Burger On The Run

Netflix Movies That Don't Suck- The Next Three Days

2011-12-31T10:09:00.000-08:00

Of all the Netflix instant movies i've watched, this comes the most highly recommended, even though thats not saying much. While a little bit far fetched at times, the movie actually was engaging most of the time. The Next Three Days stars Russell Crowe and Liam Neeson and is a thriller/ suspense movie that has some suspense to it, and its kind of cool I guess how the movie comes full circle at the end (you know what I mean if you've watched it).

The plot centers around a husband and wife and their child, and the wife is arrested at the very beginning of the movie after allegedly killing her boss. The husband, determined that his wife is innocent, fights the charges through the courts for a while, then meticulously comes up with a plan to break his wife out of prison. The movie is pretty good for a movie you'd pay to see, which makes it a winner for an instant pick.

Netflix instant movies that do suck- Outbreak

2011-12-28T19:12:00.000-08:00

Swing and a miss. After seeing the movie Contageon, I was sorely disappointed and a little depressed to be honest. But I didn't lose faith, I was still looking for a decent movie on the same theme and I thought I'd found it-- I thought I'd found it for the first 10 minutes of the movie.

The cast is pretty solid- Dustin Hoffman, Renee Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Cuba Gooding jr. The actual movie, however, super disappointing. The movie centers around a disease that was found in 1967 in Zaire. The town that was infected was firebombed in order to keep the disease from spreading. The disease than surfaces in the same area 27 years later, is transmitted to America by a monkey, which is sold to a suburban California pet store. The conflict of the movie is between Col. Sam Daniels, who believes the town can be saved, and the white house who threaten to firebomb the town. There is also a weird love story between Col. Daniels and his ex- wife. The end of the movie just sucks. It isn't realistic at all, and they try to make it overly sentimental and emotional, but miserably fail at it.

Netflix Movies That Don't Suck- Ronin

2011-12-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

Netflix recommended this one for me, giving it a 3.7, whatever that meant. So pretty much, it had a lot of stars, so I watched it. At the end, its two hours that I didn't want back, although it wasn't exactly two hours I spent riveted to my computer screen either. The movie is starring Robert DiNero and although I'm not a huge movie buff, I've heard the name before so thats what got me real interested. Robert (I can call him that because we're on a first name basis) and his group of 5 ex- operatives are set to intercept a case that the Russians are trying to get their hands on as well. The case is then stolen from DiNero's gang by a defector from their team. The conflict, then, is between the British team of ex- operatives, the Irish and the Russians. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.

So, Like I said, a pretty decent movie for what its worth. Lots of action, car chases, and people getting shot. So thats good. Definitely not a movie I'd see in theaters, but worth a couple hours of your time.

Netflix instant movies that don't suck (and some that do)

2011-12-27T14:18:00.000-08:00

So running. I've hit a rough patch of late, and am lacking in motivation. A week before Christmas, I ran my peak week of 120 miles for the Zoom Zah Yah indoor marathon. Turns out, I'm not going to be running that race.

So now I'm sitting at home with nothing to do. I mean, my parents house. I start my last month of work next week, which leaves me with a week of pretty much nothing to do but sleep and run. And watch copious amounts of netflix and reading a lot of Foreign Policy Magazine, as well as working on grad school apps and peace corps apps and job apps and all that stuff. It occurred to me a couple days ago that there are almost no good movies on Netflix. At all. So, I'll rate the ones I'm watching, post 'em up, and hopefully both of us can find some good movies or at least halfway decent ones.

The fun is almost over

2011-11-24T16:44:00.000-08:00

First off, its been a while, but thats okay. There is an inverse relationship between the number of posts on this blog and the amount of work I do, so there's that right there. Its been a lot of research and paper writing, but its on stuff I've learned to love to do, so I'm okay with it. I'll try to make this post fairly short, but lets not kid ourselves here, thats not going to happen. So, listen. Here I am, 21 years old, ready to graduate college in a few weeks. Yep, three and a half years and I'm done. I'm also no longer an education major either. The thought process around that was long and convoluted. It seemed like a disproportionate amount of work- and meaningless work at that- compared to the eventual job placement that may glor may not happen. Moreover, it was just not that interesting to me anymore. Through the couple lessons I taught, I found that I was more or less forced to gloss over things that I thought deserved more attention. I mean, I think for my money the education program gave me a set structure, which is what I needed at the time, but I just felt that I was weighted down with so much work that I didn't want to do I had a hard time keeping my head above water. And that was just the two years I was in the program. What would I be like after another 2? or for a job (at least in the near future)?

Meanwhile, I've increasingly liked my political science classes, especially at the higher levels. Even this seminar I'm taking on comparative democracy thats pretty boring at least keeps my attention. So what did I do? I talked it out. I talked with the dean of the education department (my advisor had gotten a pink slip earlier in the year and I didn't want to talk to him), my International Security professor, and my parents of course. Don't get me wrong, I'd still love to be a teacher, and thats still in my realm of interest, but here's my deal: I feel like I can't teach just one thing in the broad sense, and heres what I mean by that: I was teaching a lesson last year about the french revolution, and I included the absolute monarchy, the financial crisis, the resulting concessions from the monarch, and the revolution itself. The feedback that I got was that it was too long and nobody cared. Well, my opinion is that you really can't learn about an event without learning its context; doing the opposite does students a disservice.

The nail in the coffin for me happened a couple weeks ago, when researching for the Model UN (I'm sure I'll get to that in a future post) and I found that I was actually enjoying the research. I mean, here I was with stacks and stacks of books in my room and three separate research papers on the table, and I was eager to do more research, even if it meant giving up a friday or saturday night. So, my political science professor and I devised a plan, and that plan is this: I can't apply to grad schools this year since the next time I can take the GRE is in February and grad school apps are due December or January so I essentially have a full year off. So I'm going to get an internship because I have no real political science experience. I'll also take classes in Russian and try to learn that. In addition, I'll study really hard for the GRE, maybe take some classes for that, and try and get into one of my top 5 grad schools: Madison, Minnesota, Washington St. Louis, Boulder, or Oregon

Death of a legend

2011-10-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm talking about my GPS watch, don't judge me. Exactly one week ago, September 29th, Kenenisa Bekele Ellenberger shorted out. He was 6 months old. Yes I named my watch. Again, haters gonna hate. So, Belke was my Garmin 205 and despite the fact that I hardly ever used the heart rate monitor and rarely used the GPS, I got one anyway. So, since I never gave a real review, I'll give a quick one now.

First, who would think a running watch isn't suited for water? Somehow the 205 isn't. Not only did I have to clean out the charger/ sync cable contacts on the back of the watch every couple weeks, but the screen got condensation on the underside of it after a while, which was pretty annoying since I couldn't clean that off. Its not like I went swimming with it ether- I mean, I remember two giant rainstorms I ran through wearing it, and I would occasionally forget to take it off and shower with it, but still. As far as size, it was fine. I mean, I had a 310 until it got stolen, so I'm used to big and heavy. The GPS reception was really hit or miss. Usually it worked, but there were certain spots down by the Mississippi where it would drop the signal. It would also take about an hour and a half to find a signal if I hadn't run that previous day. So, bottom line is this is a solid GPS, I guess, but not for $250, that's pretty ridiculous.

Pulled hamstrings and broken dreams- Twin Cities Marathin Race Report

2011-10-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

So the course starts outside the Metrodome and is actually pretty well organized. I took the light rail to get there, and it was actually pretty slick. The Metrodome is open so I chilled out in there for two hours, listening to Rise Against so loud that no one would come within a three foot radius of me. But better yet, all the Metrodome bathrooms are open, along with a ton outside, so there's hardly ever a wait. So you start off on 6th street, then make a left on to Hennepin and make your way through a neighborhood. That's your first dose of real crowd support. There are some hills, but you're feeling good enough and the pack is so tight that you don't really feel 'em. The pack actually starts stringing out a little, then clumps up around mile 3 for the first water stop (they only have the water on the left side of the street, which was my one gripe).

From there, the pack stays bunched around lake of the isles and the rest of the chain of lakes. Its pretty flat, but I mean, if you were a veteran I'd go out fast at the start and slow up around the lakes; I was boxed in and couldn't go anywhere for at least a couple miles. Have you ever read Duel in The Sun? remember the cover where Beardsley an Salazar have to run single file because the crowd is packed so tight? Thats kind of what it was like through the lakes. You then go through a seemingly never ending stretch from miles 7-15 where you hit Minnehaha parkway and lake Nokomis, where the crowd support is sparse at best. Miles 15- 19 are the Minneapolis side of the river, and there were a ton of people out. I couldn't really see because salt was dripping into my eyes from then on, but I'd ran that stretch a million and a half times in training, but for a first timer it could be a little disheartening since you pass by the lake street bridge, which would cut three or four miles off the run.

Miles 20-26 are along Summit Avenue and if you're in good shape, this part of the race can really lift you. If not... See, Summit is a deceptively long hill that really doesn't look bad at times. From mile 21-23 its a clear hill that you can see coming. Apart from that it kind of sneaks up on you. At Mile 25 it gets good. From the top of the hill you can see the giant blow up Minnesota Viking in front of you as the "go pack go" chant surrounds you. To your left you can see down into St. Paul, and thats when a bunch of the marathon first timers I was running with start crying. Don't. From John Ireland you run under the gigantic American flag at mile 26, and then its a straight shot to the finish line.

As far as how I did, well..
Oonce again the Matthew Ellenberger racing strategy worked to a tee: start out at a good pace, then burn up at the end. This time it was a monumental collapse in the second half. So, I went out for the first half in 1:47-ish, which was right on my goal of 3:45. From there, things went downhill fast. I saw my dad at mile 15, and then felt something pop in my leg- just a little twinge, but I knew I was in hot water. I walked the rest of mile 16, mile 17, and most of 18. I felt bad. I felt defeated, but whatever. I figured it would get worse before it got better, no matter what I did, so I settled into a pattern of running for two miles and walking one for the last however many miles. It was pretty disheartening when I got to Summit, for two reasons: One, I love that stretch. I remember three years ago when I did the 10 it was one six mile long party. For some reason, it wasn't that cool this year. Second, I live on Cleveland Avenue, two tenths of a mile away from Summit, so I told all of my roommates to come out and cheer me on. When I ran by, they weren't there. That's when I knew I had blew it. I was about half an hour off pace so I really can't blame them, and its actually good that they didn't show since I probably would have asked for my roommate's bike to ride to the finish an he probably would have given it to me.

I was kind of disheartened though since I kept telling myself if I could make it to mile 20 in decent shape, I could finish on emotion alone. To make matters worse, the sun came out and it got hot. I took on a ridiculous amount of water but even so I wasn't sweating. Figure that out. 40 degrees at the start and near 80 at the finish. I think that was when I told myself "f--- it, I'll either finish or pass out, and either way you have the family record." (My dad ran Twin Cities three years ago and passed out at mile 17.) So I ended up running the last 4, the last mile with a guy who actually friended me on facebook the other day (weird since I can't remember the personal details of anyone let alone run straight that late in a marathon).

New Balance MR1400 Review

2011-09-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

I know I'm usually a Brooks guy, but I know a guy who knows a guy who hooked me up with these shoes on the cheap, so I figured I'd give them a spin. I've got 637 miles on them so far over two months, and they're beginning to wear down, so I'm going to try and get a second pair- thats how good they are.

These shoes are like butter on your feet. I've done all my miles in them sockless, and the upper is amazing. In terms of weight, I have them in size 7.5 and they weigh 6.8 oz, so they're solid for a racing flat. I mean, I've used them as a daily trainer before- at one point I wore them for three weeks straight on all my runs including the long runs. I'd say 14 or 15 miles are the upper limit on them though- at least for me- after that your feet really start getting beat up. I realize I've got a lot of miles on them- most of you won't get that high. That's a combination of me being a little guy (5'9'', 120lbs), and me not having money for other shoes. Realistically, I should have replaced them at 6 hundo or so.

Some things to keep in mind if you buy these shoes:
1) They run about a half size small lengthwise. Remember your feet swell when you run
2) These hold blood really well. The entire forefoot of my left shoe is covered in dried blood. Sorry if you were eating lunch when you read this, but I broke my toe a while ago and never had it set back in properly, so the joint is raised up a little bit, and scrapes against the low toe box on these shoes- especially on longer runs.

Also, somebody found my blog today by searching "Galen Rupp haters." I love it. I guess he did just set the American 5k record.

Hurricane Irene at its finest

2011-09-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't thrown up a post for a while, so here we go: a guy tubing down some highway in Virginia. The action starts somewhere around 20 seconds and the guy filming it is pissed.

Also- and slightly more important- Lukas Verzbicas is racing his last triathlon ever for his training partner, Kevin McDowell, who got diagnosed with cancer. Read the full article here. Now that's class.

Guys, be careful!

2011-09-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

So I came in to work today (late because I set my alarm for 6:30 pm instead of am) and the first thing I heard was my boss calling me. Bad news. I picked it up and he was like "you run, not bike, right?" Yeah. "Then why did Rick say "ellenberger is toast" when he came out of his coma?" That obviously begs the question why was Rick in a coma? Now, I've known rick since High School. He was the A/V tech at Edina when I went to school there and got hired at St. Thomas in the same department as me the same year I did. Anyways, Rick is a big biker. Not like motorcycles, like road bikes. He's the type of biker who would do a century ride just like nothing and be right back at it the next day.

The other day he got hit. He was riding this weekend and got t- boned by a car and landed in the ICU. He's going to be allright, but he got hit pretty bad and ended up with six broken ribs. Luckily he was riding with his team, so he was able to get medical attention in pretty short order. Even still, keep in mind there are some really bad drivers out there, so be careful.

Ghost 4 review

2011-09-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

I've got quite a few reviews to come both on shoes and equipment, but since the Ghost 4 are my most recent purchase, I'll go ahead and review those first. I've got 125- ish miles on the shoes, so not awhole heck of a lot, but enough to get past the first impressions.

I've heard a lot of people say "If you like the Ghost 3's, you'll like the Ghost 4's." Yes and no, but mostly no. The Ghost 2's were some of my favorite shoes, and the switch to the 3's were like a different line altogether. The 4's sizing is a lot like the 2's. Whereas the 3's felt about half a size longer and a size wider than the normal Brooks last, these seem right on. They're either a touch longer than the Ghost 2's or my feet shrank, one of the two. Either way, I would order your standard Brooks shoe size for these.

To me, the 3's just felt cheap, e.g. the cushioning wore out quickly and it was almost as if the shoes weren't made to be a daily trainer. The 4's are a change to that in that they feel like they were built to last. The cushion feels as good today as it did the first day I got them. That said, there's a fine line between cushioning and responsiveness, and Brooks may have crossed it. Now, I'm used to running in flats, so take that worth a grain of salt. Its not all bad though, because running in them I feel like I can run forever.

The downside to that of course is the energy return just isn't there. I usually run in the 7:20-7:30 range while training in flats, and you can slide that whole range up 12-20 seconds in these. But like I said, no surprises there. Its about a thousand times more responsive than the 3's, for comparison's sake. The upper is perfect. The midfoot wrap does its gob wonderfully, and the shoe really hugs the foot, again a difference from the Ghost 3's.

Bottom line, these shoes are exactly as marketed. These shoes will get you from here to there in style and comfort, even if there is two states away. If you are debating between the 3's and 4's, get the 4's no question. Its a little closer call between the 4's and 2's, but the upper is much improved on the 4's. a major selling point in my eyes.

Woodbury Country Mile half marathon race report

2011-08-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I ran the Woodbury Country Mile half. Without being too snide, they got through putting the race on for 30 years somehow, so take this worth a grain of salt. Also, "running" wasn't exactly what I did, but we'll get to that later.

The race was Sunday morning, so I picked up some packets on Friday. The website just said packet pickup was at Woodbury Lakes, which is a shopping mall, so I was a little bit on my own for that one. I also wanted to pick up a couple friend's packets and nowhere on the website did I see if I needed their ID's to pick them up. Turns out, I didn't. Also, it took me a while to find where packet pickup was; the signage wasn't very good at all, but maybe thats because I came in from the back of the mall and not where I was supposed to.

Sunday morning, we left burgerrunner race HQ (aka my house) at 6:00 for the 7:00 start. We got to the mall at 6:30, and like clockwork I had to go to the bathroom. I saw no porta johns. Zero. Luckily I saw a john around the back of the mall and ran to that one. I have no idea where anyone else went to the bathroom. Turns out that was a common theme. As we moved to the start, I had no idea where we were going. We moved out of the mall, and downhill down some road. We went halfway down that hill, and I passed a "5k start here" sign. I thought we had missed the start line somewhere, but that sign actually was the actual line. We lined up about 15 yards after that line, in front of the PA announcer- seemed like no rhyme or reason to where people started.

As the mayor was making announcements, I moved up to the lead pack. I figured there was a fat guy up there, so why not. The gun went off behind us, and we were off. There was a gentile hill in front of us, so I thought I was good to go. This was my first mistake. I didn't look at the course map- at all, so I had no idea where we were going. We made a sharp left into a neighborhood for a half mile, then up a hill. I was sweating ridiculous, and we were doing sub 6's. Here was my second mistake. I had ran a 8 mile progression run that Saturday, going from 7:30's to 6:20's. We went up another hill, and another. I was thinking that we would have to go downhill at some point, right? nope. We'd level off for less than a mile, then climb again.

Since I hadn't looked at the course map, I hadn't done that much hill training yet, so by mile 2 and a half I was hurting. We were going around a lake, and I had fallen back to running 6:40's and fading fast. I wasn't feeling good. I took off into the woods and threw up. Like I said, I wasn't feeling good. More of the same took its toll, and I took a lot off. I was jogging 8:45's, and it didn't make much difference. I threw up again shortly after mile 3, and thankfully hit a water stop shortly after. I ran with a pace group for a while after that for about a mile or so. It was fairly flat, and I could handle the flat pretty well still, so I passed a handful of people, always keeping the next group in my sights so I didn't get lost.

I was feeling good enough until mile 7 when we hit just an amazingly big hill, or at least it seemed like it. From then on, I had an urge to use the bathroom. I put it off until I was climbing out of the basin of the 2nd lake we went around, around mile 9. I didn't know what to do, since I had to take a poop. I had quite a dilemma on my hands and, pardon the bad pun, but it was about to get messy real quick. I had just climbed out of the woods and was in a neighborhood, so I could either (a) double back and poop in the woods which I had already done once, or (b) hope I could knock on some doors and use someone's bathroom. At this point time was out the window, so either option was viable. I went with option b, and luckily found a nice lady out gardening who let me use her bathroom.

I was dripping sweat and looked like hell, so I felt really bad for her. But whatever, I did my business and was out. What really held me up was her dog though. I stopped to pet the dog, and that woman took a picture of me holding the dog somewhere. I think I spent 5 minutes or so playing with the dog, but like I said time was out the window; I was seriously considering throwing my watch in the lake. So I kind of stood by the side of the course and waited for someone to come by who either would know the course, or told me to quit. Luckily, the 2:20 pace group passed me just then, and I jumped in. Actually it was just me, the pacer, and another guy who was running his first half. He also served a tour in Afghanistan.

Thats kind of where the story ends. The last 4 miles were more of the same: hills and hills and hills. It left me asking if there was anywhere in Woodbury that was flat. So we were just going along and talking, and it turns out that my pacer, Krystal, won her age group in the Paavo Nurmi marathon in Wisco. Candice Schnieder (who has a great blog at breaknthree.blogspot.com) ended upwinning the race, and since they were in the same age group, the age group winner ended up being Krystal because she finished second and you can't place overall and win your age group.

So that was kind of cool, I also saw Jim Parry, who's a fellow Brooks ID member, albeit just briefly. I ran with him for a couple minutes, but then I ended up losing him when I went to the bathroom in that woman's house. So that was pretty much it, lots of hills would have been the death of me even if I hadn't have fallen apart physically- which actually might have been a good thing because I definitely would have crashed hard if I had tried to keep up with the leaders. I mean, at least I'm prepared for the hills at Twin Cities, right?

In summary, there is a lot the race director could do to make this a better race. More communication would be nice, both through email and through their website, there was almost no information there. The course is what it is, I guess, but it would be nice to get an elevation chart before I got blindsided by the hills- and I don't think it was me who got mad at the hills

For anyone running this race in future years- here's the elevation chart and course map- which is more than their web site gives:
http://www.mapmyrun.com/s/routes/view/run-jog-map/minnesota/lake-elmo/31031238

Bekele drops out of 10k, doubtful for 5k

2011-08-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Source

Sounds like he's not competing at all this year, he probably re- injured his calf. Or maybe he wasn't 100% to start with. Either way, I told you so. You've got to feel bad for the guy, he's 29- thats old man status in track 5k terms.

Just to add, "doubtful for the 5k" is my words not anyone else's

Running through

2011-08-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

"When you are beaten by an athlete running through, it means you are owned by him body and soul. The Fixed Order will have been established in a most definitive way, to be altered only by some kind of felonious conduct, possibly involving Claymore mines."- Once A Runner

So I have a race tomorrow, the Woodbury Country Mile half. As its in the middle of a training cycle, I'll be running through, meaning I won't alter my training at all in order to run it. Normally I'd take a day off two days before the race (so the race is Sunday, I would have taken Friday off). Instead, I havent taken a day off since Tuesday the 27th, and since then I've gone 10, 14, 7, and 8 later today. I'm pretty exhausted, but that might be for the better since I always seem to go out too fast and then crash and burn late. If you happen to be running that race, get at me. I'll be wearing a wisco XC kit and my compression socks.

So yesterday I went to pick up packets. I picked up mine as well as my roommates that I'm running with. I got lost. Like actually really lost and I thought I would have to call a taxi or my parents to get home. I took the afternoon off from work and took a bus toward oakdale, which is next to woodbury. Even though I was going to a mall, there was no bus stop there,so I had to walk the mile to get to the shopping center. That took me like 20 minutes because I was going the wrong way for a while. The weird thing is woodbury has no sidewalks, or at least not where I needed them. Google maps had me cross a highway, which was fine because there was an overpass, and then cross another highway which was super scary because not only was there no crosswalk or light that tells you to walk, there was a huge DO NOT WALK sign. I was thinking about turning around, but I didn't, because I didn't know how to get home.

Once I got across the highway, I got on this road that split into an onramp and a one way road to the mall a quarter of a mile in or so. That was kind of traumatizing because cars were just flying, but I made it. After picking up the packet, I had the same traumatizing experience walking out of the mall, but this time I had to go to a different street to take a different bus to get back to St. Paul. I was late, so I had to run the 1.2 miles to the bus stop in (in 7:18). I made it, and from that bus I took another to get home. Bottom line is, I need a car, badly. I left Minneapolis at 3:00p, and got back to my house at 6:30. Ridiculousness.

I bought the IAAF world championship pack for all the days from Universal Sports this morning. Right now I'm watching the marathon on replay, since I don't care about much except that and the womens 10k today. And yes, I already know what happens, and I don't really care. Mens 10k tomorrow though, its going to be an amazing field (start list here). For the record, my pick is Mo Farrah. A lot of people are picking Belke, and I don't know why. I don't think he'll show up at all, I don't think he's raced yet this year. Want to hear something crazy? Trey Hardee us the defending world champion in the Decathalon for America, but he isnt even #1 in his own country, Ashton Eaton is.

Milestones.

2011-08-25T20:04:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I went for a run. Big news, right? Well, let me tell you something you have different types of runs, and you go through all of them in a given training cycle, or even a month. I'm not talking speed, tempo, recovery, whatever runs. Over a given period, you're going to have runs that serve as landmarks, for better or worse, and serve as a measuring stick if you will. For examle, you might say "remember that long run after a tempo a few weeks back where my legs felt like bricks? Well now I can do it without being laid up in bed for the entire day." That kind of thing- the kind of thing that keep you coming back as a runner, kind of like a hole in one in golf after an otherwise terrible round.

Well, I had one of those runs. It was a 14 mile tempo after an off day. I didn't do anytrhing spectacular that day, in fact I thought I would just bomb it. I had a bottle of lienie's honey weiss and three hot dogs for lunch, and another honey weiss and some cajun tots from the Blue Door after work. And I got our waitress' number. That was a key right there. Point is, I wasn't really thinking about the run, which is both good and bad. Anyways, I get home from Blue Door, crush a nap, and wake up at 8, shoot a Gu, pop on my flats and am out the door by 8:30. I go through the first mile in 6:54. Okay, I was shooting for 7:01's, but whatever. The first mile is always the hardest, so I figure I'm in good shape. This is the exciting part- I didn't get stopped by a stoplight once. By mile 7, I hit the turnaround. I ran to St. Thomas minneapolis campus which I think helped a little because I could run that route with my eyes closed walking backwards.

I looped around the school, and picked it up around Gold Medal Park and the stone arch bridge, by far my favorite part of the run. It crossed my mind that since mile 4 I hadn't looked at my watch at all, and fought off the urge to because doing so would make me worry about my pace, and probably mean slowing down, which wasn't an option brecause once I slow down its hard to will myself to go fast again. After the bridge, I got the runner's high or whatever- its been a while since that's happened. And then I was like three blocks from my house. 6 miles down, and I don't remember a step of it, which is fine with me.

I pass my house, click my watch instinctively but don't look down. I don't look at my watch for about an hour after my run, but I was pretty pleased with what I saw: 14.09 miles in 1:33:48. Damn. That's not luck folks, thats three months of training paying dividends. If you need proof that there are no secrets in this sport, there it is. Doing it in training and a race are two verry different things. I'm racing this weekend, but I'm doing it with my roommates, so I probably won't bust my ass over going fast; I'm shooting for 1:45-1:50, having that kind of speed in your back pocket is kind of cool though.

Nowhere, Wisconsin

2011-08-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

Some might argue that all of Wisconsin outside of Mad Town and maybe Green Bay is nowhere, WI, but I'm talking really nowhere. Like, 8 miles to the nearest town with a population in the double digits nowhere. Anyways, what I was setting up there was my recent trip to my fraternity brother and housemate's cabin in northern Wisconsin. Its like two and a half hours from the cities, though we ended up making it up there in 4 and a bit coming up. We took three cars and one ended up getting lost (it wasn't me) plus we had to stop at a grocery store to get supplies for breakfast and other shenanigans, one too many liquor stores, and a fireworks shop.

We finally got up there and pretty much went to bed right away. That was Friday. Saturday I got up at 7:30 for a 10 miler, except I only went 6. This cabin was so far out of the way it was a good mile or two to a paved road. That, and they had a 3/4 of a mile long unpaved driveway which seemed like it never ended. This kid actually has two cabins, although the one we were staying at was pretty much a shed with a bunch of beds in it. The other one, three miles away or so, was furnished and was where the rest of his family was staying. I woke up at 7:30 Saturday and was pretty sure I was the only person awake within 10 miles or so. It was pretty cool. I could hear a bunch of animals in the distance, thank God. Wolves, bears, that sort of stuff that I'd been warned about because honestly, if a bear got me while I was running I was pretty much a sitting duck.

So I run to this guy's other cabin, only about two or three miles being on paved roads and didn't see a soul. It was the most relaxing thing ever. I had thought I could do the whole thing in road running shoes- my synchrofuels- but was sorely mistaken. After 8 miles my feet were bleeding and felt like bricks. In fact, the all- yellow upper of the shoes is now all brownish with dried blood. But its all good because when I got back to our cabin I jumped in the Chippewa River (which was freezing) and then threw a couple fireworks in the cabin to wake everyone up. After yet another trip to the liquor store in Winter, we went rafting down the river.

We stopped midway down (actually more like a half hour into our float) to this dumpy old place called the Wannegan in Ojibwa for some pizza. I'm pretty sure- no, I'm certain- that it was just frozen pizza thrown in a pizza oven, but at that point I wasn't complaining. After the pit stop we all left, beer coolers in tow for Dave's other cabin (I said his name, he's probably going to be pissed), which was a good hour and a half down the river more. Nobody passed out, no casualties, although we had a ton of beer left over, which was okay since we were going to have a beer pong tournament that night. I'd resolved not to drink until I got done with my running, and because I've had a grand total of 1 beer before that weekend. So once we beached our crafts we went in to warm up (it had started raining before we got to our destination).

Dave's mom, grandma, and two brothers were at that cabin, and man, I haven't had that kind of hospitality in a while. She cooked us hamburgers, beer brats, and corn on the cob fresh from the co- op in Winter, and it was delicious. I was in a food coma. After a good three hours of playing cards and helping out around the cabin, we headed back to our cabin in "the truck" which was an ancient pick up truck with monster truck tires. Most of us climbed in the pick- up part of the truck and almost died a few times. Dave's a really bad driver. Most everyone went to sleep right away, which was kind of a bummer. I didn't, and stayed up talking by the fire until midnight or so, then set my alarm for Sunday's run.

Sunday was supposed to be 10 miles, but I decided to loop around Winter for a 16 mile loop. Luckily I brought my Cascadia 6's with me so I threw those on, as well as a Wisco XC singlet I got at the Griak invite last year. It was a pretty cool run. The town wasn't all that hard to find from the cabin, and I was able to take fire roads all the way into town. When I got there it was pretty cool. It goes without saying, everyone loved the singlet and it seemed like the whole town yelled something to me- they love their bucky up there. I was thinking the whole time about Once A Runner. You know how Quenton Cassidy goes to train at Bruce Denton's cabin for a couple months? thats exactly what I felt like. I should do that, just go up to that cabin and just run and run and run some more. That would be awesome. After I got back, I chilled in the river for a while, and then packed up my stuff feeling much more of a runner.

