to send in grad school apps.
Yikes.
I've been working on my "personal statement." I found that part of my law school app to be incredibly challenging, and I'm finding it to be so in this case, too. What do I say? I need to talk about why I want to go into the field, my education, my work history, my current work status (PT aide experience), my experience as a trainer and instructor... I need to be concise and yet thorough, somehow pack the last 25 years in to two highly relevant pages.
However, the real rub for me has become, where to apply? One school is a lock. I've visited it; it has a good rep. It's local, which means a smaller life interruption. (Side question: is that a good thing or a bad thing, and would I know, either way?) Downside? They only take 30 people per year, so if I don't get in, what next? The other schools I'm interested in are out of state and therefore automatically more expensive. One is just across the bridge in Philly; another is in Pittsburgh. Pitt is the best school of those I'm considering, and the hardest to get into, and would be the greatest life interruption if I DID get in and go. Would that I were 22 and that whole severely displaced lifestyle thing was not a factor. But I do have a life and it's hard to imagine putting it aside - even for the short term.
Perhaps I need to get over that. Because right now I'm putting a lot of stock in Plan A, and I know I need to be flexible and willing to roll with plans B and C if necessary. It's like planning to fly by instrument rules: you file your flight plan, hope air traffic control gives gives you the routing you asked for, and deal with it if they don't.
-----
So as usual, I'm taking a bit of mental refuge in my exercise program. I've picked out my next race, a 50K in January, and after that I'm looking at a 50-miler in February and/or a pick your distance (up to 100 miles) in April. The entry fee for the 50-miler is a bit steep considering the ambiguities of winter training in these parts (what if I can't prep?) so I may go with the pick your distance, which is FREE but runs over a flat 8 mile asphalt loop in Philly which is considerably less interesting than a hilly trail in North Jersey. Or, not. Heh. I'm sure about January, but after that, it's a bit up in the air. I keep finding new sites with different races to consider so we'll just see how things develop. What is for sure, though, is that I do plan to keep training and racing - that little dilemma - to train/race or have a Winter of Strength - is over.
Which is not to say I'm not strength training. In fact, I'm revisiting NROL/Abs, with some changes. For starters I'm just doing each workout 4 times (instead of 6 - 8); this allows for two workouts a week and puts completion of this trip through the program concurrent with the training schedule for the January 50K. Very tidy. I like tidy. I'm keeping the exercise templates but using more difficult variations of the core work, and swapping out some of the exercises for similar ones (i.e., a front squat for an overhead squat, etc.). I'm also changing the set/rep ranges in the various phases, plus I'll be adding the "extra strength" option to Phase 2 and moving Phase 2's metabolic work to Phase 1. These changes are all suggestions from the book, so I don't feel as if I'm breaking any "rules" by making them. I think the structure of this program serves me very well, so depending on how things look post next race, who knows? I may make some different swapouts and run through the program yet again.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Blues Cruise 50K Race Report
When I was in college, I took a meteorology course. Now, I've been a weather geek since kidhood - when my peers were checking out Dr. Seuss, Nancy Drew, and the Little House books from the library, I was checking out every book they had on the weather - so in a lot of ways the class was a bit of a gut course for me, but it was nice to have a real meteorologist confirm some of the things I had long suspected, one of which being that a long-range weather forecast is worth the paper it's written on. So perhaps it was a bit naive of me to latch on to the extended forecast for race day (sunny, upper 50's - really, perfect) and more naive still to remain optimistic after it started going to pot, where it stayed. Hey, I'm an optimist - so shoot me!
Fortunately, it only rained at the beginning and end of the race; most of the day was cloudy (which isn't bad, really) but rain-free. Not that that would have made much difference on the course, much of which was apparently under water during the unusually heavy August/September rains we had. The going was on the slow side, even on what should have been the faster trails, due to mud; the overall winner was about 25 minutes over the race record.
I arrived about an hour before the start time and picked up my package and spiffy entrant's jacket in a nice light rain, then headed back to the dressing room (my car) to change. I had the foresight to pack a variety of options for race wear in my gym bag and ultimately went with a long sleeve tech shirt, my new Soloman trail shorts, and my Phillie's hat - because, you gotta represent during the playoffs! (It was a hit with the guys at the aid stations.) This was the inaugural run for these shorts, which were a combination of a light compression short under a light tech short. I decided to try this type of short after finding that regular running shorts, once soaked, as mine inevitably become during trail races, chafe, no matter how thin your thighs. Big win for me here - they were very comfortable and worked brilliantly.
Prior to entering this race, I'd heard that the course was pretty tough; lots of vertical gain and some pretty tough hills. For this reason, I was concerned, going in, with making the time, and my goal became just that - to finish the race within the time allotted. The first ten miles of the race, however, contained very little up and down. I didn't walk much, except where necessary due to mud, but wasn't exactly blazing along the trails. No, I was more or less staying with people I thought were going at a conservative pace, which was part of my strategy on the day. The strategy, suggested by an ultra runner's blog, went something along the lines of, go slower than you think you need to during the first third of the race, do what you have to during the middle third, and go hard during the final third. Sounds good, right? I wasn't paying a great deal of attention to the time until around mile 7, when the person I had been chatting with for the past few miles suddenly said she thought we were going too slow to make the cut-off in time (if you weren't to mile 17.5 or so in four hours, they'd pull you off the course).
Well, that galvanized the casual right out of me. I didn't think she was right but for some reason, any semblance of mathematical ability suddenly took leave of my brain, so I couldn't confirm or refute what she was suggesting. What became crystal clear to me in that moment was my determination to FINISH the race; no way in hell was I NOT making the cut-off and no way in HELL was I not running harder now, where despite what I'd heard about the course, the going was relatively easy and I could make time. Fire lit under my ass, I left her behind and powered on. This became my theme for the rest of the day; go hard where I could, chill where I couldn't, and the Strategy of Thirds be damned. I got to mile 10 in about 2 hours, which eased my worries considerably; I had two hours to do the next 7.5 miles, which was in my mind doable regardless of the terrain.
Heh. Which was good, because immediately following the mile 10 aid station, the terrain got interesting. And when I say interesting, I mean in couple of places, I just looked up and said out loud, "Really? O.K." And up we went. And then down, and over innumerable wooden bridges (which were slippery), and through a 20 foot, thigh deep water crossing (which honestly felt fantastic).
The course was a mix of dirt trails alongside farm fields (!) and wooded trails, with a few short stints on gravel and paved roads. One of the nice things about the trail was that in a few places, it was actually relatively safe enough that one could look around a bit and enjoy the scenery, which was beautiful PA farmland. Thanks to this, I'm sure that if the course hadn't been so muddy, it would have run much faster for all, myself included. The aid stations were stocked with just about anything you could want, from bananas and oranges to various types of cookies to sandwiches to bacon. I stuck to fig newtons and bananas for the most part, with a couple of handfuls of M&Ms tossed in here and there. The volunteers were fantastic; I can't compliment them enough. There were enthusiastic and helpful and encouraging faces at every stop.
Somewhere within the last two miles - back in the steady, light rain that started the day - I knew I was going to meet my goal and I knew I was just loving what I was doing. I don't know why; my legs were yelling at me at the same time my mind was saying, "Go, GO!" and cheering me on. Throughout the race I was doing a lot of positive self-talk; my mantra was what I heard a fellow karateka, also a wrestling coach (subject of another blog post entirely) telling his kids - you look good, you feel good, you got this. No, I didn't set any records, I didn't place in my age group, I didn't set the world on fire. But at the day's end, I killed my goal, I learned new things about myself, and I was happy as hell.
So my plan from here is to take it a bit easy this week. For all intents and purposes, my 2011 race year is done, although I might still do the Dirty Bird 15K in November. Might. I think I'm finally starting to accept the idea that what I really love is this trail racing, trail ultra thing; much as I like strength training, I need to start looking at it as an integral part of a plan and not so much as a separate interest, into and of itself. This sort of paradigm shift is something I've been reluctant to make, I suppose because I take pride in my strength and don't like to compromise it. However I've never had a running season like this one; I've never run courses where strength really does make a huge difference in a practical manner (strong legs, strong core) and not so much in a numbers manner (looking just at the lifts at date A vs. date B). At my age I've put in my highest running mileage, over the year, perhaps ever and aside from a few lost toenails and an ugly blister (I'm sparing you the photos of this one), I've been running-related injury free. I'm seeing what supplementary activities make a difference for me (both strength training AND yoga), and it's falling into context. I think what I started to feel during the end of the race was a sense that I really belonged out there, and that I wanted to stay.
Fortunately, it only rained at the beginning and end of the race; most of the day was cloudy (which isn't bad, really) but rain-free. Not that that would have made much difference on the course, much of which was apparently under water during the unusually heavy August/September rains we had. The going was on the slow side, even on what should have been the faster trails, due to mud; the overall winner was about 25 minutes over the race record.
 |
| Entrant's jacket and finisher's hat. |
Prior to entering this race, I'd heard that the course was pretty tough; lots of vertical gain and some pretty tough hills. For this reason, I was concerned, going in, with making the time, and my goal became just that - to finish the race within the time allotted. The first ten miles of the race, however, contained very little up and down. I didn't walk much, except where necessary due to mud, but wasn't exactly blazing along the trails. No, I was more or less staying with people I thought were going at a conservative pace, which was part of my strategy on the day. The strategy, suggested by an ultra runner's blog, went something along the lines of, go slower than you think you need to during the first third of the race, do what you have to during the middle third, and go hard during the final third. Sounds good, right? I wasn't paying a great deal of attention to the time until around mile 7, when the person I had been chatting with for the past few miles suddenly said she thought we were going too slow to make the cut-off in time (if you weren't to mile 17.5 or so in four hours, they'd pull you off the course).
Well, that galvanized the casual right out of me. I didn't think she was right but for some reason, any semblance of mathematical ability suddenly took leave of my brain, so I couldn't confirm or refute what she was suggesting. What became crystal clear to me in that moment was my determination to FINISH the race; no way in hell was I NOT making the cut-off and no way in HELL was I not running harder now, where despite what I'd heard about the course, the going was relatively easy and I could make time. Fire lit under my ass, I left her behind and powered on. This became my theme for the rest of the day; go hard where I could, chill where I couldn't, and the Strategy of Thirds be damned. I got to mile 10 in about 2 hours, which eased my worries considerably; I had two hours to do the next 7.5 miles, which was in my mind doable regardless of the terrain.
Heh. Which was good, because immediately following the mile 10 aid station, the terrain got interesting. And when I say interesting, I mean in couple of places, I just looked up and said out loud, "Really? O.K." And up we went. And then down, and over innumerable wooden bridges (which were slippery), and through a 20 foot, thigh deep water crossing (which honestly felt fantastic).
The course was a mix of dirt trails alongside farm fields (!) and wooded trails, with a few short stints on gravel and paved roads. One of the nice things about the trail was that in a few places, it was actually relatively safe enough that one could look around a bit and enjoy the scenery, which was beautiful PA farmland. Thanks to this, I'm sure that if the course hadn't been so muddy, it would have run much faster for all, myself included. The aid stations were stocked with just about anything you could want, from bananas and oranges to various types of cookies to sandwiches to bacon. I stuck to fig newtons and bananas for the most part, with a couple of handfuls of M&Ms tossed in here and there. The volunteers were fantastic; I can't compliment them enough. There were enthusiastic and helpful and encouraging faces at every stop.
Somewhere within the last two miles - back in the steady, light rain that started the day - I knew I was going to meet my goal and I knew I was just loving what I was doing. I don't know why; my legs were yelling at me at the same time my mind was saying, "Go, GO!" and cheering me on. Throughout the race I was doing a lot of positive self-talk; my mantra was what I heard a fellow karateka, also a wrestling coach (subject of another blog post entirely) telling his kids - you look good, you feel good, you got this. No, I didn't set any records, I didn't place in my age group, I didn't set the world on fire. But at the day's end, I killed my goal, I learned new things about myself, and I was happy as hell.
So my plan from here is to take it a bit easy this week. For all intents and purposes, my 2011 race year is done, although I might still do the Dirty Bird 15K in November. Might. I think I'm finally starting to accept the idea that what I really love is this trail racing, trail ultra thing; much as I like strength training, I need to start looking at it as an integral part of a plan and not so much as a separate interest, into and of itself. This sort of paradigm shift is something I've been reluctant to make, I suppose because I take pride in my strength and don't like to compromise it. However I've never had a running season like this one; I've never run courses where strength really does make a huge difference in a practical manner (strong legs, strong core) and not so much in a numbers manner (looking just at the lifts at date A vs. date B). At my age I've put in my highest running mileage, over the year, perhaps ever and aside from a few lost toenails and an ugly blister (I'm sparing you the photos of this one), I've been running-related injury free. I'm seeing what supplementary activities make a difference for me (both strength training AND yoga), and it's falling into context. I think what I started to feel during the end of the race was a sense that I really belonged out there, and that I wanted to stay.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Why do I do this, again?
Wowza. Wound up getting the day off work, which isn't exactly good - don't work, don't get paid - but isn't exactly bad, as I've been getting some college app stuff organized, deadlines on the calendar, etc.
Of course, it also means I've been on the interwebs, and my mind had gotten to wandering, and... I'm looking at two early 2012 ultras. What on earth is wrong with me??? OK, nothing - I'm a runner, we DO this - but what happened to the Winter of Strength I've been thinking about? Didn't happen last year; is it destined not to happen this year as well? Why is it so darned easy for me to keep putting that stuff off in favor of new races? Is this just a stage of my life?
Seriously. I had the rest of the year - frankly, pretty much the ENTIRE time between post October 2 race and my hoped/anticipated start of grad school planned as successive strength rotations - a second pass through NROL/Abs followed by Maximum Strength. I kid you not. It all fits perfectly, with enough extra room for some needed recovery and the possibility of an interruption here or there.
I guess I should look at this as a happy dilemma; I am healthy and injury free (if happily anticipating taking a week off after this next race) and have the luxury of choosing exactly what I want to do. Working in a PT office perhaps helps me appreciate this all the more. The problem, as always, is that I want to do everything. I know that trying to fit as much in the schedule as I do probably compromises the quality of any one thing - i.e., I would be stronger if I focused on lifting, faster if I focused on running, more bad-ass (or whatever) if I just did martial arts - but I enjoy them all, so that doesn't seem to be an option. And, so far, the balance seems to be working for me... I'm just abjectly curious about what would happen if I ran this strength experiment, and to do it I need to seriously cut back the running.
Except some really insistent part of my brain doesn't want to do that just now. Especially now, with the weather turning more favorable for running. Bugger.
Oh well. Enough thinking on this today. I can't stop the mind from bubbling away, but no decisions until post race!
Of course, it also means I've been on the interwebs, and my mind had gotten to wandering, and... I'm looking at two early 2012 ultras. What on earth is wrong with me??? OK, nothing - I'm a runner, we DO this - but what happened to the Winter of Strength I've been thinking about? Didn't happen last year; is it destined not to happen this year as well? Why is it so darned easy for me to keep putting that stuff off in favor of new races? Is this just a stage of my life?
