The Track Coach

I don’t really have a post this morning because I spent several hours playing around on this cool new site instead of composing a post for you. You may have already seen the site if you follow The Bloggess or Cranky Fitness or any number of other blogs that were quicker on the uptake than I was. Basically, the site allows you to create movies using characters like the ones you see below and it’s just plain fun to see what kinds of inappropriate things you can make them say.

My first creation is just barely over a minute long. I hope that you enjoy it because it’s all you’re getting from me today.

And that, kids, is why you don’t do steroids.
If you have trouble with the embedded video player click here to view it at xtra normal.

Confidential to Old Man Winter

Earlier this month when we were enjoying 60+ degree temperatures here in Denver I happily gloated and waived our fine weather in the faces of those of you residing in states that were gripped by snow and ice. It will probably bring you a great deal of pleasure to know that these past few days (the first days of Spring) we’ve been feeling the sting of colder temperatures and my cross training has taken the form of digging out my driveway, building a snowman, and whitewashing 4 and 5 year olds. By the way, whitewashing 4 and 5 year olds is way more rewarding that than it should be.

All of this snow and cold can only mean one thing: Old Man Winter reads Half-Fast and I have taunted him into kicking me in the pants. Fantastic. Well you know what, Old Man Winter? You can get bent! You’re not fooling anyone with this late season snow, your days are numbered and I will dance on your grave when the time comes. (Parenthetical side note: Totally nailed the correct usage of ‘you’re’ and ‘your’ in that sentence. You really have to understand their meanings to see that they’re used correctly there. (Second parenthetical side note: ‘Their,’ ‘they’re’ and ‘there’ also used correctly! High Five!) Totally makes up for the redundancy of pointing out that something inside parentheses was parenthetical.) Where was I? Oh yes, Old Man Winter. Suck it!

If you think that a little snow and wind is going to keep me from running then you’re not paying attention. Did you not see the post about YakTrax? Do you not know that I have a treadmill? I laugh in the face of cold weather and I scoff at your measly 4 - 5 inches. I’ll start forwarding you some e-mails that promise to help you grow to 10 - 12 inches, but even then I’ll keep running, and do you know why? Because I’m unstoppable. I’m like a bad run on sentence or the Enegizer bunny.

Anniversary
Wednesday will be the 2 year anniversary of Half-Fast, so be sure to stop by on Wednesday and if you haven’t already started shopping for a gift then you had better get on it. This is not the kind of blog that is going to let you off easy if you forget its anniversary. And don’t even think about showing up here on Wednesday with a card and a gift certificate. Put some thought into it, if you haven’t been able to figure out what gift this blog wants from its subtle hints then I don’t think you really love it at all. What? Is there someone else? Who is she? WHO IS SHE?

Competitive Spirit

I recently discovered that one of my coworkers is a runner. He works in a different department which means that we don’t have the opportunity to interact all that often but he mentioned in passing that he couldn’t afford to miss another run, which is totally something I would do to let others know that I’m better than them a runner. We talked about running for a few minutes, what races we were doing and how much we hate all the wind we’ve been having lately. It felt a little like we were sizing each other up, two fighters standing eye to eye at the pre-fight weigh in. In the interest of congeniality neither one of us mentioned any PRs or goals for our upcoming races and neither one of us asked. It was as though there was some kind of unwritten don’t ask, don’t tell policy. I desperately wanted to know who was faster but I didn’t want to appear too competitive, although that may have gone out the window when I stood inches from his face and stared him down. I also didn’t want to ask him his 10K PR and have him say “36:22, what’s yours?” because that’s when the lying starts.

