Friday Miscellany

Miscellaneous thoughts featuring improper (and superfluous) parentheticals (like this one).

I’m pretty sure that 17 days is the longest span that I’ve gone without running since I took up the sport back in May 2005, but that was where it ended on Wednesday night. All the motivation that I needed was a brand new pair of running sunglasses, unfortunately not these ones :(. I had a gift certificate to Road Runner Sports left over from Christmas and since I don’t need new shoes right now and I’m all stocked up on crazy day-glo shirts I decided to get myself a nice pair of sunglasses.

Speaking of crazy, Candis went for a run last night while I was on my way home from work. She called me to let me know that she was running the 6 mile loop by our house, because we always let each other know how far we’re going and which path we’ll be on so that the police will know where to start the search should either of us ever turn up missing. (Is ‘turn up missing’ an oxymoron? It seems like it should be.) What can I say, we’re a cautious couple. (Except when it comes to the bedroom, hi-yo! I’m going to give myself a high five for that one.) Anyway to make a long story short even longer and more boring, while I was still on my way home (and while Candis was still running) I received a text from her that said:


“Out 2 miles and back instead. Back hurts.”

Not being one to shy away from irony and hypocrisy, I responded with:

“Slacker!” I figured that it would motivate her, or maybe annoy her, but both outcomes were acceptable. Either way, I didn’t actually expect that she would read the message until she arrived home, and I certainly didn’t expect a reply (she was running after all). However, a couple of minutes later I did receive a reply, it simply said:

“Kettle.” See, she’s not just a pretty face, she’s funny too. Well, maybe it doesn’t sound that funny here but I laughed out loud when I read it last night. I guess you just had to be there, (although I’m kinda’ glad that you weren’t).

Finally, Razz and I were interviewed about our marathon experience by Tom for the Runners’ Lounge Open Mic series. You can download the podcast of our conversation over at Runners’ Lounge. Stick around tomorrow for another edition of the Weekend Splits, come on, you know you’ve got nothing better to do on a Saturday.

Monday Miscellany

Knee Problems Persist It turns out that my knee issue wasn’t just a one time, random occurrence as I had hoped. My long run on Saturday was abruptly ended at 14 miles when the pain in my knee became debilitating. Candis doesn’t think that I should run until the pain reaches the point where I would describe it as ‘debilitating’ but what would she know. On the plus side I made it 9 miles further this week before crashing to the ground in crippling pain. If that trend continues I’ll be able to run 23 miles next weekend before the pain kicks in. On the minus side, the pain was a lot worse this time and lasted a lot longer despite breaking open the Advil Liqui-Gels and mainlining that stuff right into my bloodstream.

I could really use some good advice here, and who better to turn to for advice than a group of pseudonymed commenters who seem to enjoy juvenile humor and sarcasm on a running blog. I’m toying with the idea of taking 2 weeks off from running to try and recover fully and then resuming my training. I have only 7 weeks left before the marathon so that would leave me 3 weeks to get ready for it and 2 weeks to taper. I’m really not ready to give up on it yet, but that won’t matter if my knee doesn’t heal up. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and I’ll let you know tomorrow who was closest to what a real doctor says, since I have an appointment with one this afternoon. Yeah, that’s how bad it is, I actually made an appointment to go see a doctor.

Podcasting You are probably already aware that the Runner’s Lounge has been putting together some really good podcasts lately. What you might not be aware of is that I was involved in one that was recorded last week. Amy Lawson, Nitmos and I joined RazZDoodle to record our first podcast. Well, it was a first for all of us except Raz, but he certainly performed as though it was his first. The podcast will be available on Wednesday and I’ll no doubt provide a link to it when it’s up, but let’s face it, the title Half-Fast doesn’t just apply to my running but also to my expediency in getting posts up at this wonderful little blog. If you’re really desperate to get your hands on the podcast the second it goes live then you’re better off checking Runner’s Lounge or Running Off at the Mind (Raz’s blog). Whatever you do, don’t miss it because we tackled many of the hard hitting issues that runners face, things like llamas, Fergie, and how to best let your coworkers know that you’re a runner. A couple of days after we recorded the podcast I found the following video at EverymanTri which is another funny way to let your coworkers know that you’re a runner, but not quite as funny or as good as our suggestions in the podcast. Enjoy.

“Think like an athlete...”

Leap Day

Tomorrow is February 29th, and just like the Olympics and trips to the dentist it only happens once every 4 years. In my opinion that makes it a free day, almost like it doesn’t exist. In fact, I heard that if you race on leap day and you PR it doesn’t even count, you can’t legally claim it as a PR.

How you treat your free day says a lot about you. Are you the kind of person who says that it’s an extra day to get a run in, that your mileage should be higher this year than last year because you’ve got 366 days instead of 365? Or do you think that you can take February 29th off and still have 365 days left in the year to accomplish your running goals.

If you are in the middle of a running streak can you take the 29th off and still continue the streak on March 1st? This is probably a question for Just Your Average Joggler as I believe that he is in the middle of a running/joggling streak.

I am of the mindset that if they are going to throw in an extra day every four years it should at the very least be a holiday or a weekend. I propose that every four years we add our leap day as an additional Saturday after the last Saturday in February. In other words, this past weekend we would have had 2 consecutive Saturdays and 1 Sunday. It doesn’t seem fair to have an extra work day thrown into the year just because the earth can’t quite make it all the way around the sun in 365 days. Can’t science do something about this?

Needless to say I am of the mindset that I only need 365 days to get all my running done for the year, so I will probably not be running tomorrow. If I do run tomorrow however, I will not run some other day that I’m scheduled to, just to make up for it. Also, I will not be working tomorrow. I will be at work, but I will not do any work because I’m protesting this extra day that was somehow thrust upon me without my consent. Now, if I could just figure out an excuse as to why I don’t do any work the remaining days of the year I’d be all set.

How will you spend your extra day this year?

Random Friday Musings

On Wednesday I was going to go running after I got home from work because I’d been up late the previous night and elected ‘the pillow’ over ‘the morning run.’ Balloting was done by snooze button. Final vote: Pillow 9 – Morning Run 0. When I got home from work it was below freezing outside and I had already made up my mind that I was going to run on the treadmill. I was only scheduled for an easy 4 miler and I was in no mood to be cold. Then something happened.

It began snowing. All of a sudden I knew I needed to be out running in it. I don’t know why I needed to, I just did. Maybe because I knew it would make me look hardcore, maybe just to show the weather that I wasn’t scared of it. Does anyone else ever get motivated to go running because of worse weather? Maybe this is one of the addictions that I should have warned new runners about.

For those of you who are less observant, I’ve added a Shave Your 5K tab at the top of the page. Right now it just links to the Shave Your 5K post but pretty soon it will link to a table of everyone’s stubble times so that you can see how they’re doing. I’ll have some more announcements about this in the next week or two.

I went running this morning and almost forgot to put on something reflective. It would have been tragically ironic if I’d have been hit by a car after my post on Wednesday, not to mention the hassle it would have caused some poor motorist. Alanis Morissette could have written a song about it.