Seriously. I had the rest of the year - frankly, pretty much the ENTIRE time between post October 2 race and my hoped/anticipated start of grad school planned as successive strength rotations - a second pass through NROL/Abs followed by Maximum Strength. I kid you not. It all fits perfectly, with enough extra room for some needed recovery and the possibility of an interruption here or there.
I guess I should look at this as a happy dilemma; I am healthy and injury free (if happily anticipating taking a week off after this next race) and have the luxury of choosing exactly what I want to do. Working in a PT office perhaps helps me appreciate this all the more. The problem, as always, is that I want to do everything. I know that trying to fit as much in the schedule as I do probably compromises the quality of any one thing - i.e., I would be stronger if I focused on lifting, faster if I focused on running, more bad-ass (or whatever) if I just did martial arts - but I enjoy them all, so that doesn't seem to be an option. And, so far, the balance seems to be working for me... I'm just abjectly curious about what would happen if I ran this strength experiment, and to do it I need to seriously cut back the running.
Except some really insistent part of my brain doesn't want to do that just now. Especially now, with the weather turning more favorable for running. Bugger.
Oh well. Enough thinking on this today. I can't stop the mind from bubbling away, but no decisions until post race!
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Howdy
Been a while. I'd love to say there's a reason I haven't been updating besides that I haven't felt like updating, but there isn't. I was planning to post a race report after the 12 hour race, but decided to wait until I got my finisher stuff, which they said would be mailed to us, to do the post. Well, I'm still waiting...
Long story short, it was a bit of a rough day, both in terms of the course and the weather, which was warm and humid. I had hoped to do 50 miles and settled for 40. Many people I spoke to on the course also revised down their goals. I wound up finishing fourth in my age group (woo hoo!) which I take to mean I'm one of the few women my age stupid enough to have stayed out there long enough to do 40 miles. But so be it.
I'm now tapering for what might be my last race of the year, a 50K out in the same area as the other races I've been doing, meaning in the hill country. This is supposed to be quite the challenging course and there is a time limit on it; for a change, my goal for this race will be to finish within the time limit, which is, one would think, a generous 7.5 hours. If this were a flat country road race, it would be no problem (weather issues not withstanding) but it's not; reportedly there's over 7,000 feet in elevation gain. Plus, I'm still making plenty of rookie mistakes out there (which is fair, I guess, this being my first full year of trail racing). If I do my best and make no serious errors AND the weather is as currently predicted (a GLORIOUS forecast high of only 60 degrees F), I should make it. If not - eh, learning experience.
However, also, if not - well, I know myself, and I don't like ending things on a bad note, so a fail here would leave me wanting to redeem the season somehow. I'm not sure what that would look like, and hopefully I won't have to find out!
Long story short, it was a bit of a rough day, both in terms of the course and the weather, which was warm and humid. I had hoped to do 50 miles and settled for 40. Many people I spoke to on the course also revised down their goals. I wound up finishing fourth in my age group (woo hoo!) which I take to mean I'm one of the few women my age stupid enough to have stayed out there long enough to do 40 miles. But so be it.
I'm now tapering for what might be my last race of the year, a 50K out in the same area as the other races I've been doing, meaning in the hill country. This is supposed to be quite the challenging course and there is a time limit on it; for a change, my goal for this race will be to finish within the time limit, which is, one would think, a generous 7.5 hours. If this were a flat country road race, it would be no problem (weather issues not withstanding) but it's not; reportedly there's over 7,000 feet in elevation gain. Plus, I'm still making plenty of rookie mistakes out there (which is fair, I guess, this being my first full year of trail racing). If I do my best and make no serious errors AND the weather is as currently predicted (a GLORIOUS forecast high of only 60 degrees F), I should make it. If not - eh, learning experience.
However, also, if not - well, I know myself, and I don't like ending things on a bad note, so a fail here would leave me wanting to redeem the season somehow. I'm not sure what that would look like, and hopefully I won't have to find out!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Super quick update
Yeah. So, the last time I was here looks to have been - at least two weeks ago. Since it's almost end of the month, I've updated my workouts (why not? I'll be erasing August in a few days - lol). Just haven't felt much like writing lately; no particular reason. End of summer blues, I'd say, except I'm not feeling particularly blue - I'd just rather spend free daylight time reading than writing, I guess. So, the news, in a few words:
- Have been tapering for the 12 hour run. Don't know how much I like it, really. I suddenly feel very tired and undertrained. This, after fighting through a 6 hour, 31+ mile slog in a major rain storm. Well, I've been sore/achey in odd places (allegedly normal in a taper), not enough to knock me off my game physically but mentally? I'm wondering why these shorter runs feel like so much effort after doing much longer runs. It's probably not worth dwelling on, but sometimes it IS hard to believe my training is in the bank, as every source I read about training for distance runs suggests. We'll see, won't we?
- Have gone back to a Dos Remedios program, as planned, total fitness option. In deference to where I am in the scheme of things, I'm doing one less set than recommended (3 vs. 4) for most exercises. I can pick up later, if need be. What is interesting to me is going back to exercises I haven't done in a while, and seeing that my strength has increased. Makes me smile!
- Survived the earthquake, which I actually found interesting. It's the second one I've been through here. Took a moment for me to realize what was happening, then I just watched stuff move around. I suppose I should have run for a door frame or something, but it didn't occur to me.
- Survived Irene, with power. All in all, not as bad around here as advertised, although if one was paying attention to raw weather data, it was pretty obvious that it wouldn't be. The worst part was the tornado warnings, which were going off with regularity on Saturday night. That was a bit unnerving. Mostly we got a lot of rain on top of a lot of rain, causing some impressive flooding, and enough wind to knock over enough trees to keep road and power crews busy. Although a few friends are still without power, for the vast majority of folks, it was business as usual on Monday.
- The biggest news, though, is that I'm now working at the PT office where I was volunteering! I'm working as an aide, which means I help people go through their routines. I suppose objectively, it's an incredible step backwards (from cleaning up superfund sites, to fetching heat and ice packs - woo!) but it IS a step in the direction of physical therapist proper, which is where I want to go. Makes me a very happy camper.
- Have been tapering for the 12 hour run. Don't know how much I like it, really. I suddenly feel very tired and undertrained. This, after fighting through a 6 hour, 31+ mile slog in a major rain storm. Well, I've been sore/achey in odd places (allegedly normal in a taper), not enough to knock me off my game physically but mentally? I'm wondering why these shorter runs feel like so much effort after doing much longer runs. It's probably not worth dwelling on, but sometimes it IS hard to believe my training is in the bank, as every source I read about training for distance runs suggests. We'll see, won't we?
- Have gone back to a Dos Remedios program, as planned, total fitness option. In deference to where I am in the scheme of things, I'm doing one less set than recommended (3 vs. 4) for most exercises. I can pick up later, if need be. What is interesting to me is going back to exercises I haven't done in a while, and seeing that my strength has increased. Makes me smile!
- Survived the earthquake, which I actually found interesting. It's the second one I've been through here. Took a moment for me to realize what was happening, then I just watched stuff move around. I suppose I should have run for a door frame or something, but it didn't occur to me.
- Survived Irene, with power. All in all, not as bad around here as advertised, although if one was paying attention to raw weather data, it was pretty obvious that it wouldn't be. The worst part was the tornado warnings, which were going off with regularity on Saturday night. That was a bit unnerving. Mostly we got a lot of rain on top of a lot of rain, causing some impressive flooding, and enough wind to knock over enough trees to keep road and power crews busy. Although a few friends are still without power, for the vast majority of folks, it was business as usual on Monday.
- The biggest news, though, is that I'm now working at the PT office where I was volunteering! I'm working as an aide, which means I help people go through their routines. I suppose objectively, it's an incredible step backwards (from cleaning up superfund sites, to fetching heat and ice packs - woo!) but it IS a step in the direction of physical therapist proper, which is where I want to go. Makes me a very happy camper.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Dodging lightening bolts
Hard to believe, but the hard part of training for the 12 hour race is done.
And because it seems all training plans are required by fiat to go out on some kind of weird note - this one sure as hell did. The forecast was for showers and thunders showers, which isn't necessarily all bad, depending on the temperatures, and when I got up and looked at the radar, it looked as if there was a little line of heavy stuff passing through and then things would settle down. So I delayed my start time by a little bit - actually I'd gotten up earlier than usual so I just kicked back to normal start time - thinking things would improve; they didn't, so I just headed out.
As I may have mentioned in an earlier post - or not, since I haven't been posting all that much this summer - the way I set up for these long runs is to turn my car into an aide station. I put a cooler with drinks and snacks, along with a towel, visor, sunglasses, body glide, or whatever else seems appropriate given the day in the car and I pop by there after running a 6 - 10 mile loop for a short break and refreshment. This is in lieu of carrying around one of those redonkulous "fuel belts," which would allow for longer loops between refills but annoy the everloving shit out of me every step of the way.
Anyway - I set out on my first loop, which was about 8 miles, in a moderate rain with rumbly thunder, thinking it would pass by the time I got done the first loop and I'd probably be in the dry for the rest of the day. Instead it got harder as I got along, to the point of a biblical deluge! In a couple of places the roads were flooded with water that came to my shins. The lightening also got a little closer, but it wasn't all that frequent, so I didn't feel too concerned. Which was optimistic of me. When I was about 1/2 mile from home, I swear a bolt hit where I'd been not a minute before. There was a HUGE flash, an instant crack, and I smelled the ozone. Needless to say, I got my ass home, and went inside until this little bit of nasty had move along a bit.
That was the end of the excitement, but it wasn't the end of the rain. It. Just. Kept. Coming. Sometimes harder, sometimes moderate/steady; sometimes it would look as if it were going to clear and then there would be more rumbles of thunder (nothing close, I figure it was cloud to cloud lightening) and the rain would heavy up again. When wall was said and done, I did a bit over 31 miles in around 6 hours - exactly what I wanted to do - and it rained 2 1/2 inches during that time. The Phils game, which I'd been looking forward to watching while recovering, was rained out, and Philly set a record for rainfall on the day, with over 4 1/2 inches. My local reporting station said 4.69". At least the rain/clouds kept everything cool; the temperatures during my run never made it out of the 60's, and I can't believe how much of a difference that made in performance. I ran 6 miles less last week and HAD to stop at the end because I was just at the end of my rope. The additional miles yesterday were hard but no where near as hard as the last few miles of the week before, and I definitely didn't have to stop at the end, although I was perfectly happy to do so.
Now I have three weeks of taper. Ahhhh...
And because it seems all training plans are required by fiat to go out on some kind of weird note - this one sure as hell did. The forecast was for showers and thunders showers, which isn't necessarily all bad, depending on the temperatures, and when I got up and looked at the radar, it looked as if there was a little line of heavy stuff passing through and then things would settle down. So I delayed my start time by a little bit - actually I'd gotten up earlier than usual so I just kicked back to normal start time - thinking things would improve; they didn't, so I just headed out.
As I may have mentioned in an earlier post - or not, since I haven't been posting all that much this summer - the way I set up for these long runs is to turn my car into an aide station. I put a cooler with drinks and snacks, along with a towel, visor, sunglasses, body glide, or whatever else seems appropriate given the day in the car and I pop by there after running a 6 - 10 mile loop for a short break and refreshment. This is in lieu of carrying around one of those redonkulous "fuel belts," which would allow for longer loops between refills but annoy the everloving shit out of me every step of the way.
Anyway - I set out on my first loop, which was about 8 miles, in a moderate rain with rumbly thunder, thinking it would pass by the time I got done the first loop and I'd probably be in the dry for the rest of the day. Instead it got harder as I got along, to the point of a biblical deluge! In a couple of places the roads were flooded with water that came to my shins. The lightening also got a little closer, but it wasn't all that frequent, so I didn't feel too concerned. Which was optimistic of me. When I was about 1/2 mile from home, I swear a bolt hit where I'd been not a minute before. There was a HUGE flash, an instant crack, and I smelled the ozone. Needless to say, I got my ass home, and went inside until this little bit of nasty had move along a bit.
That was the end of the excitement, but it wasn't the end of the rain. It. Just. Kept. Coming. Sometimes harder, sometimes moderate/steady; sometimes it would look as if it were going to clear and then there would be more rumbles of thunder (nothing close, I figure it was cloud to cloud lightening) and the rain would heavy up again. When wall was said and done, I did a bit over 31 miles in around 6 hours - exactly what I wanted to do - and it rained 2 1/2 inches during that time. The Phils game, which I'd been looking forward to watching while recovering, was rained out, and Philly set a record for rainfall on the day, with over 4 1/2 inches. My local reporting station said 4.69". At least the rain/clouds kept everything cool; the temperatures during my run never made it out of the 60's, and I can't believe how much of a difference that made in performance. I ran 6 miles less last week and HAD to stop at the end because I was just at the end of my rope. The additional miles yesterday were hard but no where near as hard as the last few miles of the week before, and I definitely didn't have to stop at the end, although I was perfectly happy to do so.
Now I have three weeks of taper. Ahhhh...
Monday, August 1, 2011
File this under "Weird Dreams"
You'd think (well, I'D think, anyway) the night after one did a really long run, a person would sleep like a frickin' log. Well, naturally, I never do. I have my scientific wild-assed guesses as to why this is so, the foremost being that my core temperature probably remains elevated for a looooong time after such a run, particularly since it's summer, and that always interferes with my sleeping, but whether that or any other SWAG is correct is irrelevant, since I suspect there's not much (aside from an ice bath - yikes!) I can do about it, and it resolves after a day, anyway.
See? Lack of sleep, amazing run-on sentence. So why am I blogging? Because I had a pretty wacky dream last night, and wanted to write it down somewhere, and I don't keep a dream log (as I don't think dreams "mean" anything other than that your brain is playing with shit that's lying around in there) and writing this down on some random scrap of paper means I'll have another random scrap of paper lying around somewhere.
The dream: I'm taking some kind of college course. It's a big class, maybe 50 people, and it's in a bit of an unconventional room. Not everyone has a regular desk; some people are using a cafeteria-style table. The teacher is lecturing about something or other, and I'm following along in my text book and taking notes. I can't really see the book (now or at any other point in the dream) or my notes. There's a group of four guys, some older, some younger, in the back, not paying particular attention. This is getting on my nerves, as I can't hear the lecture. Yet somehow I am also friends with these guys, and am semi-included in the joking, even if I am ignoring them. We take some kind of quiz, essay style, with these guys chatting all along.
Suddenly the teacher is gone, and I am at the front of the room, teaching the class, although I'm still a student, not the professor. There is a panel of judges off to the side. The four guys continue to try to make trouble, and I'm getting pretty fed up. The rest of the class is perfectly attentive. In an impulsive move, I excuse the four from class. They will not get to take the second half of the quiz, which I am to administer. Everyone else claps. I wonder how the hell I thought I was within my rights to do that, but nonetheless, nobody on the judging panel stops me. I ask one of them, who looks like Susie Fogelson from the Food Network, what is on the second half of the quiz, and she says something along the lines of, "I don't know, you tell me." So I make something up. After class I meet up with a friend I haven't seen in ages; he's moving to Pittsburgh so I start taking to him about the city.