Enter Athlinks. If you’re not familiar with Athlinks it is a wonderful resource. As far as I can tell Athlinks goes about gathering up as many online results as they can find for races (running, biking, triathlon etc.) and then they put them all into a searchable database. If you’re a member you can even track your friends and rivals. So I went to Athlinks and searched for this guy’s race results. Turns out we’ve run two of the same races, last year’s Bolder Boulder and last year’s Georgetown Half Marathon. Can you guess who won both of those races? (Hint: Do you think I’d be posting about it if I lost?) I beat him by 6 minutes in Boulder and 7+ in Georgetown. POW! Take that, coworker I barely know! Next time I see him I’m going to ask him about his race results. Then when he tells me I’ll be all condescending and sympathetic, I’ll tilt my head and be like “Aww, that’s OK. That’s still a good accomplishment, you should still be proud of those times,” because that’s also something I would totally do to let others know that I’m better than them.

So next time you run into someone who tells you that a long time ago they once ran a marathon in under 3 hours go to Athlinks and find out if they are lying. I use it all the time now, so don’t even bother trying to tell me that you ran a 19 minute 5K when I can clearly see that it was 19:14 you lying sack of crap.

Incidentally Athlinks is not paying me to write this but they should be, that’s the 3rd time I’ve linked to them in this post. Plus, I’ve come up with some cool new slogans that they can use:

Athlinks, the great new lie detector.
Athlinks, helping you put coworkers in their place since 2005.

Whichever one they choose it will certainly be better than their current one which is Compete. Connect. Ha! More like Lame. Boring. Am I right? It doesn’t even start with the name Athlinks (4th time!), it’s like they know nothing about branding. It doesn’t even convey that you can catch people in their lies! Madness.

Bowel shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse...

[The video on the right is provided as a soundtrack for this post. You don’t need to watch it, just push play and listen while you read, that is, if you’re capable of two things at once.]

I’ve stated previously that my training right now is aimed towards a sub 50 minute time in the upcoming Bolder Boulder 10K. I’m just now starting to get into the heart of my training and I find myself struggling to keep up with the suggested paces and this is causing me to doubt my ability to run an 8 minute pace for 6.2 miles. I know, it must be hard for you to believe that someone as awesome as me would doubt his abilities but I’ll bet that even Superman had doubts and misgivings some of the time. Like about wearing those knee high red boots, come on Clark, only Supergirl can make that look work.

Fortunately, my choice of footwear is as awesome as it is well documented so I don’t have to worry about looking like a tool in the wrong shoes or wearing white after Labor Day. No, all I have to worry about is running faster than a speeding bullet and that is proving to be a challenge. I’ve gone back and looked at my training runs leading up to last year’s Bolder Boulder to see if I’m any faster than I was back then, but if anything I think I might be slower. This is really quite frustrating and I might have to stop running all together if I don’t at least PR in the Bolder Boulder. It’s not all bad, I’ve been thinking that maybe I’d like to quit running anyway and devote more time to couch potatoing. Crashing and burning at the Bolder Boulder may give me just the excuse I need to stop running.

I blame my newly found slowness on running a marathon. I spent the bulk of the winter months focusing on increasing my mileage and I’m beginning to wonder if that was to the detriment of my speed. Is it possible that training for and running a marathon could make you slower at the 5K and 10K distances? And if so, why do you people keep on running them? I still have 2 months before the Bolder Boulder so there’s plenty of time to work on my speed deficiency (is there a vitamin I can take for that?) but I have to admit I’m not nearly as confident this year about a PR as I have been in past years.

Off Track: Job Opportunities Abound!

Many of you already know that I work in the financial services industry and I imagine that you’re all really jealous because of all the good publicity we’re getting right now. As part of my career in the financial services industry I was at one time required to obtain some special licenses. (I’m being vague on purpose but don’t mess with me, one of them may or may not have been a License to Kill.) The licenses required hours of classroom training followed by extensive memorizing of antiquated legalese, culminating in daylong tests. I no longer need or use the licenses in my current position (which is Senior Director of Awesomeness and Time Mismanagment), but I continue to keep the licenses because there’s a chance that I could need them again if I change my career path (read: get demoted) and I’d hate to have to go through the tests again. The downside to continuing to be licensed is that this is public information and I frequently get junk mail offering me incredible opportunities with huge commissions and zero dignity!