On the way back our car stopped by the leinenkugel's brewery in Chippewa Falls. Pretty cool stuff actually, plus we got 4 free 8 ounce glasses of whatever we wanted. We each had two glasses before the tour and two after and we were set, or at least I was. I'm actually surprised I was able to handle that much beer. I know I'm a lightweight, but I don't know how light, and I don't really want to find out. But whatever, that was good stuff.

Okay, well its getting close to 2:00 A.M. and I have to get up for work at 8, so I should probably stop writing.

Hipster alert!- and some running

2011-08-13T05:41:00.000-07:00

I think I'm becoming a hipster. Someone save me from myself. So I fell in love with farmers markets, and it so happens that there are two pretty good ones within 7 miles of me. One is in St. Paul on East Lake Street Tuesdays and Saturdays, and the other is on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis on Thursdays. I've also fallen in love with those food trucks, you know those trucks that just post up on a corner and start cooking food. Sounds kind of shady, but by shady I mean delicious. So, I work Thursdays at 1:00 in Minneapolis, which coincides with both the farmers market and the food trucks setting up shop. There's two trucks that post up near our office, and one serves seafood that's delicious. Like lobster and stuff. Always a solid choice. Sometimes I get to work real early and grab my co worker and go to the farmers market. He's a hipster, despite not admitting to it, so he knows what to get. You know how I know he's a hipster? he plays ultimate Frisbee competitively. Like in a league and he goes to out of state tournaments and stuff. I played with him once. It was pretty awesome, although I'm pretty sure they had some intense plays set up and I was just running down the field like a maniac. At least I could beat everyone down the field for an easy score. ALL DAY BAYBE.

Also, 7 weeks until Twin Cities so I better start training or something. This week I went to the Red Sox- Twins series so I had to run in the morning Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I wouldn't recommend it. I got up at 6 and got 6 or 7 miles in before work, but I ended up blowing off my workouts because I just got too worn down. I usually got back from the games around midnight, even though they ended around 10:30 because I had to take the train and then the bus home. So that was that. And I finally got gels so I can run over 15 miles for a long run this weekend. But im going to sleep first because I was literally up all day and all night yesterday. Trap shooting and playing video games with a co worker (but not the hipster one). Sweet life.

Also, Team USA was named for the World Championships in Daegu and it looks like this:

2011 World Outdoor Championships Team USA
*denotes 2009 World Champion
Men’s 100m: Walter Dix, Justin Gatlin, Michael Rodgers
Men’s 200m: Dix, Darvis Patton, Jeremy Dodson
Men’s 400m: Tony McQuay, Greg Nixon, Jamaal Torrence, LaShawn Merritt*
Men’s 110mH: David Oliver, Aries Merritt, Jason Richardson
Men’s 400mH: Jeshua Anderson, Bershawn Jackson, Angelo Taylor, Kerron Clement*
Men’s 800m: Nicholas Symmonds, Khadevis Robinson, Charles Jock
Men’s 1500m: Matthew Centrowitz, Leonel Manzano, Andrew Wheating
Men’s 3000m SC: William Nelson, Daniel Huling, Benjamin Bruce
Men’s 5000m: Bernard Lagat, Chris Solinsky, Galen Rupp
Men’s 10,000m: Rupp, Matt Tegenkamp, Scott Bauhs
Men’s 20km RW: Trevor Barron
Men’s HT: Kibwe Johnson, Michael Mai
Men’s DT: Jarred Rome, Jason Young, Lance Brooks
Men’s JT: Mike Hazle
Men’s SP: Adam Nelson, Christian Cantwell*, Reese Hoffa, Ryan Whiting
Men’s PV: Derek Miles, Jeremy Scott, Mark Hollis
Men’s HJ: Jesse Williams, Dustin Jonas, Erik Kynard
Men’s TJ: Christian Taylor, William Claye, Walter Davis
Men’s LJ: Marquise Goodwin, Claye, Trevell Quinley, Dwight Phillips*
Men’s Dec: Ashton Eaton, Ryan Harlan, Bryan Clay, Trey Hardee*
Men’s marathon: Nicholas Arciniaga, Michael Morgan, Sergio Reyes, Jeffrey Eggleston, Mike Sayenko
Men’s 4x100m: Dix, Gatlin, Rodgers, Kimmons, Ivory Williams, Travis Padgett
Men’s 4x400m: Merritt, McQuay, Nixon, Torrence, Michael Berry, Miles Smith

Women’s 100m: Carmelita Jeter, Marshavet Myers, Miki Barber
Women’s 200m: Shalonda Solomon, Jeter, Jeneba Tarmoh, Allyson Felix*
Women’s 400m: Felix, Francena McCorory, Debbie Dunn, Sanya Richards-Ross*
Women’s 100mH: Kellie Wells, Danielle Carruthers, Dawn Harper
Women’s 400mH: Lashinda Demus, Queen Harrison, Jasmine Chaney
Women’s 800m: Alysia Montano, Maggie Vessey, Alice Schmidt
Women’s 1500m: Morgan Uceny, Jennifer Simpson, Shannon Rowbury
Women’s 3000m SC: Emma Coburn, Bridget Franek, Delilah DiCrescenzo
Women’s 5000m: Molly Huddle, Amy Hastings, Lauren Fleshman
Women’s 10000m: Shalane Flanagan, Kara Goucher, Jennifer Rhines
Women’s 20km RW: Maria Michta
Women’s HT: Jessica Cosby, Amber Campbell, Jeneva McCall
Women’s DT: Stephanie Brown-Trafton, Aretha Thurmond, Gia Lewis-Smallwood
Women’s JT: Kara Patterson, Rachel Yurkovich
Women’s SP: Michelle Carter, Jillian Camarena-Williams, Sarah Stevens-Walker
Women’s PV: Kylie Hutson, Jenn Suhr, Lacy Janson
Women’s HJ: Brigetta Barrett, Inika McPherson
Women’s TJ: Amanda Smock
Women’s LJ: Brittney Reese*, Janay DeLoach, Funmi Jimoh, Tori Polk
Women’s Hep: Sharon Day, Hyleas Fountain
Women’s Marathon: Katherine Newberry, Alissa McKaig, Colleen DeRuck, Tera Moody, Zoila Gomez
Women’s 4x100m: Jeter, Myers, Barber, LaShaunte’a Moore, Alexandria Anderson, Bianca Knight
Women’s 4x400m: Richards-Ross, Felix, McCorory, Dunn, Beard, Natasha Hastings

Uhh, USATF, what are you doing? Without going on a full blown rant (because I'm saving that for another post) why bother having an A qualifying standard if you're not going to follow it? They threw non- qualifying athletes in there for no reason. I mean I love Lauren Fleshman. She's a good, sometimes great- when she isn't injured which isnt often- runner. That doesn't really matter though, because she didn't hit the A or B standard; they're letting her in on last year's times. Come on now, a rule is a rule. USATF is really hurting for respect, and this isn't helping their case at all. What a joke.

Also, Rupp doubling up? hmm.... I'm a Galen Rupp hater if you haven't guessed, and here's why:

Lukas Verzbicas gets into crash

2011-08-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Via his twitter just now:"Got into quite the bike crash. Waiting on medical results, Praying for no broken bones."

I won't lie, I thought that was a woman when I first saw it. For real though, dude is like everything I wish I could be. I said it once on the USATF facebook page and got hammered for it, but I'll say it again: I hope he turns out to be a better future of US running than Galen Rupp was said to be. Also, if you haven't read this story about his last tri before he goes to U of O, you should.

Guys... I need my beauty sleep

2011-08-06T11:13:00.001-07:00

I was supposed to run a half marathon today, but never did. Please don't hit me with those cliche "inspirational" quotes like 'DNF is better than DNS' or any of that bullshit. First of all, thats wrong because unless my legs are going to fall off, I'm going to finish a race, but I might be lazy and not start one, like I did today. Now, you hear "Did not start" and you think "this guy just got psyched out by the distance" or at least I do. Again, not the case.

So, the Urban Wildland Half was slated to take off at 7, which means I wanted to get to the start by 6:30, which meant I had to catch the city bus at 5:30 in order to get there, so I set my alarm at 4:30. I went to bed at 9, and after I was woke up by drunk roommates a couple times, fell asleep and ended up not waking up until 7:45 today. I was pretty pissed. My phone must have gone dead overnight, so I ended up missing the race. Oh well, stuff happens I guess. Its not really that big of a deal because I was supposed to do 14 today anyways, so now I just won't have a race to do it in. And I guess this means that I can run with my group tomorrow morning, because I won't be a giant ball of lactic acid. We're running the first 15 miles of the Twin Cities marathon course. Its going to be awesome. Assuming I wake up in time.

Why do I keep Doing This To Myself?

2011-07-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well, self, why? My training plan has me running 6 days a week, generally by going easy-workout- off- workout- easy-easy- long, with the workouts being tempos and speedwork and the last easy run before my long run being mid- distance around 10 miles. This gives me a day to play around with a little bit if I want to be creative. The problem is, I'm never creative enough. I usually take my rest day on Monday, which forces me to run an easy day and a track workout back to back. That never works. I always go out way too fast on my easy run and bomb the track workout. Like yesterday. I had an 8 miler on Tuesday as my first run of the week, and and averaged 7:23 miles. Typical. My training pace chart says my easy runs should be from 8:01 pace to 8:31, so yeah, that was bad. The next day, Wednesday, was a track day with 2 miles up then 5x1000 and 2 miles down. To compound my problems, it was 87 and humid, even at 10 p.m. I'm always remiss when I run track workouts since they're supposed to be run at "5k pace." What is 5k pace? any ideas? For me 5k pace is run as hard as you can and then pass out and hope you are in the chute when it happens. So I ran them right around a 5:12 mile pace which is a tad on the slow end, but it is what it is.

So now I'm into another easy run tonight, and I'm exhausted. Its a good exhausted though because I know I haven't cheated myself. Because in the end, all you're accountable to is yourself. And that goes for all walks of life too. Ever read the poem "The Man In The Glass"? Well I linked to it so no excuses. Thats kind of what its like not to cheat, to look in the mirror and believe yourself to be a self- made man.

I caught a baseball!

2011-07-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

For real, I caught a baseball today and it was pretty sick. Now, let me preface this by saying I've never actually caught a ball at a baseball game. I was at a Twins game in sixth grade and I got a glove on a frozen rope line drive that was going to take the old woman behind me's head off, but that popped out and some overzealous fat guy pushed me out of the way to get it so we won't count that. Today I was doing the Rice Park loop (~10 miles) plus going to add on another 3 mile loop for my 16 mile long run to bring my weekend total to 26 (36 if you want to count Friday) and I run right past the Hamline baseball field on my way down to Downtown St. Paul. Well there was a summer ball game going on, and some guy popped up a can of corn foul ball. So I'm running by, doing like 7:50's, and kind of watching the game out of the corner of my eye. You go over a bridge over some railroad tracks before you go past the field so I had a good vantage point for a while. So i'm a little behind the field when this guy pops it up behind the backstop. I don't alter my pace any, but stray a little to the right and hold out my hand and catch it, all nonchalant like. It was pretty cool, one of the cooler experiences I've had on a training run.

The rest was a world of suck though. I woke up at 9:30, but waited until 3 to do something with my life. By then it was 80 degrees, and 85 when I came back. Downtown it wasn't that bad, but going from like Hamline to John Ireland was super boring. Thats like the boondocks of saint paul kind of, and there isn't really anything to see. It sucks. Coming back I ran on the Minneapolis side of the river down Water street and on some secret trails, but most of them were flooded out, so that wasn't cool. On my extra six miles I met up with a couple random guys and convinced them to run with me. See, thats whats cool about runners, I just ran past them and asked how far they were going, then said I'd do 6 with them at least and they were like lets do it. Pretty soon we were flying down the river boulevard at a decent enough clip singing Piano Man by Billy Joel at the top of our lungs, it was good stuff.

So thats that, but the rest of the week was pretty bad. For those of you who don't know, Minnesota was blasted by a heat wave, and the entire week was in the upper 80's- upper 90's range. At least 3 or 4 days had heat indexes over 100, so running was not fun. Usually I ran at 11 or so at night, which felt a little better, but it wasnt really cooler at night. I think it was Wednesday that I woke up at 5 A.M. to run and it was 90 degrees already. What really got to me was there was no escape from the heat. My house doesn't have AC and my room is the only one in the house that doesn't have a window unit, so it was like this: sweat when you're sleeping (if you can even get to sleep), shower, immediately start sweating, run, sweat more, shower, start sweating again. Yeah, I guess I could have gone to my parents house, but one thing I absolutely hate more than anything is people that aren't self sufficient. I don't know, I'm increadibly headstrong too, you kind of have to be to keep putting in 300 mile months, every month.

This post is getting ridiculously long, so if you read this far, kudos to you. Here's some random thoughts and happenings lately:

The new Matt Nathanson album, Modern Love, is super good. Like amazing. I feel like only girls like him, but whatever. I saw him at the Electric Fetus a couple weeks ago an am going to see him again at the state fair. What up?
Bon Iver's self titled CD is sickness as well. Just super dirty. Hipster Alert! I'm seeing them also in November. They just kicked off their tour in wisco two days ago.
This kind of describes my feelings on the weather lately: http://thefuckingweather.com/
The government is working! hooray! now I can drink beer, and get arrested for all the fun stuff I did when the gov't was shut down (like quarry jumping)
This weekend I worked St. Thomas' Orientation and Registration. I feel bad for those kids.
Half Marathon on the 6th, I've got to figure out how I'm going to get there
I signed up for another half marathon on the 28th, this one with my roommates. I probably won't race it so I'm going to wear my Wisco singlet and America shorts. These ones-
When will the Eugene Marathon get their sh*t together and open registration?
2 months and 1 week until Twin Cities

Or we could blaze!

2011-07-16T03:01:00.000-07:00

That's a quote from Once A Runner, if you didn't know. Most of my post titles are from OAR. I would have put the full paragraph up there, but it wouldn't fit, so here ya go:

It is simply that we can all be good boys and wear our letter sweaters around and get our little degrees and find some nice girl to settle, you know, down with...Or we can blaze! Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the heart of mediocre talent everywhere! We can scald dogs, put records out of reach! Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out! We can become God's own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls! We can race dark Satan himself till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straightaway....They'll speak our names in hushed tones, 'those guys are animals' they'll say! We can lay it on the line, bust a gut, show them a clean pair of heels. We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet! We can, by God, let our demons loose and just wail on!

Yeah, good stuff. I think I'm going to get that book out of the library today and never finish reading it. Kind of like that book on Haile Gebreselassie that I never finished reading? that one sucked though. Its not like I can't sit down and write all of OAR either, because I probably can, but there's something about reading that book every summer that gets me geared up for running.

So, actual running has gone great lately. Apart from the lax bros taking my beloved track from me. Like this lax bro, who is also my roommate (see photo). So my track work is scheduled on Tuesday, and because of my work schedule, I can't run until 8. Well, lax camp has both the field and track from 8-10 everyday, and since the only other day I could do a track workout in the morning is Friday (which would make me have two easy days in a row, but a speed workout and a marathon pace long run back to back, which would suck a lot. So I've been going to the High School track 5 miles or so from me (so 10 round trip). I'll just run there and run back. Its kinda brutal so sometimes I'll just wait until the brosciety meeting is over and run track at like 11, but that sucks too.

The Last 2 runs I've done in my new flats- my New Balance MR1400's. I think I figured out why I like them so much- they fit exactly like the Brooks Racer ST4's (which are my favorite shoes of all time), whereas the ST5's run a tad wider than the 4's... but I'll get to that in a later post. The two runs were an 11 mile tempo (2 mile warm up, 7 mile @ tempo pace, 2 mile cool down) on Thursday, and a 7 mile recovery on Friday. I'm probably going to wear my trainers for this weekend's runs, but I'd like to get up to the point where I can do an entire half marathon on flats and feel good about it.

Thats another thing, I signed up for another half marathon next month, so I'll be doing 2 within like 17 days of each other. Even better, they coincide with my long runs, so what up?

So last night was a rough one. I thought I was going to go to bed early like I usually do, get up for work at like 6, work from 8-noon, and then run home from work (which is 7 miles, I have 8 to do today). Not happening. I ended up pulling an all nighter for no reason, and it looks like I'm gonna grill when I get home, then nap, then take a night run since its supposed to get real hot real quick.

It looks like I might finally get my 21 papers sometime soon. I got an email from the New York Times (they email me headlines) saying that the Senate had reached a deal on the MN budget, which would potentially end 16 days of shutdown. However, when I clicked on the link to the article, it didn't exist, so I don't know what that means but I think we're still in lockdown mode over here. I tried to get my license renewed through the county service center last Thursday, but doors were locked and no one was home at 11 in the morning, so I don't know what's happening right now. It could be worse, at least we're not Detroit.

I'm thinking of getting into the steeplechase. Like really into it. Last year I did a couple club races and didn't do too badly (I only came in last twice) and only ate **** off the water jump once or twice. But I think it would be kind of cool to have that in my back pocket. Heck, Steve Slattery is still steeplechasing and he's like 50, so how hard can it be?

Also, one of my friends just turned 21, and she's engaged already. Either the kids aren't alright (thats an Offspring reference for all you hipsters) or I've got some work in front of me as far as dating goes

Brooks Ravenna 2 shoe review

2011-07-12T07:48:00.000-07:00

Okay guys, Its been a while, an I don't think I've posted a review on the Ravenna 2's, so here you go.

Out of the box, these boys are stiff as boards, which is an oddity for Brooks shoes. Granted, that could be due to a lot of things- the shoes sitting around a while in a dry warehouse- or something like that. Usually when I get Brooks' I can run six or so easy miles right off the bat with little or no problems. This time wasn't happening however, so I wore them around for a day, and then ran an easy three at night. Miserable. The upper was tight, the shoes felt like boards and the heel collar tore up my achillies. So back to the drawing board I guess. I cut off the first quarter inch of the heel collar with a razor and covered it with duct tape. Then I cut the groves in the bottom of the shoe an eighth of an inch deeper all around. Then I wore them around work all day and streched them out a little more with my hands. Then they were ready to go.

The shoe itself
No bells and whistles here- or at least less than the Adrens I usually run in. They're still a great shoe fore the money if you need some stability, but not much. If you currently wear the adrenalines and need the stability, switching to the Ravennas won't kill you or your stride. The major update this year was the addition of the DNA midsole. I think I posted in my Adrenaline 11 review that I didn't care for the DNA material too much, now I'm indifferent about it. I run in shoes that have both the DNA material and the old hydroflow chambers and can't tell a difference.

Last year's model of the Ravenna had weird sizing, it ran about a half size small, and the Ravenna 2 is the same, plus its a bit snug along the midfoot, but it has more forefoot and toe box room than both the original Ravenna and the Adrenaline 11. One thing I'm not a fan of is the heel collar. Its TPU reinforced, so when it irritates you, you're in trouble. But that's the same in all Brooks shoes so I'm not going to dwell on that a whole lot. The one thing I've heard that's not true is that it "feels fast." Nope. But its a trainer, and it fills that function well. The cushioning is- well, um... its there. Nothing spectacular, but it does the job. You get some "road feel" with these shoes, but not enough to the point of annoyingness.

The Ravenna has lots of cushon in the heal but not much anywhere else, so if you're a heel striker you're going to love these shoes, otherwise you'll be so- so about them. Also, they wear out really fast- I only got 325 miles out of these before the outsole started coming apart.

The Verdict
I'm never going to tell you to stay away from a Brooks shoe, but these shoes are almost a solution waiting for a problem. What I mean is the shoe caters to a very slim demographic. If you're just starting to run, chances are you're a heel striker, which makes this shoe perfect for you. However, if you're a new runner, chances are you also overpronate, and would be better off using a full on stability shoe. So basically, if you want to change your stride but are tentative about it, these are a good jumping off point. Just don't start using them in the later stages of a marathon training cycle.

Turning 21- kind of

2011-07-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

So for all of you following the Minnesota political scene, our government has shut down as we can't close a 5 billion dollar deficit in our state budget. If you're not paying attention, I don't blame you. I'm a political science major, and bipartisan politics is driving me crazy. This means that all our politicians get unemployment checks. Yep. They still get paid even though they won't talk to eachother. Without getting into a rant on how stupid and childish that is, the bottom line is that all state offices are closed. State parks are closed, but more importantly the office where I get my drivers license renewed is closed. Not quite sure why since its a county office, but whatever- that's bureaucracy for ya.

So, even though I turn 21 today, I can't do anything until the state either (a) the state issues me papers saying I'm 21, or (b) I get a new license that doesn't have the huge red "UNDER 21" marking on it. Yes, my license has my birthday on it, but apparently no one reads that. Anyways, its not a big deal. I think I mentioned on here already that I can't drink alcohol because of medical stuff, plus I'm always in marathon training. But it would be cool to go to a bar, just because I know I would spit some awesome game about marathon training and my "all I do is run, work, and sleep" syndrome. Girls love to hear that stuff.

Back to running though, Saturday I ran with my club, and promptly fell off the pace and got lost. Well, not totally lost because the run was in my neighborhood but I wasn't listening to the route so I missed a left turn and ended up a good three miles from where I should have been. So that was exciting. I also missed a water stop, which was too bad because it was really hot. The next day I ran 12 for a long run and that really sucked. Thank God its forecasted to get cooler here, because its getting ridiculous, especially because my house isn't air conditioned either.

I'm looking for a summer marathon to do next summer. I've done Grandma's the past two years and while thats a pretty awesome race, I'm looking for something different. Right now, I'm looking at the BMO Vancouver Marathon, the Eugene Marathon, and the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon. Any recommendations? reviews?

Its so damn hot... milk was a bad choice

2011-06-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

For those of you not familiar with awesome movies, educate yourselves. That was from Anchorman, which is an amazing movie. Just wanted to post that its going to be 90 degrees when I start my tempo today- 2 miles @ 8:01, 3 @ 7:00, 2@ 8:01. So while you're sitting in air conditioned goodness, I'll be sweating off 15 pounds.

That is all.

Edit: Scratch that, its a 7 mile tempo, not including the warmup. f***, Its going to be a long night

Is There no Justice in this World?

2011-06-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

I bet you guys won't believe this, but I found a pair of Pearl Izumi Synchrofuels on ebay for $60 and ordered the red/ white colorway. They came in the mail today and they were actually the yellow/ black pair. What? Can I sue them for false advertising? But its all good, I actually like that colorway. Apart from the guy I ordered them from not giving me a tracking number,it was a pretty smooth deal. I wore them the other day for a 4 miler and then this morning for a 6 miler and then probably again tonight for another 6 miler and me gusta.

Let me say this though, I'm a brooks lifer and always will be. But how can you say no to cheap shoes? I've got a good buddy who works for Pearl Izumi and he hooked me up phat, as the kids say these days. So really, how could I say no? It was like the good old days when Brooks hooked me up with really cheap shoes. Now they're kind of expensive, like $70. But yeah, I will say the Pearl Izumi seemless upper has the Brooks one beat up and down, that thing is a little slice of heaven on your foot. To counter though, I bought 2 pairs of the Brooks ST 4 racers. Those were so hard to find though, they must have sold like hotcakes- for good reason.

I also bought a baseball glove for my birthday. Its a Louisville Slugger TPS pro Omaha model, if that means anything to anyone. It doesn't to me, but everybody likes it so I bought it. I played in a beer league last year using my Rawlings Carlton Fisk model glove (it was an outfield glove, but I used it to play corner infield mostly). Toward the end of the season last year, I was playing right field and I settled behind a fly ball because I was going to run in to make the catch and use my momentum to try and get a guy trying to tag up from second and move to third. Well when I caught it the ball went right through my glove- just tore the webbing right out. So there you go, I thought I needed a new one. This one is a third base model too, so that's all good. I'm really pumped to play ball.

NHL draft day 1 recap

2011-06-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

So, I know my blog is mostly running, but I'ma drop some hockey knowledge on you guys real quick, so if you don't care, skip to the end- I'll add some running stuff at the end just because I'm going to throw some thoughts down there just for kicks.

So Friday I got off work to go see the NHL draft. This year wasn't very deep, although tickets were free and the Flyers trading Carter to get the 8th overall pick as well as trading away Richards made things a little more interesting.

Ryan Nugent- Hopkins was the first overall pick by the Oil. Not really a surprise there, allthough I will say if it wasn't for the late- season injury to Taylor Hall they wouldn't have had the first pick- that kid is lightning in a bottle. Anyway, this kid's the real deal- electric skater, strong on his feet and excellent with the puck. He's NHL ready, and we'll see a Nugent- Hopkins to Hall goals a plenty starting next season. The next pick I was interested in was the Winnipeg Jets at #7. I think they reached a little bit- okay they reached a lot to get Mark Scheifele. I'll be honest, he's a project- and I don't know why you would draft a project 7th overall- but he has potential to be a player in the Scotty Hartnell mold if developed correctly. And thats a big if. The very next pick was the Flyers at #8, and they could have gone a couple ways with this one. They could have gotten a center to replace Richards (which they did), or a defenseman to bolster an aging defensive corps.

The Next pick I was interested in, naturally, was the Flyers at #8, who picked Sean Couturer, who could be a big impact player in the future. He's probably going to need some seasoning in the AHL, plus he's a center and we have somewhat of a logjam there, but once he comes up I think he'll be a solid power forward with soft enough hands. Next came the Wild at #10, and these were interesting picks, and I'll get to that a bit later. Their pick was Jonas Brodin, who is a good young defenseman. He's a stay at home guy who, while not flashy, is a lock to play in the NHL. When is a point of contention. I think he can play now, but TSN and stuff says otherwise. Granted, he is undersized, but Minnesota's isn't an all star defensive corps. The Wild also had the 28th pick, and they took Zach Philips, a playmaking center. He's big, strong, and is a blue collar player that TSN compared to Adam Oates (who is one of my favorite players ever).

Then came the "blockbuster." The Wild sent Brent Burns and a 2nd round pick in 2012 for Devin Setagouchi, Charlie Croyle, and the #28 pick (Zach Philips). Their picks make a ton more sense now. Brodin was to replace Burns on an already scant blueline (part of the reason why I think he will play this year, if we don't sign a big UFA), and Philips was to dish to Setagouchi and Koivu for goals on the give- and- go.

Some other notes-

What are you doing Phoenix? picking a project player who is at least 4-5 years out of playing in the NHL with the #20 pick? No wonder no one likes hockey in the desert.
If the Leafs are trying to be a team of goons, Tyler Biggs is the right pick at #22
I'm pumped to see Mario Lucia, a Wayzata kid, on the Wild-- eventually
Steven Fogherty was the first Edina boy off the board at #72 overall by the Rangers

So, now for a little bit of running news- my run last night was 2 miles. Two lonely miles in 17 and a half minutes. It was my first run since Grandmas a week ago and while my legs didn't feel like lead, but I was still out of shape like nobodies business. I'm planning a 4 miler tonight, 6 the next day, and to rejoin the Twin Cities plan with some speed work by wednesday

A talk with the fine folks at Brooks

2011-06-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

On Friday before the Marathon I stopped in at the Brooks booth after talking to the guys at Pearl Izumi (I have a teammate who works there) to take a look at the pure series. I was pretty skeptical to tell the truth, but I met the guy working there- I didn't get a name but he ran XC for Hamline last year and he let me try a pair out. He hooked me up with a pair of the Pure Flow, and woah boy, those are some shoes. I thought the heel toe drop would bother me the most, but nope, its really no different than running in flats. I really like how flexable this shoe is, that was pretty awesome. Compared to the Ravenna 2's it was a huge step up and even my beloved adrenaline 11 it was an improvement. I only went 3 miles around the DECC, so I can't really say too much, but they definitely made me a believer. I'm a natural skeptic about minimalist shoes, but these aren't truly minimalist- you feel the road but its not quite to the extent that the Adrenaline 9 did, plus the smooth transition helps reduce the "road feel" a lot.

Grandma's Marathon race report

2011-06-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

OR yet another sub- par marathon by yours truly.

The Before

Our running club got up to Duluth on Friday afternoon after a three hour drive from the cities. It was cold when we got up there, probably in the low 50's. True to form, I forgot any warm clothes even though I let everyone I knew know that it was going to be chilly that weekend. But did I heed my own advice? of course not. Nice one. First thing we did was hit up green mill like we usually do. Once we did that we got our stuff in the room and headed to the race expo at the DECC. After I got my race packet I talked to the kid working at the Brooks booth for a good half an hour- more on that in a later post. Once we got bored of that we chilled in the room for a while until it was time for the 5k. We had one runner in that race, Mike Davis, who ran 17:18, good for 13th place- then he closed down the bars, of course. After the 5k we had our traditional pasta dinner in the hotel room and then watched Run Fatboy Run until we all fell asleep around 9:30.