And then I wake up. The only thing I remember about the class I was teaching is the phrase "Daedalus effect," an actual term that still tells me nothing about the subject matter, other than to suggest there was some science aspect.
I suppose if I were looking for deep meaning or a sign in that dream, I would take it as telling me I should become a teacher. In fact, I think it all had much more to do with the fact that I met with sensei yesterday and discussed the dojo schedule, and as the conversation evolved, came up with the idea of a student teacher program, which we brainstormed at some length. Also, the Phils just finished a series with Pittsburgh yesterday. Still, it was a fun dream to remember.
Now if I could just figure out the genesis of the one where my sister had a third baby, this one improbably named Leander. (Sis has thus far stuck with major Biblical names.)
See? Lack of sleep, amazing run-on sentence. So why am I blogging? Because I had a pretty wacky dream last night, and wanted to write it down somewhere, and I don't keep a dream log (as I don't think dreams "mean" anything other than that your brain is playing with shit that's lying around in there) and writing this down on some random scrap of paper means I'll have another random scrap of paper lying around somewhere.
The dream: I'm taking some kind of college course. It's a big class, maybe 50 people, and it's in a bit of an unconventional room. Not everyone has a regular desk; some people are using a cafeteria-style table. The teacher is lecturing about something or other, and I'm following along in my text book and taking notes. I can't really see the book (now or at any other point in the dream) or my notes. There's a group of four guys, some older, some younger, in the back, not paying particular attention. This is getting on my nerves, as I can't hear the lecture. Yet somehow I am also friends with these guys, and am semi-included in the joking, even if I am ignoring them. We take some kind of quiz, essay style, with these guys chatting all along.
Suddenly the teacher is gone, and I am at the front of the room, teaching the class, although I'm still a student, not the professor. There is a panel of judges off to the side. The four guys continue to try to make trouble, and I'm getting pretty fed up. The rest of the class is perfectly attentive. In an impulsive move, I excuse the four from class. They will not get to take the second half of the quiz, which I am to administer. Everyone else claps. I wonder how the hell I thought I was within my rights to do that, but nonetheless, nobody on the judging panel stops me. I ask one of them, who looks like Susie Fogelson from the Food Network, what is on the second half of the quiz, and she says something along the lines of, "I don't know, you tell me." So I make something up. After class I meet up with a friend I haven't seen in ages; he's moving to Pittsburgh so I start taking to him about the city.
And then I wake up. The only thing I remember about the class I was teaching is the phrase "Daedalus effect," an actual term that still tells me nothing about the subject matter, other than to suggest there was some science aspect.
I suppose if I were looking for deep meaning or a sign in that dream, I would take it as telling me I should become a teacher. In fact, I think it all had much more to do with the fact that I met with sensei yesterday and discussed the dojo schedule, and as the conversation evolved, came up with the idea of a student teacher program, which we brainstormed at some length. Also, the Phils just finished a series with Pittsburgh yesterday. Still, it was a fun dream to remember.
Now if I could just figure out the genesis of the one where my sister had a third baby, this one improbably named Leander. (Sis has thus far stuck with major Biblical names.)
Friday, July 29, 2011
At long last
I finished New Rules of Lifting for Abs today! The last phase took for-freaking-ever due to my decision to go the longer route (8 times for the A & B workouts instead of 6) and the need to drop from three workouts a week to two, due to the running workload.
On the whole, I really liked the program, and there's no doubt in my mind I'll do it again. There are sufficient progressions and variations built into the program or discussed in the book that I'm sure it could feel entirely different going through a second time, particularly if I stick to the 6 trips through A & B plan. Next time through I'll add the "Extra Strength" section to Phase 2, as well. I'm thinking I may do this as soon as October, although I'm getting ahead of myself as usual with the planning.
My goal for this rotation was to strengthen my core all around and to improve my strength overall, and I have to say, mission accomplished. Although there is a weight loss/leaning out element to the book, I don't need to lose weight. If anything, I MAY have gained a pound for the second rotation in a row, and I am starting to suspect it really is muscle. My body fat %, as I measure it, hasn't changed, and I can SEE the changes under the skin and in the mirror. However I claim this with what I hope is not false optimism; for all I know it's just the usual carry-more-water-in-summer thing and it'll vanish by the second week in September. On the other hand, I've been working damned hard, I've been eating in a way I hope maximizes the physiological responses to exercise, and while I've always considered myself a hard gainer, even hard gainers do, well, gain. So, here's to a rotation well done, and hopefully more lean body mass!
Which leaves me with a bit of a strength training programming gap. Next week will be a big time unload week, so I have some time to think a bit. Assuming all goes reasonably well at the 12 hour race, I will in all likelihood do a second ultra distance race (a 50K) in early October; that will be it for the high mileage stuff for the year. If that happens, it won't be until early/mid October that I start another serious strength training program - which may be that second go through NROL/A, to be followed (finally) by Maximum Strength. So that leaves me with the August - September time frame to work out.
Which I will, but not today!
On the whole, I really liked the program, and there's no doubt in my mind I'll do it again. There are sufficient progressions and variations built into the program or discussed in the book that I'm sure it could feel entirely different going through a second time, particularly if I stick to the 6 trips through A & B plan. Next time through I'll add the "Extra Strength" section to Phase 2, as well. I'm thinking I may do this as soon as October, although I'm getting ahead of myself as usual with the planning.
My goal for this rotation was to strengthen my core all around and to improve my strength overall, and I have to say, mission accomplished. Although there is a weight loss/leaning out element to the book, I don't need to lose weight. If anything, I MAY have gained a pound for the second rotation in a row, and I am starting to suspect it really is muscle. My body fat %, as I measure it, hasn't changed, and I can SEE the changes under the skin and in the mirror. However I claim this with what I hope is not false optimism; for all I know it's just the usual carry-more-water-in-summer thing and it'll vanish by the second week in September. On the other hand, I've been working damned hard, I've been eating in a way I hope maximizes the physiological responses to exercise, and while I've always considered myself a hard gainer, even hard gainers do, well, gain. So, here's to a rotation well done, and hopefully more lean body mass!
Which leaves me with a bit of a strength training programming gap. Next week will be a big time unload week, so I have some time to think a bit. Assuming all goes reasonably well at the 12 hour race, I will in all likelihood do a second ultra distance race (a 50K) in early October; that will be it for the high mileage stuff for the year. If that happens, it won't be until early/mid October that I start another serious strength training program - which may be that second go through NROL/A, to be followed (finally) by Maximum Strength. So that leaves me with the August - September time frame to work out.
Which I will, but not today!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Down & Dirty Mud Run
Although I have a few trail runs under my belt, some of which have involved more than a little mud, this was my first official Mud Run. Mud Runs seem to be exploding these days; they're one part run, one part obstacle course, and one part - spa treament? What made this one fun and different for me is that I actually did it with friends. This was a nice change of pace from going off alone, running alone, and coming home alone - not that I really mind any of that, but it was great to have someone to chat and laugh with after all was said and done.
I headed out with my karate sensei, his wife, and another student from the dojo (A) at 5:30 am. Our scheduled race time was 7 am, and some of us still needed to pick up our race packages. A and I had gone the day before, and both that pick up area and the one on race day were quick and well organized. I am actually the only one of the group who has been putting in any real miles lately, and while everyone encouraged me to just go ahead and run at whatever pace I wanted, what I actually wanted was to run WITH people, so we agreed to start together and to run more or less together through the race. As it happened, it was actually A's first race ever! She's an experienced soccer player so it's not like she's a stranger to competition, but picking a 10K mud run as your first race is, IMO, pretty cool.
The start was very well done. The sent groups of runners off in three minute intervals, presumably to avoid "bunching" at the obstacles. That worked very well over the course of the run; I don't think I waited more than half a minute anywhere to do an obstacle, and generally didn't have to wait at all. We started fairly well back and probably weren't off much before 7:30.
The first obstacle was netting, set about 2 feet over the ground - you had to crawl under the netting. Good warm up, and a hint of things to come! The second obstacle was a ladder-style climb - the thing looked like a saw horse on steroids with extra slats. Again, somewhat of a warm-up obstacle. Then it was off into the woods on a pretty nice, wide trail. Even though the hour was early and the weather was, relatively speaking, pretty comfortable for July - the current heat wave hadn't started yet - it was nice to be in shade! In the woods it was up and over a four foot wall, then back on the trail.
At this point, the trail was pretty open, compared to what I've been running on in actual trail runs. There was all kinds of room to move and groove, and it was even split for a while, as you used a small section of the trail as in out and back fashion. After a pretty good climb, there were that they described as "Marine hurdles." These were three connected, very large saw horse style things with no slats, just a series of three crossbars. I think you were supposed to cross over the bars; however, as they were all well over my head, I crossed at the connection, as did many other people. In fact, at first I thought that was how you were supposed to do them; half way over, I realized it wasn't. Oh well; there were no points for style, so it was what it was. Up until this point, which was nearly halfway through the course, I had been running with sensei; here we switched off, and he ran with the Mrs. and I ran with A.
The race continued on more traditional single track trail, with the types of "obstacles" you generally can expect to encounter on a normal trail race; some downed trees, and a couple of creek crossings. Next obstacle was a pile of straw bales; we had been warned that this was a particularly tricky obstacle, but as an old farm girl, I didn't find them so, and it didn't seem that many others did, either. Then came what was easily the dullest part of the course - a straight flat stretch out maybe half a mile to a set of crawl-through tunnels (which I hated! I kept finding the wires with my bony knees - not fun) then back in along side the out trail. Dull, dull, dull - but A and I were having a great chat, which totally saved it. From there it was back into the woods and over a cargo net set over an a-frame, which, naturally, brought to mind Ninja Warrior.
And then we got muddy, part 1. This was a crawl through a mud pit, under ropes set about two feet over the mud. It was fairly short but you came out covered; fortunately there was a water stop right afterward so you could splash off any really bad bits (mud in the mouth, for example). Then it was back on the trail, and headed for home, where there were four quick obstacles before the finish. First was a 10' rock climbing wall. I've never done one, other than a little kiddie one at the playground (and only then mostly to act as a safety net for one of my nephews), so that was interesting, but not really a problem. From there it was on to mud pit #1 - this one was a waist-deep muddy water crossing that actually served to knock off some of the mud you still carried with you from the first mud crawl. A and I paused at this point to wait for sensei and Mrs., who were a couple of minutes behind us, so we could all cross the finish line together. Group intact, we headed for the next to last obstacle, a slippery wall set at a low (maybe 30 degree) angle. The idea was to use ropes to pull yourself up and over; you probably could have walked it, but there were volunteers (in military garb!) there yelling at you to go over it, belly down, so you did.
Last obstacle was, of course, the long mud pit! Here the ropes were set only six inches or so above the muck, and as you will see in the picture, we basically complied and got the thorough mud treatment:
All in all, it was a great day. Between the obstacles breaking things up and the camaraderie on the course, the time flew by (although we were most definitely not going fast!). It was a nice change of pace from more serious racing. Adding a couple of these things to the calendar each year definitely seems like it could keep things fun and interesting.
I headed out with my karate sensei, his wife, and another student from the dojo (A) at 5:30 am. Our scheduled race time was 7 am, and some of us still needed to pick up our race packages. A and I had gone the day before, and both that pick up area and the one on race day were quick and well organized. I am actually the only one of the group who has been putting in any real miles lately, and while everyone encouraged me to just go ahead and run at whatever pace I wanted, what I actually wanted was to run WITH people, so we agreed to start together and to run more or less together through the race. As it happened, it was actually A's first race ever! She's an experienced soccer player so it's not like she's a stranger to competition, but picking a 10K mud run as your first race is, IMO, pretty cool.
The start was very well done. The sent groups of runners off in three minute intervals, presumably to avoid "bunching" at the obstacles. That worked very well over the course of the run; I don't think I waited more than half a minute anywhere to do an obstacle, and generally didn't have to wait at all. We started fairly well back and probably weren't off much before 7:30.
The first obstacle was netting, set about 2 feet over the ground - you had to crawl under the netting. Good warm up, and a hint of things to come! The second obstacle was a ladder-style climb - the thing looked like a saw horse on steroids with extra slats. Again, somewhat of a warm-up obstacle. Then it was off into the woods on a pretty nice, wide trail. Even though the hour was early and the weather was, relatively speaking, pretty comfortable for July - the current heat wave hadn't started yet - it was nice to be in shade! In the woods it was up and over a four foot wall, then back on the trail.
At this point, the trail was pretty open, compared to what I've been running on in actual trail runs. There was all kinds of room to move and groove, and it was even split for a while, as you used a small section of the trail as in out and back fashion. After a pretty good climb, there were that they described as "Marine hurdles." These were three connected, very large saw horse style things with no slats, just a series of three crossbars. I think you were supposed to cross over the bars; however, as they were all well over my head, I crossed at the connection, as did many other people. In fact, at first I thought that was how you were supposed to do them; half way over, I realized it wasn't. Oh well; there were no points for style, so it was what it was. Up until this point, which was nearly halfway through the course, I had been running with sensei; here we switched off, and he ran with the Mrs. and I ran with A.
The race continued on more traditional single track trail, with the types of "obstacles" you generally can expect to encounter on a normal trail race; some downed trees, and a couple of creek crossings. Next obstacle was a pile of straw bales; we had been warned that this was a particularly tricky obstacle, but as an old farm girl, I didn't find them so, and it didn't seem that many others did, either. Then came what was easily the dullest part of the course - a straight flat stretch out maybe half a mile to a set of crawl-through tunnels (which I hated! I kept finding the wires with my bony knees - not fun) then back in along side the out trail. Dull, dull, dull - but A and I were having a great chat, which totally saved it. From there it was back into the woods and over a cargo net set over an a-frame, which, naturally, brought to mind Ninja Warrior.
And then we got muddy, part 1. This was a crawl through a mud pit, under ropes set about two feet over the mud. It was fairly short but you came out covered; fortunately there was a water stop right afterward so you could splash off any really bad bits (mud in the mouth, for example). Then it was back on the trail, and headed for home, where there were four quick obstacles before the finish. First was a 10' rock climbing wall. I've never done one, other than a little kiddie one at the playground (and only then mostly to act as a safety net for one of my nephews), so that was interesting, but not really a problem. From there it was on to mud pit #1 - this one was a waist-deep muddy water crossing that actually served to knock off some of the mud you still carried with you from the first mud crawl. A and I paused at this point to wait for sensei and Mrs., who were a couple of minutes behind us, so we could all cross the finish line together. Group intact, we headed for the next to last obstacle, a slippery wall set at a low (maybe 30 degree) angle. The idea was to use ropes to pull yourself up and over; you probably could have walked it, but there were volunteers (in military garb!) there yelling at you to go over it, belly down, so you did.
Last obstacle was, of course, the long mud pit! Here the ropes were set only six inches or so above the muck, and as you will see in the picture, we basically complied and got the thorough mud treatment:
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| Us, in our post race glory. I'm second from the right. |
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| Race shirt and finisher medal. |
Thursday, July 14, 2011
So you think you can trick me?
