Red Dirt Harriers

It's been a wearying last few days at OKRunner Edmond. We sold alot of shoes out there under the hot sun and brought alot of attention to the store, which will hopefully keep Jerry a bit more busy selling shoes instead of shining the floors. Anyway, in the interest of decompressing, Jerry, Ayuko, Tim, and meself went and had a few beers after loading up Tim's sweet new ride, a U-Haul. After that I proceeded to OKC to join up with Spenis, and of course toast the evening with a shot of Sauza. McNellie's followed then, a visit to the Mini-mart with Mike and Spenis in tow on the way to cheer on Team OKRunner at the Midnight Streak. Against my better judgment we went to Edna's and the smoke and noise basically put the cap on the evening. At some point I passed out in the proximity of Spenis's house and woke up with a rug burn over my back from Benoit dragging me around in the front yard. Spenis was a doll and even made me coffee this morning which we held high in salutin...

I'm on one of those late circadian rhythm cycles, which means I'm getting up late and staying up later. It also means I'm riding home from work in the dark more often than not which makes for some interesting scenarios, it's also kind of cool to bike over the interstate in the dark and looking over all the lights in town and the cars streaming along underneath the bridge. There's absolutely no bike shoulder on any of the roads and very few street lights, so when my head light went out yesterday it made for a pretty harrowing ride home but I had an extra incentive to make it home in one piece, Cappuccino Chunky Chocolate . Exciting news on the music front is Animal Collective gaining access to the Grateful Dead catalog and collaborating with Atlas Sound on new work...and how 'bout a little Floyd to commemorate the 50th anniverssary of the landing on the moon. Appropriately, I've tuned in to see the space station 3 times now and happily so can you , yay. ...

Yeah, this is more my style of late. I'm enjoying doing some biking but more in the shorter portioned 2-a-day model, where I try to throw in a few surges, climbs, TT poses- that sort of thing and then wipe the sweat off and go to work for 8hours, and finally repeating the ride back to the house. It never ceases to amaze the disregard I get around town on my bike from drivers, but I haven't gone over anybody's hood yet. I actually really like the idea of grabbing a coffee midway and then finishing the ride out which is what I did last Wednesday and low and behold I was able to do a good deed by rescuing a bewildered dachshund from certain peril and reuniting him with his owner, all while ordering coffee and a danish. For those readers who are both fans of the Tour and graphic novels (statistical analysis has shown this to be a large subset of my visitors), I thought the VS Epic Cycle bit is kind of interesting and worth visiting if for no other reason than to hear the legen...

My day revolved around coffee and food. It was a restful day away from the store and I managed to finish a yard project long overdue. I am trying my hand at a little landscaping involving a large decorative pot and a lot of rocks. Throw in a water pump and the possibility of aquatic plants and you've got some wild stuff brewing. This nonstandard type of activity was made possible by my continued lack of running, which has proven to be a necessary precaution in order to be able to walk without MUCH pain and perform normal daily tasks. I have at least been able to sweat a little this week by biking in to work and I think that this week I'm going to alternate the elliptical and the bike. I really haven't done any laudable amount of cross training as far as volume goes because I really couldn't stand aquajogging solo everyday so the first week was bad, but I'm going to push myself a little this week, maybe.

As I came up with this sweet title, I was tuned into OETA and caught the preview for Okie Noodling II, needless to say I will eagerly sitting in front of the telly tonight. The best quote I heard came courtesy of a ragged, threadbare sage who says: "Noodlin- it's like golf, ya just never can git the hang of it." Ah yes, like life itself I suppose, hand fishing certainly never ceases to challenge our psyche and bewilder our anticipatory powers. Alright, next point of business, I've fucked up my foot to some degree. What exactly I have done alludes me, but I'm pretty positive it's a stress fracture. While I'm no MD and I do get my intelligence on human anatomy regularly challenged by customers at the store, I have researched extensively and have come upon no other explanation remotely close to plausible for my ailment. I have alot of trouble walking as midway along my 2nd metatarsal is sore to the touch and lightly swollen. I had a dull ache for about a week...

Training has been going pretty well, all things considered. As of late I've hit the track several times this summer and have put out some good efforts. This week, we did quarters which is something pretty foreign to my training log as of the last 4+ years. I ran alot of 71's before pushing out a 68 and trying to maintain :60 200 recovery jogs. After that, I got back to 71-72 before battening down on the last 6 or so and running 69-70.It was a good workout for me and I should be able to revisit this type of effort and gauge improvement. I am definitely doing a little tight rope walking as far as health so I aim to maybe take an easier week here and there to just run miles. Anyway, working at the running shop has been fun for the most part and I am looking forward to instituting a optional snowcone evening run next week, which could potentially mean either we run over to the snowcone stand or, in some other individuals, thinking may just include an ice cold beer mid run. Either o...