pretty much nailed it.  The race actually officially started – meaning the elite runners started - while I was still in the potty line, but because I was in the 10th corral, my group would likely cross the start line a good starting a good ten minutes behind them.  I was able to join the four or five minutes before we crossed the start line, and  then we were off!

The first five miles or so went through center city, Philly.  It’s been a while since I did a huge race and I seemed to recall rolling with the crowd usually got me off to an overfast start (I ran something like a seven and a half minute mile when I started the Marine Corps Marathon, WAAAAAY too fast for the likes of me); this particular crowd really didn’t seem to be blazing out of the start, but I just kept with the pack because there was really much room for maneuvering, and it didn’t really feel THAT slow.   However, by the time I hit mile one, I could see it really was that slow, nearly a minute off my planned pace, and between the crowd and the narrowness of the streets, I figured I probably wasn’t going make up any significant time in the city, and immediately despaired of my hoped-for finish time.  (This, in retrospect, was a Lesson Learned, but I’ll do those later.) 

Somewhere around mile 5, the course headed out of the city and into Fairmont Park (right around when I hit this marker, the WINNER crossed the finish line, having complete the race in a hair over an hour – officially, 60:15).   By this time the race had opened up a bit, and I was starting to feel pretty good, a feeling that, unfortunately, wouldn’t last all that much longer.  However, around mile 6 I had a chance meeting with an acquaintance from my home town, someone I didn’t even know was a runner!  We ran and chatted together briefly before parting ways, having had one of those neat, uplifting surprises.   Shortly after that, though, the race went from fun to arduous work.

At around mile seven, my quads started to feel really tight and heavy, like they could cramp up at any moment.  There was nothing in the race that prompted this – the course was pancake flat – and I didn’t have a clue at the time as to what the trouble might be.  The quads had been bothering me for a couple of days prior to the race, but I attributed that to taper-related phantom pain, and nothing else.  (I was wrong.  Yet another Lesson Learned!)  It was a weird place to be, mentally; I can honestly say I had no significant aches or pains anywhere during my training, so I had to wonder what on earth was up, and why was it just showing up then?  I went to the side of the course and stretched for a moment and then pressed on, figuring that since nothing felt MECHANICALLY wrong, the worst that could happen would be that I’d get hauled in on the meatwagon, a cramped mess.

And that was the story of the last five, six miles of the race.  Run, pause, stretch; run, pause, stretch.  I don’t know if the pausing or the stretching, alone or in combination, helped, but I never did cramp up, and as I got closer to the finish line, I realized I actually wasn’t all that far off my goal pace, another very pleasant surprise.  When all was said and done, finished only three minutes over my goal time of two hours!   All things considered, and in light of the valuable lessons learned, I’ll take it.

I picked up my finisher’s medal and foraged through the runner’s food/snack area, then searched the support area – in vain, as it happened – for a massage tent.  They usually seem to have them at tris, and I was surprised when I couldn’t find one at the race.  But I did find a tent with some yoga mats, so I took full advantage of the opportunity to do a much more thorough stretch, which felt pretty darned good, then picked up my gear and started the trek back to the train station.   And who did I run into before I was even out of the race area, but sensei’s wife!  We had a nice walk back to the train together, and as predicted, I was home before noon.

So, the lessons learned:  Lesson One, which I settled on a few weeks ago:  As much as I hate letting a stopwatch dictate individual runs because I find it more or less sucks the life out of them, obsessing about a finishing time – which I WILL do if I publicly or privately share a race goal – sucks the fun out of training.  So, henceforth, while I know I can’t prevent myself from mentally setting time goals, my stated goal will ALWAYS be to finish the event and have fun doing it.  So there!

Lesson Two:  Race starts are tricky things.  I’ve been sucked into fast starts, and now mentally tripped up by a slow start.  In truth, for these big races, it’s hard to really set your own pace at the start if you’re mid-pack; however, if it’s a LONG race, keeping reasonably close to pace at the start is probably fine.  In particular, I know that I tend to really get rolling a few miles into a long run, and frequently finish running faster and easier than when I head out.  So…  I should have just gone with the beginning of this race, and not sweated the clock so much early on.

Lesson Three:  When the training schedule says to do a 30 minute tempo run four days before the race, do a 30 minute tempo run.  Do NOT go and run full out for half an hour because it’s a beautiful, cool morning and you feel like blasting away.  Working the legs, and in this case the quads especially, that hard may leave them sore for a few days, and that half hour of fun MIGHT just come back to bite you on the ass during the race.  D’oh!!!

Will I do that particular race again?  I don’t honestly know.  The half itself is a nice distance to run; I found training for a full marathon to be a part time job toward the end, and it was comparatively easy to keep a schedule that included weight training and a full karate load throughout the half training.  In terms of foot traffic, at 15,000 people, Philly was big but not monstrous; while the start felt congested it opened up well enough later on, which was nice.  As for the crowds – I have to admit, I was a little bit disappointed.  I’ve heard this race compared to the Broad Street Run, which is basically a ten mile long, impromptu-feeling block party.  Well, there really is no comparison; Broad Street has it all over the slicked-up Rock ‘n’ Roll half.  I don’t really run FOR the crowds, but they make it a hell of a lot more fun; without them, I might as well just run 13 or however many miles around the neighborhood.   In terms of travel, though, it doesn’t get much easier than a commuter train ride to do a race – so maybe I will be back some time in future.

And for my next trick, it’s on to the Dirty Bird, my inaugural trail race.  Here’s to sane training!