The During:

We woke up around 4:45 AM, since the hotel's breakfast didnt start until 5. I donned my TC running company singlet and American flag shorts and, since it was raining pretty hard, a T- Shirt and a garbage- bag poncho. We hit the busses at 5:15 after a breakfast of toast and coffee where it was still rainy and cold. On the bus, I joked that it was mirroring my race strategy- we passed two or three busses at the start, but by the half marathon mark we got passed by all of the busses plus a couple. It wasn't raining when we got off the bus, but it was still cold. I almost didn't make it to the start line in time because I was in the bathroom, but I just did make it to the 4 hour pace group. In the chute I met two guys who were running their first marathons and ran with them up until 15 miles or so. We were making decent time, running 9:20's and I told them all abut the end of the marathon- its three turns to the finish, even though you think you should be done after two.

After 15, things really started turning dark for me. My pace started dropping and to compound problems I had to walk. That lasted until around mile 20, when we made it to Duluth proper. After that I ran the whole thing, granted not fast. I was hitting high 10:00 miles but whatever. Through it all I saw my tile goals go down the drain. I was on a sub 4:00 pace through 15, which was good since that was my primary goal. That went down the drain early, the same with 4:15. I was pissed. No way a 20 year old should run 4 hour plus marathons. After that little temper tantrum I figured I might as well finish and try again next time. So that's what I did. I started knocking down semi- good miles around lemondrop hill, and it was on the up and up from there, really. My times didn't improve, but my mood sure did. There was about a half mile stretch after mile 24 where a few college kids started chanting "USA! USA!" after my flag running shorts. Soon everyone started doing it- probably one of the coolest things I have experienced ever. I still forgot there are three turns to the finish and was still cussing like a sailor when I passed the finish line there. I saw my running club there (most of them had already finished already) and that made it a lot easier, but it still sucked.

At the end, I had a crisis of sorts. Should I run hard at the end or not? Last year I did kick at the finish, and looked like an absolute douchebag. I passed a bunch of people, but it really didn't matter. This year I decided not to because, really, there's no difference between 4:39:20 and 4:38:17, you're still slow as hell.

The After:
It was cold. I mean, the last two miles had the "hypothermia alert" banners out, but I didn't get it. I was pouring water on my head from the first water stop at mile 3 and was still pretty hot. After though, I was freezing. It took forever to get my mylar blanket- the dude ripping them out was a total noob scout. It was also a long walk to get my drop bag, which was totally the opposite way from the hotel. After a couple pics with the fam, I went up to shower and then "walked" over to Famous Dave's, after an hour wait, I ate a whole rack of ribs. After that, my family peaced out and we popped in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie (the first one) and I took a four hour nap. After that we went to Green Mill and ate an unreal amount of pizza. The wait was pretty killer too, but that was fine since the waitress was super hot. After that everyone else went to the bars. But that waitress was super hot, so I went back to green mill and got her number. Good stuff.

And then there were four

2011-06-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

Only four days to Grandmas. I'm almost done with my taper too. I have a 6, a 6, and a 4 to do, and I'm supposed to be off on Friday although I think I might do a quick one or two just to stay fresh since after a day off I always feel super sluggish. A necessary evil I guess-- but not that necessary. After that it starts all over again for Twin Cities on October 2nd. I'm actually going to jump in to that training about a month late, after I take a week and a half or so off and then it starts again. I'm really pumped for Twin Cities though, especially because it runs right past my house.

So yesterday I was pissed. My lab prof made our lab group stay 15 minutes after lab was supposed to end because we were having trouble converting into hours and minutes and vice versa. Elementary stuff I know but we had to rush through it, which left us with a lot of mistakes. Anyways, that got me out of class at 9:45 and at my house at 10, so I was on the road by 10:15. 1st mile in 5:32. Whoops, about two and a half minutes fast. Though my new coach Luke Humphrey says that for a taper you should cut the distance, not to the intensity, so I said screw it and ran the 6 miles under 7:00 each.

Then today I met up with my running group because I haven't in a long while. Last week I was hoping to go, but that was the 101 degree day, so I held off until 11pm that day, and even still it was 87 degrees. Anyways, this Tuesday was a rainstorm, complete with lightning and thunder and the whole shabang. I opted to go with the racing flats today because of drainage- we weren't racing by any means, but I figured that was better than letting my trainers swell up with water. I opted no shirt and no socks since those would just get soaked anyways. So my 2 six miles for the week are down, leaving 2 4's left. And thank god for drawstrings on mu running shorts, or else they would have fallen down.

And true to form, the rain totally stopped in the last half mile.

Going off the deep end... in a good way

2011-06-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

BAM! peak week has began. This training cycle I'm topping out at 94 miles. Why 94? Why the hell not? I mean, I don't really have a training plan, and haven't had one since like the third week of marathon training. Coupled with not logging my miles, this means two things: (1) I can kiss my BQ dreams good bye for this training cycle, at least; (2) I'll put down a ridiculous base of miles without really knowing it. My strategy is different this summer than two summers ago though.That time I ran doubles 6 or 7 days a week and ended up laid up with a stress fracture (albeit not a bad one) a month and a half in. This time I'm only going 6 days a week tops and am keeping a pretty standard mileage structure (off day Monday, mid- distance Tuesday through Thursday, short Friday and Sunday, and long Saturday).

Although maybe BQing isn't out of the picture totally. Last night after lab ended I went for a 7 miler and ended up knocking down the last 4 miles at around 6:20 pace without much differentiation in effort. 6:20's would put me at a 2:400 high marathon (I don't have a calculator on me) which would give me lots of time to hit the wall and (hopefully?) recover. But lets keep things in perspective- 4 miles is a far cry from 26 so its most likely not happening, but I'm just saying the speed is there somewhere.

This Saturday I'll be running. Typical. I work in Minneapolis Saturday, so I usually run home- take the long way and you can easily make it double digits rather than the normal weekday 7. This Saturday im going to try something different though. Instead of running, I'm going to walk to the train station. I'm going to walk to the train station and buy a ticket to Fridley, and then run home. Its only 14 miles (I think).

Sunday is Grand Ole Day as well. I was thinking of signing up for the 8k, which starts literally blocks from my house. Then I looked at the price- $20. Nope, not signing up for that. I have a policy that I won't pay more than $10 for a race less than 10k. I still might run it though, I'm getting pretty good at running races and not paying for them.

Also, Frank Shorter is speaking at the Grandma's Marathon expo. So pumped.

The ground beef relay and other shenanigans

2011-05-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday I went running. Twice. That shouldn't suprise you though, its summer, thats just what you do. I went for a regular 17 miler in the morning, took a shower, went to bed again, and woke up around lunchtime. My roomate was grilling, and my other roommate- the one who freeloads all the time for food- says to me "oh, hey, want to run to Cub and get some ground beef?" So I oblige and tuck $5 in my shoe and we're off. I had a tough time getting going, and almost threw a temper tantrum because I had to wear a shirt (the whole no shirt, no shoes, no service thing), but before you know it we were going at a good clip and halfway there. The store is only 2 and a half miles away, but we were both pretty sweaty when we got there on account of the fact that it was like 90 degrees, so we walked in and got some serious stank- eye dropped on us by everyone in the store but its all good. We wondered around for a good 15 minutes before we found the meat aisle (clearly labeled MEAT AISLE) and got some ground beef and left. The freeloading roomate got 2 lbs and I got 1. Freeloader rooomate thought it would be a good idea to put them in a bag, not carry them. I won $2 off a $1 lottery ticket and bought a soda, so this bag was already getting heavy.

With that, we took off. We were going pretty quick, hit the 1 mile mark in 7:12, and I was dying. I was carrying this bag with me the whole way and it just wasn't happening. I downed the soda I had bought like nobody's buisness, and it started to rain. We had to get home quick too since we needed to get the ground beef into the fridge before it did whatever ground beef does when it gets too hot. So, we devised a plan: each of us would run 2 blocks with the bag of beef and toss it back to the other guy. So thats what we did. We almost dropped the bag a few times throwing it around, but we got home real quick. It was a good time. We were singing and making jokes about our huge meat and immature stuff like that. And then we cooked it and then we ate it. The end.

I also ran yesterday. Holy cow was that hot. I went 2 hours just because and got sunburned for the first time this year. I was also white from salt. When I came home I literally passed out in my bed. Today I'm going to go later, like 9 or 10.

Related: I ordered a pair of cascadia 6's today

Whats once was lost now is found

2011-05-23T09:18:00.001-07:00

Hello interwebs, glad to be back. Want to hear something crazy? 4 weeks until Grandmas. And 4 months until Twin Cities. Crazyness, man. I better start like, actually training. I have been training, just not as intense as I would like. I've done next to zero speedwork, and my milage has consistently been in the 50-65 range, but I feel like I haven't peaked yet. I've taken weeks at a time totally off, which shows. I went into this training cycle hoping to qualify for Boston at Grandma's. Maybe not. Oh well, shit happens. I'm not happy with my training, and it looks like I'm headed toward another mediocre marathon. I found a new trail to run though, which is kind of exciting. It is paved, which is a bummer, but it is pretty secluded, which is pretty awesome, especially in the middle of a metro area. The trail is a good 2 miles from my house, so usually I can't go that far down it, although maybe this weekend I'll go all the way down and see where it goes.

I'd also like to do a 50 miler this summer. My friend called me last night (drunk of course) and asked me to run to Monticello. Now, I'm not going to do that on a smile and a wink, but hey, why not, I've got all summer. I think that would be pretty cool if I could get off work for a couple days.

Third, I got a PS3 and a TV for cheap and now my productivity has dropped to zero. All I want to do now is play NHL 11 and sleep. And maybe run a little too, but mostly play NHL. I'm pretty bad at it too.

Osama Bin Laden Hide and Seek Champion 1998-2011

2011-05-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

I'm alive! I'm sure you were all deathly worried about me, right? Well, I've been busy- er than usual. Its been a really horrible couple of weeks. Like last week, I pulled three all nighters and am still behind on homework. Its because last weekend was both Sigma Chi initiation and Relay For Life. Initiation was awesome as always, we initiated 9 guys, which is actually a bigger class than the University of Minnesota. Initiation was Friday night into Saturday morning and I stayed up all night for that, even though I didn't have to. All the initiations I've been at, save my own, I've missed something. So, I stayed up all night so I made sure I wouldn't miss anything. That ended at like 11:30 when we stopped cleaning up, so that was all nighter number 2. I got home, at lunch, and tried to convince myself not to take a two hour nap because I knew I wouldn't wake up. At 3 I went over to the Anderson Athletic & Recreation Complex Fieldhouse to start setting up for Relay For Life. We actually got done a little before 6, when teams were slated to set up, so I was able to grab my team's stuff and stake out a decent campsite.

Relay itself went really well, and I had a bunch of fun- after midnight. Before midnight was an absolute ****show. No one really had any idea what they were doing when, stuff didnt get printed out, and everyone had their own idea of how they wanted things ran. Somehow I got everyone on the same page and we were good. The one thing I was really worried about was the Luminaria ceremony. The glow sticks we were using to light the Luminaria bags looked to be going out every five minutes or so. We decided to pass out glow sticks before the ceremony, and have people crack them as they walked around the track. It looked really cool and it worked well. We had an acoustic performance during the luminaria ceremony (and after as well) by Matt Griswold and it was really touching. The ceremony, the speakers, all of that was really well done if I do say so myself.

I ended up losing the concessions stand key for a while, which was really stressful for a while. I figured out that I had locked it in the concessions stand itself, so all I had to do was open the door and get the key. The problem was, there are only two keys to that door- I had one and the Athletic Director had the other, and it was 1:00 in the morning. I called our public safety and they called Saint Paul police to try and get the door open, but nothing worked; they didn't have a key and couldn't pick it. I had left some ice cream out on the counter to thaw and I was cooking pizza rolls on the hot dog rollers (because there was no oven), so after I was resigned to the fact that I wasnt getting the door open until the AD answered his phone, I got pissed that I would have to clean all that ice cream up off the floor.

It was all good though, we just got breakfast to the relayers on time and we had enough food! Some highlights were watching TC and the Wild mascot play beer pong against eachother, watching the chair of the Political Science department do the velcro wall, a 6 hour long volleyball tournament, and running a 4:52 midnight mile in my boxers. Good stuff, and I can't wait until next year.

Also, a quick shout out to Dougie Fresh, emperor of the Brooks Fanatics program, who donated two free shoe certificates toward the event. You're the man!

We ended up raising $29,082 toward the American Cancer Society

Papelbon sets, the pitch...

2011-03-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Why is it that everyone I have a Red Sox jersey of is awful? I'm wearing a Papelbon jersey right now, and he could very well lose his closer's job after a mediocre spring. I also have a Matsuzaka jersey. Yeah, that one worked well. $120 million for a fifth starter? well, at least he isn't Key Igawa. Remember that guy? The Yankees answer to Dice K got lit up his first game and gets sent down to single A. And Dice K's not a total waste, I mean he does have his moments, he'll throw a gem every once in a while. Funny story: I bought a Dice K jersey and a Sox cap a month ago from the Yawkey Way Store. The jersey cost me $20, and the hat cost me $30. That's what we think of our 5th starter.

So, opening day, good good. I've become a pro at watching baseball while taking notes in class. Love it. Anyways, I ran around downtown Minneapolis yesterday after my Educational Psychology class. I kind of had to scramble and hurry up and do it since it was supposed to snow last night. It ended up not snowing though, thank God. I ran in my Ravenna 2's for the first time yesterday, and it was a typical new shoes run. The first few miles were so- so. My calves were on fire, but that might have been for two reasons. One is because the Ravenna is a little less shoe than my usual trainers, and the second is that I was stopping and starting every block or so. My calves don't hurt usually when I switch from my trainers to flats and vice versa, so I think I'll just forget about it.

On the "back" portion of my out and back, I saw two homeless guys playing a recorder duet. You know, those recorders that you play in like third grade and havent touched since? awesome. Highland Park has a meet next week in Waseca that I'm not going to, since we can only bring one bus, which means I can run the 10 miler next week, the first race of my season.

Old enough to know, but too young to care

2011-03-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

That title doesn't really have any bearing on this post, its a lyric from a song called Haight St. by Anberlin that I'm really into right now. The whole CD really- called New Surrender, check it out. Also, its 11pm when I'm starting this, so spelling mistakes will be abound. I have to get up at 6 for work and I'm running on diet snapple, but whatevs, I'll brew myself another pot of coffee.

Anyways, "Spring" break is over. Spring was in quotes because it isn't very spring- ish at all. In fact, we got a good 3'' of snow when I was at home, which kind of threw a wrench into my running plans. Not that much though. Other than running, break was all researching and Madden '10. I took the Vikings to the Super Bowl, I know you're all proud of me. Sage Rosenfels was the MVP. Place your bets for this season, I'm going to be running T- Jack and Pat White out of the wildcat a lot. Enough about that though. I changed my research topic too, now its going to be the effect of the Biological Weapons Conference on Biological Weapons proliferation. I'm reading this book called Biohazard by Ken Alibeck (not his real name), the second in Command of the Soviet Union's Biopreparat facility, a clandestine BW complex masquerading as a pharmaceutical research complex. I don't know how to describe it- eye opening? scarry? fascinating? probably all of the above.

So today I went on a legit long run, my first in a week. I was planning to go 18, but I went 14 instead. The run started out terrible. I was running on Cleveland Ave about a half mile into the run, slipped on a patch of ice, and tripped headfirst over a planter on the sidewalk. I run past that planter every freakin day and it never gives me any trouble. Why now? Anyways, I went over headfirst, but ended up landing on the side of my hip. I was wearing my running tights which somehow weren't ripped. However, my side is all scarred up and red toward my butt. I bet my iPod that I just bought is broken too since I was wearing it on that hip. Scratch that, the screen is cracked something awful, but I can still use it and it still works. So, that was the excitement, I was up and off after that. No blood, thankfully, and I was able to breeze through 14 miles relatively easily. Tomorrow's run is going to suck though, since its already getting stiff and still stings like no other.

I'm going to try to wear my new Ravenna 2's to class tomorrow to break them in and then run in them, so look for a review of those in a while.

Spring break, spring baseball

2011-03-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

So this week I'm on Spring break, except not really. Not really meaning I'm busy this week. I've got to call the businesses I initially contacted for Relay For Life back in order to confirm my requests for donations I sent them. I've also got to start and finish my political science research paper on Chemical Weapons proliferation, nonproliferation, and destruction. That's good stuff, I was in the Law Library all day Thursday and part of the day Friday researching. It made me feel important. Of course, most important is I've got to lead the Red Sox to the World Series in MLB The Show 2010.

Speaking of baseball, 11 days until Red Sox opening day. I had my first fantasy baseball draft yesterday, and it went alright. As usual, I picked a lot of rookies or AAA guys that are having good springs and have a shot at making the big league club, in my opinion. Worse comes to worse, there's still some decent talent on the waiver wire, but with guys like Danny Espinosa from Washington, I think he has a pretty good shot to make the club. He's already listed as a #1 on the Nats depth chart, which makes my other 2nd baseman, Ian Kinsler, expendable. Here's my roster, although I still have some moves left to make:

C- Santana, Carlos
1B- Votto, Joey
2B- Kinsler, Ian
SS- Desmond, Ian
3B- Sandoval, Pablo
2B/SS- Theriot, Ryan
1B/3B- Pena, Carlos
OF- Hamilton, Josh
OF- Hayward, Jason
OF- Pagan, Angel
OF- Jennings, Desmond
OF- Morgan, Nyger
UTIL- Nishioka, Tsuyoshi
BN- Arenciba, J.P.
BN- Espinosa, Danny
BN- Lowrie, Jed
P- Lester, Jon
P- Hamels, Cole
P- Kuroda, Hiroki
P- Papelbon, Johnathan
P- Axford, John
P- Hellickson, Jeremy
P- Chapman, Aroldis
P- Volquez, Edinson
P- Jurrjens, Jair

So there it is. Opinions? Like I said, I'm banking on some of these young guys- especially pitchers- to come through. I know Edinson Volquez had a terrible outing last time out, he walked five guys and giving up five runs in 2 innings, so I'm hoping and praying he'll come around, although starting pitchers are a dime a dozen.

Oh yeah, and I guess I ran a little bit too. Pretty boring week though, save for Thursday night. Thursday night was the night I was cooped up all day in the Law Library until close, which was 10pm. I still hadn't run, and I was debating whether I should go, since it was all dark and cold out. I ended up running at 11 or so, and I decided to run the "bar crawl loop" an 8 mile loop around three college bars. I ran that, and it was a blast. Drunk kids everywhere, which made it really fun. I was kind of worried since part of the run was on Snelling, which isn't the nicest part of town in the world, but it turned out all good.

Once again its on

2011-03-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

Life just doesn't slow down when I want it to- bummer. First, a quick update on my last post- I met with campus life last Thursday , and they said that we could use donated food at Relay and played it off like it was no big deal and that was just standard operating procedure. We also got cleared to get outside monetary donations, albeit a few days after we would have liked. So essentially campus gave us the big FU and then apologized. Of course, it helped that we had our American Cancer Society adviser there to sort of legitimize us and set us apart from a regular St. Thomas club.

I've also began my second Field Experience at Highland Park HS, which in sunny St. Paul. Field experience is this thing St. Thomas has teacher ed candidates do every year which is basically a little student teaching, a little observation. Right now, I'm in Mr. Z's social studies and humanities classes (he teaches three periods of social studies and two of humanities). Yesterday was my first day and I stayed the whole day plus for track practice and basically helped kids with their reading and classwork the whole time. Mr. Z's also the track coach, and he asked me to sign on and help the kids (obviously unpaid). Yesterday I took the distance group on a 7 mile loop at a pretty easy pace, it being the first day and everything; at just a hair under 8:00/mi. Then we did a half hour of lifting and a half hour of core. Good times.

So running. Running's been good to me lately. It finally got warm enough during the nights to night run- I went at 9:30 on Monday night, and it was awesome. Its getting warm enough that I can get away with not wearing tights or gloves either, which is pretty sweet. The only thing I have to worry about are the puddles left by the melting snow freezing over later in the night. Its all good though. Race this weekend, although I'll see if I wake up in time. If not, no big deal, I was planning on bandit- ing it again this year.

This post has nothing to do with running

2011-03-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

So, yeah. If you're looking for running knowledge, move along.

I'm the co- president for the Tommies & Katies relay for life. Co- president because our school does Relay with St. Kate's, a local all girls college; I think I mentioned that already. Anyways, we were dealt a big blow on Tuesday (at least I think it was Tuesday). I met with our Campus Life rep, who is a temp filling in for our normal campus life rep who is out on maternity leave. I met with our old campus life rep twice before she left, and she had us convinced we were green lighted for Relay and everything was on the straight and narrow. However, when I met with this new woman on Tuesday, she said that we really needed to get our s*** together.

Campus passe this new purchasing policy stating that all food used at St. Thomas events must be purchased through "preferred" vendors (in quotes because no one actually prefers them). Anyways, this new person says we must purchase all the food used at relay through campus catering, which is another caveat of the purchasing policy. I can, and did, tell them that "unfortunately, that's not happening" in a few more words in a meeting with the director of campus life on Friday. She said she would try hard to lobby for an exception, but I'm 95% sure thats going to come back in the negative, and that's fine, because I don't think that will pertain to our event, and here's why: (1) Its called the purchasing policy for a reason. Relay is a donation- driven event, so purchasing anything doesn't make sense since our (notice how I said our, not my) operation runs on a song and a lark. If we purchase anything, it will most likely be out of my pocket or from donation money, and I'll go so far as to put my educational career on the line before the latter happens. Since we're not purchasing anything, the policy should not apply to us, its that simple

(2) Relay For Life isn't a St. Thomas event. Its an American Cancer Society event. As far as I'm concerned, St. Thomas isn't even responsible for planning it. Since we work in conjunction with St. Kate's, you could just take us out of the equation, and then where would we be? Well, Relay would be an outside event being held at St. Thomas, making it not subject to the purchasing policy. It already is, technically, since its an ACS event, but just for clarity's sake. (3) really? Is St. Thomas catering really going to provide enough food for 500 people for 12 hours, and for free? Lets be honest, they won't, and there are businesses willing to do it.

Another issue is monetary and material (non- food) donations. For some reason, St. Thomas wants us to run the donations we're planning to get by them before we get them. There are plenty of problems with that too, not the least of which is that we're not really in a position to ask for specific things from specific companies. So, I think I'm just going to hand campus a big ass document of every business imaginable and every item imaginable. I don't think I'll actually do that, but I think you see where I'm going with that. The reason they gave me was for tax reasons. Obviously, businesses who donate want their donations to be tax deductible. However, since St. Thomas never sees the donations, I have no idea why they could oppose donations on those grounds.

As usual, when I met with campus life on Friday, they threatened to pull our funding if we didn't follow the policies. The meeting was eerily similar to a meeting I had with the same person about a year ago about the future of Sigma Chi at St. Thomas (as far as threats go). I've been through this song and dance before.

In case you're interested, here's the purchasing policy
And here's the link to our Relay site

I pride myself on being crazy

2011-02-21T18:33:00.000-08:00

President's day- or, The Day After Tomorrow even though that was an awful movie. Either way, the snowpocolipse dumped another 20 some inches in St. Paul. The onslaught started on Sunday, after I got done with my long run. I ran at 6am, got back at 7:15 or so, went to bed, woke up at 10 to go to church, and there was already a good 3 inches on the ground. By the time I went back to school for my chapter meeting, the roads were already so bad that it took me an hour to get to school when it usually takes 20 minutes. Monday was a snow day, and the snow kept falling throughout the day. I shoveled our sidewalk when I woke up, which took about three hours, and then again in the afternoon, which took an hour and a half- which gives you an idea of how much snow we had.

Anyways, I ran on Monday. Where you ask? well, nowhere really. Everything was under 20'' of snow, and they had given up trying to plow the roads, so I decided to run right through the middle of the road since that was the most clear. Nobody seemed to like that idea much, so I got a bunch of angry honks from the few cars behind me. And I was all like "what? the roads are awful, and you're not going anywhere fast, so just calm down." For real though, I was going faster than cars could go, and I was relegated to 9:00, 9:30 paces.

Also on Monday I had planned a Relay For Life meeting. I'm the president of St. Thomas' Colleges Against Cancer chapter, and so by default a co- president of our Relay For Life chapter, which is done in concert with St. Kate's, which is a all- girls school close by. Since St. Thomas is hosting Relay For Life this year, I have to take a more authoritative stance on the whole deal.We were supposed to have a RFL meeting on that Monday, except we couldn't since both the St. Thomas and St. Kate's campuses were closed. This was kind of Important because I have some things to do that are waiting on that meeting. So I rescheduled it for tomorrow, which was a challenge, since it took us a month to schedule the first meeting on Monday.

On another note, I'm in the process of updating the list of running sites to the left of this post. I'll also add a list of races that I'm running, so you know which races to stay away from

Getting my fingernails dirty, among other things

2011-02-15T14:08:00.000-08:00

Its beginning to feel a lot like baseball season, er, spring. Same thing, really. As I write this, the Twins are working out in Fort Myers. That means its almost time to renew my MLB gameday audio subscription so I can listen to the revamped Red Sox. The first baseball game on the radio is kind of like the official start of spring, whether there's spring on the ground or not. Its even looking like Spring around here, believe it or not. This whole last week was over 40, I think. Most of the snow melted, and I was able to run outside every day last week. One day it was over 50 and I was able to run with out a shirt for most of the run.

Of course, the downside is that I was running through a watery, dirty mess the whole week. I mean, you have a good 24'' of snow on the ground, at least. Where does it all go? I mean, after a point, the storm sewers get clogged, so the slush just hangs around. In some parts its bad, like by my house for the first mile or so. There's still ice in the water and stuff, so its cold even wearing wool socks and stuff. I also kick the stuff up behind me so that the back of my shorts and shirt are covered in muck. It looks legit though, so I don't mind. Another thing is that I feel so tall now. There is a street I run on that the snowbanks were taller than me. If I was running on the sidewalk and you looked from the street you couldn't see me at all because of the snowbanks. Now the snowbanks are melted a little bit to where I can see over them. I feel so tall right now!

That said, its supposed to snow 6'' tomorrow.

North Dakota, holler

2011-02-14T09:13:00.000-08:00

This weekend has by far been the highlight of my running career outside of racing, and the highlight of my Sigma Chi life since Initiation. I was meaning to post about this before the weekend, but whatevs I guess. I pushed off my tempo run until Friday and switched it with an easy run because I was sick on Thursday, which is usually my tempo run day. I skipped work because I needed to sleep in. I usually wake up for work around 5:30am, so I think I just basically ran myself into the ground. I slept until 9am and felt good enough. So anyways, easy run that day on the treadmill, watched an entire episode of divorce court. **** got real. The next day we were set to go to North Dakota at 3, and seeing as I got out of class at 1:30, I kind of had to drop the hammer a little bit. I was supposed to go 2@8's, then 5@7's, then 1@8's, but it turned out to be something like 5:00@8's, 5@6:25's, 1@7:45's for time's sake. I just barely got to take a shower too.

Me and 5 other Sigma Chi brothers headed down to the NDSU campus for the North Central Provence conference 2011. For those who don't know, which is probably everyone, provence is kind of like a regional conference. So Friday night we rolled up to our sketched- out hotel around 7, and called for dinner. We went to Granite City, and waited three hours to get our food. Granted, we did have a group of 30 and it was a Friday night, but come on. It was midnight or so when everybody got finished, so we just went home and went to bed. The actual provence meeting was the next day, and that was pretty cool. One of our Grand Officers skyped in, so that was kind of cool to have someone 1/3 of the fraternity's leadership at the meeting. So that went well, it was long though.

After the meeting we went back to the hotel and the guys I was with drank a lot. Then we went to a place called the Sports Bubble, which is kind of like the metrodome only not as big and still inflated. We were like the only guys there, which was a little weird, but we played football anyways. I'm not even that good at football, but since everyone was drunk, I was doing work.

After that most of the guys went to a cigar shop that we couldn't get into because the entrance was through a bar and I'm not 21. So we went to the NDSU sigs' house and the other brothers said they would join us in half an hour. So it was good and we hung out there for a while, until all of the NDSU sigs fell asleep, which was a little weird because it was only 11:30 and now we were the only guys awake. By that time I was getting pretty hungry, so me and the guy I was with took a pizza from the fridge and turned on the oven. Not our pizza, but whatever, we're brothers, right?

Shortly after, one of the brothers who wasn't drinking called me and let me know he was coming home from the bar. I told him to swing by and pick us up, because now it was 12:30 or so and I wanted to go to bed. so he did, but we still had this pizza. We didn't have an oven in the room, so we tore it in 4 pieces and microwaved it. Long story short, it didn't work. So don't cook pizza in the microwave.

That morning, I woke up to a call from our consul's girlfriend at 5:30, and she was thinking I was our consul, so she was laying the mack down pretty hard. That was pretty awkward. Anyways, I had an 18 mile run, so I got dressed and did that. That was really cool. I knew where I was going, but at the same time I didn't. I headed out from Fargo, and made my way down to Moorhead, through the campus of MSU Moorhead, and Concordia and back to Fargo. It was pretty cool running past the "Minnesota welcomes you" sign on the way there and the "thank you for visiting" sign on the way back. I wish I had a camera, it was pretty cool, and I felt like a total badass.

You are not the father!

