Yes, I am...

I guess I did it again.  I over did it...again.  After being "smart" and resting what felt like an Achilles, falling behind on mileage, and gradually building back up to re-join the others in my running group, I capped off a 41 mile total week with a Saturday 15 miler.  The run ended with a little bit of soreness in my foot, near the base of the big toe metatarsal.  Monday this was pain.  I could walk "normally" by rolling my foot to the little toes as I walked, but that's no way to run.  I know the prescription: stop running, and rest.

Rats....

I know it's not a big deal really.  There are far worse things than not being able to perform what is currently* your favorite exercise.  People have much worse problems, and I am ridiculously fortunate in my life.

But...rats...

I plagued myself with injured running thoughts: hearing the words of everyone who thinks runners are crazy.  Why do you do this to yourself?  What's wrong with you?  Don't you know better?  Now you can see that I'm right and that you should know better.  I hope you've learned your lesson!

I didn't run for 2 weeks which made me miss my group's first 16 mile and 18 mile long runs and only did a few 30 minutes sessions on the elliptical.  Then I mixed up elliptical with light jogging on the dreadmill in the same session.  I ran on Wednesday, but cut it short.  My running group was planning a 20 miler this morning.

I figured Dallas Marathon was not going to happen this year.

This morning, I started running early with the intent of running as far as I could without pain.  Running alone is better because I'm not tempted to run as far or at the pace of my friends that day (there is, however, a stunning and sad lack of tacos and Coke with lime at the end of the run).  Also, I like running in my neighborhood because I have many routes that I can use to transform a short loop into a long loop or cut a long loop short.  The dark and quiet streets of suburban Dallas awaited me.  It's autumn in north Texas, and that means very pleasant running weather.  Cool in the mornings...just a little chill that makes you glad when the first rays of sun warm you up.

The first loop ended up being 6 miles.  I headed back into my apartment to get some water and a little snack and then headed back out onto the road.  My feet crunched leaves as the sun crested the horizon spilling light through the trees and making patterns on sidewalks and lawns.  Suburbia came to life, but still no cars out: homeowners in pajamas getting the Saturday paper, dog walkers, and a few other joggers.  The sky this morning was a brilliant blue visible through leaves that varied in color from green to light brown.  Who picked out the color scheme for this place?  I love it!

I've seen, read, and shared comments and thoughts critical of our "fitness culture" that is little more than marketing to make people ashamed of their bodies and sell gym memberships and expensive clothing.  I often agree with this view, and it makes me kind of sad.  A few days back a trending tag on Google+ was "love your body."  Many people were sharing pictures and words that encouraged people to accept who they are, and that's great!  I didn't see any about running, and that's OK.  I ran and I could feel my body working: a symphony in motion that I was listening to with my feet, legs, back, arms, heart, and lungs.  I could feel my back muscles holding my chest up to keep my airway open and my lungs working and my arms counter-balancing my leg motion as I hopped down over a curb and then back up with a good-morning wave to make way for a woman walking her little dog.  Up Lookout (the only hill of mention on these loops) and I shortened my stride to keep my cadence even.  What a wonderful feeling to be alive: it's called the runner's high, and like any high, you can crash down from it if you're not careful.  I don't know that I'll run the marathon, but for now I ran and it felt great.

At my work we had free flu shots and I managed to schedule mine at the end of the day so I could head directly home after.  Because I walk to work, I usually wear old running shoes and switch into more business-ish type shoes (although I'm an engineer so it really doesn't matter) once I'm there.  As the nurse rolled up my sleeve she noticed my iridescent blue trainers and, probably, my skinny arms.

Are you a runner, she asked?

Yes, I am.

*check back in the spring when the Belgian classics are on and I'm attempting to wax poetic about cycling.

A place in time is a home you can't go back to...

My train of thoughts after reading my friend's post here.

Let's start with gamma-ray bursts:

Copyright by The National Science Foundation

Here's a reference for good measure:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090403-gamma-ray-extinction.html

If gamma-ray bursts periodically cleanse space of life, we'll probably never make contact with another life-form.  We just don't have time...either we'll be dead, or they'll be dead by the time we would have made contact with them.  We may not have time to get off this planet for the same reason.  Not that I want to, because I kind of like it here:

Photo by Angela (using my camera...so I guess we both get credit? :-)

The above was taken from a recent camping trip to Palo Duro Canyon.  It was on the aforementioned trip while gazing at some stars and chatting with a friend, that I had a series of thoughts I periodically have about time, infinity, and mortality.

