Um, I'm a coach?

For my work's annual auction, I put up 5 hours of "running coaching." Two days ago, the lady who "won" it called me up and was ready to get down. She wants her first 5k by march, her first half by april and her first full marathon by october.

After a few minutes of shuffle-jogging, her HR was 187. I received my initial full first-aid course during my junior year of high school and have re-up'd ever since. Hell, I worked a double stint after Katrina for the goddamn American Red Cross! Over the summer, I commandeered a fuckin' boat by leaping from another boat, during a storm after the captain had been knocked unconscious and then docked the damn thing with a broken steering line!

This was the first time I was really prepared to save a life. I thought, "Holy shit, dude, you're gonna kill your first client athlete." Luckily, we walked that 187 down to sub-160 and had a good long chat about using our heart-rate monitors.

Honestly, she's a mother of 3 (youngest is an infant, oldest is 5!), workaholic with a workaholic husband and now she just wants to get back into shape for the first time in years. She's currently hitting two hours a week of pilates, an hour of yoga and getting in three run/walks per week. I need to step up my fucking game!

So, the whole thing was cool. I was very encouraging, gave her some ideas, talked a little about the warning signs of burn-out and we're set to run again on saturday. Whoa. I need a beer.

Dave's Running Store 10 Miler Race

1:07:??

what's that, like 6:40/mile? something around there.

it was a good race. cold today, but cloudless. some wind, but it seemed to hurt other people worse than it did me, so that was a plus in the competition column. i dunno. i mean, i'm not that fast, so what the fuck, right?

it was a smart race, though. i think. i knew i could run it in under 70 minutes and that if i watched my HR for the first 5 miles, i'd be ok with second 5. i never went above 172 the whole time and on long flat stretches (essentially the entire race, as this is the midwest), i could "relax" my HR back down to the mid 160's without slacking on my pace. we passed over the highway 4 or 5 times and each time i was pleased to use the modest ascent/descent to pass people handily. my time in the gym is paying off on the uphills and my time doing 20 downhill repeats at wildwood park are paying off on the downhills.

being that this is january in the midwest and the race was a 10-miler and not the much beloved half-marathon, i had a feeling it would be a straight up kind of race...and it was. all the fast guys in the region were there, with the exception of the african guys who work at the store during the school year. they were probably off racing somewhere for cash. i would be.

but yeah, it was fun. this was the first "real" race i've run since last july's 5k. the 5o-miler i just wanted to finish and everything else i've run has been with someone who i'm "keeping company" and just having a nice time.

this was also the first race i've done in a while completely sober. which is nice, too. in a norman rockwell kind of way, i think. all smiles and pies over here, boys.

bottom line: i got single-chicked. i passed #2 with about 400m to go.

double bottom line: i accurately assessed my fitness before the race and things played out as expected. that, to me, is the biggest accomplishment.

58 miles on the week. creeping. creeping. back up.

garbage can for a garbage man

i've now consumed 4 green monsters. i might have spilt a bit of baby shit into one of them, but there is literally no way to know that. such is life.

Old Music

my creative output for 2010 was nearly zilch. which is insane. i've been writing and recording songs since i was 13.

my friend and frequent collaborator Eric, created a Bandcamp page for a batch of songs we recorded during a bender over labor day weekend of 2009.

it's here: sundownersfuckoff.bandcamp.com

hopefully this will inspire me to finish a few works in progress and get back on my shit regarding music. i was at least proficient at about 10 different instruments, the other day i could barely play guitar anymore. i remember standing in my dorm room, during the summer with the window open and playing along with jimmy smith's root down album and seriously killing it. i had been playing guitar for less than a year. i started playing classical guitar about a year later. 6 hours/day of practice one summer while working 50 hours a week doing construction. you can imagine the comments at work about my fingernails.

there's a lesson here to be learned, but my useless tarpit of a brain can't internalize and make use of it.

while i'm at it. this is the link to the last batch of songs i recorded in early 2009.