Red Dirt Harriers

Three weeks until a variation of Big Dance where I hope its a party all the way to Boylston Street and I don't leave the show heartbroken. I've made it a point to spend some high-end aerobic quality time out on Cedar Lane and East Lindsey to best invoke a similar stimulus to the quads, hammys, and gastrocs. The last three weeks following the Little Rock debacle I've been holding at 120+ miles and have had some good efforts. Basically, I've tried to just raise the bar from the fall in terms of specific marathon quality perhaps in lieu of the 5-10k modeled work, we'll see what that does for me. Since I've slacked so much with the blog, I'll put up the obligatory sample week for what was a good week for me and open myself up to the critics out there in the ether: M- am 84' and 5 strides pm 49' w/ 8 strides T- am 70' pm 33', 12 x walnut hill(12-15seconds), 5' home W- am 4 mi, 5x 2mi on the roads w/ ~2' jog (10:52,:42,:46,:52,:39), 2...

Got back to the long run with a satisfactory result this morning. I did an easy marathon simulation workout with a 20 minute warmup, 4 miles steady, 55 minutes regular, 5 miles steady, and a mile plus to finish for something in the realm of 20 miles continuous. I was more beat than I would have been a week ago, but I got in a nice groove on the second steady section running 5:45s or so which given my recent recovery from viral bronchitis, I will take. I can't seem to fully knock the chest congestion and coughing but my energy levels seem good. I'm looking into summer plans, which would definitely involve being away from the heat and humidity of Norman. I'm trying to rally any and all parties interested in sharing a cheap pad in cooler climes. Colorado and New Mexico are the obvious contenders but Flagstaff, Oregon, or California would also be acceptable.

Despite continued refusal to operate at full capacity my lungs and the rest of my body completed a couple of runs today, sandwiched around a mostly unscintillating day at NHS. I want to know what makes certain kids think that they can completely disregard an authority figures and argue and interrupt while I try to impose some small level of diligence upon them. I can't imagine a scenario where I would have talked shit to a teacher or substitute in a similar circumstance so I'm just trying to understand if anything has really changed with the youth of today. Oh and cell phones are everywhere in school and they think it prudent to utilize them as often as possible. Add that to the list of things that makes me despise that infernal invention all the more. On a different note, my family headed up to Tom and Jerry's on 23rd St. last night for my mum's B-day. It was a pretty good place (I sadly had to keep the wine to a minimum), but interestingly empty all night. This is an ...

Well this past weekend was supposed to mark my return to racing as I entered the Little Rock 1/2 and had already gone in with Bill for a hotel room. On Friday afternoon when I got out of school my throat was a little sore and my chest was giving me some asthma-like trouble, but having spent alot of my springs in the midwest, this is pretty much inevitable for me and I just try to work with it. Anyway, by the time I got to Tulsa on Friday night, I was feeling rough and after a night of no sleep and alot of hacking and coughing, I felt worse. However, I just decided to go anyway and just do what I could which at this point was obviously not going to be much. I couldn't sleep Saturday night either and was pretty weak and had the chills. Anyway, the race was pretty good sized and there were some good dudes up front in both the 1/2 and full marathons, albeit alot of road carnage along the way as it was a fairly tough course and it was unseasonably warm and humid. I later learned that a ...

So while we in the OK state were all enduring last weekend's freezing rain and Billy G's biscuits and gravy, Wolfman Trev and his lady friend Seamus Gurley were tackling the Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon. What does a quadrathlon enatail, one might inquire (surely it involves some use of firearms)? Well actually, the race fuses running, biking, XC skiing, and snowshoing in a out/bacl format to the peak of 11,000'+ Mt. Taylor covering 42 miles in all. It looks tough and I would have no business participating in the snow sport portions of the event but nonetheless it sounds like alot of fun that may have to be completed by more of us in '09. Anyway, I think Trev got 2nd in his age group and there are some really good athletes participating in the event like Josiah Middaugh. So props to my Duke City comrades for getting it done. Just thinking about the Duke City leads me to wishing for some green chile laced foods. However, since we are seriously lacking in this department, I will...

From hence forth, I dub one Mr. BJ Grona as my personal rejuvenator. I headed up to T-town for a relaxing weekend. On Saturday, Bill and I met Steven Murphy for a long run. It was a nice relaxed run and we covered Riverside and some other new bike paths that run on the west side of the river by Turkey Mountain. The run was tough as we had freezing rain for like the middle 45' which had us somewhat miserable for a while. Anyway, we managed to get it done and then Bill and I grabbed a fritter at some redneck donut shop where Bill was sure that this old lady in the kitchen had grabbed a shotgun upon our entry in rainsoaked half tights and short shorts. I can neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of this accusation. The rest of the weekend progressed in a nice similarly lethargic manner. We ate alot of food and zonked out for a while and then watched an enthralling episode of Nature. My legs have been really feeling good, so I'm getting excited about doing a couple more workout...

So when I left off, I was just about to go see the Bob Dylan semibiographical "I'm Not There." I don't know if I would recommend this movie to people just because they are fans of the musician, but it was an interesting take for sure. THe movie is highly stylized and shape-shifting, so in that way it could mimic its intended characterization. THis is not a straight-forward film and if you don't have patience for the nuanced blotter style where we visit and revisit the various characters throughout the film in non-chronological order, this may not quite appeal to you. I think it is important to read a review to sort of grasp what your getting into plot-wise. THe film portrays a number of Dylan-like roles. I can point out that the movie, while it sheds light on the multi-fringed life of Dylan, it seems like it is a bit short-sighted over the most popular Dylan catalogue. I still don't know quite how I feel about this one, but I like to think that I could see it...