You can't go back.  You can try to relive something that has happened, but you can't do it.  What can you do it you feel like your home was a time?  Not a place, but simply a combination of circumstances that made you feel like you were right where you belonged?

Should you seek it out?  Should you try to recreate it?  Should you wait for it?

I'm stuck.

There's a card on my desk that my mother sent to me that has the following quote:

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anais Nin

Is it that I don't know what to do?  Or that I don't have the courage to do what I know I should do?

Fall Training: I'm back....

For the week of 2012-08-20:

4 hours swimming
4:30 hours of cycling for 79 miles
3:09 hours of running* for 20 miles
0:00 hours of weights
0:30 hours of stretching in a single session (kind of like yoga, but really lazy yoga)

*counting walking between running intervals, but not walking to work.

This week I managed to walk to work and home to lunch every day, do 3 run/walk interval sessions during the week...and....run 12.2 miles on Saturday!  Talking a week and a half off of running is not easy to do, but I think it really paid off since I was able to finish a long run on Saturday with no walking.

Now...what to do next week?  I really want to run DM, and following the schedule I have, this week would consist of a total of 39 miles.  That's a 100% increase, and that's just too much.  Soooo...let's go for 25 up from 20.  I big jump, but I don't plan to scale like this every week.  Let's go with:

Monday: no run
Tuesday: 2-3 base miles
Wednesday: 7 miles (possibly the Prairie Creek hill Run)
Thursday: 2-3 base miles.
Friday: no run
Saturday/Sunday: 13 total miles.

What about cycling and running?  We'll see...we'll see...

The people at Wal-Mart

I don't remember when, but I recall seeing a link posted somewhere to an article/blog post/whatever titled "What you should buy at Whole Foods," or something similar.  The subject was about which foods the author believed should be purchased from stores that sell organic produce, "responsible" seafood, and other items of that sort.

The actual article didn't interest me as much as the fact that the comments following the article seemed to (mostly) fall into one of two categories:

Category 1: "Whole Foods is for pretentious people who want to maintain an image and be snobby.  If you had any common sense you'd buy in bulk at Costco."

Category 2: "Well if you don't mind feeding your family poison, then you can shop at Wal-Mart if you want!"

What I honestly thought, and several people voiced a similar thought, was, "What if I don't want where I buy my groceries to define me as a person?"

I do go to Whole Foods sometimes.  When I do, it's more of a treat that anything else: to pick out some item I wouldn't normally buy, but I do shop at Wal-Mart sometimes also.  I will admit that being raised by a single-parent with a tight budget has left me with a slight chip on my shoulder, and I get a kick out of knowing that I can save money by shopping at a less-premium grocery store.

But I don't usually shop at Wal-Mart: it's often crowded, the checkout lines are long, the stores seem dirty, and it's just not a pleasant shopping experience.

Ah-Ha!  You snob!  Since when is shopping an "experience?" Don't you know that some people just need to stretch their pay-check as far as they can?!

Yes, I do.

Which brings me to a post-gym errand run that took me to Wal-Mart this week.  It was crowded, and nearly everyone there looked tired.  Not a post-gym yuppie tired, but an I've-been-on-my-feet-all-day tired.  One woman in particular caught my attention.

She was wearing scrubs and white tennis shoes.  Her chin length dark hair framed her dark tired looking eyes.  Her face had kind of a square shape, but I think that was really just how it appeared when it was framed by her hair.  I wondered how she would look with her hair pulled back.

She was pushing a cart, and there was a young girl, who was maybe 6 or 7, riding in the main basket.  She looked bored...really bored.  "You're old enough to walk!" I wanted to say.  "Your mom's tired, why are you making her push you?"

Maybe her mom felt bad because her daughter had to be out at 8:30pm on a weekday, picking up groceries after her mom got off work.  Maybe the little girl had spent the whole day with a grandma or an aunt while her mom was working.  Maybe that's why she was bored.

Wal-Mart has a slogan I've heard, "Save money: live better," and I've always mocked it.  What? live better by saving money so you can buy even more crap you don't need from Wal-Mart?  Ha! There's consumer culture for you!  ...but maybe not.

I hope the woman saved enough to treat herself and the little girl to some ice cream.  Even it was just a quart of generic brand artificially sweetened vanilla ice cream, sometimes the smallest gestures can mean quite a bit.

They should get some chocolate sauce too...I think they both deserve it.

Fall Training Week 3 and 4: Bummer, but I'm not giving up yet.