2011-02-02T18:14:00.000-08:00

No, I don't have a kid you don't know about. I was watching the Maury Show this afternoon. Before you get worried about me, let me explain. I ran today on the treadmill. Since the demographic of people in the St. Thomas cardio room is mostly young ladies, so the TVs were set up to talk shows and stuff. The TV right in front of me was tuned to the Maury Show, and since I went 50 minutes today, so I saw the whole thing, and that includes the "Am I the father?" segment or whatever, which was hilarious. But yeah, I felt like I let myself down running on the treadmill. I haven't ran inside all winter, but finally broke down. It wasn't even that cold, only -17 degree windchill (not even exaggerating, I ran in -27 degree windchill earlier this year, it sounds worse than it actually is.) The main reason I gave in is because of Grandmas training. This year I'm trying to hit a specific time (Boston, so 3:10:59 or less) so my workouts are usually run at a set pace that goes down by a couple seconds every week. This week its 8:17, save for tomorrow, which is a tempo run at 6:50's.

Yesterday I ran outside, and I actually averaged close to 8:15's, although I really couldn't tell you how. I pieced together a few routes, and ran through two college campuses and passed as many businesses as I could because they have the best chance of having a somewhat clear sidewalk. Somehow, I strung together two 7:00 miles and the rest were mid 8's. It sucked though, the hardest 7 mile run I've done in a while. So today I decided on the treadmill. First time in the new athletic center and I was pretty impressed. Finally something that looks like its worth the tuition I pay to go to this godforsaken school. Lets run down the pros and cons of the run:
Pros:

Wore flats for the first time in 4 months
Didn't have to wear multiple layers or deal with wind
met some really good looking ladies
No hills or ice
Putting my shirt over the treadmill display made it much easier psychologically
Ran straight 8:17's every mile
It feels awesome knowing that you ran longer than most people in the room

Cons:

Ran straight 8:17's every mile
I finished my run knowing I had not gone anywhere
Somebody stole my shirt
meatheads
no hills, nothing really distinctive
It was freakin 70 degrees the whole time!
I was sweating profusely

Bottom line, I could live without the treadmill. If I wasn't in marathon training, I wouldn't bother with that garbage. But now its a necessary evil. Especially for my tempo run tomorrow. Then we'll see what goes down.

That probably would have hurt if it wasnt so awesome

2011-01-31T16:49:00.000-08:00

Or, "Que sera sera"

And we're back to running. Today's run was a fun one, with the goal more endurance than distance or time. Who am I kidding? there was no real goal. Its the day before marathon training starts and I just wanted to get some acidosis going on. It was snowing fairly hard when I got out of class and laced up the shoes, and there was quite a bit on the ground. It looked pretty, but it wasn't pretty to run in. It was pretty much a "pick your poison run," meaning that whichever route I picked to run wouldn't be 100% runable. I picked my normal 8 mile route down by the U of M, but only ran 5 of it. Its usually pretty well plowed, but not today. I couldn't even finish my warm up mile and a half warm up. I wiped out five times during my warm up, and ended up walking a little under half of it. Surprisingly, I didn't break anything. I fell a total of 6 times during that five miler. It was a good time though, I was fine during my run, save for being ridiculously hot and sweaty for it being 8 degrees outside.

I also got my Garmin watch today. I really wanted one, but honestly, I let my ambition get the best of me and ordered it last weekend. Granted, I wanted it for pace training for Grandmas, but I'm in a big fiscal crisis right now, it being the beginning of the semester and all, and I let my impulses get the best of me a little bit. That notwithstanding, I got a Garmin 305 off Amazon for $120 with free shipping, which is pretty cheap compared to what I could find. Anyways, I charged it up during my International Law and Orgs class and ran with it today. I'll review it later because today I used it in glorified watch mode. My heart rate (while I was running) was well over 180, so that tells you how tough the run was. The problem was I wasn't running all the time, which screwed everything up. However, I did somehow manage to click off miles 3 and 4 at 7:35 and 7:40, respectively. Just don't ask me to do it again.

Que Sera Sera means "whatever will be, will be" in Latin. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to start my Grandma's training on the treadmill. That is, if I can fit it in. Otherwise, we'll see how it goes.

All Star review: swing and a miss

2011-01-30T16:25:00.000-08:00

Or, "Bettman whiffs on another gimmick," or, "taking steps to alienate actual hockey fans."

Disclaimer: I know this is a running blog, but I've written about hockey before, and I'll do it again. If you're not interested, no offense taken, you can just sit this post out.

I just got finished watching NHL All- Star weekend from Raleigh, NC. This year the NHL tried a new format for All Star weekend, most notably instituting a fantasy draft for the all stars voted in. Both captains, Eric Staal and Nicholas Lindstrom were assisted by their assistant captains in picking a team from the available pool of players. I wasn't crazy about the fantasy draft idea to begin with, but I guess I can live with it. I'm hockey purist, so that was probably most of it. I was also hoping and praying that Ovechkin and Crosby weren't put on opposite teams (which most likely would have happened, had Crosby played), resulting in a ugly media orgasm not unlike the Winter Classic, which was billed as Crosby vs. Ovechkin plus some other guys who happen to be skating on the same ice sheet, but for all intents and purposes won't get mentioned. But I eventually warmed up to the fantasy draft, although I still think they should have kept the East vs. West format.

Saturday was the Super Skills competition, which was nothing short of a disaster. It started with the player introductions. Visually it was awesome, but it was filled with mistakes. This year they added a relay event, which consisted of 4 (or six, I can't remember) teams doing a relay consisting of a one- timer competition, a passing competition, a stickhandling component, and accuracy shooting. The competition was set up as a tournament, with the two fastest times "playing eachother." I couldn't even watch that. It was so boring. I wouldn't be opposed to the NHL adding the stickhandling component as a stand alone event, that was the only keeper of the bunch. Get rid of the relay, please! The only gripe I had passed that was that all the competitions were set up as head to head tournaments pitting team Staal against team Lindstrom. That was not only confusing, but unnecessary- just why? the superskills is an individual, not a team competition. The shootout competition was also super lame. Corey Perry was the only one who pulled a really sick move, and he got stoned by Fleury. They timed the accuracy shooting competition, so they did like the first person to hit all four targets the quickest. Awful. At the end they did a last man standing breakaway competition, where if you didn't score on your breakaway, you were out. That was the on;y event where it wasn't really segregated by team, and they did it right. So kudos to the NHL on that one.

The game itself was good. A little lackluster, save for the last ten minutes, but it was a good game overall. They could do away with mic- ing the goalies I think, but maybe I'm thinking that because I used to play goalie. The player intro was very Ottawa Senators in last year's playoffs- esque, so in other words just weird. The music made me want to throw up. Three Doors Down? really? like come on, pick someone who was popular in at least the last five years. They also plated way too much rap, and not popular rap either. I also heard the Cha Cha Slide at least three times and the Cupid Shuffle once. At a hockey game? really? come on man. Also, get rid of Doc Emerick, he's an awful announcer and makes me want to cut my ears off. They should just let Eric Staal commentate. My favorite part was when he and Doc were talking. It went something like this

Doc: Here's a three on one for team Lindstrom
Staal (screaming): FOR GOD'S SAKE GET BACK!

That, or the ref talking to Staal saying "that would be f***ing awesome." Don't even get me started on the NHL Guardian cartoons released during the second intermission. So, in summary:

Fantasy draft: good
Changes to Super Skills: worse than bad
Game itself: good

Holding down the couch like its my job

2011-01-28T20:24:00.000-08:00

The calendar is up in my room, and that only means one thing, and that thing is that marathon training is starting up on February 1^st. Which marathon am I training for? Not sure yet. Maybe Grandmas again, maybe Med City, maybe something else. Whatever though, I mean four months is a long time. I better be prepared rather than unprepared if I decide to do a spring marathon, whichever one.

So, running has been tough lately. On Tuesday, I ran, and I chafed. Like, real bad. I was chafed in places where no dude wants to be chafed. If you’re a guy I think you know what I mean. So I took two days off- completely off, save for core work. It sucked. I usually don’t wear body glide because I usually don’t chafe, except in the late miles of marathons. I learned my lesson this time. This morning I got up and ran, although not as far as I had planned. I went three. Three whole miles.

One of my problems was that I wore my GTS 11’s for the first time in three months or so. Bad idea because today was the first day over freezing in forever, so the streets were filled with slush. It was a slog fest, and I doubt I could have gone very far anyways because of the conditions. I was sweating even after the three miles I did run. Despite that, I’ma try and run tonight after work if I can.

Run #2-

I ran after work because I couldn't leave today at just three miles. It was still pretty warm outside when I got home around 9:30, but same song second verse, really. I decided to count time since counting miles was pretty much useless since the roads were so bad. Usually my winter runs are confined to one or two routes because people don't shovel their sidewalks, but today it was bad everywhere. Definitely should have hit up the indoor track.

I missed the Milrose games, which I'm pissed about, but I heard ESPN 2's coverage wasn't that great either (surprise, surprise). But I got to see the tail end of the Gopher Hockey game and the NHL all star fantasy draft. I'm not sure what I think of the new format yet, I'm sure I'll write a post on it, but not right now because my head hurts like nobody's business.

That feeling of feeling

2011-01-24T18:59:00.000-08:00

Today it was 27 degrees when I started my run at 5:20, and 25 degrees when I finished at 6:10. Above zero! This is big news, it was almost Florida hot in the great state of Minnesnowta. Okay, I shouldn't get too carried away, but it was nice not having to wear two jackets, thermal tights, and a hat. Of course, when there's a good foot and a half of snow on the ground and it warms up even a little bit, you get the snow melt. That kind of sucked a lot since St. Paul doesn't do the best job of shoveling off their footpaths in the winter. But nonetheless, it was nice not having to thaw out after a run. For example, on Sunday I went 14.5 in -2 degree temps (not windchill), and after I got back I couldn't really do anything. It even took me a while to lay on the couch because I was literally frozen. I had ice everywhere, it was great. But I mean, today I came in and I had sweat dripping down my face, and usually those are icicles.

Also on Sunday I went computer shopping with my grandparents. Their computer crashed a few days ago. Actually, the motherboard went bad. I offered to replace the motherboard for them, but they said they'd rather get a new computer. A new motherboard would take a while to get here anyway. So we went to Best Buy, and then Staples. I might have mentioned before that I work for St. Thomas' tech support department, and unfortunately my granddad pointed that out to everyone in the store when they asked "do you need such and such a support package?" That kind of got on my nerves, but whatevs. So he picked out a computer and a wireless printer and we went home. After 4 hours of shopping though! are you kidding me?

Anyways, I networked the wireless printer, fixed his wireless router, and set up his computer. I also recovered the data from his old hard drive and put it on his new one. You know what that would have cost him? $425! for an hour and a half of data recovery! that's highway robbery. I should start my own computer repair shop. Honestly though, if you have a computer question, you should let me know, since I do that stuff for a living.

I'm watching the show "I used to be fat." I think that show is hilarious. Maybe that's not the right word- amusing, there you go. Let me explain myself though before you go and tear me a new one. I think its great that people are getting into shape. Thats great, good for them. What's funny is when they're surprised getting in and staying in shape is hard work. There's a reason they call it "letting yourself go." I think a lot of that is how I was raised though. I'm a big fan of the "play the cards you're dealt" philosophy.

But anyways, I'm rambling, and I've got to find my phone that I lost earlier today.

Ice, ice baby

2011-01-20T16:23:00.000-08:00

Its cold. Every day I've said that, and the next day's colder. Today, I had to do 10 miles because I felt bad about skipping running the past two days. In my defense, I was feeling pretty crappy both days. Yesterday (Wednesday) was by far the worst; I couldn't keep anything down and was rushing to the bathroom every 10 minutes and got no sleep because of it. I still don't feel the greatest, but I'm not in that bad of shape. For instance, today's run I had sloshy stomach throughout the whole thing, and I felt like I was going to puke my guts out for a while, but never actually did throw up, even though I gave myself ample opportunity. I hop you weren't eating when you read that. Anyone want to play doctor and tell me what's up?

Anyways, when I started my run it was 4f, and when I finished it had warmed up to six degrees (not windchill, actual temperature). Supprisingly though, it wasn't that cold- except when I went across the Hennipin bridge- that made me wish I was dead. I wore two layers though-three on my legs. I went wind briefs, thermal tights, and running shorts on my legs, and a Craft Nordic Ski wind blocker long sleeve fitted mockneck, and a softshell jacket over that on my upper body. I was actually kind of toasty. My "beard" froze too, which was pretty legit- had icicles dripping down and all that. I wish I had taken a picture.

Also, this kid in my psychology class who goes to Hamline and runs cross country for them released this mix tape called The Fly Away a few days ago. I'm not a huge fan of rap, but his stuff is pretty good, especially for a debut album. His name is Ellis Cleve and you can download The Fly Away here. Give it a listen, you won't be disappointed.

Second, one of the runners I used to coach at the Courage Center, Krista Pylkki got a really nice article written up in the paper about her. Krista's a Paralympic hopeful in the 400m and currently holds the 400m world record in her disability class. Right now, she's in New Zealand competing in the IPC world championships for team USA. I'll explain how elite level disabled sports work in a later post, but the fact that she can compete at this high level just blows my mind. I had the honor of competing in track and swimming, as well as coach Krista, and you'll never meet a harder worker. Link to story

How to: Run in the winter

2011-01-17T18:54:00.000-08:00

**The idea for this post was stolen from Cole over at The Art Of Running. This is kind of an addendum to his post, so check his blog out for more!

Dealing With the Weather

If you're planning on doing an out-and- back, make sure you start running against the wind, that way when you come back the wind is at your back, not in your face. I ignored this on my long run on Sunday, and the sweat on my shirt froze so it took like 20 minutes to get my shirt off after I was done
Be cold. Make sure you're chilly when you start running, because you're going to heat up quickly. Make sure you wear less on your lower body than your upper body, and use a hat sparingly. Contrary to popular belief, you don't lose most of your heat from your head. Also your hands are slow to warm up
Chances are, if there's cold, there's snow and ice. Invest in a pair of trail shoes, preferrably with gore- tex or something of that ilk. Or you could get a pair of yaktrax, although I've never had a pair so I can't comment on them
If you're a dude, wear some wind briefs. My rule is sub- 30f and they go on. They get a little toasty at times, but its better than not being able to have kids ever.

Don't get hit

If you're running late, or know you may be running when the sun is going down, wear a headlamp. Seriously, this is the best investment I've ever made. Its not uncomfortable, and cars can see you a lot further out than normal reflective strips
Count to three after you see the walk light while crossing intersections. Black ice and unplowed streets make stopping distance exponentially longer. I usually like to push it when crossing most intersections (eg. If there's no car coming, I'll cross, no matter what), but I wouldn't think about it in Winter
Run on the sidewalk or pedestrian paths. If you have to run in the street or on a bike lane, make sure you're as visible as possible
Cary some form of identification in case you do get hit (God forbid). I have a Road ID that's linked to an online database with all my medical info. Even better, carry a cell phone if you can
If you're running at night- and this is just a general rule- don't wear headphones. Its safer and more fun because you can sneak up on people

The loneliness of the long distance runner

2011-01-14T16:50:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not referring to the book because that book sucked. Seriously, don't read it, it made me want to jump off a bridge. Book was super depressing. Anyways, I think I named a post the same thing two years ago, but deal with it. This one will probably be better anyways.

I'm almost done with Once A Runner, I've got 30 minutes (~1 chapter) left. I'm at the part where he's just about to compete in the Southeastern Relays against John Walton in the mile as his Finnish alter ego. I'm going to finish up the book tonight, even though I promised myself I would only listen to the book while running. I'm pretty amped to get home and listen to it, even though I could probably write the last few chapters of OAR from memory. I've read it five times already. Once A Runner is like the Bible- you pick up something new each time you read it.

Anyways, it was freezing cold today. It was the type of cold where I wish it would have snowed just because that would have raised the temperature a few degrees. It did snow at the tail end of my run, which made me want to go longer except I couldn't because I had to go to work. I love running in the snow, except the part where snow accumulates on the sidewalks- that part sucks. It seems to be an epidemic around me, and I'm guilty of it too. It snows, you tell yourself "I'll shovel that tomorrow," the snow melts and freezes overnight, you decide it takes too much time to shovel that, and it snows again and the cycle repeats itself. What results is piss poor footing and an uphill battle to stay upright and move forward at the same time.

And so is born my current crisis. I fell and ripped my running tights the other day, which is a problem when I only have one pair. So the last few runs have been chilly, and I have my Brooks wind briefs to thank that I still have the, um... ability to have children, shall we say? So, I'll have to hit up Run 'n' Fun on Sunday... oh shoot.

Other than that, today's run was pretty awesome. I ran to the U, but this time crossed over to the West Bank for some variety. It was peaceful. I named this post the loneliness of the long distance runner because we all are solitary creatures, and crave that time when we're alone with our minds, with an expanse of road in front of us. Some of us don't need that, but I know I do. I live in our fraternity house and someone is having a good time there almost every night. I'm not a party guy per say, since I don't drink and the measure of a man seems to be how many beers he can drink. So, its nice to get away from that mess and... I don't know... reground yourself?

That also concludes my first full week of consistent training since late July. Only 20 miles, but at a 7:54 average pace, which is halfway respectable, all things considered. I still have one workout left to add to my flotrack workout log that is written on a pizza box on my bed. That just oozes class. I ran 4 days, which I think I could up one more day without, you know, the knee flaring up. Its finding the time that's the issue.

Brooks Adrenaline GTS 11 review

2011-01-13T11:32:00.001-08:00

**Disclaimer: I've run a grand total of 22 miles in the Adrenaline 11's, so take this worth a grain of salt. However, they have been sitting at the top of my closet for upwards of three months, so I feel like I owe a review anyways.**

So, the first question that probably crosses your mind is "why have you had these shoes for three months and still only have double digit miles on them? are they a bad shoe?" The answer to that question is no, no Brooks shoe is a bad one, especially not an Adrenaline series. I bought these shoes in late November, a few weeks before we got 2 feet of snow. Because of the snow and ice, I had to switch from the Adrenalines to some trail shoes to give me some traction. Come when the snow melts, I'll wear these shoes much more often, and I'll tell you why.

The first thing I noticed getting these shoes out of the box is their um... interesting lacing configuration. I'm having a tough time finding a picture of the lacing specifically, but basically there are these tabs above the eyelets in the actual shoe itself that you lace the shoe through, in addition to the traditional eyelets. In addition, there's another loop sewn into the tongue in the top corner, dubbed the lace lock. One of the first things I do when I get new shoes is replace the standard laces with neon ones, so learning the intricacies of relacing took a little time and a few attempts.

The second addition, which was billed as a major overhaul, was the addition of the Brooks DNA cusioning material. For me, I see plusses and minuses with this. DNA is supposed to give you the right responsiveness proportional to the force you put on the shoe. I like the idea, but it may be a little soft for me, but that's personal oppinion. When I say soft, what I mean is this: When I want to go fast, I wear flats, and when I go slow I wear trainers. Naturally, DNA is going to be softer on my slower runs, but I mean they're not made out of sponge cake or anything. Maybe its paradoxical, but the heel- toe transition is amazing. These shoes are buttery smooth.

One thing that I wasn't fond of in the GTS 10's was the small, cramped toebox. The toebox is most definately wider then the 10's, but the whole shoe is wider. Not by much. For example, the Ghost 3 has the same problem compared to the Ghost 2, but to a greater extent.

In conclusion, buy this shoe, but if you can't find it or are on a budget, try to find the previous version. One thing I hate about other shoe companies is that they don't update their new models. For Brooks, a new version means just that- something totally new and innovative, for better or worse. In this case, the update is definately for the better.

John L. Parker is not William Shakespeare

2011-01-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

Theres a raging debate on Track Talk (okay, not a raging debate, but its there) about Once A Runner and its literary merit. Not only that, but I've heard "Once A Runner sucks" from quite a few people. It might be coincidence but the majority are fat kids who haven't ran a mile in their lives. Anyways, the question was brought up "would a non- runner even want to read OAR?" I don't really care, but I don't think so. From a non runner's perspective, I think I would find OAR quite boring. A whole chapter on 400 repeats? pages and pages describing unremarkable training runs in detail? really? I love OAR, but its no To Kill A Mockingbird or Catcher in The Rye. That said, I'd rather read OAR than both those books because OAR is about runners, and runners are a rare breed . Not all of us obsess over shoes or 400 repeats, or Sammy Wanjiru's high school cross country times. Maybe not all runners do, but all runners run, and so a book about running naturally appeals to them all. So I guess in that sense is a cult classic. In the world of running books though, its got to be at or near the top.

As far as running goes, I did it, I went back to back. I shouldn't have, but it happened. I'll probably end up going three days in a row too since I have a three hour break between class and work tomorrow. I only went 45 minutes. Only 45. Why do I say only 45? Well, I'm going slow for one, I'm just trying to build up a long slow milage base so I can get a few good months of training under me and then figure out what I'm going to do with my life. I'm on chapter 11 of OAR as well. Book gets better each time you read it

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run

2011-01-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

And so it begins. That's part of a quote by Rudyard Kipling, but I hope you know that already. I actually know that quote by heart- every year we have a packet of readings each day for our pledge process for Sigma Chi. That quote is from one of the packets we had to read during our pledge period, and we had to chose one reading from each packet to discuss in front of the actives each night. I chose "if" (that poem) and talked about OAR and Quenton Cassidy and Bruce Denton and all that. Of course, no one knew what I was talking about.

The moral of the story is that I started reading Once A Runner again for the third time. Actually, I downloaded it on audiobook from the library and loaded it on my iPod. It works pretty nicely, although I do have a complaint. OAR was only available in Windows Media Player format, and it wasn't playable on a mac since you needed a certain codec not available on mac to play it. No problem right? I started up my virtual machine and downloaded the book. After installing the apple usb drivers on my virtual machine, I was ready to roll. I plugged in my iPod, but had to reformat my ipod for windows, which erased all my songs. That was kind of a headache, but whatever. Im already on chapter 7.

On to the actual meat of the post, right? Well, I ran a little over 7 miles in about an hour. Slow, but peaceful. It was nice to go out there in the light snow and just slog through a couple miles. granted, it was a little difficult footing, but its all good. Night runs are awesome, and snow running is awesome, so put both together is really awesome. My knee felt really good too. I could feel it a little bit in the last mile or two coming home, but not a problem.

Nice one, Flotrack

2011-01-05T15:55:00.000-08:00

I ran 5.2 miles today, maybe more, but the number's irrelevant because it was 40 minutes, my longest continuous run since mid- July. I know that's slow, but try not to laugh. Out loud anyway. As to the condition I'm in right now, I'm not hurting, but definitely couldn't crank out a double. My knee is letting me know its there, but its under control and I iced it just in case. But whatever. So today, I logged on to my Flotrack account for the first time in a couple weeks. I usually go there daily, but haven't logged in in a while since I haven't had to post a workout in a couple weeks, maybe a month. Since I logged in, Flotrack changed formats and updated their site. I figured it out, but I went to select a shoe, and it said I didn't have any. Its a good thing that most of the shoes I own are new or close to it, save for my flats, so it doesn't make much difference. I'm light anyways, so putting a ton of miles on shoes isn't that rate. I used to count miles meticulously and switch shoes every 600 miles or so, but I can't afford that anymore and since I've done a lot of timed runs lately its hard to count miles. No big deal really, just kind of annoying I have to re- add them.

A new year, a new me?

2011-01-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

Its been a while, but hopefully I can get myself back up on the horse, so to speak. You haven't missed much, I'm back to running, but not that much- my monthly mileage is still in the double digits. If I even count mileage, let alone log it. As long as I run more than a half hour each time out, I can't complain, but I miss it. There are days- a lot of days- where I feel like a 20 miler would really hit the spot but know it won't happen. I keep busy though, I mean, I've got a full plate with school, although its on a downward spiral now that I only have class for three hours a day. So I'll ramp up slowly, as in running slowly and see how it goes. I mean, I'll be careful and all that, but at the same time, its been six months since I've really ran. I guess I'm day to day. But aren't we all?

In other news, my laptop crashed, and I'm going on five hours of data recovery. F- you genius bar, I don't need you. And you thought macs couldn't get viruses. My goal for this January is to read Once A Runner (again) and Again to Carthage. Updates to follow...

Griak bound

2010-09-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

I'm headed up to the Griak invetational tomorrow. However, I'm not running. Feels bad, bro. I don't know, I've already missed three races out of the club cross country season, and it doesn't look go for me making the rest of them, so I'm suffering from race withdrawl hard core. Obviously, I'm pretty pumped to see the Gopher Men and Women, but look out for Duke. I'm looking at the Down the Backstretch article, and it says only three of the top 12 finishers from last year are returning, so it should be your perverbial duel in the sun- allthough its most likely going to be overcast and cold. I'm also excited to see the UST women, who should put up a fairly strong showing. Someone I will not be seeing, however, is Minnesota runner Hassan Mead. After missing both track seasons with an achillies injury, he recently got hospitalized with a collapsed lung. He's since been released, but he's also been ruled out for all of the XC season and placed on medical redshirt. You can read the full story here

In other news, I went a whopping 3 and 3 tenths miles yesterday, which is the farthest I've gone since my injury. I was really really sluggish, but it was fun, and I didn't feel any pain during the majority of the run. Plus, it was pouring rain, which made it all the more awesome. I was running shirtless too, which got me a couple wierd looks. Yeah, wierd I know, also counterintuitive, but bear with me here. It wasn't that cold, even with the rain- more humid then anything. Plus, it was coming down in sheets, so I knew that whatever I wore would instantly get soaked and weigh me down, so I dressed light- shorts, shoes with no socks, and a running cap. It seems to me when you do stuff like that people either love you or hate you- they think you're crazy or a total bad ass. I had some lady throw me a towel at the intersection of Marshall and Snelling. I don't know what she expected me to do with it because it was still raining pretty hard at the time, but a nice gesture nonetheless.

And of course, my knee is aching more than ever this morning. I'm slated for an MRI next friday though after two and a half months of paperwork!

Wow its been a while

2010-09-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, I've been struggling a little bit with spurts of depression and apathy, and even more depression. See, its been three months or so since I stopped running consistently, and zero progress is really grating on my nerves. I don't know if I posted this or not, but I finally went to see the orthopedist a month or so ago. The doctor there scheduled an MRI for my knee, but insurance had to clear it first. I just got the call yesterday in class that the insurance did clear it, and after being on hold for damn near 45 minutes, I'm not all good yet. Since I've got titanium plates in my head from a brain surgery I had 5 years ago, the MRI tech wanted the results of my last MRI. I've had a lot of them since I had the plates put in to patch my skull, albeit they were 10-15 years ago, so that might take some doing. All told, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but no way to get through the tunnel without getting hit by an oncoming train.

In other news, I am running a little bit though, granted not enough. I try to jog a couple miles once every two days or so. Usually I go two miles, and the furthest I’ve gone is three- definitely not enough to keep me sane. I’m dying to just fly through a 20 mile run right now. Its weird, sometimes I’ll feel fine and I’ll ask myself why I’m not going faster and farther, and then five minutes later I’ll feel like complete shit. Last night’s run was a perfect example. I felt pretty great, granted my knee was giving me a little grief on my way back. Still, I pounded out three miles in 21 minutes and felt great, proportionally. However, when I got home, I f-in hurt, man. You know when you get overtired and your leg or whatever hurts, but you can’t nail it down? I don’t know, to me it feels like its hollow, it hurts like the dickens, and I can even feel my bones grinding together; its not a fun experience.

I haven't been writing

2010-08-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

I really don't have much to say. I haven't been running, and its been that way for over a month now. After all, this is about my running, and if I'm not running, then there really isn't a point. So, I was putting off going to the doctor as long as I could by doing all the things that I was pretty sure the doctor was going to tell me anyways, such as: stop running, crosstrain on a regular basis, stretch a lot, ice, compression, elevation, blah, blah, blah. That didn't do it. I tried running two weeks ago in Wednesday, and didn't make it a quarter mile. My knee started shooting pain like it did before, and it felt like the fluid in my knee was boiling just like when it first happened. I finally gave up and went into the doctor. After a 2 hour wait, I finally got some x-rays that were inconclusive and talked to a doctor. She gave me this solid knee brace that I wear every night- pretty much whenever I'm not at work. She also scheduled an MRI for me, but who knows if that will ever get done because my insurance company sucks. So there we go. I feel old, fat, and slow, and all I want to do is run. I feel like I'm wasting my summer.

Phase 2

2010-08-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

Phase two is almost over, and I couldn't be happier. I've been biking all week. Well, actually, I shouldn't give myself that much credit. I've biked three days out of the last five, but I'll let myself off the hook a little bit because I worked 12.5 hours on Monday, one of the days I skipped. I still have two days left in the week though. In other news, my butt hurts. Seriously, if I could put my own saddle on one of those bikes I'd go out and buy one today; the ones they have on the bikes are worthless. Whatever though, only two days and I'm running three days the next week. I'm pretty excited- the Ghost 3's I ordered from the Brooks ID site came in the mail the same day I bought some Shay XC 2's. The best day ever, only I couldn't run. Obviously, I'm going to have to build my mileage up slowly. I'm thinking one mile Monday, two Wednesday, and three Friday or Saturday. I'ma do all those runs on a treadmill or indoor track at an easy 8:30 or 9:00 pace. After that, I'm still planning to go up a mile a day, but go four days a week outside. I'll just go like that until I feel overly good or end up running all seven days. There, I have to say that or else I won't follow my own advice.