Today I received one that just needed to be shared, but before I share it with you allow me to tell you the path this postcard took to reach me. First, it was mailed to the office where I used to work. It was processed by the mail room and delivered to the receptionist there who knows me and forwarded it via internal mail to my new office location across town. It arrived at the correct building and was delivered to the wrong floor so the 4th floor receptionist walked around to several other floors until she found an assistant on my floor who recognized my name. That assistant gave it to an assistant in my department who then marched into my office with said postcard. The point here being: a lot of people have handled this postcard. At first I wasn’t sure why the assistant was scowling at me and holding my mail by the edges until she dropped it down onto my desk with the postcard right on top.

Holy crap! I felt my cheeks flush red with embarrassment and I stammered “wh-what’s this?” She had already turned to leave, obviously not wanting to discuss the sultry postcard that is covered with an alarming number of smudged fingerprints. (Please be smudged fingerprints, please be smudged fingerprints!) After a few minutes of staring at the postcard I realized there was a caption in the upper left corner, it says:

Hi Ian!
My boss is looking for a competent financial professional to work with qualified prospects in your area who want to buy [redacted]. Not small cases either, average compensation per case is $20,000 - $30,000. More details on the reverse side of this card.

Oh, I’d like to see her reverse side, if you know what I mean. So basically my incentive to inquire about a job there is because there’s a hot receptionist and big bonuses? Oh, I’ll bet she gets a lot of big bonuses, if you know what I mean. I can’t even imagine the kind of sleazebags that would respond to an ad like this, but I suppose I’ll get used to dealing with them as I take on my new position. Oh, I’m going to try a new position, if you know what I mean. If that company isn’t being sued for sexual harassment before the year is out, I will be extremely surprised. Oh, I’ll be extremely surprised, if you know what I mean... I don’t know what I mean.

Built for Speed

Lately, I am obsessed with the McMillan Running Calculator. Not with the video that auto-plays when you go there, don’t they realize that I’m at work and their loud video gives away the fact that I’m not working? Why not just send an e-mail to my boss of my daily internet history and instructions on the best way to fire someone. It’s a good thing companies can’t really track internet usage among employees, right? Right?

If you’re not familiar with the McMillan Running Calculator, it is a tool that allows you to plug in a recent race time and then tells you what your training pace should be for your long runs, tempo runs, intervals etc. But the really cool thing about it is that it also estimates what your race times should be at other distances. This is the part that I’m obsessed with. I like to go over there, plug in my PRs and compare how they stack up against each other. In my case, the shorter distances (5K, 10K) always project out to faster finishing times than I’ve been capable of at the longer distances (13.1, 26.2). Granted this could be a glitch in the formula that McMillan uses but I prefer to think that it means I’m built for speed.

If any of you use McMillan, I’d be interested to find out if your results skew towards the shorter distances or if I am (as I suspect) just a speedy guy over shorter distances. If you are looking to waste some time in the office today or if you are looking for a way to delay your run and procrastinate you should totally head over to McMillan. Of course the number one recommended way to waste time in the office today is to watch the NCAA tourney online, I heard they were streaming the games free today.

The one thing that has always bothered me about my predicted race times from McMillan was that it claimed that my time for the 100 meter dash would be 20 - 21 seconds. That was way too slow for my liking, but it’s been pretty close on predicting my other times so I just figured I was slower than I thought. However, earlier this week I was back at the track for my weekly abuse and after I was done with my intervals (or after Intervals was done with me) I decided to run a 100m sprint, just to see how I fared. 15.7 seconds! Suck it McMillan! Plus, this was after I had finished my intervals so my legs weren’t entirely fresh. I figure if I did the 100m with fresh legs I could shave off another 5 - 6 seconds. Yeah, 9.7 sounds about right.

For the record, a 15 second 100m time in McMillan translates to a 2:51:56 marathon time. Wow, I really underperformed in the Arizona Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon (4:31:06).

