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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.