In other news, I went home for the weekend, and went to a Twins game for the first time this year. My dad got some work tickets in the Champions Club, which is basically the first 20 rows and three sections in front of home plate, plus an exclusive, buffet style fancy restaurant under the stadium included in the ticket. Its pretty cool because there's a panel window into the Twins batting cages where they hit when they can't take on- field batting practice. Its pretty cool, we sat maybe 10 or 12 rows up from home plate, and it was just unreal. I'll never be able to afford those tickets in my life.

In other news, I've just been getting fat and drinking Lipton Green Teas. I've gained 11 pounds since I stopped running by the way, I'm now a whopping 128lbs. I don't know how I feel about that.

I'm currently listening to an episode of the Marathon Show about the Rock' n' Roll Marathon series. They're currently preaching the goodness of the so- called "running buffets" and keeping courses open for 6, 7,8 hours so everyone can be a runner. I'm going to do a post on that subject if I ever get bored one day, but let me just say this: I ran a 4:28 marathon and am not proud of it at all. If I would have got to the finish line and everybody would have packed up and gone home, I'd have been okay with it.

I'm legitamately pissed right now

2010-07-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

My troubles started last Wednesday, when I was still in Illinois. I was running along the shoulder of one of the roads on my way to the forest to go run some trails. This specific road was raised a couple inches such that the shoulder I was running on was raised a good four to five inches off the ground; and it was a straight vertical drop to the grass. It worried me a little, especially when the shoulder narrowed and cars were almost brushing you going 65 mph. It was a little unnerving, and I was always thinking of the worst. So anyway, I was running down the shoulder of this highway, and a car swerved toward me on the shoulder, so I instinctively jumped off the shoulder and into the grass. Actually, I didn't jump, I more like fell. I caught one of my feet on the edge of the shoulder and lost my balance, so I rolled down this hill this road was on. I came up a little rattled and bloody, but none the worse for wear. My knee was killing me, but its always like that after you bump it a little bit. Anyways, I had fallen into a couple bushes as well, so I wasn't feeling the greatest, so I walked/ limped/ ran home.

So whatever, I iced my knee until Saturday morning, and Saturday was my first run. Bad idea. I was expecting some pain and stiffness but yikes. It felt like my kneecap was on fire. I've never felt such intense pain. It was awful, and I had to curtail my run at 15 minutes, all though it wasn't that long since I walked a lot. The next day I drove home, which didn't help matters, even though I got out of the car every hour or so to try and move around. I wasn't getting anywhere. My knee hurt to bend every which way, but more forward and back than side to side. And going up stairs, that was the worst. When I got home it took me like half an hour to make 2 trips up and down the two flights of stairs to my room. I had to go up one step at a time and couldn't put any weight on my left knee or I thought it would collapse, it felt that unstable. Since I got home around 10pm, I only iced for half an hour and went to bed.

That was Sunday, and I iced all of Monday, and Tuesday morning. I was a little shocked Monday night when I could walk with little pain. I mean, I was far from not hurting, but at least I could move around. I could also pinpoint the pain, which was another big step, because now I could do some googleing and figure out what was up. Tuesday I accidentally came down the stars leading with my left leg, which previously led to excruciating pain, but it wasn't there. I mean it still hurt quite a bit, but the stabbing pain wasn't there. So that was good. I decided it was time to start rehabbing for real.

This is really what pisses me off no end. Our school has 2 workout facilities on campus. One is on the south side of campus, one north. The north campus gym doesn't exist anymore since they tore it down and are building a 4 million dollar athletic complex that looks like ****. I got over to the south side and it was closed until the end of first semester. I was beyond mad because it took me a while to hobble over to south gym, and now I had to go back. Beyond that, now I had to find some place to go. Its like this: I could sit on my butt all day and eventually my knee wouldn't hurt anymore. However, I'm looking for my knee to actually get better because I'ma be honest with you; once my knee stops hurting I'm out the door for a few miles. But if it stops hurting, that just means its rested, not actually better. I'm not sure what's wrong, but obviously I'm going to want to strengthen my knee before I run, else I'm just going to get hurt again.

So, my mission was to find a gym or something. Preferably one that had like a week free so I could pretend to be interested for a while and then switch to another one. This was pretty much an overriding concern. I didn't care if I had to workout with bros or guidos but if I could get it for free its all good. Not happening though. Nobody had a free offer more than a day, and most I had to be 21 for, and since they had to have my info on file, I don't think I could get away with lying. So, my second concern was no guidos, guidettes, meat heads, or barbies. I'm already pretty depressed I'm one of those guys who has to join a gym, I don't think I could take a bunch of orange guys walking around. Third concern was cost and time. Of course, I don't want to pay like a million dollars to ride a bike, and I won't do it forever either, allthough it might not be a half bad idea to throw in a day of cross training every week. Anyways, I just need something to do until the school gym opens. Thats part of the problem too, I feel fat and lazy when I don't do anything.

So, I broke down and joined the YMCA. I'm not going to lie, I had to bite my lip and swallow my pride while doing it. While it had excersize bikes, a pool, it was freakin expensive. Like $60 for the month, I think? rediculous. Its nice though because its like a 10 minute walk from work too. So here's what I'm thinking: until next Friday, its all spinning. No exceptions. Hopefully I can work back to 2 hours, at least. After that, I'ma do both, and alternate days spinning and running- probably on the indoor track or tradmill. After that, I'll go to six days a week running, one spinning or biking. That is, if all goes well. So there it is, hold me to that schedule

The Burger on the Run road show

2010-07-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

This weekend was supposed to be all that and a bag of chips running wise. Boy, was I wrong. Bonnackburn, Illinois is the worst running city since Dallas- or anywhere in Texas for that matter. This city sucks. It looks like the city planner got ****faced one night, woke up on his buddy's couch with pizza boxes and over him and a lampshade on his head after two hours of sleep and said "****, I have to have my plan of Bannockburn to the Governor in 15 minutes." I mean, this city is terribly laid out. My first run, I mistakenly turned right out of my hotel room. Big mistake because, well, first off, the road that I run on is actually a state highway. Second, there's a sidewalk on the left side of the road, but only for about a quarter of a mile when it turns into a slanted crushed rock- broken asphalt shoulder thatis like half the width of a sidewalk. Its pretty trippy to run that close to cars going 65mph. That crushed rock "trail" lasted for a mile, at most, then I decided to go right up Telegraph Avenue to the Lake Forest Metra station. Well, there's no sidewalk and not even a shoulder until you get to the Bannockburn/ Lake Forest city line where there's a sidewalk.

Whatsmore, you have to cross some street and then go another half mile or so to get to the station. I forget what the street is called, but its probably some state highway. Every street here is a state highway. Well, I get to the intersection running on the one sidewalk which is on the right side of the street, and the sidewalk across the highway is on the left side. Are you kidding me? Plus, there was a "cross traffic does not stop" sign, which I thought was weird for a relatively major intersection. Whatever though, I didn't really want to get hit, so I turned around and ran back.

So, now I've learned. I only turn left out of the hotel parking lot toward the tri- state tollway where its all paved and nice. Still, that limits my options a little. The one thing that this city does have going for it is that there's a forest on the outskirts of town that has a pretty nice trail system. I've only ran five miles or so on the trails because they're two and a half miles away from the hotel, but they're better than running on the same road over and over and over.

The people here are nasty too. Well, I shouldn't say nasty because they haven't punched me in the face unprovoked or anything, but they're extremely over- defensive. So, I was going to Chicago and then to Evanston on the Metra, and even the 9:20am train from Lake Forest to Chicago was overcrowded with no open seats. So I asked some girl who looked my age if I could sit by her. She said politely that she'd rather not have that, so whatever, I kept on moving to the next car. I asked some other girl the same, and she said yes, but her mom said no. Her mom! are you kidding me? whatever though. She said no again a little more sternly, so I kept moving. I was a little pissed, more because I had to stand for the 40 minute train trip than anything else. I dunno, maybe intentions got misinterpreted, who knows, but I was just trying to get to know somebody. Who knows?

Truth is, I'm not here to have a grand ole' time though, I'm here to coach the Courage Center team. I realize I haven't really explained what this entails, so here we go.

I don't think I have an official title, but I coach the ambulatory track athletes. I don't know how many athletes I coach because people seem to attend practice as they please (which I hate,) but I would guess the number is around 5. When runners come to practice, they are basically separated into 3 groups: wheelchair racers, race runners, and ambulatory athletes. Wheelchair racers obviously race in specialized racing wheelchairs and you've probably seen them before- there's usually a wheelchair division in Marathons. Race runners are a relatively new category. They're usually ambulatory athletes in that they can stand up when running, but generally they don't have full control of their lower extremities or have poor balance. Because of that they use an apparatus that looks somewhat like a walker and somewhat like a tricycle. Ambulatory athletes usually have mild Cerebal Palsy or something of that ilk where they have full, or at least good enough, control of their lower extremities. Often times there's flexibility, motor control, and balance issues to work through.

Usually, there's a coach for each group, although not always. I've coached the race runners, but never the wheelchairs. Obviously, being a distance guy, I know some, but not a lot about sprints so I have to read up or bounce ideas off the St. Thomas track coach and stuff like that. As far as the 400 on up, I can coach some basic strategy and technique, in the mile I really know what I'm doing, but the 100 and 200 I'm pretty much clueless. We only have one meet a year in addition to the National Junior Disability Championships. The one meet we have is the qualifying meet in which athletes have to run pretty lenient times in order to qualify for NJDC's. The meet's all in one day, which is a lot of running, especially for the younger athletes and those that have to run hard to qualify. I'm currently looking into making that meet a dual meet with a masters track meet being held the day before at the same track, but who knows, we'll see how it goes.

So this year I had two athletes going to nats. And yes, I tried to grow a stachie for nashies but failed miserably. One is a distance specialist and one is a 200- 400 specialist. So on the 20th was the pentathlon with the only running events being the 100m and the 800m for the women, the 1500m for the men. Both my athletes were the only ambulatory athletes in the event, albeit in different divisions which meant they could throw together, but not run together. The girl ran the 800 in, if I remember 4:02, which was far off her PR but since she ran even splits, I was pleased even though she just did the pent for fun. The guy I really pressured to do the pent, not only because he was all gung- ho about throwing, but I figured he might as well get a 1500m time trial in before the 1500m for real two days later.

Jeff came to me last year when he was a 9:15- 9:20 miler. Not to get into detail, but his main issue, for me at least, is that he can't really pick up his feet, which severely compromises his stride. When he ran the mile at the NJDC qualifying meet, he ran a 9:29 after minimal training. From then on I really specialized him, and he ran 8:37:24 after doing four events against no competition. I was really pleased, and I think he was too. Fast forward to Thursday (I went to Sigma Chi Headquarters on Wednesday, but I'll get to that tomorrow since its getting late) and the 100m and 1500m runs were on the docket. Jeff was up in the first heat of the 1500, and I told him to get in behind and form a pack with somebody, and picked a kid with a qualifying time of 8:18 for him to run with. His qualifying time was a minute slower, but I told him to hang withe 'em for at least a lap. He might have gone to the starting line a little overwhelmed but thats okay; better than overconfident.

In about 100m he finally got in behind the 8:18 kid, in a pack with that kid, and a race walker. He ran like that for 700m or so, then he made an awkward pass of the 8:18 kid and promptly died 300m later. Running all by himself, he died hard. I knew, he knew, and everyone in the state knew he went out too fast. So did the entire field. I was strategically the only one standing in the backstretch grandstand, so I could yell instructions to Jeff. Mostly it was just form and stride length stuff, but on the third lap I told him to tuck in behind the race runner. It was risky because I knew he had to slow his pace a little, but he didn't have many more options. It paid off big time, and he blasted his last lap in 2:11:89 (his fastest of the four), and finished in a PR 7:56:96.

Pretty solid weekend

2010-07-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

This week has been a pretty solid one for me on a few fronts. First, and the latest development, upon planning my runs for next week, I found that the hotel I'm staying at is only two and a half miles from a forest preserve. Supposedly there's also a trail head only a mile and a half or so from my hotel too. To tell the truth, I'm really pumped; it'll be a nice break from the suburban roads of St. Paul. Second, I'm a winner! Twice! First, a couple weeks ago I entered the runhappy.com daily contest and won a Brooks Nightlife prize pack. It consists of a LED light magnet, a nightlife vest, and a nightlife cap. I usually don't go all out and dress up bright for night runs (although maybe I should, I almost got killed crossing the street the other night; apparently the new twilight movie gives teenage girls the right to run over people in order to get to the theater) although I will if I have to run on the street for a while at night. I'll bring the whole kit to Chicago with me just in case, but it usually doesn't get dark enough in the summer to warrant a headlamp or anything. In the winter though, I suspect everything's going to see a lot of use.

Second, I won the Good Fortune Giveaway runners pack on Frayed Laces' blog. I'm super pumped about this. It includes, among other things, a fuel belt, a Brooks water bottle, the movie Volcanic Sprint, and most importantly, a Hansons/ Brooks singlet signed by Mike Morgan and Kevin Hanson. Have you seen that man Mike run? holy crap. Check this out. Woah. Guy runs a 2:15 marathon in '06 and doesn't look like he's lost a step at all. Other than that, I'm psyched because I don't have a fuel belt anymore (I had one, but left it at one of my runs), and who couldn't use another water bottle? I've got a Running Warehouse one that came along with a pair of my Adrens, but its in pretty bad shape. As for the movie, I've got to be honest and say I haven't heard of it, but I'm pumped to watch a running movie.. any running movie. My 8 hour shifts at work are getting pretty long lately.

Lastly, I've discovered the magic of doubling up my runs. It makes for a long day so I won't double during the weekdays, but on weekends its a godsend. Wake up at 6, put in a few miles, go to bed, wake up and do whatever and then put in a few more miles. Awesome. In fact, in an hour I'm going to make today a 19 mile day. I know that conventional wisdom says you're not supposed to break up a long run because the point of a long run is endurance. Fine, point well taken, but my whole thong right now is 1) laying down a base, and 2) mental toughness. I think going out and running 7, 8, 9 times a week goes a long way to accomplish goal #2 imo.

Brooks Launch Reiew

2010-07-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

My Ghosts crapped out on May 28, 2010. A day that will live in infamy. I can't say I didn't see it coming. I mean after 600 miles you could have put up a billboard saying "buy new shoes or you'll get injured." I'm lucky they lasted another 100 miles or so. One day I went out and the first few strides felt like I was running on bricks. So I went inside, changed into my flats and finished my run. And it stayed like that for the better part of three weeks. That night I ordered the Brooks Launch from the Brooks ID site, in the nightlife colorway. They didn't come until three weeks later like I said, which limited my running a little, but I found a way around it.

I bought these shoes principally because they were getting awesome reviews on brooksrunning.com and runningwarehouse.com, as well as some positive word of mouth from a few local runners and running store employees. I went to run' n' fun to try them on and ran in them for like 10 minutes, but that part's pretty trivial. I mean, how are you supposed to tell anything about a shoe in less than 2 miles? Anyways, they came on Wednesday, and I just had to pick them up even though I was in a rush. Wednesdays I get off work at 3, and have to be on the bus to the track by 4:30, so its always a time crunch, but I picked up the box anyways and re laced them on the bus.

First impressions were good, although when I first put them on I was a little concerned that the shoe collar was a little bit too high and would rub my anklebone raw. But I have huge cankles, so that might be my problem. Still, I've never felt that in a Brooks shoe. Other than that it is buttery soft, but that was exaggerated because I was used to running in racing flats. That first day it was 106 on the track, but I still paced 4x800 repeats and then did a 3 mile on the track. No adverse effects, in fact only positive reviews from me. I didn't notice any chafing, plus the sockliner felt awesome, even better than in the Ghost 2's.

Today I took them on a 7 miler and I went nice... and... slow because I've had some sloshy stomach issues lately and even though I felt good, I wanted to take it easy. The first thing I noticed was the heel/ toe transition felt surprisingly good, even better than the Ghosts. For the first couple miles, I couldn't even notice the weight difference between my Green Silences and the Launches (there's a ~2oz difference) but as I went into the latter miles, I could definitely feel it. Its really soft in the forefoot, almost squishy, but I'll assume that'l go away as I wear the shoe... not sure if that's good or bad. I definitely noticed some ankle chafage this run, so I may have to fix that with a swiss army knife and some duct tape if it continues. For what its worth, I thought I was running a pace in the mid 9's today and I ended up running 8:07's. Whats more, my legs weren't sore after my runs, like they would be running in the Green Silence or even the Ghost 2 to a lesser extent. The other thing is, the sizing's a little weird. Its definitely got more volume in the midfoot and through the forefoot- I'd order a size smaller than you would in say- the Ghosts or Adrens.

Overall, the Launch is billed as a lightweight trainer/ racer, but I don't think I'll ever use it for racing. Plus, the nightlife colorway looks sick.

I love the Launch and the Launch loves me.

Summer Goals

2010-07-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

Now that my summer class is over, I've got to figure out what I'm going to do this summer. Here's my list so far, in no particular order. Feel free to add.
- Read as much Scott Turow as I can find
- Read OAR (again) and Again to Carthage
- Qualify at least 1 athlete for the paralympic team
- Get my 6 pack back
- Start running 300 mile months again
- Figure out what I'm going to do to fulfill my Sigma Chi duties (Philanthropy/ Fundraising/ Sweetheart)
- Learn how to steeplechase
- Look into transferring schools

ready, set, go!

So, where ya been?

2010-07-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

Nowhere interesting, thats for sure. My summer thus far has consisted of work, class, and coaching. Nothing to strenuous, but nothing too terribly interesting. Well, that's not entirely true- my Constitutional Law class was really interesting, but a lot of work. Surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of writing involved- we had to write 8 slip opinions for the cases we read, but only 6 of them counted, so we could effectively not do three of them, which I took full advantage of. Don't get me wrong, that class interested me too much for me to sluff it off, but since the class met Tuesdays and Thursday nights, the turnaround from Tuesday to Thursday was a little tight, especially with track practice Wednesday nights. Apart from the little writing there was, the class was just a lot of reading. We had an 1000 page case book that we read through containing Supreme Court opinions dating back to 1930, as well as three books: when the Nazis Came to Skokie, the Christian Burial Case, and Ultimate Punishment. That's what made it a lot of work.

Other than that, summer's been a lot of the same. Working 5 days a week, 40 hours, getting up at 6:00 to be there at 7:30, or even earlier if there's an event to do. I work in St. Thomas' technology department, so sometimes there's a bunch to do, and sometimes it seems like I don't even need to show up to work. Plus, yesterday and today I've worked 12 and a half hour days, so that sucks a lot. Plus I'm working Saturday so I'm racking up a lot of hours. Its all good though, because I'm going to Chicago next Tuesday through Saturday.

I'm going to Chicago, actually Deerfield, next week to coach in the National Junior Disability Championships. Really, when I'm there I can't do much coaching, lets be honest. Even at this point, two practices out, there's not much I can do-you can't make a training cycle in two days, but you sure can wreck one- the hay's in the barn, so to speak. Really, I'm just going to sit in the stands with my clipboard, writing down splits and blowing my vuvuzela real loud. Granted, my athletes aren't the world class or anything, but for most of them this is the climax of their running careers. Okay, one of my athletes is world class and already qualified for the Paraolympic World Championship Team and got a training stipend and all that, but that's none of my doing. For the vast majority of my athletes, they think they'll became better milers overnight. But that's another rant for another post.

So, my running. Its been kind of hectic and disorganized. Last week was good in the mileage category, but that's about it. 45 miles, but I only ran 5 days, doubling up once. The week before that I was slacking big time, with only 30 miles, with the mantra "I'll start my half training tomorrow." Speaking of, when should I start my half training? I'm not sure, but I'm thinking not this training cycle. There's a half that I was looking at what, August 7th? Now I'm thinking that's too early. Now I'm thinking that's way too early. The question's not if I could do it, but how fast. The master plan is to get faster and more mentally tough for next summer, and I feel like racing this early would negate both goals. I've got a master plan, which includes lots of speed and tempos, but to do that I've got to build up a solid base again, and I think racing would put me back at square one. Plus, I can't afford a $47 race entry fee, so that makes things a little easier.

Next in the news, R.I.P. Brooks Ghost 2's. After roughly 736 miles, they've called it quits. I've heard that when your knees start hurting, you know your shoes are toast. That never happened to me. It would hurt my thigh and calf general area and a little in my knees, but nothing extraneous. Maybe that's more bad form than dead shoes, but it seemed like a feasible relationship to me. So, a pair of Brooks Launches are headed my way. Until then I'm running exclusively in my Green Silences, which is, well, a challenge for two reasons. One, I'm scared to do a long run in them. That's why I doubled up this weekend instead of going long. an 8 in the morning/ 8 at night double somehow seems better to my feet than an outright 16 miler. Second, I always want to go fast. I find myself walking or jogging pieces of my run not really because I'm tired, but because I'm going way too fast and want to avoid a crash and burn. Obviously, that isn't a problem with tempo runs, but I can't tempo for two weeks straight.

Also, if you didn't think Flotrack was the best running site out there, I present to you floshopping. Enjoy. I lol'ed hard.

G- Day Minus five!- Grandma's race report

2010-06-21T19:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah, I know. I''ve been neglecting the three people who read my blog. My bad, yo. But its summer, you know, like going to the beach summer? nah. Its the working full time taking 8 hours of class, and coaching track summer. That's the worst kind. I'm terribly unmotivated. I need a break. I got one. I need another. But whatever, let me take a break from reading Powell v. Alabama and tell you about my marathonning experience.

So, Friday brought an early wake up call. Early, but later than normal. At 7:30 I got up and busted out 2 miles at 8 minute pace or so. Nothing special, but something to shake out the rust after two days off that week. I had about an hour to shower, eat a little breakfast, and finish up packing before the rendezvous at Heather's where we would all ride down to Duluth. All three of us, plus Heather's foster Dane. See, Heather's an animal rescuer, she rescues Great Danes from abusive households. She was actually fostering two at the time, so she had to take one up to a kennel for the weekend in Stacey, MN. So, the first hour was a pretty tight fit.

We got up to Duluth, checked into our hotel, and went out to eat as a team. Okay, it wasn't with the whole team, but enough of it. After that, we headed over to the DECC to hear Kara Goucher speak. She was engaging and pretty funny too. Plus, she's hot- too bad she's married. After the talk, I got a picture with Kara, only I don't own a camera so I had some guy take a picture of us. Only, I didn't give him my email address so he has no way of getting it to me. That makes me sad. But whatever, after that I met up with a couple folks from Daily Mile that were running Grandmas and took a picture or two with them, then walked around the expo a little. It was a good sized expo, but in too small of a space. Man, was that cramped. And I didn't even get any free stuff. Disappointing. But on the good side, I got out of there and only spent $1 which I was super pumped about. Then I headed up to the TCRC field HQ (AKA our hotel room) to set up the kitchen for the pasta potluck that night.

After that, most of us went out to see the 5k which started at six. It was actually a pretty slow race, the winner ran 16:30, but then people don't come to Grandmas weekend to run three miles. While we were there I saw some guy collapse in front of me. It was pretty scary. The guy was stumbling a round the corner, faceplanted, got up and took a couple more steps, and ate it again. Luckily we were close enough to the finish that somebody was able to come out of the crowd and help him cross the finish. It was weird because its not like he was flying or anything, it was well past the 30 minute mark. It was hot though, so maybe he was electrolyte- deficient or something . Once we saw our two runners cross the line we went back to HQ to eat. Then we went to bed early- everyone went to bed around 9:00 but I was asleep long before that.

Only four of us were running the marathon, with another four running the half, so it was a 4:00 wake up call for everyone. The Half started at 6:30 and the full at 7:30, so the half marathoners grabbed the showers first while the full marathoners milled around and settled into pre race routines. Me, I made my race day breakfast of tea, an apple, a banana, and a blueberry gel. Looking back, that probably wasn't the best idea since I had a good three hours before the gun. But anyways, we hit the door at 5:00 and were at the busses shortly after. We had a good 20 minutes before the busses started bringing people to the marathon start. During which I was cold and repeatedly heard about how brutal lemondrop hill was. When we got on the busses, I was pretty jumpy, but I took a seat in the back of the bus and tried to collect my thoughts.

We got to the race in good shape, a good hour before the race. I stretched out a little, but didn't do any warm up running. Is that good? I'm not sure, I was second guessing myself a lot, but I figured the hay was in the barn, so to speak. The weather was good at the start, in the low 60's. It looked like rain, and I wish it would have rained, but the sun poked through the clouds a little a few minutes before the start. I was running with one of my club members to start, which was really really helpful. I was in good shape at mile 3, albeit a few minutes slower than I had hoped. I had to make a pit stop at a porta potty at the mile 3 water stop which slowed me down a little. After I was finished with that escapade, I ran to catch up with my friend that I had been running with. And I mean I did run after him. I was doing like 8:10's and running through water stops, crazy stuff like that.

I stopped for another pit stop at mile 7, then kept on trucking-- until mile 9. I looked at my watch. 1:12. Are you kidding me? I'm in bad shape both physically and in the fact that a crash- and- burn is immanent. It came, and the middle miles were just a world of suck. I crossed the half marathon mark in a shade over two hours for my second fastest half to date. Then it went downhill. I could feel the sun baking me, the wind coming off Lake Superior, all of that good stuff. I knew I was low on salt and regretted leaving my salt bag in my backpack. We passed a medical drop out zone past mile 13 and I was thinking to myself that wouldn't be so bad right now. I kept going. I wasn't inspired or compelled or any of those things, I just wanted to get my ass in Lake Superior ASAP, and that involved crossing the finish line. Honestly, I don't remember much until mile 22. I definitely did not hit that runner's high though. But, it wasn't that I was worn out either. I felt like I could keep running, and I probably should, but I didn't want to.

Mile 22 through 25 was just one big party. I saw my dad and brothers at mile 23, lemondrop hill. I don't understand what the big deal was, I got up it and everybody cheering was congratulating me, and I was like "that was a hill?" Its little more than a bridge really. There's a picture of me on facebook going up lemondrop and I'm smiling having a grand 'ole time and everyone around me is just dying. I love it. I got up lemondrop, then we came to UMD's sorry excuse for a frat row. No Sigs, but there was a guy trying to get me to take a pull of vodka. Not happening buddy.

I "sprinted" mile 24, which is in quotations because I thought it felt fast and like more effort, but I really was slow and couldn't get any leg turnover. Mile 25 just pissed me off. You Go up a hill, turn right, go up another hill, run down the hill, run parallel to the finish line, make some turns around the DECC, and did the whole thing over again, except this time we ran the extra two blocks to the finish line. Supposedly you could see the finish line at mile 9, but 25 was my first view of it. It didn't make me want it more, it just confused me. Throughout the race, the only things I said, minus the idle chatter with a few runners was yelling "why does Duluth have to be so God d*** far away? come closer" and "Jeezus, we're two blocks away from the finish line... this is bull****, lets just turn left and we'd be done."

It finally got over with though. I ran 4:28:58. Everybody says its your first marathon, feel good about it, but nah, that's not going to happen. I was twenty- eight minutes and fifty- eight seconds of my goal time! that's unacceptable! and what's worse I wasn't even tired, I wasn't that sore either, I just wanted to stop running. In fact, I did go running the next day. Yep, 3 miles in 37 minutes, plus a dip in the Lake.

In conclusion, that was awesome? Will I run a marathon again? I'm thinking late October. Will I run Grandmas again? of course, albeit maybe not next year. One thing I loved was running trough the little towns. They were so friendly. They had their own water stops set up, the High School band was playing, the cheerleaders were out- man, that was awesome. One thing I'll take away from the race is this little girl yelled at me at one of the towns we passed "This is your race" to which I responded, "yeah, but I don't know what to do with it."

More to come, maybe? its 1:00 and I've got to wake up in five hours

G- day minus 21

2010-05-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

Its coming. I'm getting psyched about this marathon, but also doubting myself big time. I keep thinking that I've slacked on my training too much, that I'm not in marathon shape. Maybe that's true, maybe its not; we'll find out in 22 days. I've had a tough couple of days of workouts lately. No so much because the distance or lactic acid or whatever but its just been hot as hell. No kidding, my Monday and Tuesday runs were both above 90 degrees, which is a lot when you're used to running in subzero temperatures most of the year. Luckily, Monday and Tuesday were both "short" days; 6 and 8 miles. Its all good. I struggled through Monday, but thats okay because it was an easy day anyways. Tuesday I smartened up and wore a water belt, but I poured more water on myself than in my mouth. That was a weird run. I was a little more than halfway through near Hamline, and the temperature dropped 15 degrees just like that. I mean, I've ran in and out of storms before, but I've never felt anything like that. One minute it was 95 and sunny, the next it was 65 and cloudy. Yesterday I ran a track workout, 12x200's. Not too difficult, right? I didn't go all that fast either; the first five were around 40 seconds and the last seven all at 44 seconds. I ran it after I ran a track workout I had made for the kids I coached. Only one showed up so I figured I would run with him to give him extra motivation. That was designed to be a lactic threshold workout, and I think it worked. We did a race sim last practice, and the kid totally lost it in the last 100 meters of his 800, just totally died. So, I wanted to get him used to running hard on dead legs. We did a five minute easy run, followed directly by three 200's back to back. We did three sets of that with three minutes rest in between. So, that's that.