I’m off to watch some free online basketball. (Update: Free on NCAA.com. You’re welcome!)

Podcast
Be sure to check out the new Laugh Tracks podcast featuring me, Amy, Nitmos, Raz, and guest starring the ridiculously talented J-Money. Apparently, we ruffled some feathers with this one, and when I say ‘we’ I mean Amy. Nice going Amy.

My Marathon Shoes

I ran the Arizona Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon (which has gone totally underreported) in a pair of grey and red Asics 2130s and up until last week I couldn’t bring myself to wear them again. It was really quite strange, I would put all my running gear on and then pick up the marathon shoes, look at them wistfully and then put them down and grab one of the other pairs of shoes in the rotation. While we’re on the subject of my shoe rotation, Candis thinks it’s excessive that I have 6 pairs of shoes in the current rotation. Back me up here guys, I think you need at least 6 pairs. What’s excessive is having PMS 12 times a year.

Last week before one of my runs, I placed the marathon shoes back in the closet but decided that I was just being silly. You can’t retire a perfectly good pair of shoes that only have 175 miles on them just because they carried you through your first marathon, right? So, I put them on and ran in them. I think it was the right decision.

It’s going to be up to you guys to provide the humor and run on sentences today because I’m going to be short (story of my life). So let’s hear it, have any of you ever had any strange attachment issues to a particular pair of running shoes? How many shoes are in your current rotation?

Weekend Splits

Weekend Splits is my recap of things that I found interesting or humorous over the past week. If you have a submission for the weekend splits, e-mail me.

Image found at Lance: The Blog! I’m diggin’ the Corny Exercise Jokes.

• I linked to it once already this week but Viper’s rules of passing are definitely worth your time. Learn how to pass like a man, and pass gas like a man too. Dutch Oven anyone?
• Jess stole my idea of pretending Intervals were a lover when she wrote a humorous Dear John letter to Intervals, and what’s really annoying about it is that she stole the idea a day before I had it. She’s breaking up with Intervals via a letter because you know he would beat her senseless if she tried that crap in person.
• Carpeviam is a new blogger, a fellow wine lover, a treadmill hater and a complainer about the wind. It’s like she’s the female version of me, which is why I’m forgiving her for posting an Office spoiler when I SPECIFICALLY ASKED HER NOT TO!
• Finally, I need you all to follow this link to Marcy’s blog. Her trashtastic ramblings over at I Signed Up For This?!? are highly amusing and well worth your time and she recently revealed that I’m the 4th most popular way that people get to her site after blogger and reader feeds and I’m trying to up my ranking. (I’ve upped mine, so up yours! Ba-boom cha!) In fact it might be a good idea to always come to Half-Fast when you want to go visit Marcy and then click on the link up there in the right hand corner of the page, then Marcy will think that she’s getting all of her traffic from me.

Random Non-Running Related Video of the Week
This video was the grand prize winner on America’s Funniest Home videos, which means that it barely meets my high standards here at Half-Fast. It’s not very long, but if you have to go to the bathroom, go ahead and do that before you watch it. Enjoy!

Have a great weekend everyone. Run hard.

Déjà Vu

Last summer I had an incident with a family of cyclists wherein I found myself stuck running amongst them. This led to a chain of events including one of the cyclists falling and me getting buzzed by doucheboy (using buzzed in the non-drinking meaning of the word). It resulted in a very humorous post if I do say so myself and you really ought to check it out if you didn’t catch it the first time. It’s not like you’re doing anything better today, it’s Friday and you’re reading a running blog so I’m guessing that you don’t have ‘meeting in the Oval Office’ or ‘product development call with Steve Jobs’ on your schedule today. I on the other hand do have important stuff on my schedule, things like ‘take long lunch’ and ‘watch last night’s episode of The Office online,’ don’t ruin it for me in the comments or I’ll hunt you down.