I tried, I really did.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of reality shows - probably the most popular ones I've ever watched are Project Runway and Top Chef. I've never watched Idol, Survivor, Apprentice... I just don't care. So You Think You Can Dance has been at the periphery of my interest for a while (actually, a very long while, it turns out - I had no idea it was in its 8th season!), mainly because dance can be incredibly athletic and I can get sucked into pretty much anything that involves physicality. So last night being a vast wasteland of TV nothingness (one of the downsides of the All Star Break), I though I might check it out.
Wow. And I don't mean that in a good way. It was a 2 hour show, six couples, two dances each. The dances, as it turns out, take less than two minutes each, so let's do a little math, eh? We'll give them the full two minutes, which means there's 24 minutes of action spread over a 120 minutes slot. And what takes up the rest of the time? Judges and the host yammering. I frankly couldn't STAND to watch them - they were so annoying, it was almost surreal - and was vigorously channel surfing within the first 15 minutes. I flipped back to the channel and managed to catch parts of three more dances, but gave up totally well before the first hour was out. What a shame; the idea has a lot of promise, but then the judges think they're the stars... it's a fail. (Same sort of thing goes for certain sports announcers who can't get over themselves and just call the game - not that I'd mention any *Joe Theismann Joe Buck Tony Siragusa for starters* names. Makes me watch sports with the TV on mute half the time.) I suppose I could watch the performances on YouTube but I'm not invested enough in the series to bother. So much for a midsummer night's diversion.
I have a week left to inform Law School of my decision one way or another. As it stands, I will almost definitely not go; as much as I'd love to do law school, I can't wrap my head around spending the rest of my working life as a lawyer. OTOH, physical therapy seems like such a natural fit to me, I think I'd really, really regret giving up on it this easily, going for the law thing JUST because I can. So... that's pretty much it, honored as I am to have actually gotten in to school.
Training is going pretty well, although this past Sunday's run was not fun. I've been starting the long runs before dawn, but I still wind up finishing them well after sunup. Most weeks it seems I've been lucky enough that it's been hazy our outright cloudy (one morning I ran in thundershowers!), but this past week the sun was full out right away, which after a spell made for less than pleasant going. I've been wondering if this all really will be sufficient for me to make my goal in - wow, just over seven weeks now - or if I should pass on this race and do a 50K in October instead. Of course I remember all too well my doubts about my September half last year (although they were related to time, not distance), and that was pretty much the heat talking. I suspect this is that to some degree as well.
I have a couple of off schedule weeks coming up, what with the mud run this Sunday and Special Training next Sunday. I'm just going to take this next week as a welcome step back week and not make up the missed long run; the following week is a bit more up in the air. Tentatively I plan to make up THAT missed long run on Monday, take Tuesday off and just feel out the schedule from there; however the Special Training is a beach training, and I seem to recall last year's beach training being pretty tiring, so I guess I'll just play that one by ear. As for strength training, believe it or not I'm STILL on NROL/Abs. Doing just two workouts a week has really extended this last phase and while it's clear from my workout logs that I'm still getting something out of it, I think I'd be getting even more out of it under different circumstances - not that I'd change anything at this point. That said, it's been six weeks on these two workouts with five workouts left in the program, and they're wearing a bit thin on me right about now. But I will finish it out, and that will actually leave me with a question of what to do NEXT, or more accurately, between the end of NR and the 12 hour race, since I'm sure I won't want to start a new program just then. I'm leaning toward just taking the TRX to the gym and messing with it, along with one heavy lift per workout. Just a thought.
Funny, I have no plans for AFTER the 12-hour... Feels odd! I'm sure I'll come up with something...
I'm not the world's biggest fan of reality shows - probably the most popular ones I've ever watched are Project Runway and Top Chef. I've never watched Idol, Survivor, Apprentice... I just don't care. So You Think You Can Dance has been at the periphery of my interest for a while (actually, a very long while, it turns out - I had no idea it was in its 8th season!), mainly because dance can be incredibly athletic and I can get sucked into pretty much anything that involves physicality. So last night being a vast wasteland of TV nothingness (one of the downsides of the All Star Break), I though I might check it out.
Wow. And I don't mean that in a good way. It was a 2 hour show, six couples, two dances each. The dances, as it turns out, take less than two minutes each, so let's do a little math, eh? We'll give them the full two minutes, which means there's 24 minutes of action spread over a 120 minutes slot. And what takes up the rest of the time? Judges and the host yammering. I frankly couldn't STAND to watch them - they were so annoying, it was almost surreal - and was vigorously channel surfing within the first 15 minutes. I flipped back to the channel and managed to catch parts of three more dances, but gave up totally well before the first hour was out. What a shame; the idea has a lot of promise, but then the judges think they're the stars... it's a fail. (Same sort of thing goes for certain sports announcers who can't get over themselves and just call the game - not that I'd mention any *Joe Theismann Joe Buck Tony Siragusa for starters* names. Makes me watch sports with the TV on mute half the time.) I suppose I could watch the performances on YouTube but I'm not invested enough in the series to bother. So much for a midsummer night's diversion.
I have a week left to inform Law School of my decision one way or another. As it stands, I will almost definitely not go; as much as I'd love to do law school, I can't wrap my head around spending the rest of my working life as a lawyer. OTOH, physical therapy seems like such a natural fit to me, I think I'd really, really regret giving up on it this easily, going for the law thing JUST because I can. So... that's pretty much it, honored as I am to have actually gotten in to school.
Training is going pretty well, although this past Sunday's run was not fun. I've been starting the long runs before dawn, but I still wind up finishing them well after sunup. Most weeks it seems I've been lucky enough that it's been hazy our outright cloudy (one morning I ran in thundershowers!), but this past week the sun was full out right away, which after a spell made for less than pleasant going. I've been wondering if this all really will be sufficient for me to make my goal in - wow, just over seven weeks now - or if I should pass on this race and do a 50K in October instead. Of course I remember all too well my doubts about my September half last year (although they were related to time, not distance), and that was pretty much the heat talking. I suspect this is that to some degree as well.
I have a couple of off schedule weeks coming up, what with the mud run this Sunday and Special Training next Sunday. I'm just going to take this next week as a welcome step back week and not make up the missed long run; the following week is a bit more up in the air. Tentatively I plan to make up THAT missed long run on Monday, take Tuesday off and just feel out the schedule from there; however the Special Training is a beach training, and I seem to recall last year's beach training being pretty tiring, so I guess I'll just play that one by ear. As for strength training, believe it or not I'm STILL on NROL/Abs. Doing just two workouts a week has really extended this last phase and while it's clear from my workout logs that I'm still getting something out of it, I think I'd be getting even more out of it under different circumstances - not that I'd change anything at this point. That said, it's been six weeks on these two workouts with five workouts left in the program, and they're wearing a bit thin on me right about now. But I will finish it out, and that will actually leave me with a question of what to do NEXT, or more accurately, between the end of NR and the 12 hour race, since I'm sure I won't want to start a new program just then. I'm leaning toward just taking the TRX to the gym and messing with it, along with one heavy lift per workout. Just a thought.
Funny, I have no plans for AFTER the 12-hour... Feels odd! I'm sure I'll come up with something...
Friday, July 1, 2011
Doctor, or Lawyer?
That is the real question.
Because the question is not, do I want to go to law school? I do. Unquestionably. I absolutely relish the very thought of the challenge and think I would thrive in that atmosphere. But do I want to spend the rest of my working life as an attorney? That, I can't answer as quickly or as definitively. Part of me relishes that thought, and yet...
...the past year has been all about my getting into a physical therapy school. That, frankly, IS something I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. But will I be able to get into school? If I were looking at two acceptances, the choice would be clear. Maybe. I think. Doesn't matter, though, because I'm not. I wonder if I can defer my acceptance, or if this is a one shot deal? If so, do I blow the shot, in hopes that I'll also get into a PT school? If I don't get in, will I be kicking myself in the ass for passing this up?
Lots of thinking to do, so for the moment, I'm just relishing the fact that I actually got into Law School. While I'm sure that's not the world's most earth-shattering accomplishment, it ain't half bad, either.
Because the question is not, do I want to go to law school? I do. Unquestionably. I absolutely relish the very thought of the challenge and think I would thrive in that atmosphere. But do I want to spend the rest of my working life as an attorney? That, I can't answer as quickly or as definitively. Part of me relishes that thought, and yet...
...the past year has been all about my getting into a physical therapy school. That, frankly, IS something I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. But will I be able to get into school? If I were looking at two acceptances, the choice would be clear. Maybe. I think. Doesn't matter, though, because I'm not. I wonder if I can defer my acceptance, or if this is a one shot deal? If so, do I blow the shot, in hopes that I'll also get into a PT school? If I don't get in, will I be kicking myself in the ass for passing this up?
Lots of thinking to do, so for the moment, I'm just relishing the fact that I actually got into Law School. While I'm sure that's not the world's most earth-shattering accomplishment, it ain't half bad, either.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
It's a tough job,
being a cat at my house....
Baby boy sure has changed as he's matured. He's not really the world's bravest, most outgoing cat, but he can be quite the little slut when it comes to getting his belly rubbed! Whodathunkit?
So, I entered a mud race. While my last race - last two races, really - involved mud and other fun things, they were technically trail races, while this one, part of the Merrell Down and Dirty series, is in the emerging genre of mud runs. It includes mud, water crossings, and military style obstacles. The race is 10K (there's also a 5K), and several of us from the dojo are planning to run together, which should be fun. Hopefully we'll manage to get a few pictures afterwards, when we're at our beautiful best. The run falls at a pretty good time in my ultra training, right about where I wanted to take a little bit of a break. The schedule doesn't build in breaks, but it anticipates that you might throw in a race or two during your prep. I'm not sure this is exactly what the program writers had in mind, but it works for me.
I've been enjoying using the Garmin. Considering I believe I paid a comparable price for a heart rate monitor some years ago, I'm very impressed with the amount and quality of information I get from the Garmin. The GPS tracking is a little less spot on than I originally believed, based on my uploading my data to Map My Run - little did I know, MMR was correcting the data so it mapped directly to roads! When I map it to Garminconnect, I see the course as plotted, which looks more like what I expected it to look like because I know these things just aren't THAT good. Still, it's close enough to not be worth arguing over. The elevation data is good, and matches well with what the road says. And to my surprise, I actually LIKE having the heart rate data, even though it more or less tells me exactly what I think it should be telling me (meaning, my heart rate is where I think it should be at any given time). I think that will be valuable information to have over time, and will probably be quite valuable when I start doing speedwork again (whenever that might be).
Took a break from New Rules this past Friday, and took the TRX to the gym to play with. That thing is a LOT of fun, I must say; it also makes for a very compact workout, since you pretty much stay in one spot, changing only the length of the straps between exercises, if necessary. I have about a month of NR workouts left (that's what I get for just doing it twice a week), and I have the feeling that will try my patience a bit... which is unfortunate. I didn't start this program with a clear idea of how it might dovetail into an ultra training program and I'm afraid I'm not going to finish this all that neatly. If I'd stuck with the three day a week schedule, I'd be just about done by now. Anyway, there's a question in my mind as to whether I'm going to continue with the metabolic work when I have to add runs to my strength training days; I plan to run before I hit the gym so I guess I'll just see how I feel a the end of the weight work. If there's gas in the tank, I'll do it. If not, oh well.
Makes for a sloppy ending to a good program, which isn't all that satisfying, but all the more reason to do the thing again, right?
 |
| Captain Tummyrub, reporting for duty! |
So, I entered a mud race. While my last race - last two races, really - involved mud and other fun things, they were technically trail races, while this one, part of the Merrell Down and Dirty series, is in the emerging genre of mud runs. It includes mud, water crossings, and military style obstacles. The race is 10K (there's also a 5K), and several of us from the dojo are planning to run together, which should be fun. Hopefully we'll manage to get a few pictures afterwards, when we're at our beautiful best. The run falls at a pretty good time in my ultra training, right about where I wanted to take a little bit of a break. The schedule doesn't build in breaks, but it anticipates that you might throw in a race or two during your prep. I'm not sure this is exactly what the program writers had in mind, but it works for me.
I've been enjoying using the Garmin. Considering I believe I paid a comparable price for a heart rate monitor some years ago, I'm very impressed with the amount and quality of information I get from the Garmin. The GPS tracking is a little less spot on than I originally believed, based on my uploading my data to Map My Run - little did I know, MMR was correcting the data so it mapped directly to roads! When I map it to Garminconnect, I see the course as plotted, which looks more like what I expected it to look like because I know these things just aren't THAT good. Still, it's close enough to not be worth arguing over. The elevation data is good, and matches well with what the road says. And to my surprise, I actually LIKE having the heart rate data, even though it more or less tells me exactly what I think it should be telling me (meaning, my heart rate is where I think it should be at any given time). I think that will be valuable information to have over time, and will probably be quite valuable when I start doing speedwork again (whenever that might be).
Took a break from New Rules this past Friday, and took the TRX to the gym to play with. That thing is a LOT of fun, I must say; it also makes for a very compact workout, since you pretty much stay in one spot, changing only the length of the straps between exercises, if necessary. I have about a month of NR workouts left (that's what I get for just doing it twice a week), and I have the feeling that will try my patience a bit... which is unfortunate. I didn't start this program with a clear idea of how it might dovetail into an ultra training program and I'm afraid I'm not going to finish this all that neatly. If I'd stuck with the three day a week schedule, I'd be just about done by now. Anyway, there's a question in my mind as to whether I'm going to continue with the metabolic work when I have to add runs to my strength training days; I plan to run before I hit the gym so I guess I'll just see how I feel a the end of the weight work. If there's gas in the tank, I'll do it. If not, oh well.
Makes for a sloppy ending to a good program, which isn't all that satisfying, but all the more reason to do the thing again, right?
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Overdue
Overdue for a post, I suppose!
No news in the Realm of Things that Keep Me Up at Night, which I've calmed down enough about to finally mention here. #1 is a possible job - it is unfortunately in my old field, but it is through an agency and may be part time but rather well paying, even at that. There are many details still being worked out about the position, but if it does work out it LOOKS like an ideal fit for my situation. #2 is, well, I've already applied to a school, for fall admission. That was NOT according to plan, but the opportunity presented itself and I took it. If I get in - well, that changes a lot, to say the least, particularly because it's law school, not PT school.
Sometimes when I am thinking about further schooling - whether the plan changes or not! - I wonder if I'm in my right mind. And then... I start looking for something to do to pay the bills whilst I'm waiting for this next chapter in my life to begin, I find there's not much else I'm qualified to do except what I have been doing, and it just makes me incredibly sad. It's one of those instances where I can honestly say if I'd have known I'd be this stuck now 20 years ago, I'd have been exponentially more careful in choosing a college major/career path. Not that I didn't enjoy myself along the way, but you can stick a fork in me - I'm done. Whatever happens, it really is time for me to move along.
Speaking of moving - so far (heh, one week in), the new training schedule is going well. The Sunday long runs are done by time, not distance, as I think I mentioned in my last post, and this past Sunday I was well-reminded that those long runs are as much mental as they are physical. The Garmin has been working out well; no real surprises on the data, but good to have and fun to look at, anyhow. It should be interesting to see trends over time.