Last I left you, I was still in school. Well, now I'm not and my five day summer vacation is coming to an end. I'll be starting up my Constitutional Rights and Liberties tonight, which I've heard is a pretty interesting class. However interesting, its still going to suck because its five hours two days a week. Also, since school has been over with, I moved into a house with a couple of my fraternity brothers. Actually, I moved in last Thursday, and was finished with school on Friday, but whatevski. Anyways, this house looks- well-- it looks like four guys have lived there for the past 20 years. Everything's fallen into a state of disrepair, the windows are cracked and fixed with scotch tape, that kind of stuff. So, my question to anybody who reads this is how do we clean the place? Last night I suggested that we have a Friday or Saturday night where we lock the door and say that no one can go out and party until the house is spotless. The problem is no one would buy into that. College kids are very good at making up excuses to go drink.

One of the problems we have is that my house is also the "chapter house" for our Sigma Chi chapter. I put that in quotes because even though we're a chapter house in Sigma Chi's eyes, we aren't in the City of St. Paul's, so we have to conform to residential housing laws. Specifically, we can not have more than 5 people in the house legally. Since the brothers use it as a chapter house though, brothers tend to congregate at our house, party there, crash on the couch, that stuff. So instead of trying to clean up after four people, we have four people cleaning up for 20. Its an uphill battle and no one seems to want to take up the cross. I cleaned up the kitchen last Saturday morning after I got out of class on Wednesday and it was a mess by Sunday night.

Um, other than that, I'm sure you've heard that Nike's coming out with the Victory XC, which drops sometime in July. They look sick, and first to the finish has them in seven colorways. Yeah, they're way out of my price range at $110, but hopefully if I can save my pennies over the summer I can pick up a pair before cross country season. Yes, I know I run for Brooks, but some Acitone will take the swoosh right off, allthough by July the Mach 12 will come out, so we'll have to weigh our options then. Who knows though, I'm broke like nobody's business. Its not like I spend my money irresponsibly, but it seems like every couple of weeks I end up broke. This week's going to be especially bad because I have to pay for a hotel room for Grandmas, a book for my class that I can't find anywhere online, and I have to put money on my bus card. I have $12 in my bank account right now, and all told that will probably cost me $130. God, stuff is expensive. I don't get paid until next week, and rent comes due then too. I want to believe everything's going to be okay, but in the back of my mind I know it isn't.

G- day minus 32/ 2 race reports for your reading pleasure

2010-05-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. We're on the advent of finals week, and my last week as being a Sophomore. I move into my house on Thursday, and I have one more week at 69mpw, two at 70, then its taper time. I'm super excited. I don't understand why finals week is a big deal for everybody. It seems like everyone on this campus goes crazy when the calendar hits May. I won't lie, I've been obscenely busy too, but hey, thats college life. I dunno, the way I see it is if you manage your time effectively, don't do anything stupid, and take good notes, you'll be okay. But then, I'm also not taking bio, engineering, chemistry, those types of hard classes. For me, finals week is the least stressful weak of the year. Any week I don't have to wake up before 6 everyday and have one class a day is awesome.

So running. Running has been awesome lately. I'm already up to 150 miles this month, which is 20 more than April already and 50 more than March. This last week though its been tough to get excited about any of my runs. Last week it was in the low to mid 40's and raining every day. It was downright depressing. I may have just hit an all time low there. However, the weather seemed to take a turn for the better on Saturday and its been in the mid 70's ever since. I did an awesome 17 mile long run on Sunday that I'll post, but I think I'm going to do that this weekend too, assuming I'm in St. Paul and not Edina. I was actually supposed to do 16, but I couldn't pass up that nice of a run on such a nice day.

In terms of race reports, I ran two this week. First was the Twin Cities 1 Mile, which was run down Nicollet Mall on Thursday, may 13th. Before the race I ran a quick mile, mile and a half with Andrea, and then took the St. Thomas bus to the Minneapolis campus, and ran the three quarters of a mile or whatever to the start line on 3rd. Saw my running club on my run there, most of which were hitting the bars. I was running the 29 and under open wave because even though I signed up with the TC Running Club, Twin Cities in Motion finally got smart and realized that I couldn't actually compete with them since my USATF membership ran out last year. I thought it was worth a shot though; it got me a discount on my Get in Gear registration.

When I got to the start line, I did a couple striders and a little more short and fast stuff. Too much running? Who knows, but that would probably be a big factor in my poor performance. Before I get to the race, lets get to the weather. It was low 40's on race day, with a pretty sharp crosswind once you got past 10th street. I was actually feeling pretty good when the race started, I moved up into like the third row of people in the start area. I went out way too fast. I went out with the chase pack and went through the half mile in 3:10 and fading. As expected, I flew through the 10th st. intersection and died. Except I died harder than I thought I would. I was standing still and getting passed left and right, or at least that was what it felt like. Fun's over, I had to gut it out from that point on. I finished in a respectable time I guess, 7:04, but I got outkicked by everyone and their mothers in the chute.

The second race I ran on Saturday was the Autism 5k at Lake Harriet. Note that I said I ran it, I didn't race it. I ran it with Andrea, the girl I took to sweetheart, as well as her roommate and their friend. We got there at 8:00: 8:15 maybe? I didn't have a watch on; I purposely left it in my dorm. Throughout our runs, I could tell that Andrea was worried about hitting a certain time, which is a path to injury for all new runners. Its pretty simple- you push yourself too hard and get injured, and then lose interest in the sport altogether. Even so, I was planning on racing this one (and winning it), so I had myself chip timed. That worked well because since I ran with Andrea the whole way, her time was the same as mine; 38:33. Andrea's roommate and her friend Lucas took off on us a half mile in, so we were alone most of the way. The pack really thinned out over the first mile, there weren't that many people in the race. We talked about love, life and setbacks (that's a line from an Atmosphere song; we talked about running mostly and the various setbacks she had with it. I did a couple rudimentary gate analysis too, and figured Andrea was in a neutral shoe whereas she needed support, and her roommate needed a neutral shoe. (she wasn't wearing running shoes) I think she's going to take me up on getting a new pair of shoes too, which is kind of cool. I looked at the results the next day- the winner (and the winner of my age group) ran a 17 something. That hurt, I guess, because I knew I could have won that race easily. I could have easily been polishing a trophy right now. That got me thinking though- there's more to life then medals and recognition. What are medals anyway? Just symbols of memories in a sense. That would be cool to look at for a while, but all luster fades over time. I don't know, to me, a trophy can't hope to replace those 38 minutes. Maybe I'm romanticizing a little bit, but is it a problem if my slowest 5k turned out to also be my best?

G day minus 45/ miles apart

2010-05-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy lately with finals coming up, so the blog is playing fifth wheel behind school, running, work, and Sigma Chi. So for the one person who reads this besides me, sorry mom. I mean its rough. I've got the coffee pot going constantly. Most days I'll do to bed at one or two in the morning and wake up at five thirty or six. Is that what the real world is like? Anyways, enough complaining. I'm not going to go into detail about my running because if I did so it would take forever. Just know that running doesn't hurt at all anymore and because of that I ran my first 55 mile week in probably three months. But, I want to talk about life. I don't even care if anyone reads it, I just want to get some things off my shoulders. K, so here's 19 years of my life in three paragraphs:

Relay For Life Friday night was fun even though it got moved inside because of the weather. That was okay with me because I had to get up early to go to SLP and they ended the thing at midnight or there abouts. Its too bad though because I think the whole event lost something, especially the Luminaria ceremony. And I got my event budget extended for food from $50 to $100 because I went shopping Thursday night and bought Ground Chuck, spices, buns, etc. and obviously with the event being held inside we couldn't grill so we had like no food. So I had to make another food run to get sandwich stuff Friday before the thing started.We grilled out Saturday afternoon and cleaned the house and it was pretty delicious. We have some awesome chefs in the chapter.

Sweetheart was awesome- it was at the St. Paul Athletic club in the room where our charter was signed 20 years ago and it was super classy. I went with a girl who went to Edina and who I've had a crush on for since as long I can remember. I'm just glad I got a date, I was 0 for 5 in asking girls before her and was getting pretty down on myself. It was a great time and it was really interesting. We had a couple of the charter members of Delta Sigma Chi (they started the fraternity before it was chartered, but before the colonies become official Sigma Chi chapters they have to serve something like a probationary period) as well as most of the first Iota Tau pledge class and the Grand Consul (president of the fraternity at- large) who presented the charter speak. We also crowned a new Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, which was pretty cool.
Unfortunately, Andrea missed when we sang the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi to the new sweetheart so I sang it to her during the car ride home. It was as an awesome time though; I'm already looking forward to next year.

Next week is Sigma Chi Derby Days, which is something akin to the Mifflin Street party in Wisconsin at the bigger schools with less drinking. Its basically six philanthropy events on each night of the week where all the proceeds go to a charity. This year its Huntsman Cancer Institute, so that should be a lot of fun. We're doing meal donations this week for Huntsman where students can donate a meal from their plan and some of the proceeds go to Huntsman while the majority go to the St. Thomas administration. Oh whoops, did I really type that? Really, why is ordering T- Shirts so convoluted? Why do they tell us which vendors we can and can't use? We have to get them cleared by Campus Life, Res Life and Public Safety? Why can't we just be students for once? do you hate fun? One more thing, Why must you skim $6.50 off a $8.50 donation? That's criminal. In the real world, thats called embezzlement and you go to jail for it. I should probably stop, lest I risk getting arrested by the secret police or the Gestapo or something...

Brooks Green Silence review

2010-04-24T20:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, its been a long time since my last shoe review. Since I've put 45 miles or so on my Green Silences so far, I figured I might as well post my thoughts on them. I'm not a big racing flat fan; I usually race in the Brooks Ghost or the Launch or something. However, I picked up a pair for $50 because of all the hype they were getting figuring I'd wear them for tempos, and the odd 5k or 10k. Yeah yeah yeah, they're environmentally friendly and all that, personally I don't put much stock in that. Maybe I'll catch some flak for that, I'm not sure. I know a guy who got a pair early and said they were just awesome. Obviously, they're pretty minimalist in their construction which I'm not a huge fan of because my foot bows out a lot, and the shoe offers zero structure to speak of. Surprisingly, these shoes are really well cushioned. So much so that I took out the insole and was able to run just about perfectly in them. They are really roomy in the forefoot area, the toebox, which I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of, but more room is better than less. Since I'm running most of my miles lately on these babies, it definitely exaggerates some of the issues. That said, there aren't many gripes I have with these kicks. They're really light too, which is awesome- I think they might replace my spikes for track workouts. The lacing is kind of weird though. I like it, but I was trying to relace them- I love running in loud colors so I put some neon green laces in there and there was definitely a learning curve there. While they are excellent shoes, they're no different than the T6's really. If you're willing to pay more for the whole environment deal, go for it, but if moneys an object, I don't know if these are a shoe to splurge on.

G- Day minus 59/ dejection, rejection, and depression

2010-04-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

Well, lets get into it, I guess. First, running. Its happening. Its ugly, but I'm gutting 'em out. Actually, I'm not really. Last week, I ran two days and spun once. Granted, for a total of 55 combined miles, but its not the same thing. Yes, I'm hurting, a lot, but I can't let that take over my life. Yes, I know you're not supposed to run on painkillers, but right now I'm searching for answers, and nothing seems to be working. I saw the doctor, he referred me to a shoe store for a meditarsal pad. The shoe store guy basically blasted the doctor and gave me some insoles. I went to Run 'n' Fun, and the guy there blasted the shoe store guy saying that the insoles won't do a thing for me. I'm tired of this s***, I really don't need it right now. I have to run, its my way out, and I really need an escape now.

In addition to not running, my professors figured now would be a good time to dump a semester's worth of homework. In addition to that, I'm being constantly reminded of how awful I am with women. See, we have the Sigma Chi Sweetheart ball coming up, which is a formal, so we have to find a date. So far, I'm 0 for 5 in that department, with a really good chance of striking out again when this girl calls me back. Oh well, at least its not for lack of trying. This usually wouldn't bother me so much, but combined with everything else going on... life sucks right now.

To round out my list of ills, I'm dead tired and apathetic about everything. I haven't gotten over six and a half hours of sleep in two weeks or so, and tonight looks like the first time since spring break that I'll get anywhere close to eight.

I should stop whining and man up. You guys don't care about my problems.

I actually was going to see a podiatrist today to see if he could fix me. I'm not counting on it though. A while ago, I explained it on daily mile:

You've got to understand that this is more of a defensive reaction than anything. I went to the doctor, and that was no help. I cut my training volume, and that didn't help. I stopped running completely for two weeks and that didn't help at all. If I knew what move to make, believe me I would. Maybe I should see a specialist, and I will look in to that, but the problem is that Doctors' schedules- especially specialists- and my schedule usually don't coincide. Like I said, if I knew a specialist could help me, I'd be more then happy to make time ASAP, but I'm apprehensive about continuing this cycle any longer because its kind of depressing. All they say is "don't run." I hate to do that, but I did, and that didn't solve a thing.

They had an in house- podiatrist at Marathon Sports on the first and third Tuesday of every month, and I was hoping he could tell me what's what. The podiatrist wasn't there because his wife just had a kid, but I did get some reinforcement from Jason Lemkhule's wife that I was in the wrong shoes and some neutral- cushioned shoes would do me well.

So, I ordered a pair of Ghost 2's off Running Warehouse, because I can't plan ahead for s*** and can't afford to wait the three weeks that the ID site takes to ship things, so I spent $40 more than I needed to. Sweet. They're much needed though. The only pair of neutral shoes I have are my Green Silence racing flats, which are awesome, but at the same time, they aren't meant to be worn on everyday medium distance runs. They just don't have enough structure to go 6+ miles, and I have blisters to show for it.

I also registered for the Get in Gear 10k this Saturday. I was initially shooting for the half marathon, but after I cut today's run short, I was pretty sure I couldn't race a half marathon, so I compromised on the 10k. I'd love nothing more than to do well in my age group. I just need something good to hold on to.

G-day minus 68/ Dye or Die: save the stat

2010-04-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, well its been a while. My bad. Lets see, what have you missed? Well, for one, I got back to marathon training milage this week, which is generally anywhere above 50 mpw. I did 52, and it was a struggle. The running not so much, but just finding time to get the miles in was an uphill battle. It was Initiation week for Iota Tau last week, and that took up a lot of time. As an active you had a lot more to do- plan who's doing what, set up the events, watch the pledges in the library, all that stuff. Even though we got done with the nightly events earlier- midnight instead of 1a for my pledge semester, it was still a headache. Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but it was a time crunch. I ended up pulling three all nighters including initiation night itself, and I was just worn out. It was a satisfying worn out though; I couldn't be more proud. I got the milage in, Wednesday and Thursday were tough though. I completely bombed my tempo run on Thursday, but came back strong on Saturday. Friday was an off day obviously because Initiation started Friday afternoon and went into Saturday. Saturday

I went down Iglehart until I couldn't anymore, then instead of merging onto Marshall, I ran on the railroad to get to Concordia, then ran Marshall down to UST. I heard running on railroad tracks was awesome because there was some law passed in the 1800's saying that train tracks couldn't be at more than a 10% grade. It was pretty easy going, you just had to make sure you lengthened your stride so you didn't step awkwardly on a tie. Yes, I know, running on active train tracks is dangerous, but honestly, how are you going to miss a train? They're big, loud, and slow. Today I went 16, and it was awesome. I had some trouble getting up in the morning, but it was an absolutely gorgeous day. I went up the Minneapolis side of the river, through the West Bank of the U of M campus, and wound my way around to Target Field before crossing the river and going home. Awesome. You know what else is awesome? my Ghost 2's are on their way to my mailbox.

So, whats all this about saving the stat? well, DyeStat track talk is under attack from the massive multimillion dollar corporate conglomerates. ESPN, who owns DyeStat, is planning to migrate Track Talk to the ESPN/Rise forums. Why is this a bad thing? well, the ESPN/Rise forums look like they're straight outta the '90's. The boards themselves couldn't be more awkward and un- user friendly. Instead of Track Talk where the content is displayed vertically, on the Rise forums its displayed horizontally. Adding to the confusion, to see replies to a topic, you have to keep hitting the 'x replies' button at the bottom of the post. Maybe I'm articulating it badly, but i just don't like the ESPN forums. They're far inferior to DyeStat, which begs the question: why doesn't ESPN just slap a logo on the current Track Talk forum and call it good? honestly, there's probably going to be a higher return rate in terms of members (and therefore revinue) the less they change.

When I've emailed ESPN/Rise, I got the normal cookie cutter answer of 'bear with us, we're working on adding features, but give us a chance.' That's fine, you can add all the features they want, but would a DyeStat by any other name ever smell so sweet? probably not. Even if they clone every feature of DyeStat on ESPN, it still won't be the DyeStat we know and love. ESPN doesn't have a clue. Look around. Your attempts of creating message boards and fostering community for big market sports have failed; look at your football and basketball message boards and you can see that nobody cares. The Track Talk community has been dealt a major blow. Another great resource for runners has given way to a media giant that doesn't give two s***s about our sport. Corporate greed and pursuit of profit once again rules the day. Attention ESPN: look around. Actually look at what the members of Track Talk have to say. No one wants this and by continuing on you are alienating the very fan base you are looking to court. No doubt, DyeStat must have cost you guys a lot of money, so why are you wasting it by completely moving sites?

Most of the members of Track Talk won't move over to your site, thats a fact that I think no one can blame them for. Inferior boards with inferior functions combined with inferior coverage and a historic neglect for the sport of track is a recipie for disaster. Face it, its a lose- lose, unless ESPN lets the Track Talk forum be. I can't imagine waking up in the morning and going to a mass produced message board and reading mass produced track coverage written by some cushy executive in Bristol. No, I'd rather read what's actually happening in track, thank you.

I'll stay loyal to the 'Stat until the end, but if if comes to that, maybe we can petition Flotrack to start a message board.

Dye or Die!

Disclaimer: The training part of my post, the first two paragraphs, were written Sunday night, 4/11. The rest was written on 4/13

Book Review: Staying The Course: A Runner's Toughest Race

2010-03-31T07:45:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd change things up a little bit and make things a little more interesting because lets face it, my training isn't all that interesting, and no one really cares. So today, I finished reading a book. Yes, thats right, a real book! Like, one that's not required for class, er, its kind of for a class in that it fits in with my sociology research progress which is on endurance sports and social class class boundaries.

Anyways, so the book. In my opinion, if you've already read Duel in The Sun, I wouldn't bother with this book. Not that its bad, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it rehashes most of the stuff presented in Duel in the Sun. Given, its an easy read, it took me like two days to read so nothing was lost there. There's a lot more emotional feeling in the book, especially toward the end where Dick goes into rehab. Like I said though, if you've read Duel in the Sun, you could guess the plot of the book and probably write most of it. Bottom line, go to the library, check it out and read it, but I wouldn't buy it

G- day minus 82/ not running, not racing

2010-03-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything to say.

So I really don't know why I'm posting this, but I am. Actually, I did run some this week, but not enough. I ran three days for nine miles, actually two days if you want to get technical. My run on Wednesday was at 2:00 in the morning, so I king of ran a double but the two runs had over 12 hours in between them, thus not making it a double. Anyways, doesn't really matter, but that was probably the best run of the three, which is not saying much. I was still hurting, but not as bad as usual. Maybe that was because I took more motrin than usual, I'm not sure, but all three hurt, so I stopped, no use throwing my whole training away with 12 weeks to go.

Last week was ridiculously busy, so I didn't fault myself too much for not running, although maybe I should have. I was signed up for the Human Race 8k on Saturday, and probably could have ran it, probably, but cooler heads prevailed and I didn't. Physically not running the race was fine, I wasn't upset about it, although it would have been an awesome day for running. What really ate at me was that I had spent $20 on race registration and now that would go to waste. That usually wouldn't weigh on my conscience that much, but this week looks to be an expensive one despite getting my tax return- I've got to pay for my Sigma Chi Formal tickets, MLB Gameday Audio Subscription, Running Socks, reload my bus card, and pay for real food since the cafeteria is closed over spring break- so $20 is a big deal right now. I hate spending money. I called my buddy Joe, who I am training for Grandmas with to ask if he could use my race entry. He said he could, especially since he hadn't run a race before. I picked up my entry and gave it to him then, which is probably totally illegal so arrest me if you want. I hung out with the TC Running crew in TC Running mobile-1, which is the RV that TC Running drives around to a couple local races and exhibits shoes. I hung out with them for a while and ran about a mile in the Nike Zoom Streak XC 2's, which were okay, really skinny, and definitely not my cup 'o tea.

I watched the end of the 5k, which was a hell of a race. I wish I stole those flats from the TC van because I really wanted to run the course and run it fast. After the 5k finished, I took the bus to Run 'N' Fun to complete my tour de running stores. Those guys are my boys, they've got my back. I was surprised that I got somebody to help me out because the place was pretty busy. I mean it always is a popular place, but it was packed for a Sunday. So I got a guy to look at me and he looked at my shoes while I lectured him about how I got injured and why and all that. He put me in a pair of Glycerin 8's and they felt amazing. They're way more cushioned than the Adrenaline 8's I'm currently rocking. He said that I could forget the insoles I currently wear because while they do provide cushion, that cushion will wear out after a while and then my feet have to take the beating which probably triggered my injury. He gave me some flak when I explained that I wouldn't buy the shoes, and I always feel bad when I explain I can't afford things, but it happens.

Congrats to Steve Stenzel over at Steve in a Speedo for finishing second in the 5k today in 17:11
Congrats to my training partner Joe Cronin who pinch ran the 8k for me in 36:46
Visit Run 'n' fun at http://www.run-n-fun.com/

G- day minus 93/ the week that wasn't

2010-03-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

Can you believe we're inside 100 days until the marathon? I can't. Its beautiful out, there's no snow, but I'm not running. Actually, I am running, it just happens to be measured in hours instead of miles and I'm in a pool instead of on pavement, but other than that its all good. It all started on Wednesday when I had that super awesome endorphin filled run and then went downhill fast from that point. I kinda think that I could have been in shock or something that whole run because my feet felt like they weren't even hitting the ground. Well, after that my forefoot started hurting. Not bad, just noticeably. I ran on Wednesday and gutted it out, allhough I knew I shouldn't, but my one rule is to never give up on a workout so I didn't, and that was fine. Friday morning I had a meeting with the principal of Ramsey Junior High and had no money for the bus so I walked the mile and a bit there and mile and a bit back in my dress shoes. Bad idea. I chafed so much I have two pretty big holes in my Achilles area. It hurts, and I can't do much about it. See, you're expected to where shoes pretty much everywhere, and if you're a runner you're forced to wear shoes everywhere out of common decency. So its a long, slow process trying to get that healed.

Well, Friday into Saturday it really started bugging me. A stabbing pain in my third and fourth metatarsals. I ran around Lake Calhoun early Saturday trying to find the water stop I was assigned to work at and that just sucked. Actually, it didn't hurt so much after 10 minutes or so, but it was nothing like I've ever felt up until that point. So that was not fun. Pretty much that whole morning was full of pain and cold. Oh yeah, weather.com said it was going to be 50 that morning, so I busted out a long sleeve race shirt and jeans. Nope, it was like 20 or 30, which added to my misery. I can take a considerable amount of pain before I start to notice it, which in my case was a bad thing. I was limping and almost in tears by the end of the day and decided to go to the doctor Sunday, although I dont know why because I knew what they'd say. The doctor said because of my extremely high arch, I was coming down abnormally on my toes, and because my third and fourth toes aren't straight, the heads of those toes take the brunt of every stride. He recommended a forefoot gel pad, when we went to the shoe store to get one, the foot specialist just ripped him to shreds. It was funny, but I think he was right, a metatarsal pad wasn't going to do anything for me, what I needed was more cushion. Also, if you looked at the insole in my GTS 10's, you could see the hole my forefoot dug into the insole. Also, my right foot was slid over in my right insole so that the ball of my foot butted up against the edge of the insole, whereas that didn't happen on the right. I don't really know what that means, but it happened. To address the cushion aspect as well as that my foot moved around side to side a lot, the shoe guy hooked me up with some Spenco Cross Training insoles, a long with a lot of other gibberish to help me run again. He recommend I get custom insoles, which I may take him up on, but still, most of the stuff he suggested probably wouldn't work. See, my feet are arched as high as they are to compensate for my lack of cerebellum, so not every solution for people with high arched feet will work for me.

However, he didn't condemn me for running like the sports medicine doctor did when I told him how many miles I run, which is nice. So its coming to the end of the week, and I feel like I could actually feasibly run on Monday. Obviously, I won't be hitting my planned 57 miles, but I hope to be around 30 with a race on Saturday. Who knows, I won't push it, its too early in the training plan for that. I've got a lot more to say, but I should probably post this since I've been working on it off and on for three days.

G- day minus 103/ Call us Mr. Flintstone, 'cause team 89's going to make your bed rock!

2010-03-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

Contrary to popular demand , I'll start about talking about my shenanigans before my running and hope I don't lose any readers. First, I signed up for the Human Race 8k on March 28th, and actually I just found the corse on map my run that I'll imbed right here:
St Patrick\'s Day Human Race 8K Run
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So its going to be a pretty boring course, I've ran it thousands of times before, but its a race, and its on the 28th, so it fits in my training schedule so I'm going to run it. Plus, it starts at like 11:30 or so pretty much right outside my door which is awesome since I wont have to wake up at five in the morning. I also signed up to volunteer at a water stop at the Irish For a Day 10 miler at lake harriet next weekend. I have a six miler that day, so I'll probably stow my running stuff at Marathon Sports (awesome store, you should go there) before my call of duty and go six after we pack up, twice around Harriet or around Harriet and Calhoun.

Lastly, yesterday (Saturday night) a few brothers from Sigma Chi including myself met up with a couple sisters from the Alpha Zeta sorority from Wisconsin- River Falls at Buck Hill for the Bridging Bed Race. So, how did we get hooked up with a chapter from River Falls? Well, our Grand Praetor, Joel Jensen's wife does the same type of thing for Alpha Zeta. So anyways we got hooked up with those lovely ladies for the night and met at Buck Hill at 5:00 or so to register our teams. What we did was have two teams, each comprised of two Sigs and two Alpha Zetas, and we somehow got the finances figured out so bridging could get their donations. It was really cold outside surprisingly, and it was raining a little. All I had brought to wear was a tight fitting running jacket and some running gloves which I gave to one of the AZ ladies on my team because she didn't have any. There were a ton of teams, like 140 or so, and even with five teams racing at the same time it took like three hours for each team to do two runs. The other team was #90, so we always were in adjacent lanes, which made for some friendly competition. The first run we blew the other team out of the water and got second overall in the heat, and the second run we just got nipped out by the other team and got second to last. Overall, that was a good time, I definitely had a blast and I think everyone else did too. Definitely a philanthropy event we'll be doing next year.

As for running, its going great, finally Its warming up which is awesome. My only bad run I guess you could call it was on Wednesday, I was just full to the brim with lactic acid. But hey, I started back on my core routine this week. Its tough to get me to do core in the winter because all I want to do after a run is take a warm shower but now that I don't have that problem, I'm back at it. My 9 miler on Saturday was definitely the best this week. I inaugurated my Brooks ID gear without wearing anything under it which felt awesome, but I did get some odd looks considering that most other people who were out running were all bundled up. Today I went 14 (I'll post the route) and it was another singlet and shorts run, but I thought it was going to rain the whole time I was out there. The sky just looked nasty and I almost didn't make my 7:15 wake up call because of it. Nonetheless,my route wasnt very interesting this time around, but I didn't get lost as many times as I did last weekend. I hate runs in Minneapolis- actually I should rephrase that- I hate runs where I can't run straight. Next week is a recovery week, only 38 miles, plus I'm going to a Ragnar Great River clinic monday night.

03/07/2010 Route
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G day minus 121

2010-02-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

Again, I'm neglecting my blog. Not because I don't love you guys, but I'm drowning in a sea of research papers. Lets see, I've got one in my Education class on Virtual High Schools, another one in my Sociology class on the relationship between endurance events and quality of life, and yet another one in my Latin American History class that hasn't been assigned yet but should have been. Plus all my other homework that I barely have time for. It makes weekends much less fun, but keeps me out of trouble. So yeah, um, running's been on the up- and- up for sure. In four runs since my last post, only two have been really tough. My run on Tuesday, and my run on Thursday. Makes some sense, because they were both tempos.

Tuesday's run was just weird and I was out of my element. I had promised my High School hockey team I'd go to the last game of their season, so running in the afternoon was out of the picture, and it would be way too cold to run at night. I was in Minneapolis, and I couldn't get back to St. Paul and grab my running stuff and get back to take the bus to Bloomington- which took way too long, by the way. Lucky for me, I had commandeered a locker in the School of Law (which is frowned upon, by the way) that I put some stinky running stuff and an old pair of shoes in that I pressed into service. I ran down to Loring Park which is about a mile away and did my tempo there, which was okay, except I went way too hard because all I had in my locker was tights and a singlet.

Thursday was just bad. I wanted to stay inside and be warm, but I didn't. I just felt sluggish, slow, and sore. Not much else to say, it just sucked, every minute of it. Other than that, running was awesome! its actually getting nice outside (except for Tuesday) which is sweet because early morning runs and late night runs are now becoming an option, giving me more time to do homework and boring stuff like that.

