pre-pre-race workout donuts

Lots of action so far this morning, prior to 6am. It all started when I woke unexpectedly at about 4am. I think I must have been roused by something out on the street but I also noticed my IT band was kind of achy and my knee a bit stiff so I decided to grab my Hemingway compendium and do a little reading while doing some a little passive stretching. Basically, I got caught up in the action and by 5:30 I heard Jenny's phone alarm go and thought maybe I'd get the french press up and running for her (since she's inept with the intricacies of good coffee). This led to a frantic search for the iron, some pet play time and finally the notion that surely our neighborhood Korean donut purveyor must be operational by this hour. Oh they were and their donuts were still warm and pretty sensational. So as I sit here reeling from this morning's events, I think about how nice it would be if I could be up at this time more often to enjoy the sunrise but it's just not possible and this is more tending towards a Rodgers-esque mid-slumber snack. I will say that I am not going to regularly eschew the virtues of sleep for food, or much else for that matter as I feel that would only be a gateway to the "human zoo syndrome."

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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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