No news in the Realm of Things that Keep Me Up at Night, which I've calmed down enough about to finally mention here. #1 is a possible job - it is unfortunately in my old field, but it is through an agency and may be part time but rather well paying, even at that. There are many details still being worked out about the position, but if it does work out it LOOKS like an ideal fit for my situation. #2 is, well, I've already applied to a school, for fall admission. That was NOT according to plan, but the opportunity presented itself and I took it. If I get in - well, that changes a lot, to say the least, particularly because it's law school, not PT school.
Sometimes when I am thinking about further schooling - whether the plan changes or not! - I wonder if I'm in my right mind. And then... I start looking for something to do to pay the bills whilst I'm waiting for this next chapter in my life to begin, I find there's not much else I'm qualified to do except what I have been doing, and it just makes me incredibly sad. It's one of those instances where I can honestly say if I'd have known I'd be this stuck now 20 years ago, I'd have been exponentially more careful in choosing a college major/career path. Not that I didn't enjoy myself along the way, but you can stick a fork in me - I'm done. Whatever happens, it really is time for me to move along.
Speaking of moving - so far (heh, one week in), the new training schedule is going well. The Sunday long runs are done by time, not distance, as I think I mentioned in my last post, and this past Sunday I was well-reminded that those long runs are as much mental as they are physical. The Garmin has been working out well; no real surprises on the data, but good to have and fun to look at, anyhow. It should be interesting to see trends over time.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
In Flux
There's a lot I haven't been talking about on this blog lately. No particular reason, other than that it's all a little overwhelming and thinking about exercise keeps my mind off things for a while. In a sentence, my life could change drastically within the next few weeks. Not in a bad way - it's all job and school related - but a lot could happen very quickly, or nothing could happen at all. So I don't know whether to revel in the possible excitement of it all or brace for disappointment.
So, bought myself a Garmin 305. I've been toying with the idea for a while, as I think I mentioned in my last race report, and after working up the ultra training schedule earlier this week, it makes a lot of sense to have one as a training tool. All of my long runs are done by time, as opposed to distance, and I while I'm not all that bad at guesstimating time from distance (it's not like I just started running, after all) I don't expect I'll be able to remember those routes when they get really long, nor do expect I'd be able to remember a really long route I made up on the fly unless that route was really simple. And I hate really simple routes - might as well be on a freaking treadmill. Actually the thing will free me from serious route planning altogether, plus give me access to more data than I currently know what to do with.
LOL, retail therapy truly wins as a stress-reducer. I'll take it.
Put in a bit of a crazy run this morning. According to my new schedule, I'm supposed to run a 4 - 5 mile with lots of hills, fast, or something along that order. It was really quite hot this morning - I head out fairly early and it was 87 degrees by the time I was done (wasn't brave enough to look before I headed out) with a heat index of around 100. So I did a new course that is close to home with a half a dozen shorter hills, as it's hard to keep any run to the longer hills, such as they are, without doing over 7 miles. When I got to the top of the last one I was pretty gassed and walked about a block to catch my breath a bit; that bothered me until I got home and calculated my pace, which was waaaay faster than I realized. All in all, successful outing.
Speaking of new toys, the boys got one recently, a pressed catnip ball. They likey.
So, bought myself a Garmin 305. I've been toying with the idea for a while, as I think I mentioned in my last race report, and after working up the ultra training schedule earlier this week, it makes a lot of sense to have one as a training tool. All of my long runs are done by time, as opposed to distance, and I while I'm not all that bad at guesstimating time from distance (it's not like I just started running, after all) I don't expect I'll be able to remember those routes when they get really long, nor do expect I'd be able to remember a really long route I made up on the fly unless that route was really simple. And I hate really simple routes - might as well be on a freaking treadmill. Actually the thing will free me from serious route planning altogether, plus give me access to more data than I currently know what to do with.
LOL, retail therapy truly wins as a stress-reducer. I'll take it.
Put in a bit of a crazy run this morning. According to my new schedule, I'm supposed to run a 4 - 5 mile with lots of hills, fast, or something along that order. It was really quite hot this morning - I head out fairly early and it was 87 degrees by the time I was done (wasn't brave enough to look before I headed out) with a heat index of around 100. So I did a new course that is close to home with a half a dozen shorter hills, as it's hard to keep any run to the longer hills, such as they are, without doing over 7 miles. When I got to the top of the last one I was pretty gassed and walked about a block to catch my breath a bit; that bothered me until I got home and calculated my pace, which was waaaay faster than I realized. All in all, successful outing.
Speaking of new toys, the boys got one recently, a pressed catnip ball. They likey.
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| Forrest manages to get a moment alone with the 'nip. Note the eyes about to pop out of his head... |
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
I must be training for a serious race because
There's a schedule on my fridge.
I've been in what I would call Middle Distance Land for a good long while now, averaging 20 - 30 miles a week (mostly high 20's) and racing at 15K to half marathon distance. My schedule hasn't varied much in the past year or so; in fact sometimes I've wondered why I even bother to post my workouts, at the right. If it's Tuesday, I must be running and going to karate. Etc. Yawn. Hence, I really haven't had need for the old schedule on the fridge thing, since what I was doing was working, and I really didn't need a piece of paper to tell me to stick to the routine.
But it's time for me to get serious about this ultra thing, and to that end, I've come up with a training plan that is now printed up and posted. I came up with it by slightly modifying (rejiggering the days to suit my schedule) something out of some running magazine that I've had lying around since spring of 2008. I think because I have been toying with the ultra idea for such a long time, I was able to set a PR in settling on this schedule, a process that usually requires days of reviewing and comparing at least a half a dozen training plans and mapping out of multiple mock schedules. This time, I think it took me longer to type the thing out than it did to say, "Yep, that's it."
The schedule is not actually all that different from my current schedule, except that this one contains an actual rest day (well, two, theoretically, except one is Saturday, a karate day - but hey, I won't run or lift on that day!) and cuts my strength training from three to two days a week. And, of course, the mileage and particularly the long runs go up over time. For strength, I plan to continue with NROL/Abs for as long as it plays out (I'll have to talk about Phase 3 at some point - suffice it to say, I really like it so far). I may not experience much in terms of strength gains, but I wasn't really expecting to considering my running emphasis.
The race I'm shooting for is a 12 hour race to be held over Labor Day weekend. It's run on trails so I'm not really sure what I can realistically hope to do in terms of mileage. Minimally I'd like to do 50K and my goal of goals is to do 50m. We'll see, eh?
I've been in what I would call Middle Distance Land for a good long while now, averaging 20 - 30 miles a week (mostly high 20's) and racing at 15K to half marathon distance. My schedule hasn't varied much in the past year or so; in fact sometimes I've wondered why I even bother to post my workouts, at the right. If it's Tuesday, I must be running and going to karate. Etc. Yawn. Hence, I really haven't had need for the old schedule on the fridge thing, since what I was doing was working, and I really didn't need a piece of paper to tell me to stick to the routine.
But it's time for me to get serious about this ultra thing, and to that end, I've come up with a training plan that is now printed up and posted. I came up with it by slightly modifying (rejiggering the days to suit my schedule) something out of some running magazine that I've had lying around since spring of 2008. I think because I have been toying with the ultra idea for such a long time, I was able to set a PR in settling on this schedule, a process that usually requires days of reviewing and comparing at least a half a dozen training plans and mapping out of multiple mock schedules. This time, I think it took me longer to type the thing out than it did to say, "Yep, that's it."
The schedule is not actually all that different from my current schedule, except that this one contains an actual rest day (well, two, theoretically, except one is Saturday, a karate day - but hey, I won't run or lift on that day!) and cuts my strength training from three to two days a week. And, of course, the mileage and particularly the long runs go up over time. For strength, I plan to continue with NROL/Abs for as long as it plays out (I'll have to talk about Phase 3 at some point - suffice it to say, I really like it so far). I may not experience much in terms of strength gains, but I wasn't really expecting to considering my running emphasis.
The race I'm shooting for is a 12 hour race to be held over Labor Day weekend. It's run on trails so I'm not really sure what I can realistically hope to do in terms of mileage. Minimally I'd like to do 50K and my goal of goals is to do 50m. We'll see, eh?
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Charlie Horse Half Marathon Race Report
When I see the words, "Charlie (or Charley) Horse," my first thought is of leg cramps. I've actually never had a charley horse, and don't associate quad cramps with running, so I wasn't sure how the name fit with the race - not that it really mattered. My goals were to get some more trail experience under my belt, and to increase my trail race distance, and the date and location of this race were perfect. Going into the race, I felt prepared for the distance but underprepared for the hills - something that will prove a challenge to overcome in my current running environs, but that I accept it for what it is for now. We also had to deal with an early season bout of the hot and humids, and on top of that I have been wrestling with a spring cold that was on the out but still left me with some congestion and the occasional coughing fit. Given the latter two, I went into the race with the goal of finishing, come what may and time be damned; if I had to walk up the steepest hills, I would.
Race morning, it took me about a minute to pack my race bag (Shoes? Check. Towel? Check. Apres-race change of clothes? Check.). The drive out was familiar and easy, and I arrived earlier than expected. The race was a point to point, so they bussed us to the start. Once loaded we got our pre-race briefing. The guy who did the briefing was pretty funny; for starters, he apologized for the weather, saying they had been shooting for more heat and humidity and that he hoped we weren't disappointed. He went on to describe the course, noted the location of the aid stations (miles 3, 6, 9, and 11), and that the course included a bit of water and "a few hills." Miles 9 - 11 would be on pavement, a mile down a steep hill and then a mile up a steep hill. After that, we entered Charlie's property, and all bets were off. We were warned we might encounter horses on the trail (Charlie? Horse? Get it??? ouch), and told to give way to them.
Had a nice chat with my seatmate on the way to the start; he was pretty new to running but had done a Tough Mudder (just what it sounds like) race in the fall and had enjoyed it. He had a Garmin Forerunner, which he loved; it was nice to see one up close. I'm not all that into gadgets and gear, but I've been thinking about getting a Forerunner lately, mainly because my tried and true method of mapping runs before I do them (and then correcting them afterwards when I reroute on the fly) is getting OLD. More and more, I just want to go out and run wherever my feet take me on a given day and stay out for time, but I'm compulsive about tracking distance, and I question my ability to recall my routes, particularly if I zone out along the way. So the Garmin, while clunky, seems an interesting idea...
But I digress. The trip to the start took for-freaking-ever, despite the fact that the bus drivers were going like 80 mph on the hilly, twisty back country roads. At the start, we were told there was but one working bathroom for last minute pit stops. More people that I expected got in line, while the rest of us sought out little girls' and boys' trees and shrubs. As we lined up, we were told that there were over 300 starters, and they expected something like 262 finishers (and they were close! there were 267 finishers); I guess that was based on data from prior races. I was surprised that they had such a high number of DNFs (did not finish), but then again, I've never really studied starter/finisher race stats, so what do I know?
After the singing of the national anthem (by us, of course), we were off! Naturally, the very first thing we did was cross a creek. Who wants to run a half marathon in dry shoes, after all? Thanks to my superior creek crossing skills and murky water piercing sonar, I managed to half step on a slippery rock and go down on my butt, so I had the added benefit of running the race in wet shorts, as well as shoes. As usual, we started into the hills almost immediately. The first one wasn't too bad, and then we came to a near stop on the down slope, thanks to a tree and several limbs lying across the path. There was no way around them, and only enough room for one person to go over and/or under at a time (I did some of both), so we came out of that fairly spaced out. From that point on, I didn't pass many people and very few people passed me. I found that pretty unusual, but I guess we'd sorted ourselves out pretty well, in terms of pace, in that first mile or so.
On the whole, the first six miles were HARD. The hills were steep and I made good on my forethought to walk up the steep parts, which frankly, was most of the uphills. Even some of the downhills were slow, thanks to lots of loose rock. I've learned that my greatest fear on the downhills is not of falling, but of having someone behind me fall and take me down with him or her. The trails were often single track, so there was effectively no passing, and hearing someone on your tail, pounding hard and breathing heavy, was - disconcerting. I suppose because of the stop at the tree and all the uphill walking, my overall pace was slower than I'd anticipated; after what seemed an unreasonably long time, I found myself at the second (six mile) aid station. I was at that point hoping they'd measured the distance wrong, and we were actually closer to or even more than halfway along the course (one can hope, right?) But no; the Garmin-wearing folk assured us all that we really were just six miles in. Fortunately this aid station had not only water and gatorade, but also M&Ms! (OK, and other junk food as well, but I only had eyes for the peanut M&Ms.)
Thus refueled, I headed out on the back side of the course. I wish I had more to say about miles 6 - 9, but I seem to have run those miles in some sort of a time warp. There were more hills (and bugs!), but the downhills were less rocky. My pace definitely picked up, and before I knew it, I was at the road section of the course. At that point I was running near a guy who had done a lot of ultra and trail running, and who had done this course many times before. Apparently, what was now a road section was just a few years ago a trail section; however a new (and fairly small) development had gone in, and the road more or less followed the old trail. Folks who lived along the road were pretty cool; quite a few came out to cheer us on. One family set up its own aid station, and more than one had sprinklers out for us to run through (yay, people!). As promised, both the downhill and uphill sections were steep; the gal I was running next to and I were joking about needing overspeed brakes or parachutes.
And then, we hit Charlie's section of the course. We had been warned, prior to the start, that there would be a mud pit later on the course, that there was no way around it, and that we'd better make sure our shoes were laced tightly because otherwise, we might lose them. What they did not tell us, perhaps because they didn't know, was that there would be many, many mudpits on that last section of the course. Perhaps Charlie, who I'm guessing is a real person, figured what with the mud run craze, he might as well follow suit. Whatever the case, we had a series of drops into water up to waist deep (on me, anyway), with entries so slick you had to slide in and exits so steep you needed a rope (thankfully provided) to get out. Then the trail actually ran IN the creek for a while, which I must say, felt really good - plus it washed off much of the mud you'd gathered by that point. No worries, though, as there was more mud to come, this time much thicker, boggier mud that there was no doin' nothin' but wading through and hoping you didn't misstep and fall.
After that, there was perhaps a mile of trail left to run, frankenstein-like in mud-caked shoes. Near the finish, they had a fire hose spraying out over the trial, but it didn't really put a dent in the filth. From there the trail popped out of the woods, then over a wooden bridge, then on to the finish. Woo!
Thankfully there was a hose available after the finish to wash off off the mud. I took off my shoes and socks (there was mud IN my shoes) and deconned them as best I could; some people were talking about tossing their shoes, which seemed a little extreme to me, but I could see why one would do that. My socks are goners, for sure. I hosed off my legs - I was muddy to around mid-thigh (sex-ay!) - and padded barefoot back to the car to change. Perhaps the only small bummer of the day was that there was no real finisher trinket. Instead, we got a pair of socks (to replace the ones we'd killed on course?) and could BUY a finisher mug if we wanted. Granted, the were cheap, but I don't carry money with me when I run races, and by the time I'd cleaned up and walked back up(hill) to the car, I wasn't in the mood to walk back down for a mug. So, aside from the race shirt and a pair of socks I managed to get dirty before I even walked out of the finish area, no souvenirs for this race.
