4:04.55

Today I ran the 1500 at the first Tufts indoor meet. Based on my race at BU, I seeded myself at 4:10, and thought I'd run right around there. On my warmup I felt pretty crappy and wondered how I'd feel in the race. In the fastest heat was Matt Fortin, Ryan Gough, Fabien Majeia, and Mike Davitian of Williams. These kids are pretty good, and I figured I'd be hanging on the back of the pack for most of the race.

The gun went off and I settled in around 6th or 7th. I tried to relax as much as I could during the first 400m, and to not think about the pace, or where I was in terms of place. This worked well, and we went thought the 400 in 66. I tried to maintain my position as best I could over the next 400, and we went through the 8 in 2:12 (about 6 seconds faster than at BU). With three laps to go I started to focus on moving by people, as my legs still felt pretty fresh at this point. I got up on my toes and was able to get by Fortin, and one of the Keene kids. With 400 to go, the clock read 3:01, and I knew I was running a pretty good race. During the last 400m I was waiting to rig up really bad, but it never happened. I think I kicked pretty well, and ended up running 4:04.55. This was really pleasant suprise. Last year at this meet when I was running for Tufts, I ran 4:03.3. To only be 1 sec back of last year is awesome... especially considering I haven't been super serious about my mileage, and have only run two workouts so far.

Today made me excited to go after my 5k (15:32) and mile (4:18.99) pr's this season. I think with a few more workouts the 5k should be no problem (although, I've said that in the past... there's a reason I haven't run that time since freshmen year haha)... the mile might be a little more difficult. I think the plan for the next few weeks is to run the Has-Been's mile at Tufts next weekend, take the 27/28th off from racing, run the 5k on Feb 4th at Tufts, and then the mile at the Valentine's Invite at BU on Feb 11th.

I totalled 8 miles today to give me 64 for the week. Good total. Long run with Bromka tomorrow...

(I'll update this post when results and pictures become available.)

Quick Update

This morning, Bromka and I ran our 8 mile Brookline loop and had a good discussion about the inherent problems with the whole legal/law school process. Specifically the way that the legal industry is forced to recruit only the "best and brightest" from the best law schools, and how the way it works is sort of messed up. Sometime I'll write coherently about this... not tonight though.

1500 at Tufts tomorrow. I'm not expecting to run very fast considering my workout was only 2 days ago and my legs felt bad this morning. Hopefully it won't be too ugly...

Nintendo Entertainment System

This morning Hog, Bromka and I ran an easy 5.5 miler on the Charles. It was a good recovery run from the workout yesterday, and we saw Tufts Alumni Jason Burke, which was pretty cool.

But, the real purpose of this post isn't running. It's Nintendo. Specifically the greatest Nintendo game ever created by man. Yes, I realize Mario 1, 3, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Tecmo Bowl and Tetris rank pretty high. My personal favorite, however, is Super Contra.

I mean, just look at the game. You have two dudes, with gigantic automatic weapons, bulging muscles, and camo gear on. They're standing in front of bad-ass looking robots, and some alien head in the background. (It can only be assumed that at somepoint you will be on a mission to kill the alien head as violently as possible.). Immediately you want to play this game. Even if you haven't played it's predecessor, Contra (the original), you still want to play this game. And what a game it is....



The basic premise of this game is that you are on a mission to kill anything that moves, and advance through each level before you run out of lives or continues. Levels increase with difficulty, and robots are slowly replaced by more intellegent, dangerous, and difficult to kill aliens.

Click here for a short video of the first level that I took tonight... (be patient, it may take a moment to load.) If you pay attention, you'll notice that I kill 11 robots in 16 seconds. That's a pretty solid time:death ratio.

The height of my Contra skills peaked when I was in 3rd grade. However, I never beat the game. This has haunted me for much my adult life. Having beaten Mario 1, Mario 2, and countless other Nintendo, and Nintendo 64 games, I know the pure ecstacy that's associated with beating a game that you've put your heart and soul into. No game has taken up as much of my time, energy, or frustration than Super Contra. I had always vowed to beat it, but during the last 6-8 years, this vow has faced a serious obstacle....

Anyone who owns a Nintendo knows what I'm talking about. The blue screen. The grey flashing screen. The game that won't start. The game that starts and freezes. The game that starts but slowly succumbs to the little blips on the screen and eventually becomes unplayable. You blow on the game. You blow into the Nintendo. You repeat. Again and again in a futile attempt to revive the machine that brought you so much joy as a child. Eventually you become fed up and leave the grey box in the corner of your basement, untouched for months.

Well, with a little help from the internet, I was able to solve my Nintendo woes. Inside the machine there is a 72 pin connector piece, which, apparantely after nearly 15 years of use, doesn't like to work so well. So, I replaced it. Now, the Nintendo works like new, and my quality of life has increased significantly. Basically, the replacement required me to do some open heart surgery on the Nintendo, which was actually a lot easier than I thought. Old part out, new part in. Voila. Man, it was like magic when the game started on the first try. (If you have a Nintendo that's been on the fritz lately, I highly recommend investing $15 in a replacement connector... it really works.)

