Red Dirt Harriers

Had to attend to some court proceedings yesterday, amounting to a little inflation of the old blood pressure. It was all fun and games while we sat in on a fairly serious case but then when we had to jump up and down a few times while the judge entered/exited on a whim. All very exciting. The lessons learned outweighed the penalties inflicted. Such as: don't get in a brawl in a casino with a casino guard, don't jump town without paying the bail-bondsman and then come back to town and get arrested, etc. The title of the post actually refers to the Curb Your Enthusiasm marathon I've settled into tonight. Larry David IS George Costanza. At first you get annoyed by him, but then he gets in your head like a jingle- CO-Stanz-A. AND I like his thoughts on the weatherman, their a front building over the land spewing bs. Regardless of this crap weather, I got a good jog in with my buddy Jason, there's no way I was tough enough to run 90' outside solo, but it was very doable ...

Tomorrow is the most intense treadmill session to date, kicking off at 8am. If you're unclear basically what my spring running campaign has been based on, I'm taking this supplement, Gametime, prior to my workout which contains a few stimulants, some protein synthesis stuff, artificial sweeteners, and some mushroom derivative that has yet to be fully explained to me. This thing is so clearly destined for weight lifters and their ilk, because it is lacking in carbs and sits kind of heavy on the stomach. I usually have to use the restroom immediately upon ingestion, as it triggers some digestive reflex, but otherwise I'm on board with it man, if it just came in more exciting fruity flavors. I need to get in a good one tomorrow and then I'm willing to basically can the intervals, because I don't really care about running faster than 4:20 mile pace, it ain't going to happen and it's pretty severe on the old hammys right now. I admit I like the treadmill though a...

I'm still kind of lacking in the long run department, but on other fronts the training is pretty strong. I'm neglecting the tempo runs a little, and I don't have much choice for the next couple weeks but all of the sudden Jerry has put this bug in my ear about the 10k at the Kansas Relays. I'm not sure how realistic it is to do the full thing, maybe just pacing duties. I am leery of running 25 laps and 50 left turns but it's a possibility. I finally got my day off today and it has been ideal. I got in a medium interval workout on the treadmill and then headed outside for a steady 6 mile cooldown, which tested the fuel reserves a bit. I was pretty famished by the time I hit Plaid, but their peanut butter/Choco granola bar and El Salvadorian coffee got me through. I am curious why it is the tendency to light roast a lot of the centro american varieties. It leaves them very beany. Probably more interestingly, I was getting out for a run in the evening and I happened to...

It looks like I've let a week get away from me without blogification so here goes- Training was nice. I've been able to get in some doubles, mainly because I need an easy jog in the afternoons after I do these treadmill tests but as long as I stretch and stuff, I've been feeling good enough. I'm running pretty steady on my runs and as a result having a little trouble building the duration of my runs, but the fitness is coming along and I'm not that concerned with an official long run at this point. I got a nice run in with John on Monday, hit the Vo2 on Tuesday, where I went significantly farther on the test, but got a lower reading than last time, 74. The ex phys kids were threatening to increase my critical velocity to 4:00 pace but I told them that was ridiculous and they relented. I backed that up on Wednesday with 2 minutes at 14mph, big break, then 21 minutes at 5:10 pace, which took some concentration but I could have knocked out a few more minutes. I'm c...

This will be the blog post for the day dealing with things other than my trepidation regarding the ex phys. research project. Jordan and I went up to see the Oscar nominated short films at the OKC art museum. This was the 3rd year I've caught these films and there are usually some pretty memorable pieces this year was kind of a disappointment. We missed a couple of the animated shorts, which marked the first half of the grouping, before we headed to McNellie's for a interlude and a pint. We missed Oktapodi and Lavatory Lovestory . Have I ever told you guys the story of how my great-grandfather came up with the name for the USC mascot. His name was Owen Bird and he was a journalist for the LA times sports beat. He actually was also a trackster formerly, though of the sprint variety. Anyway, the story is alluded to here . I bring this up because although I dreaded nearly every minute that I watched of the Grammy's, the few minutes involving Radiohead and the USC marching ban...

I am really questioning my participation in the research study. My legs are quite sore and at this point I'm really just hoping not to injure myself. This could easily happen when you hop on a treadmill going 14mph and sprint without any real progression into the act. The woodway is a pretty nice piece though and it's interesting to get alot of feedback on my capabilities as a runner. The head professor got really jazzed that he was able to show me how to use the treadmill at high speeds and tell me that if I only do some intense workouts, I will all of a sudden become an unstoppable runner and start winning all those races I was losing in the finishing sprint. It's hard not to accommodate his thinking but he hasn't considered the fact that I have in fact tried to do such training when I was younger and I'm a much better runner now without the aid of such training mainly because I just don't respond really well to that type of training. If I were going to set u...

So things have been perking up for me lately. There's a certain springtime feel in the air and my foot is feeling better, maybe on the mend. I was really chipper this morning running through Norman's rift valley. Yeah, just jogging past the fields of bright green winter wheat and quarter horses. I even had a good group of canines join the mix for a while. I've signed on with my latest University coordinated performance study. Lets see last time I did one of these... I remember laying in a cold shower with my feet elevated, 15 pounds lighter due to excessive sweating and vomiting. Skolnick and I usually try to leave it on the court in these types of engagements. Anyway, I'm going to be putting in some good efforts on the new Woodway at OU and getting a blood profile. I think it will be a nice lead-in to a hopefully healthy spring and I can get used to sweating before the warm weather sets in. I'll go ahead and mention the fact that I've had a couple other prior ...