I found out later when checking the scores that I finished 5th in my age group (they gave awards to 4th place, naturally), which just suggests to me that not many women in my age group ran on that particular day. LOL. It was a fun experience overall, and I'd be happy to do that race again. I'm grateful for every bit of training I did going into that race, from the roadwork to the gym work, and I have a much better feel overall for what kind of training I need to do if I plan to keep moving onward and upward, distance and elevation-wise, in my trail racing.
Race morning, it took me about a minute to pack my race bag (Shoes? Check. Towel? Check. Apres-race change of clothes? Check.). The drive out was familiar and easy, and I arrived earlier than expected. The race was a point to point, so they bussed us to the start. Once loaded we got our pre-race briefing. The guy who did the briefing was pretty funny; for starters, he apologized for the weather, saying they had been shooting for more heat and humidity and that he hoped we weren't disappointed. He went on to describe the course, noted the location of the aid stations (miles 3, 6, 9, and 11), and that the course included a bit of water and "a few hills." Miles 9 - 11 would be on pavement, a mile down a steep hill and then a mile up a steep hill. After that, we entered Charlie's property, and all bets were off. We were warned we might encounter horses on the trail (Charlie? Horse? Get it??? ouch), and told to give way to them.
Had a nice chat with my seatmate on the way to the start; he was pretty new to running but had done a Tough Mudder (just what it sounds like) race in the fall and had enjoyed it. He had a Garmin Forerunner, which he loved; it was nice to see one up close. I'm not all that into gadgets and gear, but I've been thinking about getting a Forerunner lately, mainly because my tried and true method of mapping runs before I do them (and then correcting them afterwards when I reroute on the fly) is getting OLD. More and more, I just want to go out and run wherever my feet take me on a given day and stay out for time, but I'm compulsive about tracking distance, and I question my ability to recall my routes, particularly if I zone out along the way. So the Garmin, while clunky, seems an interesting idea...
But I digress. The trip to the start took for-freaking-ever, despite the fact that the bus drivers were going like 80 mph on the hilly, twisty back country roads. At the start, we were told there was but one working bathroom for last minute pit stops. More people that I expected got in line, while the rest of us sought out little girls' and boys' trees and shrubs. As we lined up, we were told that there were over 300 starters, and they expected something like 262 finishers (and they were close! there were 267 finishers); I guess that was based on data from prior races. I was surprised that they had such a high number of DNFs (did not finish), but then again, I've never really studied starter/finisher race stats, so what do I know?
After the singing of the national anthem (by us, of course), we were off! Naturally, the very first thing we did was cross a creek. Who wants to run a half marathon in dry shoes, after all? Thanks to my superior creek crossing skills and murky water piercing sonar, I managed to half step on a slippery rock and go down on my butt, so I had the added benefit of running the race in wet shorts, as well as shoes. As usual, we started into the hills almost immediately. The first one wasn't too bad, and then we came to a near stop on the down slope, thanks to a tree and several limbs lying across the path. There was no way around them, and only enough room for one person to go over and/or under at a time (I did some of both), so we came out of that fairly spaced out. From that point on, I didn't pass many people and very few people passed me. I found that pretty unusual, but I guess we'd sorted ourselves out pretty well, in terms of pace, in that first mile or so.
On the whole, the first six miles were HARD. The hills were steep and I made good on my forethought to walk up the steep parts, which frankly, was most of the uphills. Even some of the downhills were slow, thanks to lots of loose rock. I've learned that my greatest fear on the downhills is not of falling, but of having someone behind me fall and take me down with him or her. The trails were often single track, so there was effectively no passing, and hearing someone on your tail, pounding hard and breathing heavy, was - disconcerting. I suppose because of the stop at the tree and all the uphill walking, my overall pace was slower than I'd anticipated; after what seemed an unreasonably long time, I found myself at the second (six mile) aid station. I was at that point hoping they'd measured the distance wrong, and we were actually closer to or even more than halfway along the course (one can hope, right?) But no; the Garmin-wearing folk assured us all that we really were just six miles in. Fortunately this aid station had not only water and gatorade, but also M&Ms! (OK, and other junk food as well, but I only had eyes for the peanut M&Ms.)
Thus refueled, I headed out on the back side of the course. I wish I had more to say about miles 6 - 9, but I seem to have run those miles in some sort of a time warp. There were more hills (and bugs!), but the downhills were less rocky. My pace definitely picked up, and before I knew it, I was at the road section of the course. At that point I was running near a guy who had done a lot of ultra and trail running, and who had done this course many times before. Apparently, what was now a road section was just a few years ago a trail section; however a new (and fairly small) development had gone in, and the road more or less followed the old trail. Folks who lived along the road were pretty cool; quite a few came out to cheer us on. One family set up its own aid station, and more than one had sprinklers out for us to run through (yay, people!). As promised, both the downhill and uphill sections were steep; the gal I was running next to and I were joking about needing overspeed brakes or parachutes.
And then, we hit Charlie's section of the course. We had been warned, prior to the start, that there would be a mud pit later on the course, that there was no way around it, and that we'd better make sure our shoes were laced tightly because otherwise, we might lose them. What they did not tell us, perhaps because they didn't know, was that there would be many, many mudpits on that last section of the course. Perhaps Charlie, who I'm guessing is a real person, figured what with the mud run craze, he might as well follow suit. Whatever the case, we had a series of drops into water up to waist deep (on me, anyway), with entries so slick you had to slide in and exits so steep you needed a rope (thankfully provided) to get out. Then the trail actually ran IN the creek for a while, which I must say, felt really good - plus it washed off much of the mud you'd gathered by that point. No worries, though, as there was more mud to come, this time much thicker, boggier mud that there was no doin' nothin' but wading through and hoping you didn't misstep and fall.
After that, there was perhaps a mile of trail left to run, frankenstein-like in mud-caked shoes. Near the finish, they had a fire hose spraying out over the trial, but it didn't really put a dent in the filth. From there the trail popped out of the woods, then over a wooden bridge, then on to the finish. Woo!
Thankfully there was a hose available after the finish to wash off off the mud. I took off my shoes and socks (there was mud IN my shoes) and deconned them as best I could; some people were talking about tossing their shoes, which seemed a little extreme to me, but I could see why one would do that. My socks are goners, for sure. I hosed off my legs - I was muddy to around mid-thigh (sex-ay!) - and padded barefoot back to the car to change. Perhaps the only small bummer of the day was that there was no real finisher trinket. Instead, we got a pair of socks (to replace the ones we'd killed on course?) and could BUY a finisher mug if we wanted. Granted, the were cheap, but I don't carry money with me when I run races, and by the time I'd cleaned up and walked back up(hill) to the car, I wasn't in the mood to walk back down for a mug. So, aside from the race shirt and a pair of socks I managed to get dirty before I even walked out of the finish area, no souvenirs for this race.
I found out later when checking the scores that I finished 5th in my age group (they gave awards to 4th place, naturally), which just suggests to me that not many women in my age group ran on that particular day. LOL. It was a fun experience overall, and I'd be happy to do that race again. I'm grateful for every bit of training I did going into that race, from the roadwork to the gym work, and I have a much better feel overall for what kind of training I need to do if I plan to keep moving onward and upward, distance and elevation-wise, in my trail racing.
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| Race shirt and finisher - socks? |
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| Post races shoes - which didn't start out white - and socks, which did. The shoes took three days to dry completely. |
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Executive Decision
I very rarely do this, but I have decided to cut Phase 2 of NROL/Abs a bit shorter than intended. The book recommends you do both workouts from each stage 6 - 8 times. I had planned to do 8, and have done 7 to date, but I find myself 4 days out from a trail half marathon with a nasty head cold, and at this point discretion seems the better part of valor. My workout Monday was far from my best and I don't know that I'd have much to gain from doing two more sub-par workouts as opposed to letting the bod spend the energy on getting healthy. I don't find this particularly satisfying, but I also don't want to keel over on the trail, so there you have it. I'll pick up with stage 3 after the half, which should take me though around 4th of July, if I keep doing it three days a week.
Which, I might not. My long runs are of necessity only going to get longer. In fact most ultra training plans I've perused include the principle of weekend doubles - longer runs both days - bracketed by rest days on Monday and Friday, days on which I now usually lift. Further complicating things is the fact that karate starts early on Saturdays - I'm usually at the dojo by 7:25 and don't get home until nearly 10 - which does not leave a lot of time for a pre-class run, and who wants to run mid-day in the heat of summer? So, I have some schedule wrasslin' to do. Yay.
Which, I might not. My long runs are of necessity only going to get longer. In fact most ultra training plans I've perused include the principle of weekend doubles - longer runs both days - bracketed by rest days on Monday and Friday, days on which I now usually lift. Further complicating things is the fact that karate starts early on Saturdays - I'm usually at the dojo by 7:25 and don't get home until nearly 10 - which does not leave a lot of time for a pre-class run, and who wants to run mid-day in the heat of summer? So, I have some schedule wrasslin' to do. Yay.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Grades
Checked online today, and found that to my complete expectation, I got A's in my classes. Woo, nonetheless! I spent a good part of today sorting through application packages, assessing where I am, and thinking I might have to take another course or two, anyway. Blah. But I have the big ones out of the way, and am still focusing now on 1) work, and 2) looking for a PT volunteer position. Thanks to a very painful but ultimately fruitful shopping expedition, I now actually have an outfit I could comfortably wear in a professional situation. I also came to the realization that my hair has got to go at some point. It's long, thick, and wavy, and frankly I just keep it long because it's easy, not so much because I like it or am attached to it. But standing in a dressing room in real grown-up clothes, I had a bit of a rude awakening; it really detracts from the overall picture. So, it's going to go, although I'm not sure when.
Today I did a run I've been wanting to do for a while - hill repeats. I went to the nastiest hill within reasonable running distance (which truly is a relative description) and did four trips up. Considered doing five, but I was dragging up the last part of the fourth trip, so I called it quits there. It's not a BAD hill; it's a good 250m of increasingly steep climb in a shaded area that seldom has much traffic. So the plan will be to do this workout every other week, and add one repeat each go. That should get me to 10 by end of summer, just prior to the 12 hour race. Right now I can't picture doing that thing 10 times, but by then, hopefully it won't kill me.
Oh yeah, and because I have happily recovered it - possibly my favorite picture of Grif:
Cutie pie often sits like that, with his head cocked to one side. He's about 8 months old in this photo.
Today I did a run I've been wanting to do for a while - hill repeats. I went to the nastiest hill within reasonable running distance (which truly is a relative description) and did four trips up. Considered doing five, but I was dragging up the last part of the fourth trip, so I called it quits there. It's not a BAD hill; it's a good 250m of increasingly steep climb in a shaded area that seldom has much traffic. So the plan will be to do this workout every other week, and add one repeat each go. That should get me to 10 by end of summer, just prior to the 12 hour race. Right now I can't picture doing that thing 10 times, but by then, hopefully it won't kill me.
Oh yeah, and because I have happily recovered it - possibly my favorite picture of Grif:
Cutie pie often sits like that, with his head cocked to one side. He's about 8 months old in this photo.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Rest
Took a rare rest day today. Yesterday's run took a pretty good chunk out of me, which isn't really surprising. I haven't run that far since I was training for Marine Corps, and I ran that in 2006. That was the end of my buildup for this next half; I'll take it easier next Sunday, then the half is the following weekend. After that it'll be about prepping for the 12 hour, and that just means the weekend long runs will get longer. I do recall usually really wanting/needing the day off after Long Run Day, and it's not something I plan to begrudge myself going forward. So I'll have to think about how I want to balance things for the last phase of NROL/Abs, which will start for me the week after the half. Might shorten it (just do six, as opposed to 8 workouts), might just do two workouts a week, might wait to install the Really Long Run until after the phase is done... although that would leave just two months of build up time, which is probably not the best idea. Not something I'm deciding today, however.
Attempted to go clothes shopping today. Now that I'm out of school for the forseeable future, I need to find full time employment. However, I haven't had the kind of job where I had to wear Real Clothes (meaning, not jeans) on a daily basis in over 10 years. Added to that, when I DID have that kind of job, I also carried 10 - 15# more weight than I do now, so the few remnants I have from that era are not only out of date, but don't fit. I don't know what kind of work I will wind up doing - frankly I don't really care what it is so long as it's not clerical work - so I'm just thinking, presentable initial interview outfit for now, and will fill in the details later. But I completely struck out today. Couldn't find a single pair of pants in my size, whatever that is, and it's not like I didn't look. I spoke with the store clerks and apparently they get in very few clothes in smaller sizes, and they are snatched up right away. I even looked in the juniors department, and had the same issue, namely the insanely long inseam. For whatever reason, I could find TONS of pants in petite length in sizes 8 - 16; do they not think smaller people come in short sizes, too? Because I had on some size 2 pants that HAD to have a 34" inseam. WTF?
I finally hit the burnout point and came home. Tomorrow is another day.
Attempted to go clothes shopping today. Now that I'm out of school for the forseeable future, I need to find full time employment. However, I haven't had the kind of job where I had to wear Real Clothes (meaning, not jeans) on a daily basis in over 10 years. Added to that, when I DID have that kind of job, I also carried 10 - 15# more weight than I do now, so the few remnants I have from that era are not only out of date, but don't fit. I don't know what kind of work I will wind up doing - frankly I don't really care what it is so long as it's not clerical work - so I'm just thinking, presentable initial interview outfit for now, and will fill in the details later. But I completely struck out today. Couldn't find a single pair of pants in my size, whatever that is, and it's not like I didn't look. I spoke with the store clerks and apparently they get in very few clothes in smaller sizes, and they are snatched up right away. I even looked in the juniors department, and had the same issue, namely the insanely long inseam. For whatever reason, I could find TONS of pants in petite length in sizes 8 - 16; do they not think smaller people come in short sizes, too? Because I had on some size 2 pants that HAD to have a 34" inseam. WTF?
I finally hit the burnout point and came home. Tomorrow is another day.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Computer saga, Le Fin (I hope)
... or, I think I finally lost some of my Mac naivete, for whatever it was worth.
When I posted yesterday, I was convinced my computer issues had been caused by an internal Mac software problem; however I was also still convinced there was some problem lurking within my external hard drive. That was because Time Machine, the built-in Mac back up system that writes to that drive, had been working flawlessly up until a couple of months ago; now that it was reinstalled, all fresh and pristine, it should be working perfectly, and yet I was still getting a very unhelpful error message when I tried to run it. So with the OS (theoretically) being clean, what else, besides the drive, could it be?
So... I started external hard drive shopping. But I had all manner of nagging thoughts. What if I was wrong, yet again? What if I shelled out for a new drive, only to find that IT didn't work, either? And why, if my current drive wouldn't work as an automatic back up, did it behave perfectly when I used it as a manual back up prior to my whitewashing the system? Did I really understand the problem? The answer to that very obviously being no, I embarked on a Quest for Understanding.