For the week of 2012-08-06 (70.3 training week 14/20 and DM week 2/19)

Here are the highlights (so to speak):

Monday: decent swim in the morning and fantastic run after work.  Despite the 100+ temp, I felt like I was flying: 6 miles like nothing.
Tuesday: tough but satisfying swim in the morning and a evening brick consisting of the spinner bike at the gym, and a grind it out 4 mile run/jog.  My left Achilles felt like it was sore / tight...or something...
Wednesday: decent swim in the morning and then disaster struck after work.  I headed out to run 6, but felt something off in my left heel.  I cut the route short but ended up walking 2 out 4 miles with a good deal of pain in my left heel.  Great...this was after having issues with my right heel back in June.
Thursday: rest
Friday: swim, then a spin and gym after work.  I wanted to see what it felt like to pedal a bike, and it actually loosened up my heel a bit, but after walking around the gym for 45 minutes it was tight and a little painful again.
Saturday: Very long solo bike ride.  No issues with my heel / Achilles while riding...hmmm...
Sunday: short ride and weights.

For the week of 2012-08-13 (70.3 training week 15/20 and DM week 3/19)

Monday: morning swim
Tuesday: morning swim and evening gym
Wednesday: morning swim, evening spin + gym
Thursday: morning swim, evening spin
Friday: rest
Saturday: morning spin + swim, evening gym
Sunday: solo ride

Thought for this week.  No running, but my heel is feeling better.  I will not injure myself again!  I may try to run / jog a bit next week.  I had better get healthy...I'm turning in to a gym rat ;-)

Back to School Sales and Corporate Culture

Every year as summer is winding down (the months, not the temperature), I will walk into a store, see a "back to school" sale, and am hit with a wave of nostalgic sadness.

Let's sharpen those # 2's!

The start of a new school year was a fresh start, or at least it seemed that way.  Maybe you were continuing were you left off in a sense, but it wasn't as though your teacher from the previous grade was going hand you an assignment from last year and say, "You know that paper that you didn't get the best grade on?  The one you had a really hard time writing?  You know how you thought that even though it was struggle to get through it was over and done now.  In the past?  Well, we're going to have you re-write it, again.  Let's dig up everything, go back over each mistake, let you relive them, and have you go through the same struggle again.  How does that sound?"

No.  It didn't happen.

What was done was done.  You got a freakin' fresh start.  I really miss that.

There's a corporate culture slogan / management ideology called "continual improvement," or something like that.  I have an MSEE and not an MBA, but my understanding is that you look at a process in your business and whenever you complete a product launch, customer delivery, or whatever your company does, you look back at that cycle and determine what could have been done better.  There's always something, right?

Put this into your best disembodied principle of the school voice:

"Couldn't you have done this better?  How?  Why didn't you do that in the first place?"

Can you ever say that you couldn't have done better?  No.  Of course not.  One can always improve.  I believe this...and that's a problem.

If you can always improve, and you never restart, then you always fail, you always have failed, and you are failing right now.  Bummer.

Yeah, that's kind of a glass half-empty way of looking at things, but sometimes that's how you see life.  

[disembodied principle of school voice]

"Well, couldn't you see life in a more positive manner?  You can't try to be a little more pleasant?"

I really want a brand new box of crayons.

Go USA

I'd like to find a permanent link to the photo of the USA women's football (sock-ah) team jumping in the air after winning the gold medal in the Olympics today, but I'm not sure if I can.  However, this photo is in the public domain, and it's relevant to my thoughts after seeing the previously mentioned photo:

Senator Birch Bayh, the primary senate sponsor and author of Title IX.  (Yes, I had to look it up on Wikipedia).

The first time I heard anything about Title IX it was related to something about a men's college sport program being canceled.  I was fairly young and don't remember the exact context, and I am certainly not any sort of expert on Title IX, casual or otherwise.  However, it does make me think of what my mother has told me about her going to college in the early 1960's: My grandparent's friends (and some family) wondered why they were wasting all the money to send a girl to college; and she was asked if she was going to be a teacher, or a nurse (I mean, what else to women go to college for?).

My sister and I weren't much into sports growing up (just a dabble of park district soccer or 4-H softball), and I wonder if my nieces will be.  If not, that's OK.  I've already got photo's from ballet recitals, and I love that my niece (when presented with the options) choose playing outside in the park over shopping for stuffed animal accessories.  But if she chooses to, I would never want her being told that she shouldn't play sports because she is a girl.  Seeing the look sheer ecstasy (that really is the best word) on the USA football team member's faces, and the thought that they don't deserve that joy is not simply unfair, it's un-american.