So... I'd say Contra is going well so far. I've advanced to the 6th level, which is farther than I've ever gotten before. This is encouraging. I think with some real dedication over the next few weeks and months I will be able to beat the game. That will be cause for some serious celebration. Once Contra is done, I'll move on to Mario 3, another game that's tormented me since the 2nd grade. If and when I beat these two games, a serious chunk of my life goal list will be fulfilled.

That's it for now. I'm running the 1500 or mile on Saturday at Tufts (don't know which they'll run) and looking forward to the long weekend.

Miles

Great workout today. Bromka and I were going to workout at Tufts, but we were told there was going to be a HS meet there. Since Tufts wasn't an option Bromka and I decided during the day to run it at MIT. I got home from work and Bromka texted me and told me he wasn't up for working out anymore. Basically, he's a huge baby. Bromka, if you're reading this, realize I'm going to beat you by about 7 minutes on April 17th.

So, I was left to workout on my own, which usually sucks, but turned out just fine. Often times it's really easy to cut things short, or get down on yourself when you have to run hard intervals alone. As a distance runner you're used to working out with teammates, almost year round. It's actually sort of funny... distance runners are creatures of habit, and usually very dedicated to working hard and committing themselves to a task, but ask them to workout by themselves (and by workout, I mean run intervals, or hills, or a tempo.... regular training runs don't count) and things can get ugly. No one's there to tell you to speed up. Teammates aren't there to pull you through on pace. The pack isn't there to simulate racing conditions.

With this in mind, I really wasn't looking forward to doing mile repeats on my own. I dropped my stuff off at the indoor track at MIT and warmed up for 3 miles. The track was almost empty this time, which was awesome. I changed into workout shoes, and set out to do 4 by 1 mile, with 2 minutes rest. I was thinking about starting out at 5:20, but that seemed pretty slow. After going through the first 400m in 78, I knew the intervals would be faster than 5:20. I ended up running 5:09, 5:08 and 5:08 for the first three. These felt relaxed (or as relaxed as intervals can feel). I never went lactic, and never felt like I was red-lining it at all. This was exactly the goal too. With longer intervals, you want to be pretty steady the whole time. I started the last interval with sub 5 in mind. I went through the half in 2:33 and said 'what the heck'. I let the last 800 go a little (ran 2:22) and finished in 4:55. Even this didn't feel too difficult. I cooled down 3 miles and ate a delicious (as always) Super Chicken Burrito at Anna's. Totalled 11 on the day... I should be upper 60s this week, and may even crack 70.

This workout was really encouraging. I may actually take a crack at my 5k p.r. this indoor season. I can't die with my 5k p.r. being 15:32 (pathetic, I know...) from all the way back in my freshmen year. I also can't die having never beaten Super Mario 3 and Super Contra for regular Nintendo. The replacement 72 pin connector for the Nintendo came today, so we now have a Nintendo which works perfectly well.... but more on that tomorrow.

Perks of Running

Sometimes when you go running you get to see cool things. This morning was one of those times. Nate, Bromka and I were just past the State House and John Kerry pulled out in front of us, (or, if you have a very fast computer, it was here) in a car that he was driving. (He was also talking on a cell phone). It was pretty cool. We did a 7 mile loop through Boston, which was nice. It was about 36 and the sun was coming up as we were going... good weather. I hope my workout at Tufts goes well tomorrow.....

Sometimes your Legs Hurt

This morning was sort of a crappy run. Besides it being Monday, and the sun not rising until 7:15 (35 minutes after we're out the door), my legs felt pretty terrible. I guess this isn't suprising considering the long run yesterday. Nate, Bromka and I did our normal Brookline loop. Took us a little longer than usual, 55:00ish as opposed to 57:30 today. I hope my legs feel better tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm planning to workout at Tufts on Wednesday, and if Bromka doesn't wuss out, he'll be joining me. I'm thinking mile repeats, probably 3 of them. I also emailed Ethan (new Tufts coach) about racing at their first home meet on Saturday. I enjoy racing, and figure I can use one more tune up before the Has-Been's mile on the 21st.

Apologies for not having any cool links or pictures to post.

Sweet 16

I just finished a really good run with Nate. We did 16, looping around Tufts, Near Tower in the Fells, and back to the Charles. It was 1:56:16. I felt really good the whole way... so much better than last week's 18 miler. Runs like this give me a lot of confidence for Boston. If I can keep the mileage up around 70 a week, get good long runs in each Sunday, and do some decent workouts (intervals and tempos) I don't see 2:50 being much of a problem. Today is going to be a good day I think. Started out with a great long run, and will conclude with playing board games with Foley friends. (Yes, I did just say board games....)