Saturday I ran my long run home from work because I was going to my brother's POPS concert at EHS (it was awesome, shout out to him.) I planned out a course on map my run that morning, wrote the directions on the back and front of both my hands, and was off. I bet I still looked ridiculous, and still got lost a few times, but no big deal. Plus, it was a beautiful day for a run, and the sidewalks were mostly ice free. I was so in the zone for this one, here's my route:

This was supposed to be 12
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I've also got to send out pleas for donation for Iota Tau's relay for life team that I'm captaining, team Sigs against Cigs. Actually, its 11:20 at night, I've got to wake up at 6 tomorrow morning, I'll do that tomorrow. The donation link is in my last post, in case you have disposable income and want to dispose of it on me. Also, catchy picture eh? In honor of Canada's gold medal victory over the USA. Too bad really, the US had a great run, and Brian Rafalski played amazing.

G- day minus 116

2010-02-22T18:05:00.000-08:00

Finally I get a chance to post. I've got like six posts started, but none finished. I've been really really busy lately, like going from 5 in the morning to 11 at night every day. I've got to meet with my dorm manager sometime, as well as have my resume checked, and both only have nine to five hours. I've got no available time at all then, unless I want to skip class, which I'm really not keen on doing. Plus, I've got to attend a bunch of meetings because I'm the captain of team Iota Tau in Relay for Life. Last post was on the 15th? well, what else has gone on in my life? For one, my Marathon plan started. I'm on week two day one, and so far its just a lot of work, not really difficult. Last week I ran 6 miles "Medium effort", then ten the next day. I'm not really sure what's the difference between "Medium Effort," "Lactate Threshold," and "Tempo." Yes, I know what LT and Tempo are, but I just don't see the difference. Looking at my flotrack profile (which I'm going to put up again under links,) I have way more green days then red days, which is awesome. Its getting warmer, which is great. Most of last week it was a singlet- and- shorts run, which is great because I'm tired of the tights and long sleeve getup. The downside is that the snow and ice is melting fast, so there are great lakes sitting on the trail. Of course, my feet are freezing and wet almost always, and the mesh forefoot upper on my GTS 8's are a weird shade of yellow and they smell like I've left them at an ice rink for a couple weeks. The one good part about running in melting snow is that you get the mud splashed up on the back of my legs and shorts. Call me weird, but I like that stuff, its like battle scars or something.

God today was terrible, which made today's run even sweeter. I don't think I've ever talked about my job, but I work for St. Thomas' technology department answering phones and doing that stuff. Today everybody was getting viruses by going to the Star Tribune website. I won't go into detail, but from 7a-9a it was pure hell. Everyone was calling in and yelling, like 30 people. It was miserable. Then I went to work again from 1-5, and had to stay late and play 'senior tech' for an hour and a half. I had to attend to four classroom emergencies, and thank God I knew how to fix all of them. Come on boss, you never trained me for answering phones, now you're not going to give me any training for senior tech?
I'm going to the South Suburban Flyers floor hockey game, their last one of the season against Rochester. I'm excited, I haven't been to a game yet, so I'm excited. Plus, I've got to talk to my former coach regarding possible Sigma Chi philanthropy
My Green Silence's came today. First impressions are good, although I haven't worn them yet. I'll hold off until the snow melts to wear them, but I think its definitely a shoe to wear sockless. They're also hella light.
Lastly, please donate to my relay for life profile. Its much appreciated!

G- day minus 122

2010-02-15T07:08:00.000-08:00

Annnd here we go. The lack of postage lately has been because of a really cramped schedule. I'm taking four classes, working 22 hours a week, plus marathon training and homework. I'm not complaining, but lets say waking up at 5:30 four days a week isn't agreeing with me. You know those drums of Folgers? not the 38 oz ones, but the 11 oz ones? yep, I've already gone through two of those and its the third week of the semester. Its been rough, but the running less so.

Running has been berry berry good to me, in the words of Chico Escuela. I won't go into detail about all of my runs because honestly they weren't that exiting, but I'll try to hit exciting parts anyways. Sunday was my long run for last week, did the Stone Arch Bridge loop. I love that loop, its so peaceful running as the sun comes up over the bridge, reflecting off the river. I ran it slow, because the conditions were pretty dicey, only to get worse on Monday. Monday it a blizzard, almost white out conditions. There was like four inches of snow on the ground when I got out of work, and none of the sidewalks were plowed. I saw no one out, and I went slow- almost 10 minute miles, but it was still a ridiculously hard run. The next day on the group run, it was me and two other guys. We decided to not run the normal bridge loop and run to the end of the Ford plant, which is probably for the best. The bridges are always terrible the day after snowing a lot because they plow the roads onto the sidewalks and then eventually clear the sidewalks. The next three workouts were awesome, I felt so locked in for all three of them. I skipped Thursday, but that's no big deal because my marathon training starts on Monday and I probably shouldn't push it.

So the next eightteen weeks of my life started with a five miler. It felt terribly tough, partly because it looked like St. Paul hadn't plowed the river road in about a week, it was really tough to get footing. Where there wasn't copious amounts of snow, there was huge bodies of water. I could hear my feet splashing in my shoes on my way back from the turnaround point, which was just another thing I had to deal with. The run left me thinking 'I have 18 more weeks of this crap?' Yeah, but hopefully that was a fluke and it'll get warmer soon enough. Pretty short week this week anyways, only 39 miles, all though I may have to add one or two to that for the sake of ease.

On the plus side, my Brooks ID uniform came today. It is sick, it looks so good I might have to buy another one when I get the money. I'll take a picture of it when I find someone with a camera. Its like bright fluorescent yellow, no one will miss me when I blow past them (that's a joke because I actually don't.) Also, I got a new Road ID, which was much needed since my current one is falling apart. Of course all of this was FO FREE! Thanks to Brooks Running for sending me the uniform, as well as to Dirt Dawg for sending me the Road ID. Its much appreciated fellas. I also ordered a pair of the Green Silences off the ID site from the money I earned by selling my books last semester and changing to renting them this semester. All told, I saved about $70.

I'm kind of at odds with St. Thomas right now, Campus Life called Sigma Chi out on something we didn't do. It got explained away I believe, but thats the third time in the last couple months that we got an "anonymous" complaint. That, and last night Public Safety came in to our room because the hallway smelled like weed. Our room didn't smell like weed, but they came in and poked around my rooommate's stuff. The reasoning they gave me was "Because he's on the lacrosse team and they have a history of smoking before practice." Are you kidding me St. Thomas? You bill yourself as this progressive, welcoming University, yet you have all these preconceived notions that you aren't willing to change. People change, institutions change, individuals are just that- individual. Just because some Sigma Chi chapters have hazing problems, doesn't mean Iota Tau does. Just because some guys on the lax team smoke weed, doesn't mean everybody does. Come on, there are some legitimately good individuals, why won't you recognize that? I'm seriously sick of St. Thomas' broad stereotyping. Lets just say I'm keeping my options open. If Winona State had a Sigma Chi chapter, I'd be there next week

G- day minus 131/ Inspire Daily at its finest

2010-02-07T08:55:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, just got back from an 11 and a half miler. Legs felt good, apart from my left calf feeling a little tight. Thank God all that slush I ran through Friday night hasn't frozen yet- that would be bad news when it does. Oh, Friday. Friday was another run from work run. I was going to get up at 6:15 to do 10 or so since I didn't have to work that morning, but that didn't happen. I sat down to wait for my coffee to brew before my run and fell asleep in my chair. I got out of class late for work, and about to miss the bus to Minneapolis, so tore out of class and up to my dorm, grabbed my running stuff, forgetting my room key, gel, and gloves in the process. However, I did end up bringing wool socks, my headlamp, and a hat I didn't need. I figured I could wear my wool socks on my hands if it ever got cold enough to need them, and hope and pray that my roommate didn't lock the door. I tucked my socks in my shorts, as well as my hat, and headed out. Turns out I didn't need socks on my hands, but I sure needed them on my feet. It was sleeting when I headed out, and had been for a while, so there was slush everywhere- the really heavy kind- as well as gigantic puddles of icewater. I was looking for stretches of bare pavement, but I often found that the stretches of black, which usually indicated bare pavement, was more often huge puddles of water. So, I came back with large bodies of water in my shoes, not very fun, but somehow I managed not to get any blisters.

The coolest thing happened to me that night though. I was waiting at a stoplight about a mile from Minneapolis campus, and some guy, I'd say in his late 50's started talking to me. Here's how the conversation went:

Guy: How far are you going?

Me: St. Paul

Guy: woah man, how far is that?

Me: Seven and a bit

Guy: I have the diabetes, do you think running like you would help me?

Me: Absolutely man, running works wonders if you keep it in moderation

Guy: I'm going to start then, can I run with you?

Me: For sure, as long as you want.

So, the guy ran with me for about a block, two the next stoplight. There was this guy, not exactly the "athletic" type, running his heart out in a full three piece suit, briefcase in hand. It was definitely a powerful moment, and I'll remember it for a while. Will this man keep with it? who knows, but I hope he does, I really think the trial of miles could help him improve his quality of life. Diabetes is a life threatening condition. Did I just save a life out on the road? who's to say, but knowing that I may have really made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. This is why I run.

Yesterday, I planned a Sigma Chi philanthropy event at the Cystic Fibrosis Climb For a Cure event at the IDS tower in Minneapolis. Their website is over at minn@cff.org. What a great event man, I felt really proud to be a part of it. My day started at 5:00, and we went to the IDS center at 6:00 to help set up. We went up to the 50th floor after getting there, and set up food and water tables, a post race party type of thing. Then I played security guard for the rest of the event, from like 7-noon. Basically, I sat at the security desk with two radios (one to the race management, another to the police) and looked menacing. Now, I don't know how a 130 pound distance runner can look menacing, but I kept everything in order. My fraternity brothers loved it, although I wish I got a coat or a uniform or something to look more official. The only real question I had was when a guy in a "so- and- so law firm" polo came up to me and asked me to get him in to the post office so he could get his mail. I laughed to myself and asked him if he really did study law. Of course, he said yes. I then asked him if he was aware that the post office was a federal institution and breaking him in would be breaking a federal law. lol lawyer jokes.

Last night I went to the Wild- Flyers game. I was wearing my Flyers jersey, and caught some flak for it on the bus to the X, but no big deal. There were actually more Flyers fans than I thought there would be, I saw about 50 in the concourse going to my seat. I won't go into detail about the game because this post is already getting long and boring and I'd probably get depressed because it was so poorly played. Anyways, my 9th grade Adapted Gym teacher was sitting in the row behind me, which was kind of cool. We talked a little bit and he gave me a little more flak about Leighton's puckhandleing skills, but it was just good to see him again, that was a welcome surprise.

G- day minus 134

2010-02-04T06:59:00.000-08:00

I havent been able to post lately because when I try to access blogger.com from my apple laptop, it gives me the error message "Bad Request." Anyone know why this is happening? I cleared my cookies, cache, and pinnged blogger.com and it responded, so I don't know what the deal is. But I can access blogger fine on the school PC's, so whatever, I haaven't really had time to poke around my computer, so I'll try some more ways to fix it over the weekend. Whatever though, you don't care about that.

So second semester started up this week, and it'll be tough to squeeze runs in, I can tell already. Most of my runs will be at night, which is kind of a drag because its cold at night, that or early morning, I'm talking real early morning. Here's what a normal day for me looks like this semester:

5:30a- wake up call

6:40a- bus to the minniapple

7a- 10a- work in Minneapolis

10a-11:40a- class in Minneapolis

12:15- 1:20p- class in St. Paul

1:00p- 5:00p- work in the minneapple

11:00p- bed, hopefully

It varies a bit from day to day, but that's basically my schedule every day. My plan is to run up to my dorm after my 1:20 class ends, drop my backpack and pick up my running stuff, so I can run home to the St. Paul campus after my shift is over. I end up leaving all my clothes at my workplace at the end of the day, which was a little awkward the first few times I did it, but as long as no one hangs my underpants from a flagpole, I'm fine with it. Thursday I don't have an afternoon shift at work, so I can go longer that day, Friday I don't have a morning shift, so I haven't decided if I'm going to run in the morning, or sleep in until 8:00 that day.

Then Monday was a run home from work day, which was tough going. I forgot running socks, so I went sockless, into a blizzard, and I was running into the wind. They hadn't plowed the sidewalks, which made my run a little slower, but not much. Tuesday was my group run, which was made interesting because some drunk rolled up to us about 4 miles in and asked us if he was in Indianapolis. When I said no, he asked how to get there. My reply was "s---- dude, I have no idea, get on I-94. Go left." Wednesday was a weird one as well. It wasn't an easy run, but it wasnt a tempo either. It was more of a suicide pace, and today is a good day to die. I believe my overall pace was 8:01, but I had two, maybe three miles at 8 minute pace, the rest were closer to seven, or closer to nine.

Today's run was brutal. It was pretty warm, probably high 20's, but it was snowing, which melted once it hit the asphalt path. Apparently, it had been doing that for a while because it was all slushy and nasty. Hence, my run was no fun. I was planning on doing 10, but I was pretty stiff, so I turned off and ran the Tuesday night loop. I hate that loop for some reason. So, I was miserable, wet, cold, and to make matters worse I had a blood blister that burst, so the big toe portion of my shoe is all bloody. Pretty much a terrible run, but it was bound to happen after so many good ones.

In other news, I decided to sign on as a volunteer track coach at the Courage Center, which is a nonprofit that serves physically disabled populations. I actually ran for Courage Center until 11th grade or there abouts, so I guess its just poetic justice that I be the coach. Now, I'll be honest, I really don't know the first thing about track, other than what I know about speedwork. So, I better do some research if I want to get my runners into Junior National competition. I don't know what my runners' abilities will be, but if they're able, I'd love to take them out on a road run, to build endurance. One thing I noticed in my competitions is that I'd get smoked in the 100- 200 meter distances, but kill everybody in the 400- 800. I don't know where the practices will be held, but if they are at the St. Louis Park HS track like they were last year, I figure I can just run there and back, its like 5 miles each way.

G - day minus 140

2010-01-29T17:10:00.000-08:00

I'm sick. I'm pulling out of it, I think, but I'm still not feeling like myself so I'm going to pack it in tonight and hope I can sleep it off. Its just a cold, but it hit me pretty hard on Wednesday. I somehow managed to get out of bed and go to class, but that's pretty much all I had the strength to do. I wasn't throwing up or anything, but you know how it is, I just felt terrible. Not too good considering I had a final the next day, but I managed to study a little and the test was pretty easy compared to how hard I thought it would be.

So I skipped my run on Wednesday and have been going short yesterday and today. I can't stand it, but yesterday I could hardly catch my breath on my five miler; it felt like I was running underwater. Today was better in that I ran some hills and felt strong, but still only five miles. Somewhere, I think on runnersworld.com, I heard that your immunity takes a dive after a long distance race. I'm inclined to believe that because I haven't gotten sick since I've started running, but now that I've ran a longer distance race, I've gotten sick a short while after. Now, I know causation doesn't imply correlation, but its a theory. So, because of the short week, I think I'll forgo my long run this week, and put in two longer, but not that long runs. To see how much endurance I can recoup, not mileage.

Now, I love Daily Mile, I love the people I've met through it, but one thing I have a love/ hate relationship is the weekly milage leaderboard. Usually, I'm at the top, if not at the top. This week: 20 miles total, and obviously towards the bottom. I can't stand it, being a competitive person because I know I can do better, but I'll try to keep it together- on Monday eveyrbody starts out at zero. I shouldn't say that, it makes me sound cocky and arrogant as hell. Martin Parnell is running his MarathonQuest 250, his quest to run 250 marathons to raise money for Right To Play is my friend, so if all goes well, he'll put in 131 miles per week, and I'll be perpetually in second. Naturally, if you make the list long enough, I'll fall back far enough into oblivion, which is why I like to keep my lists short.

I switched to new shoes, well actually old shoes, but they're a new pair. I switched to a new pair of Adrenaline GTS 8's from my Adrenaline GTS 10's which had, I dunno, 530 or so miles on them. I could have kept running in them, but it seemed like a good idea to switch as I was at the end of a training cycle. I love both shoes a lot, I think I'm on my fifth or sixth pair of 8's, and will probably get a few more pairs of 10's- they're just a little different. I don't know if anyone was reading this when I switched to my 10's from an old pair of 8's, but I was complaining a lot from what I thought was Morton's Neuroma. If I remember right, I was close to a race, or something like that, so I was freaking out. In reality, I was probably just overreacting to adjusting to a shallow toe box. Well, I'm getting that pain again between my fourth and fifth metatarsals, but its confined to going up hills at this point. I'm re- adjusting to the wider toe box, and I really hope the pain doesn't flare up that badly again. I'm wondering what will happen when I get a narrow toe boxed shoe again?

Speaking of new shoes, I'm thinking of getting a pair of Green Silence's, Brooks' eco- friendly racing flat. I've never owned a racing flat, so I'm really interested to get some. However, that will probably make me push another 100 or so miles out of my 8's, but they're durable shoes and they can handle it.

In other news, why do I feel like I'm being robbed at gunpoint when I do anything at St. Thomas besides going to class. I like the school, don't get me wrong, but I'm glad my parents are footing most of the bill. I know St. Thomas is a private school so they can do whatever they want, but I'm really not a fan of some of their practices. But I don't want to get the St. Thomas suits mad at me- or should I say, The University of Saint Thomas presented by Best Buy suits (cheap shot, my bad), so I'll stay away from most criticisms, but here are a couple. So I had to buy three books for January Term, which cost $50 total. I sold all three back yesterday for a grand total of $8. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ST. THOMAS? This semester I rented all my books from chegg.com and, although I wont be able to sell them at the end of the semester, I saved like $280 over the bookstore.

I also just finished reading Ultramarathon Man. Good book, very inspiring, and almost made me go out the door and run 30 miles. I'm probably not anytime soon, but how fun would that be? maybe I'm a masochist, but I think that would be awesome. I was thinking about checking out George Sheehan's book "Running and Being" because I want to read it, but second semester starts Monday, and I don't think I'll have time to read it.

I Am a Runner (And So Can You!)

2010-01-26T19:33:00.000-08:00

The title is a parody off Stephen Colbert's book "I Am America (And So Can You)", but if you would like you can substitute "G- day minus 143/ How I started running and why you can start," but I think the title I picked is much more interesting. I've never read the book, by the way.

I don't know what you would call the beginnings in running. It all started in middle school when I would "run," under supervision from my Adapted Gym teacher before school in the weight room. You see, because of my AVM and subsequent stroke severely damaging my cerebellum, I had to relearn to walk first, then try and run. So, there I was, in the South View weight room, both hands on the treadmill handrails to make sure I didn't fall, churning out the 16:00 miles. This is probably where my contempt of the treadmill comes from, but that's just my guess.

After that, I started running with the Courage Center track team, and to be sure, I was a train wreck the first few years. Having a weak, maybe nonexistent cerebellum, I wasn't able to run straight so I was almost a sure- shot to false start every race by coming out of my lane at one time or another. However, I had a really great coach who was actually a St. Thomas grad and a Red Sox fan. So I think that was what kept me coming back twice a week- knowing that I could talk Sox with him week after week. Running wasn't something that came naturally to me- with an awkward gait, the left side that really did anything it wanted on account of hemi- parisis , and staggering around like a drunken sailor, I was a lost cause before I started. Yet for whatever reason, I suck with it- I'm not sure, but it was probably a combination of fear of failure and my mom forcing me to get out of bed. I wasn't fast, I was close to 15 seconds for a hundred, 45 seconds in the 200, and God knows how slow in the 400, if I could even keep it together for that long. I was slow, but getting faster in my group for sure. I had gotten my stride down, was a regular at practice, was sitting pretty finishing every practice interval in first, I even won a couple races at Junior National competitions.

However, I got put in my place pretty quickly. Two consecutive years, I had to miss the Junior National qualifying meet because of other sports obligations. I was thrown in a Bloomington Kennedy High School JV meet as an afterthought. I ran well enough to qualify for every event, but got blown out of the water in every event as well. Including, the 800. My coach convinced me to run it, but he wasn't at the track at the first High School meet I ran in, so I scratched out of it, hoping he wouldn't care. The next year, I still was afraid to do it, but my coach was there so I had to run it to impress him, if nobody else. In fact, I was scared to do everything. After last year's debacle, I didn't want to get shown up again, I wanted to pack it in, crawl in the equipment shed and cry. But I didn't. I ran and qualified for every race, but got blown out of the water again, no contest. My parents were really happy for me, and I wanted to be happy too, I really did, but I was apathetic for the most part. I went on to win some races, and lose some races in Tampa, FL, that year, but I really didn't care because I knew there were bigger fish to fry. I hate losing, and that fall from grace is never easy, but it hit me especially hard. To be winning on a national stage (however small, I thought it was the greatest thing in the world) to being blown away by JV kids was especially demoralizing.

I continued to go to track, and although I lost my coach, we had several new ones. One was a triathlete who held endurance in high esteem, and praised me for taking the sport so seriously. We did our warm up runs off the track, on streets, trails, whatever, which rekindled my love for the sport. The next coach we had was a charity runner, who scolded me for taking running so seriously, preaching to have fun, but to me that wasn't what it was about because there were guys out there that were faster than me and I knew I could beat them!

When I severed ties running for Courage Center, I went to St. Thomas student orientation. I hated it. Three days of staying in the dorms, attending boring info sessions, pretending everything was all hunky- dory. We had a lot of time on our hands. So, what do new college kids do when they're parents aren't around? Drink beers and make stupid decisions of course! Well, that didn't solve my problems because I can't drink due to the fact that my brain is wired nobody knows how. So, I decided to put on a pair of tennis shoes, a T-shirt, and gym shorts and tried to make a night out of it. Mind you, the farthest I've ever run before this was a mile or so. I ended up going, by my calculations, 5 miles in about an hour. I did five one mile loops around campus and got lost. I had tons of blisters. I loved every minute of it. I was hooked. Nobody was like me and I knew it, so I'd do something to make a name for myself- everybody wants to be somebody. I don't know if that's worked or not, but I'm still running, finding time to just be myself, not "that one crippled kid"for just one hour a day- the most valuable hour of my life.

When I talk about running, I always here people say "how can you do that?" or "I don't think I've run X miles in my life." Well, the point of this whole post is you can! and if I don't get that message across, sorry, I wasted your time, sue me. But the truth of the matter is, everyone's trying to get away from something, whether its a stressful class load, a broken relationship, or as in my case, the past. We all need time to be ourselves, be alone with ourselves without worrying about what our friends say, or who's dating whom, or what Taylor Swift wore at the Grammy's- we all need time to slow down, refocus and re prioritize. So, that's why you do it, the next question is how.

Get yourself a nice pair of running shoes- go to a specialty store, get a pair that's just for you, and cherish them like your baby. Put those shoes on, and just put one foot in front of the other. You know, in the book "Once a Runner," Bruce Denton said "the secret is this... there is no secret." There's no magic potion that will denote you as a runner, you just have to put in countless miles of training. It'll be ugly, and you'll fight for little victories. "Run to the corner of the street and back without stopping," or something like that. Don't get discouraged. The next thing you know you'll be running to the next street corner, and soon the next, and the next... Set a goal and strive for it, and when you reach it, set another one. Sure, you might look like you don't know what you're doing for the first week or so, but that's okay, having the courage to get out there is 3/4 of the work, running is the easy part. Yes, you might, and probably will fail, but hell, if you read this far you know it happens to the best of us. Read a book! get inspired! meet another runner and run with him, we don't bite. Runners are the nicest group of people you'll ever meet, and there's no "doing it wrong" to be afraid of. But above all, remember this: If a kid who was in a coma 14 short years ago all but pronounced dead, if a kid who has no cerebellum, if a kid who the best medical professionals in the world said couldn't walk, let alone run, you sure as hell can!

G - day minus 145/ Frozen Half race report

2010-01-24T10:30:00.001-08:00

There's nothing quite like waking up at 6:00 on a Saturday morning out of love. Most kids my age would be long asleep nursing hangovers, but not this guy. It was a 6:30 wake up call, which was later than I planned to wake up because my phone was set back an hour for some reason, but that was okay because I was set to leave my house at 7:30. I took a shower to wake up, had my typical race morning cup of tea and banana, stole a gel from my dad and was on my way. Check in was easy since there weren't that many people there, it still was a pretty good sized field though.

I met a bunch of my teammates in the skyway before and we went for a half mile or so warm up run. We ran on the sidewalks but it was real icy. I fell pretty spectacularly twice in a span of about 100 meters, then I decided to run on the roads- there were more runners than cars on the road before the race. Despite falling, I was feeling really good, so I just relaxed for the last half hour before the race and talked it up with the pace team. The race started, and it was windy with some rain, but other than that it was pretty warm.

I was wearing a Craft Wind Stopper long sleeve wicking top, with my TCRC singlet over that. On my legs I had on Brooks Wind Briefs, Paradox Running Tights, and my Nike Snake Shorts (I don't know what they're really called, but thats what the Run' N' Fun people called them, so we'll go with that.) Rounding out my attire was my wool trail socks under my Brooks Adrenaline 10's. The first three miles were pretty windy, but after that you ran into the riverbed where there are limestone bluffs on one side of Shepard Road and the Missisipi on the other, which blocked the wind pretty well; by this time I wasn't even noticing the rain. We came out of that wind tunnel, we could start to see the leaders come by on the other side of the road. It was pretty cool, we hooted and hollered and when I saw someone from my team I would high five him when he came by. The turnaround point was farther down the road than I thought it would be, it was near the first entrance to Hidden Falls park, right at the intersection with Cleveland Ave.

Going back was really boring, I was looking forward to running into the wind tunnel because the wind and rain were picking back up. The miles came really easy until mile 11 or so when Wes, who I was running with up until when dropped me when I pulled over to have a gel. After that the miles got really tough. There are some rolling hills up to Robert Street, and thus began the hardest half mile I've ran in a while. I haven't found an elevation chart, but I think the hill going up to the Securian building rises 300 or 400 ft over 200 meters. It was tough- my plan was not to run it.

As I made the turn on Robert Street, I started walking. There were two guys on the bottom of the hill, and here's how our conversation went:

Guys: "Come on big guy, over the top of that hill is salvation"

Me: "F--k that, that is not happening"

Guys: [almost dying laughing] "no, come on dude, make it your bitch"

So then I ran it, and then sprinted the rest of the course. I passed like 10 people in that half mile or so, which was pretty cool, although my legs felt like they were going to explode at any moment.

I had a couple blisters after my run, but that's because there was an unreal amount of water in the roads and it was bound to happen. Ironically, the last run ever in my GTS 10's I got my first ever blister in them. The only gripe I have with the race was that there were only 2 waterstops, and they gave out water bottles instead of cups which was pretty awkward.

G - day minus 151

2010-01-18T15:21:00.000-08:00

We are officially in taper week 2010 phase 1. I say phase one because I'm going to do an official taper for at least two more races this year. I'm not so thrilled about it- I really don't know what I'm going to do with my life for a week with minimal running. Read more books I guess, and watch my sorry looking beard grow. I'm going to shave it off after next weekend, but I heard that it made you warmer, so I'll keep it for the half. That and my razor went dull so I had to throw it out and I don't have money for a new one.

Saturday I had to skip my long run which was kind of depressing. I work until noon Saturdays anyways, but yesterday I had to help my Grandparents for the rest of the day, so running didn't work in to my schedule. I went 10 on Sunday, but it wasn't really the same feeling since I don't consider 10 miles a long run. Why didn't I go further? I don't know, I was feeling pretty deadlegs, I hope I'm not overtraining...

Today I went 9 miles pretty easy. I went to the Pioneers and Soldiers cemetery and back on the Midtown Greenway trail. It was pretty nice outside actually, all except for the hill going toward the Lake Street bridge. There was ice on the path or whatever, but it was patchy and rough, the kind of ice that you can't slip on even if you tried. Same on the Midtown Greenway, although there wasn't that much ice or melting ice. I love to run that trail, I don't know if you could call it scenic, but its pretty cool being able to run through the city without getting stuck in traffic.

In other news, I came across a blog called Steve in a Speedo?! Gross! Its written by Steve who is a Triathlete from St. Paul. One thing about runners, and I've noticed this reading a couple back- issued posts, so like every runner, I feel like I know this guy already: I run some of the same races he has, I run most of the same routes. Except of course, he's a lot faster than me. I should probably work on what Philanthropy and brotherhood stuff we should do since I'm the chair of both, but I really want to finish Citizen Soldiers, I'm like 80 pages from the end, and I think I can finish it tonight.

G day minus 155

2010-01-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

Get it, its like D- day except G day for Grandma's... super lame I know. So, start the countdown now, because I just registered for the marathon this morning, although I probably shouldn't have because I've got to pay second semester dues for Sigma Chi soon and have no way to afford them, but whatever. I'm so excited for the half marathon in a little over a week, running is coming so easy right now. I may have nothing else going for me, but I'm clicking off the Miles like nobody's business. The only thing is Hockey Day Minnesota is the 23rd as well, so I'll get home from running and lay on the couch and watch hockey all day, it'll pretty much be a dream. Nothing really out of the ordinary to report in my running, except its been really warm, with a windchill above zero every day this week, which bodes well for my running for sure.