Go USA.

Fall Training: 2 weeks in...

For the week of 2012-07-23 (70.3 training week 12/20 & DM base)

3:00 hours of swimming, all in 60 minutes workouts with DAM, all pretty much a beat-down :-)
5:13 hours of cycling for 98.5 miles
3:50 hours of running for 24 miles
0:25 hours of weights.

Of Note:

Swimming is a constant reminder of 2 things: first, that my shoulder / arm muscles are still building back up after have clavicle surgery; and second, that I am just really weak! :-)

Long ride with the TriShop group was great.  They killed the pace on the way out, but I still had the energy make a good solo effort back home after I turned around at mile 30.  My solo rides / trainer spins during the week were mostly uneventful.

Most of the running was at a 9ish pace with some runs ending with alternating walk 0.25 miles and run 0.25 miles for last mile or so.  I didn't want to push my ankle / heel, and boy was it hot.  My Sunday morning solo 8 miler was a particular beat-down (that's my new favorite hyphenated work combo!).

For the week of 2012-07-30 (70.3 training week 13/20 & DM week 1/19)

3:00 hours of swimming, all in 60 minutes workouts with DAM
5:10 hours of cycling for 94 miles
4:58 hours of running for 33.3 miles
1:20 hours of weights.

Of note:

My Thursday Swim with DAM felt like a little less of beat-down...probably because it was stroke day, we had a hard set, and everyone was worn out.

My long cycling set was a solo ride on Sunday: I wanted to start early and wanted to work on pacing myself.  3:10 in the saddle at a 18.8mph average...not too bad considering I wasn't killing it.  Although I wasn't planning on making the workout a brick, I felt so good I ran 3 miles after and finished the last miles strong running the last 0.5 at sub race-pace.

I feel like I ran with the Zen master on Saturday.  I started the WRRC 10 miler towards the front and got into a good conversation.  I looked down and we were averaging <8:20 at mile 4/10 with sun still rising and the temperature > 90 and climbing.  At the second water-stop I started running with Chris and we averaged an 8:40ish pace for a bit.

We chatted and he talked about taking time to build a base during the heat of the Summer and wanting to finish the long runs strong.  As we neared the final water stop and the 2 miles to go mark I commented that he had dropped our pace down to sub 8:30 and he smiled saying "all by design."  At the water stop most of the group had re-collected and when we started again Chris went to the front and started hauling it back to Fuzzy's.  I chased after him and averaged about 7:40/mile but still didn't catch up.

Chris spends a lot of time being a good running coach, encouraging everyone, and trying to make WRRC a welcoming group, so I forget that he's a sub 3:20 marathoner.  Much respect!

The City of Richardson Public Library

One book that I like is "Homegrown Democrat" by Garrison Keillor.  In the book,  Keillor  lays out some of his own political views, the events of his life that shaped them, and how these views align him with the Democratic party despite it's imperfections.  A point that is raised  at least once is the importance of funding public libraries, and I tend to agree.

Granted, I do see people checking out stacks of DVDs, which to me can come across like using the library as a free DVD renting service, but I guess that's not so bad.  

I also see things that really illustrate the importance of these public services, like someone using the computers to fill out an online job application or taking notes from a guidebook for a certification exam.  These people do not come across like they want to milk the system for a handout.  The look like they want a job, or they want a job that is better than the one they have now.

Then there are the things that just make me smile: kids getting excited about a book, or a little kid I saw to day who was wearing an empty backpack around.  I know it was empty because it was unzipped nearly all they way and was hanging open.  It also looked very new.  I don't know for sure, but I imagined that it was his new backpack for school and he was excited to wear it.  At least that is what I'm hoping.

I also saw this gem today: a man standing in the checkout line by himself with a stack of books.  All had titles like "Your First Pregnancy" and "A Guide to Yoga for Pregnant Women."

Congratulations man, did you just find out today?

I've started running with a training group again...

When I first moved to Dallas I found a "home" meeting up with friendly runners at White Rock Lake to go on long runs in the heat and train for a marathon.  The camaraderie is so great that I found myself looking forward to getting up early on a Saturday to sweat for 2 hours.

Fast forward to now:  I often let my job stress me out when it doesn't really need to.  This Friday morning as I walked into work I found myself smiling and here's why:

Whatever didn't get done this week and whatever challenges are ahead for next week are whatever they are and I can't change them.  However, I did know that in about 24 hours I would be having a post-run brunch with my friends.  We would be chatting, laughing, smiling, and generally feeling good.