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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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/