Wednesday I did a seven mile tempo run- my first tempo run in forever. I went one mile warm up, then four at around a 7:40 pace, then two cool down miles. It was tough, but I got through it. Really, it was harder going slow than going fast, but I think I looked like a trainwreck going at tempo pace because my form is admittedly terrible. Plus, there was a bunch of melting snow and nastiness on the ground which made it hard to get a footing.

Today might have been one of my best runs ever. I'm serious. It was 11.5 miles or so, my longest midweek run ever. I ran up to the U, down University ave. and then across the Stone Arch Bridge and back. That might be the greatest spot in the world, the Stone Arch Bridge- I love running across it. I can't wait until its nice outside, then it's going to be amazing running it, not to mention pretty romantic I guess when the sun's setting. I may incorporate that into my long run route this weekend, we'll see.

I was going to write a post on the Casey Martin v. PGA supreme court case because we were talking about it in ethics and I want to go into it more in depth, but I don't know if there are enough hours in the day. I have to read some of the Summa Theologae for like the sixth time in the sixth different class (how I haven't memorized that yet, I'll never know,) and make some dinner, so we'll see.

Half the calories, all the what?

2010-01-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you've seen the Gatorade commercials for the new low calorie sports drink- oh, I'm sorry, the G commercials. Way to go Gatorade legal department. Anyways, who actually buys that? who are they trying to fool? apparently, a lot of people or else they wouldn't have made it. Riddle me this: If Gatorade is marketed as a sports drink, then it is targeted towards athletes. Athletes who, by the very definition of playing sports, expend hundreds of calories that have to be replaced. Which is precisely why they drink sports drink, correct? to replace calories which are tuned into energy. I don't see what the appeal of G2 is, but I guess there must be a market for it, or else it wouldn't sell. Who that market is is beyond me.

Wait a minute... 8x10%=.1, .1+8=8.8. Whoops.

2010-01-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

There's a rule that says never run 10% more mileage than you did the week before or you'll get injured ingeniously called the 10 % rule, which was the calculation I did in the title, but don't blame me if I did the math wrong. Anyways, point is that I went from four miles per week two weeks ago to 8 miles last week, and 51 this week, and I didn't get injured. Honestly, not the greatest idea in the world, but I'm not going to run 9 miles a week three weeks away from my half marathon. It felt good though, hitting high mileage again. The only thing is when I'm not running, I'm eating. Running's an expensive addiction, but I could be addicted to worse things, right?

That's pre on the right, but if you didn't know that you probably shouldn't read my blog anymore. I don't know why I put a picture of him up, probably because he's a baller.

So, my 13 miler, somewhere in there. I called it 13.3 in my log because when I mapped it it came up as 13.5, but when I came back from my run I saw I double counted a little. Doesn't really matter, I'll remap it and see what we figure out. But the run itself went from the east bank of the U of M to the west over the Washington bridge, which has like a covered sidewalk above the road, which was weird, I've never run that before and am not sure I like it- it was like running through a sauna. Other than that, I bonked, hard midway through. I've done that before, and should have seen it coming because I have no energy gels and didn't eat that many calories the night before. I was pretty dehydrated as well, and started seeing stuff all over the place.

Funny story- I was oh, 10 miles in or so, and thought I saw this girl I knew from high school, so I stopped and started to talk to her, I mean I was really 'macking on her, or what I thought was her. This other runner taps me on the shoulder after five minutes or so, asks me if I'm okay, and hands me an electrolyte tablet. I answered that I was, and he's like 'are you sure, because you're having a really dirty conversation with a traffic pylon.' Whoops. I mean I finished the run up okay and in a respectable time, but I definitely could have taken that traffic cone home with me, I think she was really impressed.

Fun weekend, but lame at the same time. Friday night me and my roommate went to Midtown Global Market where we had to help my roommate's friend move a mixer from his house to his restaurant there. Before we did, my roommate's friend, who owns the restaurant hooked us up with some free food. His restaurant is called La Sirena Gorda (that's a link) and its like a seafood place with a Mexican flavor to it. I had the mero asado and the sopa de almejas and the hibiscus ice tea. It was delicious- If you're ever by Lake St. in Saint Paul, definitely pay him a visit. Saturday night I brought a girl down to Tom Reid's Hockey City Pub (also a link) to watch the Wild- Blackhawks game. After sitting through a sobering two periods that saw our boys down 5-1, the place just went crazy in the third. It was like being at the game. No one sat down, the service pretty much stopped for the third, OT, and the shootout because everyone had their eyes glued to the TV. It was so loud you couldn't hear yourself think. After Harding made the save on John Madden, everyone was hugging each other and shouting like crazy. We stayed for a while after the game, but then went home and fell asleep in pretty short order- I was exausted from my run.

I'm counting the miles, and cursing the signs in between

2010-01-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

That's what I've been doing over the last couple days, just hammering with all I've got. Three hours of one class, four days a week, plus ten hours of work a week. For most other college kids that would mean 146 hours of getting drunk and arguing over girls. Not this guy. I'll let girls figure themselves out, thank you very much. I just love running this time of year, and I'm going to tell you why: because very few others do it. Like Dick Beardsley pounding his fists into his thighs every night, running through snowdrifts up to my knees probably doesn't do that much more for me, but it makes me feel like I've got an advantage, when that's really not the case. Plus, there's so much more to see during winter runs, and you have to go slow enough that you have a lot of time to look at the scenery.

Monday began my abbreviated half marathon plan with a five miler. I ran down the river road, across ford parkway and then back up Cleveland. Big mistake. The river road was really nice and ice free, however cleveland and even the better part of ford parkway were terrible. It was like an ice rink, but the key was to keep moving. Yes I fell a couple times, but I tried to go fast enough that I couldn't stay on a patch of ice long enough to slip on it. I made the same mistake on Tuesday as well. I tried to add an extra loop to put some extra milage on my Tuesday group run by going up cleveland and looping around St. Kates. Bad news again, although there are no fatalities to report.

After that I kind of figured things out. I did my mid week 10 miler mostly on the river road and university ave, which was really nice. Yesterday I did 8, which quickly turned into 9 and a half. I'll put the route at the bottom of this post, but it was nothing special. It was snowing relatively hard when I went out, and because of that I only saw like four runners out. It was cool though, the sense of community that runners have; I'd high five another runner when I saw him, and run along talking about nothing for a while- people I didn't know. The only dicey part was the Franklin bridge. It was runable, but icy, and the wind coming off the Mississippi was just brutal. The snow had drifted up along the running paths which made it slow going at times- more of a resistance workout than anything- but that's what made it so fun.

01/07/2010
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So, How do I restart things?

2010-01-04T17:58:00.000-08:00

I apologize to all four of you guys who read this for not updating in a while. Its been like three weeks- thats pretty out of hand. I meant to take a break for a week off for finals, but after that I just got lazy. In fact, I only ran twice in two weeks of Christmas Break (I can call it that because I go to a catholic university.) Not such a good idea a month and a bit out from a half marathon, but whatever. So, honestly, what do I say after a three week hiatus? here's a couple things:

My roommate found a futon the day before new years. Who knows how he got it here but it looks super-legit once we rearranged our dorm. So, if you're looking for a good time, stop buy our dorm (but actually don't)

Oh, My race schedule for '10! Without consulting with my parents, or more important, my checkbook, here are the races I've scheduled myself to run:

January 23^rd- Securian Winter Carnival Half Marathon

March 28^th- Human Race 8k

April 24^th- Get in Gear Half Marathon

May 17^th- 10k Race

June 19^th- Grandma’s Marathon

September 20^th- Ft. Snelling 5x 5k relay

September 27^th- Twin Cities Running XClassic 8k

October 18^th- USATF Minnesota Cross Country Challenge 5k

October 24^th- Jack’s Run 5k

October 30^th- Monster Dash Half Marathon

November 14^th- USATF Minnesota XC Championships 10k

So, there you go. I color coded them by priority, so blues are C races, Greens are B races, and Reds are A races. I may upgrade the Monster Dash to an A race, depending on how my training goes, since I know I can rock that course. Its a pretty ambitious schedule, I think, but I'm ready to get serious. This kid that I work with is an ultrarunner and he's only a year older than me. I can not let that happen. Plus this springs from two fifty mile weeks within three weeks that I felt amazing during. Call me crazy.

Marathon training!! yes, you may have noticed I've put Grandma's on my calendar. I'm upgrading myself from baby runner to big boy runner. My buddy's girlfriend, after running the TC10 mi said she wanted to run Grandmas. Well, my buddy was pretty hesitant to do it with her, so we were talking about it over work. To convince him, I told him I'd do it if he did, and he agreed, so February 15th training starts. Now this kid is an off and on runner, and he doesn't even have a pair of running shoes. So immediately I was like, "ohmigoshI'msponsoredbyBrooksIcantotallyhelpyoufindshoesIlovedoingthiskindofstuff"and BAM! next thing I know I hooked him up with a pair of GTS 10's.

So, I've thrown together a month training plan which seems overwhelming, but I've got a lot of time on my hands. So today called for a five miler. Terrible! Never run down Cleveland Avenue in Saint Paul, never, and here's why: they never shovel their sidewalks, so there's footprints in the snow, and then that freezes, so there's a sheet of ice covering the footfalls. They're ankle breakers, I'm telling you man. I fell once, and landed on one of my fingers and now its all messed up. It swelled up pretty bad when it happened, and now it hurts to move, although its getting better, so I'm not too worried about it.

One last thing: My J term reading list. I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands even with running and work and class, so here goes.

Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany by Stephen E Ambrose

The Jungle by Upton Sinclar

Again To Carthage by John L Parker

I'm already 50 pages into Citizen Soldiers, its definitely a page turner

Setting 'em up and knocking 'em down

2009-12-02T18:12:00.000-08:00

That's pretty much what I feel like right now, I'm just doing things for the sake of doing them- school, work, even running- just seem terribly monotonous right now. I really need to re- prioritize, slow down, and refocus. Running has gone well, and I've been doing it a lot lately; I'm trying to get back consistently to 40mpw seeing that I don't have anything to train for until January 23rd. Sigma Chi seems to be in full swing, I'm opting not to go to the Theta Gama initiation at Drake this weekend, but even still I've got the Christmas party this weekend, and next weekend we've got the initiation of another brother from Iota Tau, as well as a retreat, so It'll be busy. I've got a few final papers in addition to the daily boring homework, which just seems to wear me down. I've been going to bed late and running early, which is never a good combo. Plus, I've got to find a date to the Christmas party and have to worry about all this rediculous crap that doesn't matter. I just need to take a deep breath, take a quick 5 miles to clear my head, and make a list.

Note: College is easy, until the last three weeks

Living History Cross Country Extravaganza

2009-11-23T16:53:00.000-08:00

I'm just going to throw this out there before I start- I'm wiped. I mean I'm really tired and looking forward to thanksgiving break. I'm going for a run tonight and wouldn't be surprised if I ran into a tree or something. That said, ignore my atrocious spelling and grammar.

Friday after my 10:40 class I headed up to Urbandale, IA for the Living History Farms Mud Fest that passes off as a Cross Country Race. Driving up with a couple teammates, I couldn't be more exited and debated with myself whether I should race it or not, but cooler heads prevailed and I decided not to. We got there after a good four hours on the road, which was perfect, not even a quarter mile from the start line, and went to dinner. We went to bed early after watching a bit of Return to the House on Haunted Hill (terrible movie.) The day of the race was ridiculously foggy, but not that cold. We woke up at 7:00, and got to the race after a quick warm up at 8:45 or so for a 9:00 race. There aren't really waves or anything, and there isnt really a starting chute, it was just line up and go. You had to get a good spot because there is a tunnel about a mile into the race and I hear it bottlenecks pretty bad for the people in the back of the midpack. I lined up in the fourth row and went out kind of fast, so I didn't get stuck in that, and I was off. About two miles into the race there are hay bales on the right as you run, and I saw some people in front of me try to climb up and jump off, and look like idiots, so I decided not to and run right past.

After the hay bales (or maybe before them?) there was this huge hill. I mean ridiculous. I ran up it, but I saw a bunch of people walking. I was like, are you kidding me? Two and a half miles in there's your first stream crossing. I was disappointed by how many people were apprehensive about it, waiting to find the perfect spot to slide down the banks. I jumped down and tore through the river, but had a hell of a time getting up. There was another stream crossing a short while later that had a bunch of rocks in the center that people were trying to step on to cross the river. I thought I would be smart and went to the far left and splashed through the water by everybody. Then there was a cornfield, which was a little tough to go through. It wasn't well plowed, and there were ears of corn everywhere which were ankle breakers, that really slowed me down.

Then there was this creek crossing where I lost my shoe, and had to go through in my socks, which was wet. After that I put my shoe on, and went immediately up a hill, a huge one that you had to use a rope to climb up. Again, I went to the left and climbed up pretty easily because there was a huge line to use the ropes. You went a little farther and into the woods where you went down a really big hill, this was at the last creek crossing, and people were yelling HARD LEFT! HARD LEFT!! in front of you, and it was through another river. I had a bunch of speed, so I jumped over a lot of the river and when I landed I got really really dirty. I then went up another one of those rope hills, and again tried to not use them, but slid down twice when I was halfway up the hill. I got up on the third time, and it was through the tunnel, over the gigantic hill and up to the finish to eat hot beef stew.

All told there were 8 creek crossings, and lots and lots of mud. I was really looking forward to a hot shower at the hotel after the endorphins wore off half hour before the race, because it was freezing and I was wet. Unfortunately, the hotel turned into a ghost town at 7:30 before the race, and everyone came back around 10:30, and everybody used all the hot water. Definitely a race I'll do again.

Then here's to our Fraternity, and may she never die. May heav'n preserve the Blue and Gold; and The Cross of Sigma Chi.

2009-11-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

That's from the song "Then Here's to Our Fraternity," composed by Beta Chapter in 1950. So, I got initiated on Saturday morning and am now worthy of wearing the White Cross. I dont really want to say a lot about I week and Initiation itself in fear of saying too much, but lets just say I learned a lot about myself, the brothers, and Sigma Chi as a whole. It was a really emotional week for me, and for all of us, and even though it was a lot of late nights and early mornings, I'd give a whole heck of a lot to do that experience over again. Our initiation ended at about 1:30 PM, so it went from 5:00 PM Friday to 1:30 Saturday, then I slept from 2- 9, and went back to the house to party. I had actually brought my homework over and intended to do that, but after going to the club and several drunken renditions of "The Sweetheart Of Sigma Chi" it was three in the morning and I didn't feel up for a few hours of homework.

So that's what I've been up to. I had to take Friday and Saturday off from running, and have yet to get my run in tonight, but I will, although it'll be late. Also, this weekend is Living History's 7 mile XC race in Iowa. I'm so pumped.

Blood, Sweat, but no tears (yet)

2009-11-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

Thank God I can run myself out of trouble. My foot has more or less stopped hurting after only five runs last week in four days. It was a recovery week, so I'm not too concerned. On my Friday run, I got run off the trails by a couple bikers, took a spill, and kept running. I didn't think anything of it, except some people were looking at me weird, but I blew them off. I went a couple more miles, ant then somebody passed me and was like 'are you okay?' I told them I was, why do they ask, and they kindly explained that I was going to die from blood loss because my knee was gushing blood. I don't want to get really gross, but I had to throw away the socks I was wearing that day because they were pretty bloody. I cleaned myself up at least a little bit, and the carnage really wasn't that bad; I had just let it get out of hand. I had to run home without a shirt on, because I used that to dab at the blood so it didn't get too crazy, which was okay because it wasn't that cold, but I got more than my fair share of weird looks. I got some blood splattered on my Adrenaline 10's as well, which I think looks pretty bad assed so I can fool people into thinking I'm a serious runner.

That was my fun for the week. This morning I ran 12, down to Lake Nokomis and back. I've never run that loop before, but now I'm going to more frequently, it was beautiful; like 50 degrees, and I felt great. No pain at all. I also tried some Sport Beans instead of my usual Power Bar Gel, and they worked okay. My one gripe is that I had to stop to take them, which once I stop its tough for me to get going again, but I did, running sup 9 minute miles, which I guess is okay for a long run.

11/08/2009 Route
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Oh, I was going through the Brooks ID discussion group, because it is about time to re- up again, and I came across the Brooks Running Club facebook app. (http://apps.facebook.com/brooksrunningclub/) Its got a training log component, which is awesome, as well as a discussion board and a shoe tracker thing so you can track the milelage on your current pair of shoes. I currently rotate between the Adrenaline 10, Adrenaline 8, and Mach 11, but you can only have one pair of shoes, so I am supplementing it with my buckeye outdoors log so I can keep track of individual shoe mileage, but once the gurus at Brooks figure that out, its going to be so cool!

So this week is I week for Sigma Chi. Basically what that means is that I have to live in the ∑X house for the week until Friday when I get initiated. The purpose of it is to get in touch with yourself and your brothers in a more intimate sense. Straight from the I week packet:

This includes abstaining from television, music, newspapers, magazines, internet, alcohol, tobacco, masturbation, and cellular phones. Also, to obtain the optimal effect, a personal vow of silence is required. This is not an absolute silence, but serves to cut out needless chatter, in hopes of aiding the development of deep and meaningful conversation.

So that means no posting for this next week. I have a XC race on Saturday, but I've heard through the grapevine that initiation goes until 10:30AM Saturday morning. I'll talk it over with the Magiester and Consul, but if you're on my team know that its a gametime decision. Also, this most likely means more running. I'm a devout believer that running is a way to 'get real with yourself,' reevaluate your priorities, clear your head, and pray, so I'll probably up the time on the road this week, for the sole purpose of getting myself in order.

Whats wrong with Meb?

2009-11-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

As everyone already knows, Meb won the New York City Marathon in 2:09:15, being the first American man to win since 1982. However, it looks like the media won't let him off the hook. Take a look at this yahoo article. How dumb. I just cant fathom anyone writing that. I mean, I dont know what to call that. Racism? maybe, but its definitely prejudice. I just don't know how anybody can say that, can call someone not an American simply because they emigrated here. Hey, guess what Darren, somewhere along the line, your grandparents immigrated to this great country as well, therefore, based on your own arguments, you are not fully American either, no one is. I dont want to rip on this guy too much, mostly because he's not worth ripping on, but also because he posted an apology the next day. But I really don't know why he thinks this is such a big issue now. I mean, if he wants pure American distance running, he'll have to go back to the late '70's/ early'80's with Dick Beardsley and Bill Rodgers. This quote rubs me the wrong way the most, however:

Nothing against Keflezighi, but he’s like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.

Are we really saying stuff like that on such a public forum? I mean that's downright terrible journalism to call someone out like that, I don't understand how we can let that disrespect go in our culture. brickrunnin06 made a great point on the Dyestat Talk forums. He said "Nobody has a problem with Big Papi hitting homers, or Patrick Ewing slamming the ball in, or Wayne Gretzky lighting up the ice or Osi Umenyiora making the big sack. Give Meb the credit he deserves."

I can't get my head around such ignorance and bigotry. I don't care what that guy says, I'm happy to call Meb my countrymen.

On the same note, kind of, did anyone see the article on Hassan Mead in this month's Running Times? really inspiring stuff.

So, what about my running? Well, nothing doing here. I have only run one day, on Monday, and it was a disaster, just really hurt. I self diagnosed myself having Morton's Neuroma, so I've just been taking it easy, not running, doing core, and icing, a lot. I'm going to try to jog four miles or so and see how it goes. I'll just keep the mileage low this week, and get back into it next week.

'I gotta beat the bananas!'

2009-10-31T14:51:00.000-07:00

Its been almost a week since I've posted anything, but that's because nothing exiting has happened. I have noticed that my left forefoot between the third and fourth metatarsals start getting numb as early as 20 minutes but as late as 35 minutes into my run. I can still run on them, but it eventually feels like I'm running on my ankles. I've never tried running any longer than 1:10:00 like that, but it isn't painful, although sometimes it stings pain. I looked on the internet and they said it could be one of five things: (1) due to new shoes, (2) due to old shoes, (3) Morton's Neuroma, (4) a prerequisite to Type II diabetes and death is immanent, (5) a prerequisite to a stroke and death is immanent. I ruled out 2, 4, and 5 right away. I bought some forefoot gel cushions, but ran without them yesterday. I only went 20 minutes, but left them out for the race today because I had no ill effects yesterday.

Today I ran the Monster Dash 10 miler, my second in October. It was cold, like low 30's at the start. I was one of the few people who wore shorts for the race, but it turned out to be a good choice. In fact, I was thinking that I should have wore a singlet the first five miles of the race. It was a loop course, which I was not too fond of on a windy day like this morning was. Going back was just brutal. I did my first 6 in 45- 50ish, but fell apart from there. Maybe it was the hills, maybe it was the wind, or the fact that I had not taken any water until 4 and a half miles, but I was set up for an epic collapse. So, the title. I ran my first mile in 9:45 because I was stuck behind a good 100 people slower than me. My dad saw me at the 1st mile mark, and at that point there was a bunch of bananas in front of me by about 200 meters. I shouted ' I'VE GOT TO CATCH THOSE BANANAS' at the top of my lungs and then proceeded to pass them (I ended up beating them by a good 15 minutes) and then ripping off several 8 minute miles.

The turnaround point was just brutal too. You went up a hill for about 300 meters, took a right, went up another hill for another 300 meters, and then dropped that distance over a course of 400 meters or so. That was the beginning of the end. I mostly just walked the water stops, but when I started walking, its tough to get back running. No foot problems though, which was an absolute godsend. The crowd support was sparse, it was like there was a mile where there was nobody, then there was a ton of people for a half mile, and so on. Plus, I ran 1:26:13, which is almost a four minute PR! plus, I won the 15-19 age group! I'm excited!!

October snowstorm

2009-10-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

When I was in my Political Thought class on Friday, it started snowing. It wasn't real snow though, it was more or less freezing rain that looked like snow. Nevertheless, it was coming down fairly hard, and I decided to run my workout anyways. I was planning to do a few strides across the baseball and soccer fields for 15 minutes or so, something easy. Of course, the snow was melting and puddling up whenever it hit the ground or whatever, which was not good for me. I grabbed my spikes anyway and headed out. It was pretty cold, but that really didn't bother me. I found that the fields don't drain well at all though. I managed a couple strides, but I had to be careful. Even with my 3/8'' frog killer spikes, I couldn't get any traction. I finished the workout, but my legs, shorts, and back of my singlet were all streaked with mud and grass from my kick. I guess I'm lucky I didn't fall.

So the next day I ran Jack's Run at the U of M golf course. If you were paying attention, you'd know I didn't finish last weekend's race because of my ankle. I had talked to a few people in my dorm who had run Griak in their high school days, and they said how hard the course was. Keeping that in mind, I decided to play it conservative for the first 4k and hammer the last k to the finish. Well, the pre race warm up I ran was pretty difficult, but I was feeling pretty good. I guess this was an official meet for the U of M women, since their whole team was there, which was pretty cool. We had our own start box, which made it feel like a big meet, and it was pretty sizable, especially compared to the 20 people or so that usually show up to our races. I stuck to the plan and hit 4k in 20 minutes. The hills were killing me, but it was mostly downhill from the 4k mark. I tried to pick it up, but I just couldn't. I was wobbling from one side of the finish chute to the other, feeling like I was going to pass out. I didn't, and I finished, but it wasn't pretty. I threw up just after I finished, so I've got to figure out what went wrong. I felt pretty good during the cool down, so who knows.

Brooks Adrenaline 10 review

2009-10-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

Note: those are not my shoes. Mine are much dirtier. I figured I should hold off on posting a review until I put some substantial mileage on my shoes. I've got 27 miles on them and I cant hold off any longer. These shoes feel awesome, with the exception of the toe box. They feel a lot like the 8's in every respect, although they feel a tad heavier, its not very noticeable though. Whereas you could feel the road under your feet with the 9's, there is none of that with the 10's. The arch wrap feels amazing, I think Brooks got it right when they said that they nailed the cushioning system. They aren't too firm, and they definitely aren't to spongy. I can't speak to the lacing system though, because I took out the stock laces in favor of black and reflective silver speed laces, however, I laced them fairly loose because they fit like a glove. Speaking of, I'll get to the toe box. I think its a little bit cramped, and even though I have wide feet, I fit in Adrenaline 8 size 7.5D just fine, but the same size in 10's feels a bit tighter. I'm actually finding that my toe would go numb after 6 or more miles, but we'll work on that, its no big deal. There definitely is a break in period for the 10's, about 10 miles or so, no big deal.

I'm getting a pair of 8's that I got off ebay sometime next week and will be splitting time between the 8's and the 10's, so that will be an interesting comparison. Also, they get dirty really easy, so if vanity is your thing, forget the 10's, but they still look dead sexy even covered in dirt.

In Hoc Signo Vinces

2009-10-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

Its been a while, since Saturday I think? Anyway, so Sunday... didn't go so well. My Grandparents came to the race, so it was doubly disappointing that I didn't finish. I felt all right during the warm up, but could tell something was up. I just didn't feel right. About a fourth of a mile into the race, I had to drop out. My ankle just didn't feel 100%, and my legs just wouldn't turn over. If you were wondering, running a double the day before a race, bad idea. Whatever though, I'll be back and better than ever for Jack's run on Saturday though. It's at the U golf course, so I'm going to have to go easy cause of all the hills- that probably won't happen though.

I did a thirty minute set of run 7 minutes/ walk 3 minutes on Monday for the Couch to 5k program I coach, but I decided not to log that because it was at a really relaxed pace. I went seven on Tuesday, and there wasn't a huge contingent from the TCRC there because it was foggy, rainy, and overall bad day. Makes me wish I'd bought a headlamp. We had a couple new runners, and so the pace was pretty slow. I ran the first mile from St. Thomas to St. Clair by myself in ~8:40, then the next mile with the group was at 11 something. I'm in sort of a time crunch on Tuesdays if I want to get my run done and do core, so I broke away from the pack. It was pretty dark, so I was glad I'd ran that loop probably like a hundred times before. I was alone, no one was out, and I had a Sigma Chi pledge test that night, so I decided I would repeat the Sigma Chi creed for the next five and a half miles. So I was like:

I believe in fairness... decency and good manners... I will endeavor to retain... the spirit of youth. I will try to make my college... the Sigma Chi Fraternity... and my own chapter more honored by all men and women.... and more beloved and honestly respected by our own brothers. I say these words in all sincerity... That Sigma Chi has given me favor and distinction... that the bond of our fellowship is reciprocal... that I will endeavor to so build myself and so conduct myself that I will ever be a credit...to our Fraternity.

We didn't have a pledge quiz that night, I was pretty bummed. I now know the Creed like the back of my hand though.

Yesterday was a fun one. I pulled a double, again, not the greatest idea in the world because I'm feeling it a little today. I did a speedwork session; 5x800 then a 200 sprint then a 400 jog. It was raining a little bit when I started, but by the time I got through my 3rd 800 it just started pouring. I had to take off my shirt for the 200 and 400 because it was really really heavy. It was ridiculous. I went out again to do an easy five a half our later and it wasn't raining at all, but there were puddles all over the place. It was tough, my legs felt like lead, but I got through it. I think I ran like 45 minutes and it was ugly, but its over now.

I should probably be doing my stats homework right now, but I don't want to. I'm ridiculous tired, I've gotten up at 5:30 the past three mornings, and gotten to bed at midnight. Its been brutal, I just want to take a nap. I have a Sigma Chi event tonight that I'm still in the dark about for the most part, but its always a fun time hanging out with the brothers. So now I'm just sitting on Dyestat as well as finding a route to run after work. If you were wondering why the title for this post, it means "With This Sign You Will Conquer" and is the motto of Sigma Chi.

I've got a feeling that tonight's going to be a good night

2009-10-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

Or should I say last night was going to be a good morning? I wrecked it. That's a Black Eyed Peas reference by the way, but it doesn't really have any relevance to my topic, I was just listening to that song. I did a double today- a hill workout and then a recovery run. My hill workout was at 2:30 in the morning. I came back from the Sigma Chi house after a night of NFL Blitz 2000 around 1, and then just laid around for an hour and figured I might as well be productive. It was pretty nice actually, a little cold but I warmed up after a couple hill repeats. I had a full 12 hours between my first and second runs, but I still felt like crap. I ran somewhere around 9:30's and it was tough; but the course I ran wasn't very flat either.

Thursday was my big run, we'll call it my long run because I felt sick on Friday (my long run day) and only got in a tempo. It was a seven mile route, but I logged it as eight, and I bet I went eight and a half because I can't find anything in downtown Minneapolis. I kept thinking Portland avenue ran east- west rather than north- south, so I got all confused. It chilly and raining when I started, but that cleared up. I'll post the route, but by far the coolest part was the pedestrian bridge by the Mill City Museum over the river. That was just an awesome run overall, I'll have to do that again.

Run from work
Find more Runs in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Now its off to dinner, than to start my Art History project that was assigned two weeks ago and is due on Monday. I've got to clean out my spike wells in my XC spikes too. Tempo run+ muddy trail+ empty spike wells= bad idea. If anyone asks you to pay $11 to see Law Abiding Citizen, don't. That movie's not worth it. I'm in for a chill night tonight, because I'm running a 5k bright and early tomorrow.