I would make a long story long, as is my wont, but I truly can't recall everything I did or learned. I can only say that I am FAR from being alone in having issues with Time Machine. I learned how to find error codes and tracked them down; found fixes for them that did nothing for me. I installed an error logger that showed me more error codes and found fixes for them that also did nothing for me. I learned how to reindex Spotlight, something I didn't even know I had. I read blogs of Mac geeks who wrestled through the same problems, found the same error codes, and tried the same fixes as I did; while a few were able to resolve their issues, many couldn't. After a good solid six hours of this (no exaggeration), I decided if a bunch of Mac brainiacs couldn't solve this, no way would I, so I did what I think was the next best thing: abandon the Time Machine ship and buy a third party backup program. The one I picked is called SuperDuper!, and gets very good ratings from totally geektastic Mac-o-philes. While it will reportedly do advanced tricks for power users, it is also completely MacIdiot friendly, with a simple, predictable interface, and to my utter relief, it works and plays happily with that external hard drive I was looking to replace. Le. Fin.
And now, to continue a tour of some of my favorite photos:
When I posted yesterday, I was convinced my computer issues had been caused by an internal Mac software problem; however I was also still convinced there was some problem lurking within my external hard drive. That was because Time Machine, the built-in Mac back up system that writes to that drive, had been working flawlessly up until a couple of months ago; now that it was reinstalled, all fresh and pristine, it should be working perfectly, and yet I was still getting a very unhelpful error message when I tried to run it. So with the OS (theoretically) being clean, what else, besides the drive, could it be?
So... I started external hard drive shopping. But I had all manner of nagging thoughts. What if I was wrong, yet again? What if I shelled out for a new drive, only to find that IT didn't work, either? And why, if my current drive wouldn't work as an automatic back up, did it behave perfectly when I used it as a manual back up prior to my whitewashing the system? Did I really understand the problem? The answer to that very obviously being no, I embarked on a Quest for Understanding.
I would make a long story long, as is my wont, but I truly can't recall everything I did or learned. I can only say that I am FAR from being alone in having issues with Time Machine. I learned how to find error codes and tracked them down; found fixes for them that did nothing for me. I installed an error logger that showed me more error codes and found fixes for them that also did nothing for me. I learned how to reindex Spotlight, something I didn't even know I had. I read blogs of Mac geeks who wrestled through the same problems, found the same error codes, and tried the same fixes as I did; while a few were able to resolve their issues, many couldn't. After a good solid six hours of this (no exaggeration), I decided if a bunch of Mac brainiacs couldn't solve this, no way would I, so I did what I think was the next best thing: abandon the Time Machine ship and buy a third party backup program. The one I picked is called SuperDuper!, and gets very good ratings from totally geektastic Mac-o-philes. While it will reportedly do advanced tricks for power users, it is also completely MacIdiot friendly, with a simple, predictable interface, and to my utter relief, it works and plays happily with that external hard drive I was looking to replace. Le. Fin.
And now, to continue a tour of some of my favorite photos:
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| Locke Ober, my bud of many years. |
Friday, May 13, 2011
My tale of woe - or, BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER! NOW, YOU FOOL!
I feel as if I've been in a blender these past ten days or so. Push for finals, lots of family activity, more pushing for finals, Acing the finals (thank you very much), and a colossal computer malfunction.
There's not much to say about the finals; I studied damned hard and although I don't officially know my grades, I came out of them knowing they went well. My grades were solid enough going in that I'd have had to have bombed the exams to have hurt my final grade, but who wants to go out on anything but a really strong note? So I went for that, and came out feeling I had it. (I did get 100% on the last lab practical, that much I know for sure.) So, school over for now.
The computer story:
I have a Mac, which I do love, but which has not been the trouble-free Machine of Paradise I expected it to be. While I tend to get curious about how natural, mechanical, and structural things work, computers are none of the above, and it is an understatement to say I'm not all that interested in them from a functional standpoint - I generally just want them to do their job without my having to get bogged down in a lot of details. To that end, I don't do a lot of funky things on them. I surf the intertubes, organize photos, do music, write, play a few simple games.... I don't download crazy shit, am wary of where I surf, and until recently always backed up my hard drive.
Until recently, because for reasons I still don't understand, the Time Machine function on this Mac ceased to function several months ago. I figured it had to be something on my external hard drive, because what goes wrong with a Mac? Right? So after trying a lot of trouble shooting and finally taking a very deep breath, I blew away my backup drive, with the expectation that THAT would cure my problem and I'd be back in the time machine business.
Not so. However, I decided that for the short term, I'd fly without that particular net. I am a poor student and shelling out for a new drive didn't seem all that critical; although I've ALWAYS had a back-up drive (my earliest one was actually a tape drive), I've never once used it. Still, better to have and not to need, than need and not to have, right? But what goes wrong with Macs?
So... Tuesday after school, I was translating a couple of files to MP3 format so I could listen to them on a much needed, post exam cooling off walk, when my computer, which had been acting crotchety for a while, just stopped. Pinweel of Death, couldn't click on a damned thing kind of stopped. I tried nice reboots, and not so nice reboots; my dock (basically, the Mac's functional menu) wouldn't pop up, and while I could get to most programs via a second route, it took for-freaking-ever for anything to load. I was absolutely not in a state of mind to deal with this at the moment, so I shut the thing down and went for a walk.
Next day I ran a diagnostic on the thing. Mac diagnostics are actually lame as hell compared to PC diagnostics. It essentially told me my computer was fucked up (no! Really?) and I should take a flier at it with the start-up disc. So I spent much of the rest of the day offloading (or so I thought) everything I could on to the drive that used to serve as my back-up (why it seems to work perfectly well that way and NOT for Time Machine is beyond me, but that's how it is), figuring this was probably, one way or another, going to come down to my having to blow everything away and reinstall the system.
And it did. I put in the start up disc, ran the diagnostic on IT, which told me I had a software problem, not a hardware problem - my first actual piece of diagnostic data. I spent several hours trying diagnostic things suggested on the Mac help page; most of them, the computer wouldn't do; I couldn't even get a Pinwheel of Death out of it, just no response. After what seemed like a baseball game's worth of strike outs, I learned what at the time seemed like a single useful thing; my OS had a feature called Archive and Reinstall, which would magically save all of my settings and personal shit whilst the OS installed itself, then reinstall them. So emboldened, and thinking I'd done a good job of backing things up Just in Case, I jumped off the Reinstall cliff.
The whole process took several hours, and to make a long story short, I could not Archive and Reinstall. I don't know why; I was just told in MacEse that my computer was too fucked up for that. So I had to do a total reinstall. Which my computer told me, in MacEse, that it could not do, because my computer was too fucked up. Would I like to try again? And again? It finally went, and when I tried to reload my personal info from my back up drive, I found that my incomplete knowledge of Mac file structure had lead me to believe I'd saved certain things - namely, ALL of my photographs and my iTunes library - when I hadn't.
At this point I literally sat down on the floor and cried. It was like a huge piece of my life was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it - and it was all my fault. That was a very, very hard pill to swallow. The iTunes, I can rebuild in time; I am such a Luddite in that area that most of what I had I've downloaded from CDs, so I can rebuild almost all of it. The pictures, though - that really hurts. To the good, I have shared enough of them over the years that I have uploaded a lot of my favorites to places like Photobucket and ImageShack, so I have those, at the very least.
So I'm rebuilding things slowly. And I'm shopping for a new back-up drive.
Lessons learned:
1) Macs are not holy things that always work as advertised.
2) No matter how trustworthy your computer, don't trust it: back up early, and often. Really.
3) If you do manual backups, make sure you understand your file structure so you're actually saving what you think your saving.
4) Have someone who's more knowledgeable than you check your work.
5) Oh yea, and back up early, and often. Srsly.
Baby Grif says so.
There's not much to say about the finals; I studied damned hard and although I don't officially know my grades, I came out of them knowing they went well. My grades were solid enough going in that I'd have had to have bombed the exams to have hurt my final grade, but who wants to go out on anything but a really strong note? So I went for that, and came out feeling I had it. (I did get 100% on the last lab practical, that much I know for sure.) So, school over for now.
The computer story:
I have a Mac, which I do love, but which has not been the trouble-free Machine of Paradise I expected it to be. While I tend to get curious about how natural, mechanical, and structural things work, computers are none of the above, and it is an understatement to say I'm not all that interested in them from a functional standpoint - I generally just want them to do their job without my having to get bogged down in a lot of details. To that end, I don't do a lot of funky things on them. I surf the intertubes, organize photos, do music, write, play a few simple games.... I don't download crazy shit, am wary of where I surf, and until recently always backed up my hard drive.
Until recently, because for reasons I still don't understand, the Time Machine function on this Mac ceased to function several months ago. I figured it had to be something on my external hard drive, because what goes wrong with a Mac? Right? So after trying a lot of trouble shooting and finally taking a very deep breath, I blew away my backup drive, with the expectation that THAT would cure my problem and I'd be back in the time machine business.
Not so. However, I decided that for the short term, I'd fly without that particular net. I am a poor student and shelling out for a new drive didn't seem all that critical; although I've ALWAYS had a back-up drive (my earliest one was actually a tape drive), I've never once used it. Still, better to have and not to need, than need and not to have, right? But what goes wrong with Macs?
So... Tuesday after school, I was translating a couple of files to MP3 format so I could listen to them on a much needed, post exam cooling off walk, when my computer, which had been acting crotchety for a while, just stopped. Pinweel of Death, couldn't click on a damned thing kind of stopped. I tried nice reboots, and not so nice reboots; my dock (basically, the Mac's functional menu) wouldn't pop up, and while I could get to most programs via a second route, it took for-freaking-ever for anything to load. I was absolutely not in a state of mind to deal with this at the moment, so I shut the thing down and went for a walk.
Next day I ran a diagnostic on the thing. Mac diagnostics are actually lame as hell compared to PC diagnostics. It essentially told me my computer was fucked up (no! Really?) and I should take a flier at it with the start-up disc. So I spent much of the rest of the day offloading (or so I thought) everything I could on to the drive that used to serve as my back-up (why it seems to work perfectly well that way and NOT for Time Machine is beyond me, but that's how it is), figuring this was probably, one way or another, going to come down to my having to blow everything away and reinstall the system.
And it did. I put in the start up disc, ran the diagnostic on IT, which told me I had a software problem, not a hardware problem - my first actual piece of diagnostic data. I spent several hours trying diagnostic things suggested on the Mac help page; most of them, the computer wouldn't do; I couldn't even get a Pinwheel of Death out of it, just no response. After what seemed like a baseball game's worth of strike outs, I learned what at the time seemed like a single useful thing; my OS had a feature called Archive and Reinstall, which would magically save all of my settings and personal shit whilst the OS installed itself, then reinstall them. So emboldened, and thinking I'd done a good job of backing things up Just in Case, I jumped off the Reinstall cliff.
The whole process took several hours, and to make a long story short, I could not Archive and Reinstall. I don't know why; I was just told in MacEse that my computer was too fucked up for that. So I had to do a total reinstall. Which my computer told me, in MacEse, that it could not do, because my computer was too fucked up. Would I like to try again? And again? It finally went, and when I tried to reload my personal info from my back up drive, I found that my incomplete knowledge of Mac file structure had lead me to believe I'd saved certain things - namely, ALL of my photographs and my iTunes library - when I hadn't.
At this point I literally sat down on the floor and cried. It was like a huge piece of my life was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it - and it was all my fault. That was a very, very hard pill to swallow. The iTunes, I can rebuild in time; I am such a Luddite in that area that most of what I had I've downloaded from CDs, so I can rebuild almost all of it. The pictures, though - that really hurts. To the good, I have shared enough of them over the years that I have uploaded a lot of my favorites to places like Photobucket and ImageShack, so I have those, at the very least.
So I'm rebuilding things slowly. And I'm shopping for a new back-up drive.
Lessons learned:
1) Macs are not holy things that always work as advertised.
2) No matter how trustworthy your computer, don't trust it: back up early, and often. Really.
3) If you do manual backups, make sure you understand your file structure so you're actually saving what you think your saving.
4) Have someone who's more knowledgeable than you check your work.
5) Oh yea, and back up early, and often. Srsly.
Baby Grif says so.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Procrastinating
Have I mentioned that I really hate running in the afternoon? Got home from school a little earlier today than usual, having had a test in my afternoon class (the subject matter was eating disorders). So I'm hanging out a bit, waiting for either the clouds to thicken a bit or the sun to go past its zenith (it was HIGH when I walked in the door) before I head out. However the longer I sit, the more inertial sets in - so I want to go, and yet, I don't want to go. LOL.
Part of this is my newfound respect for the need for acclimatization to changing seasons. I just learned, during a long conversation with my A&P prof about that among other things, that in areas where there is seasonality, ones blood actually is thicker during the cold months than during the warm months, to assist in heating and cooling. Normally, you just acclimate gradually with the changing of the seasons, but running on unusually warm spring days is like running a car in the summer with winter weight oil - the engine no likey. Sooo... when I ran last Tuesday in conditions very similar to those we have this afternoon and felt like hammered shit afterwards, there was good reason for it. I had planned to go this morning before school, but set my alarm clock for 5 something PM, not am, and didn't wake up on my own until nearly 6, which killed that plan. So, afternoon it will be, and I've shortened the course a bit and will just go slow. School is almost done, and then I can reestablish my schedule and presumably get these runs in the books when it better suits me.
I was very happy with the 11+ miler on Sunday. I am hoping to get in 12 this Sunday (that's a bit iffy, due to a family thing, which is a whole 'nother story) and if that goes well, I will enter the Memorial Day weekend half. And that will probably be it for me until Labor Day weekend, when I hope to do the 12 hour race, which will be my major distance run for the year. There's a chance I'll add the 50K in October, but I really like the idea of a timed race instead of a fixed distance race for what I hope will be my first ultra. Then I'll do Dirty Bird (15K) again Thanksgiving weekend. There's definitely a holiday theme to my runs this year! Of course, all of that is contingent on my staying healthy and the hip continuing to mend as it now seems to be mending. It's interesting. If things go according to plan, I have just over a year before I start grad school (PT schools generally start right after Memorial Day weekend), so my concrete plans now have something of a finite timeline. What DO I want to get done B.G.S. (Before Grad School)? I have no idea what I'll be able to do during - it may be a challenge to even keep up the most rudimentary of plans - so I'm identifying those itches I really want to scratch before my short term priorities change. An Ultra is on the list. So is Cressey's Maximum Strength, and possibly another go through NROL/Abs. And a 2012 Mt. Penn, and possibly a part in a spring 2012 marathon relay... LOL. Don't know of I'll manage to fit that all in, but no one can say I'll be getting bored any time soon.
Speaking of soon - best to hit the roads now, so I can be home before rush hour.
Part of this is my newfound respect for the need for acclimatization to changing seasons. I just learned, during a long conversation with my A&P prof about that among other things, that in areas where there is seasonality, ones blood actually is thicker during the cold months than during the warm months, to assist in heating and cooling. Normally, you just acclimate gradually with the changing of the seasons, but running on unusually warm spring days is like running a car in the summer with winter weight oil - the engine no likey. Sooo... when I ran last Tuesday in conditions very similar to those we have this afternoon and felt like hammered shit afterwards, there was good reason for it. I had planned to go this morning before school, but set my alarm clock for 5 something PM, not am, and didn't wake up on my own until nearly 6, which killed that plan. So, afternoon it will be, and I've shortened the course a bit and will just go slow. School is almost done, and then I can reestablish my schedule and presumably get these runs in the books when it better suits me.