Anyway, last night on my tempo run (way better than intervals) I found myself in a similar situation. I was running down the path when I spotted a young family on their bikes up ahead. The father and youngest boy were trailing behind and the mother and older son were waiting for them further up the path. As I passed the slower pair they sped up a little and stayed right on my heels and as the three of us caught up with the faster pair they started pedaling down the path too. So there I was, once again bracketed in by a family of cyclists and they didn’t seem to care. They conversed with each other as though I wasn’t even there and I could feel the young boy behind me (that’s what she said) trying to pass. Since they seemed perfectly content with the situation it was up to me to rectify it.

It was time to teach them a little lesson that I like to refer to as ‘The Vanilla always rises to the top.’ I summoned up a burst of speed, recounted Viper’s rules to passing in my head and then I made my move. It was quick and decisive, I was by them in 3 or 4 steps and I didn’t let up. I kept pushing them further behind me with each step. I didn’t slow down until I rounded the sharp turn roughly 100 yards up the path and I never saw them again after that. Victory was mine! Victory and over-dramatization, both mine!

If you haven’t ever passed a cyclist during a run then you really should because it’s a huge ego boost which is exactly what a modest, unassuming guy like me needs. I recommend that you all go out and pass a cyclist on your runs this weekend, even if it’s just a little girl with pig-tails and training wheels that you pass, it still makes you feel like a world beater.

You and Intervals

I’ve decided that intervals are the bane of my training. I hate them. They’re like an abusive relationship. You do the first interval and it feels great, you feel fast and you know that you’re making yourself a better runner. You love intervals, you doodle ‘intervals’ as your last name on a scratch pad and dot the i with a heart. You’d do anything to get in Intervals’ pants. But then pretty soon Intervals gets angry with you and yells at you for something insignificant. This should be a warning flag but Intervals is always so apologetic and sweet during that recovery lap. You can’t help yourself, you find yourself begging for more. By the time you get around to your final few laps you’re gasping for breath as Intervals chokes all the air out of you and punches you repeatedly in the legs. It’s over! You’re not going to take this anymore, you’re a self-respecting runner and you don’t need this. When you were dating Long Slow Distance he never treated you this way.

You finish your final lap and you don’t want to be a better runner anymore, you just want to call the cops and have a restraining order issued against Intervals, but you can’t. You can’t because you’ll be right back there at the track again next week thinking ‘weeee look how fast I am’ during that first interval. You’re like an idiot bounding around the track and you don’t even see the oxygen debt coming, but every week it comes and is quickly followed by the physical abuse. Every week you swear off Intervals. You curse Intervals under your breath and sometimes if you’re feeling bold you curse Intervals out loud, hoping to hurt Intervals’ feelings. “I hate you Intervals, and Long Slow Distance is way more endowed than you’ll ever be!” (You should probably spend some time working on your insults.)

You walk away from the track, shunning Intervals but then you can’t keep yourself from glancing over your shoulder and mouthing “call me” with your hand imitating a phone. ‘Oh yeah,’ intervals is arrogantly thinking ‘you’ll be back for more. You know you want me,’ and Intervals is right. I hate it when Intervals is right.

Hey, I bet you can’t guess what kind of workout I did last night.
5 x 800s (7:35 average pace)
Blech. I hate you Intervals!

Running for Lunch

As we continue to have wonderful weather here in Denver (and I continue to rub everyone’s face in it) I see more and more runners out at lunchtime pounding the Denver asphalt. I’m glad that they’re out there running while I’m filling up on Jimmy John’s and dollar cookies from the hole-in-the-wall bakery because they motivate me to get out and run when I get home. I envy them being out there running while I’m walking back to my office, trying to figure out how I got mayonnaise on my breast pocket and if it’s worth the condescending glances to untuck my shirt and lick it (it is). I do however wonder how it’s possible to run at lunch, so if some of you run during your lunch break then please let me know how you do it because I have some questions.

It seems like there would be a number of obstacles to overcome. First of all, do you change into your running gear at the office or do you wear your running clothes to the office? If so, do you keep wearing them all day even after they are sweaty from your run?

