chocolate and cheese

My blogging has been pathetic so I'm starting the new year in modest fashion. I had the pleasure of venturing to Wisconsin for New Years and stocking up on lots of good artery clogging things. We toured the New Glarus Brewery, which is an epic setting. I went to Lambeau to see the Pack dispatch the Bears, while carefully monitoring multiple beers to ensure that they didn't freeze solid and making use of a coozie to keep the beer WARM. I got to walk across a frozen Lake Michigan and make fun of Wisconsin natives delightful accents and laughable antics like stuffing hundreds of animal mounts in a single bar or covering windows with plastic sheeting to insulate. It was a really fun trip and the 16 hour drive each way really didn't tax the body too much. Upon return to OK, we were greeted with pleasant temps which rapidly deteriorated to near Wisco-like temps. The new place started to feel pretty drafty and the heater seems functional in exactly one of five rooms. So as we speak, I'm snacking on cheese curds and fixing vinyl sheeting over the windows.

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ride the wave

I hit the track this morning for some work. It was another nice morning but I can't imagine the humidity abating for long. Jordan and Meagan had matching workouts of 4-8-12-16-16-12-8-4 w/ 60 second rest. The paces prescribed were quick and I didn't run great but I tried to hang with Jordan on the middle reps. I should hopefully be able to substantially improve on my efforts this morning and maybe feel better doing it. I did something like a 200-500-1100-800-1600-1200-600-200, I wasn't happy with missing out on the first 1600 but I had to break for the restroom and I at least touched on some faster paces on the other reps. The recovery made it a pretty honest effort and I at least was able to sneak below 5:00 pace. My goal for the summer is breaking 15:00 so we'll see what happens. The picture above is my uncle's digital rendering of a wave complete with a frigate bird. I think he used only Adobe throughout the process.

some ups and downs

I ran the Little Rock Marathon last weekend, finishing in 2:28:30ish. The race director took good care of all the elite runners, giving both the 1/2 and fullers the option of staying in the race hotel 2 nights prior to the race. I will note that their standards seem fairly relaxed and yet they gave us some nice little perks, with staging areas before and after and dinner before and whatnot. I again have to tip my hat because this is clearly not the norm in today's race circuit and if it is offered, there is often a very limited number of allowed elite spots. I had contacted the Woodlands marathon for instance and was not going to be offered any more than a comped entry, even though the marathon field was very limited. I have a number of issues surrounding this phenomenon but will just make note of the races that make an effort to help someone like myself. The course at Little Rock is quite winding and undulating for about 18 miles but then smoothes out and allows for a steady fin...

homage to the original

Summer's here, we've got nice, hot weather, lots of daylight and the only thing that sounds appealing sometimes is sitting on the couch in your underwear with your beverage of choice. There's alot of talk floating around of The Summer of Malmo, but I felt obliged to remind everybody about the origins of this proclamation: I think we all know who that was, more importantly we should consider the points laid out in his exclamation. Three months of floating, reading a book or two, tasting the fruits of the season: all these things can be well integrated into a great summer and successful rebuild to new heights in the fall. I too have always been a fan of The Summer of Malmo ideals. In fact, I pretty much use these methods when training for anything other than a marathon.

Red Dirt Harriers

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