I was very happy with the 11+ miler on Sunday. I am hoping to get in 12 this Sunday (that's a bit iffy, due to a family thing, which is a whole 'nother story) and if that goes well, I will enter the Memorial Day weekend half. And that will probably be it for me until Labor Day weekend, when I hope to do the 12 hour race, which will be my major distance run for the year. There's a chance I'll add the 50K in October, but I really like the idea of a timed race instead of a fixed distance race for what I hope will be my first ultra. Then I'll do Dirty Bird (15K) again Thanksgiving weekend. There's definitely a holiday theme to my runs this year! Of course, all of that is contingent on my staying healthy and the hip continuing to mend as it now seems to be mending. It's interesting. If things go according to plan, I have just over a year before I start grad school (PT schools generally start right after Memorial Day weekend), so my concrete plans now have something of a finite timeline. What DO I want to get done B.G.S. (Before Grad School)? I have no idea what I'll be able to do during - it may be a challenge to even keep up the most rudimentary of plans - so I'm identifying those itches I really want to scratch before my short term priorities change. An Ultra is on the list. So is Cressey's Maximum Strength, and possibly another go through NROL/Abs. And a 2012 Mt. Penn, and possibly a part in a spring 2012 marathon relay... LOL. Don't know of I'll manage to fit that all in, but no one can say I'll be getting bored any time soon.
Speaking of soon - best to hit the roads now, so I can be home before rush hour.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Wait a second
What happened to April? Jeezy creezy. Life is moving very quickly at the moment. A two minute wrap:
- Recovered very well from the trail run; felt good, if a bit tired, during the running, so I wasn't terribly surprised at that, but it's still a good thing.
- I have about 8 days and 4 exams left of school. So likely I won't be doing a lot of updating in the next week or so.
- In my first level of intervention re: my continued hip tightness/issues, I have cut back significantly on my recreational walking. I was - and I'm almost embarrassed to admit this - walking up to two plus hours a day. I never went out with a PLAN to do that, but I'd get all wrapped up listening to podcasts, and just want to keep going. Now I'm shooting NTE an hour, although I'm generally coming in a little over that. And wouldn't you know? I'm seeing very marked improvement in the hip.
- 2nd stage of NROL/Abs is going well - in fact I'm off to the gym NOW for a workout. Very glad I gave this program a shot.
- Recovered very well from the trail run; felt good, if a bit tired, during the running, so I wasn't terribly surprised at that, but it's still a good thing.
- I have about 8 days and 4 exams left of school. So likely I won't be doing a lot of updating in the next week or so.
- In my first level of intervention re: my continued hip tightness/issues, I have cut back significantly on my recreational walking. I was - and I'm almost embarrassed to admit this - walking up to two plus hours a day. I never went out with a PLAN to do that, but I'd get all wrapped up listening to podcasts, and just want to keep going. Now I'm shooting NTE an hour, although I'm generally coming in a little over that. And wouldn't you know? I'm seeing very marked improvement in the hip.
- 2nd stage of NROL/Abs is going well - in fact I'm off to the gym NOW for a workout. Very glad I gave this program a shot.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Mt. Penn Mudfest - Race Report
One of the things that continually amuses me is how easy it is to prepare, day before, for a race or tri. This, compared to what it was like day before a horse show of any type, even a relatively informal one. Even at the base level, there was a horse to clean, tack to clean, clothes to organize, a trailer to pack… add multiple events, and you added multiples of gear; add questionable weather, add another layer of gear. And yet, even given the vagaries of the weather yesterday, it took me all of 15 minutes to pack a gear bag for the trail race.
And there were vagaries to the weather. With a couple of fronts meandering around the area, it was forcast to be BOTH cold and rainy and warm with thunderstorms. So I packed both shorts and ¾ tights, and went with a long sleeve shirt (because I truly didn’t believe it would hit the forecast high of 70 while we were out there) and sleeveless wind/rain breaker vest up top.
It rained the entire drive out to the race site, and it was pouring when I arrived. Yay. It was also 43 degrees, so I opted to go with the 3/4 tights. Miraculously the rain stopped about 20 minutes before the race started, so we were dry, at least, while waiting for the race start. This is a quirky event, as all of the events put on by this club seem to be. It has a Clydesdale/Clydette division for people meeting certain height/weight requirements (they have their own formula: for women, weight in pounds divide by height in inches must be over 2.15; for men, 2.7). Also, you can volunteer to carry a raw egg with you on the course. If the egg makes it back in one piece, you can win something like 70# of Godiva chocolate. I actually thought about doing that one, but considering I bit the dust a few times during my last race, I thought it might be a good idea to try to make it around a course without buying real estate once before adding raw eggs to the picture. Maybe next year!
Also: The starting gun consisted of a stuffed pig (the fluffy kid’s toy kind of stuffed pig, not a pig stuffed like a turkey) that was fired from the end of an air gun. When the pig hit the ground, we were off! The first ¼ mile or so was on roads; I started about mid pack and as we worked our way to the trail head I looked down the road at the mass of people and was briefly reminded of running Broad Street in Philly, where you have wall to wall people heading down this one road, as far down as you can see. Granted, in this case, the road was not nearly as wide, the crowd was more than an order of magnitude smaller, and it was low lying clouds, not buildings, that obscured the view, but it still made me laugh.
We turned off on to the trail and immediately started up hill. The path was alternately rocky and muddy and slick, and while I’m sure some more sure-footed people galloped up the slope, I sure didn’t, nor did anyone near me. The first 1/3 of the course was a series of steep, but not brutal ups and downs, followed by a long own hill that lead into a fallen tree obstacle course-type section. From chatting with someone near me, I learned the course has always been routed this way, and the downed trees are a mainstay. After another overlong downhill section (those sections leave one thinking, “rut ro” because for ever downhill, there is an equal uphill coming), we hit mid course, and the stream crossings.
We were warned at the start that the course might be wetter than usual due to all of the rain we’ve been having lately. Having never seen the course before, this meant nothing to me, since I had no idea what “usual” was. We got to the first one and all I could think was, “Oh. OK. We’re getting wet.” The stream was high and very fast, and at that point maybe 25 feet wide, give or take, with a rocky creek bottom. There was no splashing through, just plowing through water that was up past my knees. And COLD! I got out and my legs felt numb and about 10# heavier. And then, of course, there was a steep, rocky, muddy uphill that was mostly single track, so it was rather slow going. At the top of the hill (I think it was this hill!), there was a series of tires set up, agility-drill style, a fun little surprise. Then we came down to a slightly narrower but much deeper crossing; here, the water was almost to my waist. I was definitely numb coming out of that one, but fortunately the path was flatter for a while, then up and down, and we hit the final crossing, which was narrower but must faster than the others. And that was it for the water (except for the rain, which had started up again in earnest); what was left, though, were the steepest hills.
In keeping with the Easter theme; there were some unusual aid stations along the way. Instead of gus, they handed out marshmallow peeps at the water stops. I can’t recall ever having a peep that tasted like anything other than cardboard before, but those really hit the spot and it was TOO funny seeing aid station people handing out these yellow and pink and purple things at the stops. At the top of the next steep hill, which felt more like climbing a staircase than a hill, they had an alternate beverage station, where they handed out beer and margaritas, if one was so inclined, along with water. Next up was a pretty fast down hill, followed by the last ugly uphill of the day. By now people in my area were either walking or alternating walking and running these hills; the trails were pretty much single track, though, so if too many people got to walking, you were walking whether or not it was your choice. It wasn’t always my preference to be walking, but truly? It was probably all for the best that I did anyway.
Finally we hit the last section. I knew this only because I had someone behind me who had run the race before and knew the course well; we were still in the clouds (for you aviation buffs, the weather was low IFR all the way) so it was impossible to see more than 50 yards or so ahead. I had some gas left in the tank, but it was difficult to stop on the accelerator because the track was so muddy, you just slipped. So my pace was what it was until I broke out of the woods on to a grassy field, and from there it was a straight shot to the finish.
In the end I finished about five minutes faster than my last 15K trail; it’s hard to tell if it’s a true improvement or if this was an easier course – although it didn’t SEEM any easier, overall, so I’ll go with improvement. (Until I run that other course again, and take the ego hit.)
My goodies – race shirt and finisher mug – are pictured below. Also, I took a picture of my feet that I took as soon as I got back to my car, shown below as well. I couldn’t quite get the back of my legs, which were crusted with mud, but you get the idea. And yes, that is blood by my shoes, not cause by anything dramatic, just by the tongue of my shoes rubbing against my ankles. I had never before run in those shoes in anything less than ankle socks, and I ran in ped socks yesterday. I just randomly looked down and saw the left one was bleeding not 15 minutes into the race; I tried to rearrange things a little but it was a hopeless case so I just forgot about it until the race was over and I had a chance to clean up. Oh well. As my dad is fond of saying, the job is never done until some bit of blood is shed.
Hip report: No. Pain. Nada, not a twinge on the course and none today, and no more than what I’d call an ordinary (at this point) amount of tightness. Today I feel I did something yesterday, but have no unusual twinges anywhere. Which is a good thing. I have some ideas about where I want to go from here, but for today, I’m going to just enjoy the sunshine and the afterglow of a challenging race well done.
And there were vagaries to the weather. With a couple of fronts meandering around the area, it was forcast to be BOTH cold and rainy and warm with thunderstorms. So I packed both shorts and ¾ tights, and went with a long sleeve shirt (because I truly didn’t believe it would hit the forecast high of 70 while we were out there) and sleeveless wind/rain breaker vest up top.
It rained the entire drive out to the race site, and it was pouring when I arrived. Yay. It was also 43 degrees, so I opted to go with the 3/4 tights. Miraculously the rain stopped about 20 minutes before the race started, so we were dry, at least, while waiting for the race start. This is a quirky event, as all of the events put on by this club seem to be. It has a Clydesdale/Clydette division for people meeting certain height/weight requirements (they have their own formula: for women, weight in pounds divide by height in inches must be over 2.15; for men, 2.7). Also, you can volunteer to carry a raw egg with you on the course. If the egg makes it back in one piece, you can win something like 70# of Godiva chocolate. I actually thought about doing that one, but considering I bit the dust a few times during my last race, I thought it might be a good idea to try to make it around a course without buying real estate once before adding raw eggs to the picture. Maybe next year!
Also: The starting gun consisted of a stuffed pig (the fluffy kid’s toy kind of stuffed pig, not a pig stuffed like a turkey) that was fired from the end of an air gun. When the pig hit the ground, we were off! The first ¼ mile or so was on roads; I started about mid pack and as we worked our way to the trail head I looked down the road at the mass of people and was briefly reminded of running Broad Street in Philly, where you have wall to wall people heading down this one road, as far down as you can see. Granted, in this case, the road was not nearly as wide, the crowd was more than an order of magnitude smaller, and it was low lying clouds, not buildings, that obscured the view, but it still made me laugh.
We turned off on to the trail and immediately started up hill. The path was alternately rocky and muddy and slick, and while I’m sure some more sure-footed people galloped up the slope, I sure didn’t, nor did anyone near me. The first 1/3 of the course was a series of steep, but not brutal ups and downs, followed by a long own hill that lead into a fallen tree obstacle course-type section. From chatting with someone near me, I learned the course has always been routed this way, and the downed trees are a mainstay. After another overlong downhill section (those sections leave one thinking, “rut ro” because for ever downhill, there is an equal uphill coming), we hit mid course, and the stream crossings.
We were warned at the start that the course might be wetter than usual due to all of the rain we’ve been having lately. Having never seen the course before, this meant nothing to me, since I had no idea what “usual” was. We got to the first one and all I could think was, “Oh. OK. We’re getting wet.” The stream was high and very fast, and at that point maybe 25 feet wide, give or take, with a rocky creek bottom. There was no splashing through, just plowing through water that was up past my knees. And COLD! I got out and my legs felt numb and about 10# heavier. And then, of course, there was a steep, rocky, muddy uphill that was mostly single track, so it was rather slow going. At the top of the hill (I think it was this hill!), there was a series of tires set up, agility-drill style, a fun little surprise. Then we came down to a slightly narrower but much deeper crossing; here, the water was almost to my waist. I was definitely numb coming out of that one, but fortunately the path was flatter for a while, then up and down, and we hit the final crossing, which was narrower but must faster than the others. And that was it for the water (except for the rain, which had started up again in earnest); what was left, though, were the steepest hills.
In keeping with the Easter theme; there were some unusual aid stations along the way. Instead of gus, they handed out marshmallow peeps at the water stops. I can’t recall ever having a peep that tasted like anything other than cardboard before, but those really hit the spot and it was TOO funny seeing aid station people handing out these yellow and pink and purple things at the stops. At the top of the next steep hill, which felt more like climbing a staircase than a hill, they had an alternate beverage station, where they handed out beer and margaritas, if one was so inclined, along with water. Next up was a pretty fast down hill, followed by the last ugly uphill of the day. By now people in my area were either walking or alternating walking and running these hills; the trails were pretty much single track, though, so if too many people got to walking, you were walking whether or not it was your choice. It wasn’t always my preference to be walking, but truly? It was probably all for the best that I did anyway.
Finally we hit the last section. I knew this only because I had someone behind me who had run the race before and knew the course well; we were still in the clouds (for you aviation buffs, the weather was low IFR all the way) so it was impossible to see more than 50 yards or so ahead. I had some gas left in the tank, but it was difficult to stop on the accelerator because the track was so muddy, you just slipped. So my pace was what it was until I broke out of the woods on to a grassy field, and from there it was a straight shot to the finish.
In the end I finished about five minutes faster than my last 15K trail; it’s hard to tell if it’s a true improvement or if this was an easier course – although it didn’t SEEM any easier, overall, so I’ll go with improvement. (Until I run that other course again, and take the ego hit.)
My goodies – race shirt and finisher mug – are pictured below. Also, I took a picture of my feet that I took as soon as I got back to my car, shown below as well. I couldn’t quite get the back of my legs, which were crusted with mud, but you get the idea. And yes, that is blood by my shoes, not cause by anything dramatic, just by the tongue of my shoes rubbing against my ankles. I had never before run in those shoes in anything less than ankle socks, and I ran in ped socks yesterday. I just randomly looked down and saw the left one was bleeding not 15 minutes into the race; I tried to rearrange things a little but it was a hopeless case so I just forgot about it until the race was over and I had a chance to clean up. Oh well. As my dad is fond of saying, the job is never done until some bit of blood is shed.
 |
| Kitteh photo layout/composition consult. |
 | ||
| T-shirt and finisher mug. |
 |
| Lovely, eh? Probably would have been worse without the rain and water crossings. |
Hip report: No. Pain. Nada, not a twinge on the course and none today, and no more than what I’d call an ordinary (at this point) amount of tightness. Today I feel I did something yesterday, but have no unusual twinges anywhere. Which is a good thing. I have some ideas about where I want to go from here, but for today, I’m going to just enjoy the sunshine and the afterglow of a challenging race well done.
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