Speaking of sweaty, do you shower after your run? Is your work so nice that they provide you with a shower? Or are you the stinky person in your office that everyone avoids like the plague. Every office has one.

How far do you run? Unless you’re taking a long lunch or are a lot faster than me (in which case shut up) then it doesn’t seem like you’d have the time to run very far. After you add up the time you spend to change into and out of your running gear and the time you spend showering and the time you spend waiting for your Garmin to find a satellite how can you possibly have more than 30 minutes to run?

Why do you judge the guy with the mayonnaise on his breast pocket? He’s a runner too!

I don’t think there’s anyway I could become a lunchtime runner. I’m either wearing a suit and tie or business casual depending on the day so I’d have to find a place to change clothes. (I do have an office with a door, but it has a glass wall so that wouldn’t work, and I hate trying to change in the men’s room.) I’d also need a place to shower after my run and the only logical choice seems like a nearby gym, but a gym membership is way too expensive for the privilege of running outside at lunchtime. Besides, when would I make questionable food choices if I spent my lunch hour running?

Daylight Savings Time

This is a public service announcement to remind you that you need to Spring your clocks forward this Sunday at 2am, or Saturday night if you don’t want to stay up until wee hours and do it the right way. This probably doesn’t apply to you if you live outside the US or in the crazy state of Arizona. My theory about Arizona is that there are a lot of retired folks there and they get confused trying to reset the clock on their DVD players so the Grand Canyon State just decided to save them the trouble by avoiding Daylight Savings Time altogether.

Your feelings about DST as a runner probably vary depending on whether you are a morning runner (masochist), an evening runner (too lazy to get up early and run) or a mid-day runner (unemployable). If you are a morning runner then it was just starting to get light towards the end of your runs and now all of a sudden you’re going to be running in the dark again. Additionally, it will probably be colder when you run since the sun is an hour further away from rising, sucks to be you. If you are an evening runner then you’ve just garnered an extra hour of daylight which means that you’re going to have to procrastinate for an hour longer before you can use the excuse that it’s too dark to run. (It’s never too dark to run if you have enough reflective gear, and in some areas of town enough pepper spray, but it does still make for a good excuse.) If you’re a mid day runner then you probably don’t care what time of day it is since you clearly don’t have anything better to do with your time than go run, just be sure you don’t miss your favorite day time television shows.

I mostly run in the evening which means that I’m happy about DST coming earlier in the year than it used to. Of course it means that I have to change the time on all of the electronic devices in my home and then watch them all re-adjust themselves again a few weeks later since no one told them that we switched DST to the 2nd Sunday in March. Or I could just let them display the wrong time for a few weeks... yeah... I think I’ll go with that option.

Have a good weekend everyone!

I would run 600 miles...

These are my old Asics 2110s (right), as of yesterday they have logged 600 miles. Some people say that you should change your running shoes out every 400 - 500 miles and some people even go so far as to say that you should change them at 300 miles, but you need to remember that some people are liars. Some people who are not liars are paid to sell shoes which can often lead to becoming a liar. It’s like they say; if all you have is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail and if you’re a running shoe salesman then every problem’s solution is to buy new shoes. It’s time we stopped being duped by the running shoe companies, it’s time for us to demand the truth from Big Running Shoe, because hey, like we need an excuse to buy another pair of running shoes.

While I’ve certainly had shoes that were clearly done after 300 miles *ahem - Mizunos suck* I don’t subscribe to the idea that an arbitrary mileage number should signify that the shoes need to be replaced. My 2110s still provide the support and cushioning that I need and they’re still in the active running shoe rotation. I’m kind of hoping that they’ll reach 700 miles someday although that’s admittedly going to take some time because they no longer rack up the miles like a starting pitcher. I like to think of them more along the lines of middle relief pitching, they are there to take some of the pressure off the starters.

Finally, just in case you didn’t recognize where I was going from the title or in case you didn’t properly get that song stuck in your head, there is a video to accompany the post. Click play and let the Scottish brogue wash over you with its rolled r’s and cut off e’s, cleansing you from all your worries like a fine Single Malt. Is it too early to start drinking?

