The steady creep back from slush-foot and lead-legs continues, with sky-high break-through and extravagant hyphens. Extra vagrant, even.
I am happy to feel like I'm definitely over that long bout of shitty running. No coincidence that my work life has finally come under control. The last two weeks have been good. This past week featured a tasty buffet: mile repeats at sub 6:00 and long runs with 2-4 miles of 6:45ish running ...those "tempo" sections were all very easy feeling. At long last, my legs feel like moving again. Which is nice. Lesson regarding persistence and patience: learned.
Spent the morning with dad, who had to run in to work for a bit. He got back and then went straight to work on a new water heater, soldering pipes in the crawl space of his house all afternoon and into the evening. He's an amazing guy and if I had half his discipline and work ethic...well, I'd be much better off on all fronts. Aside from having created me, he is also responsible for the handful of good qualities I possess (the rest of the garbage is all my doing, ye verily). Great father.
I went up to the Poto trail as part of my June resolution to get up there and run every week. At the shop, I put together a nice Giant carbon road bike that I can almost afford...which is tough. I won't break down and buy it, because I also like eating food and having shelter...but still...
64 miles on the week, one 25 mile bike workout.
I read the blogs of many remarkable runners who are also remarkable fathers. I hope you guys are having an awesome day and basking in the glory that is you. Glory-basking is so damn fine!
I've been racing sailboats a lot so far this season. I can tell by the calluses on my hands and the Popeye-ian size of my forearms. As a child, I used to have nightmares about what truly lie within the socket of his un-"Popped" eye. Sometimes it was a fleshy pit and other times it was an single rusty bolt. What the hell?
This was a good week for running, interrupted on Friday and Saturday by racing in the Mill's Trophy Race from the Toledo Harbor Light to the infamous Middle Bass Island . The race begins on Friday evening at about 6pm and ends around 1am for the fastest boats and sometimes not until the following morning for other boats, depending on the weather. This year, we finished around 2:30am. The post-race celebrating does not end until sometime on Saturday evening/Sunday morning, depending on the fortitude of your liver. I wrapped up around midday on Saturday. We raced as well as our boat would allow, with an avoidable tack as our only major tactical error. The conditions were perfect and our crew was in high spirits for the duration. It's a beautiful thing when you can get together with your dad, 2 cousins and a 2nd cousin (we roll deep out here in Michigan) and everyone has a great time while both kicking ass and kicking back a frightening amount of alcohol.
Sunday was a nice long run on the Potowatomi Trail. About 18 miles, at what I will call my "trail marathon pace" ...or something like 8:00/mile. I am concerned that I may have the start of a neuroma in my left foot. That's what I get for scaling back my weekly mileage. So there.
60 on the week. With the exception of a bacon chocolate chip cookie (that's a cookie worth putting a ring on) and a doughnut, this week has seen a welcome change in the diet. I now eat roasted lamb straight from spit and drink gallons of whale's blood, freshly harpooned (obvs).
I hope that anyone reading this is also enjoying a tall, cool glass of whale's blood and sleeps soundly knowing that Popeye's squint hides nothing more than another healthy eye (albeit with untanned lids).
"Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: 'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!"
"Who runs may read, To read better, practice your running. Speed is entirely up to us, since machines have delivered us from the horse. Henceforth the question is to deliver us from that other so-called superior animal, man."
FRI-14 around trapperz, to bolles. last 2 miles at 6:30
SAT- hungover
SUN- 12 miles. 23 mile bike (6 X 1:00 at max, 2:00 rec)
The combination of a much needed drunken bender over the memorial day holiday weekend and then wrapping up the school year celebrations lent itself to a less than ideal week. However, I was happy with some of the runs and the it was very nice to get on the bike and do something like an actual workout for the first time in ages.
The winter is finally...finally...totally gone. The weather here has snapped abruptly into hardcore summer-mode. Every day is 90F and humid. The bugs are biblical.
As I write this on Tuesday morning, I've begun the new week with renewed focus. I now have both the time and the desire to put the hammer down training-wise. Gone are the mountains of baked goods in the teacher's lounge and the high ABV beers that warmed me through the winter...in their places: fish, eggs, fruits and vegetables...and bourbon...rocks.
Here's a quick read on lactic acid. Pretty different take on it from what I've read before, in terms of the science. I like the bit at the end about how coaches more or less got everything right, even if science hadn't quite caught up with in explaining WHY they were right. There's something to be said for good old trial and error.
It seems that with any specific topic regarding our health and bodies, all we have to do is wait long enough and the generally-accepted thinking on it within the scientific community will change almost entirely. However, a lot of the essential truths of how to relate to your body and how to best take care of it have yet to ever change substantially. Soldier on.