The Proclaimers - I Would Walk 500 Miles

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Well, maybe ye shan’t but that’s because ye have such little faith (and such small readerships). I however, asked for some YakTrax a few months ago in this post and now I have a pair. Technically I don’t think I asked for a pair of YakTrax in that post, as much as I cursed YakTrax for not sending me a free pair but what’s important is that someone at YakTrax read that post and sent me a free pair! You may catch more flies with honey but you get more free swag with vinegar, and really, who wants to catch flies?

I actually received the YakTrax a month ago but we haven’t had enough snow for me to try them out. You East Coasters are so lucky! I was getting pretty sick of all the sunshine and 60 - 70 degree temperatures so this past weekend I went in search of some snow and I found some up at Grand Lake, CO (elev. 8,500 feet). I pulled on my free Pearl Izumi shoes and my free YakTrax and headed out for my run on a frigid 50 degree morning. The skies were clear, the air was fresh and my feet had more traction than a congressional bill laced with a congressional pay raise.

I was pretty cautious at first, not wanting to put too much confidence in my new YakTrax and end up on my delicate tushie. However after a half mile I had completely forgotten that I was running on snow and ice. I raced up hills on my toes and I barreled down them at full speed without even the slightest hint of slippage. Usually when I run on snow and ice I have to run with a shorter, more careful stride, but that’s simply not the case when you’re wearing a free pair of YakTrax. (I obviously don’t know how it is when you wear a pair of YakTrax that you’ve paid money for but I assume it would be similar.) People out walking their dogs gazed on in wonder at the sure-footed runner with the magnificent stride, I was a thing of beauty.

I didn’t ever notice the snow building up on the YakTrax, which I had suspected might be a problem so they must have used some NASA space technology to prevent that from happening. I had also thought that I might be able to feel the coils beneath my feet when I ran, but that was not an issue either. All in all I am very impressed with the stability provided by the YakTrax. Really the only downside is that I can no longer use “it was pretty slippery out there” as an excuse for a slow run, I guess I’m going to have to stick with the old “it was at an elevation of 8,500 feet” and the trusty “I didn’t really fuel properly” and then there’s always the reliable “it was too windy” that I can fall back on. One thing I don’t need someone to give me for free is excuses, I’ve got plenty of those to go around.

Weekend Splits

Weekend Splits is my recap of things that I found interesting or humorous over the past week. If you have a submission for the weekend splits, e-mail me.

This week’s image for the Weekend Splits is courtesy of Lance: The Blog, meaning I’m giving him the courtesy of a link right there, not that he indicated that I could steal that picture. Is it bad if you laugh at a joke that someone else refers to as corny? Probably. On to the links:

• Geekologie has a video of some idiot doing pull-ups from a crane, high above the city. It made my man bits feel all tingly watching it, but only the first 27 times, after that it got kind of boring. UPDATE: That video was taken down, try this one.
• Running and Rambling posted some of his favorite jokes to tell on the run, except he only told the punch lines. Can you guess the jokes from the punch lines he gives? If so then come back here and tell them to me.
• Laura at Absolut(ly) Fit takes issue with the biggest loser catching a ride for part of the marathon and still claiming to have finished it. Actually a lot of people have taken issue with this, but I first heard about it on Absolut(ly) Fit.
• Spike had to issue an apology on his blog this week to the lady he inadvertently yelled at on his run. Yeah. Sure. Inadvertently, kind of like how I inadvertently hitched a ride for miles 17 through 20 of my marathon. What? That’s frowned upon or something?
• Finally, EverymanTri reveals the top cities in the US to train in. Boulder, Colorado tops the list, probably because your chances of a Vanilla sighting are so high there. Did your city make the cut?

Random Non-Running Related Video of the Week
This is a time lapse video of a sidewalk art creation. You can see more pictures at metanamorph.com.

Have a great weekend everyone!