Satisfaction

Man, I am in a great mood. Not 10 minutes ago I acheived one of my life goals. That's right. I beat Super Contra. It was absolutely amazing. Levels 5-8 went way better than I thought they would, and I actually beat the game without having to use any continues. Man.... when I beat the last boss on level 8, and the credits started rolling I felt such a sense of accomplishment. Think about it. I've been playing this game on and off since I was in 3rd grade. My relationship with Super Contra has spanned over 10 years, and now, I can say that I've conquered it. If you read my last post about this, you know how important beating this game was too me. (This is also awesome, because I can now check it off the To-Do List just in time for it to count this week.) Above is a picture of the end of the game. Having killed the final alien boss, the helicpoter in the background is transporting me back to safety, my mission having been successfully completed.

In running news, Nate and I ran 9 miles around Jamaica Pond this morning. My calves are still pretty messed up. I'm going to have to stick to a regimen of ice, ibuprofen, and massage over the next few days if I want this to go away. This run gave me 69 miles for the week, which is great.

Last night I went to the Terrier Classic at BU after work. The Tufts guys in the 5k had run earlier in the day, and did pretty well. Lacey, Kennedy, and Kantos ran 14:38, 14:47, and 14:48, respectively. These are solid times. I also got to see a Providence guy tun 3:59.33 in the mile, which was a pretty exciting. Richard Kiplagat also ran 2:21 in the 1000m, which is a ridiculously fast time. Tonight I'm going to Boston Indoor Games, which should be areally exciting meet as well....

Lastly, I'd like to thank all the people who have contributed to my fundraising effort. I really appreciate everyone's help.

Better

Ok, so here is a more detalied recap of the workout yesterday. Nate, Rosen and I arrived at Gantcher at about 6:30 for some intervals. Track practice was winding down, so we pretty much ahd the whole track to ourselves. We ran 3 miles for warmup, changed into our workout shoes (I had brought my Eldoret IIs, instead of my Ventuluses, which turned out to be a mistake), and were ready to roll.

Nate and I ran a warmup 800 to get the legs moving in 2:32, and I felt pretty good. The workout we were planning was 10 by 400m w/ 90 seconds recovery. Hog wanted to do the first 4 "slow-fast", which basically meant we would be out in about 35/36 for the first 200, and come back in about 32/33 for the second. This workout out fine, as we ran the first 4 in about 67. After this we picked up the first lap a little and ran right around 65 for the last 6. I finished in a 61, which was pretty good. We ran 3 cooldown and totalled 10.5 on the day. The only downside of the workout was that becuae I worse spikes, my calves are a wreck today. This happened all last year... when you're running fast on an indoor track, you tend to get up on your toes, especially around the turns. This puts a lot of stress on the lower legs. Basically, you're using a small group of muscles to keep yourself upright as you speed around the track at 64 second quarter pace. Needless to say, this can cause your legs to become very sore.

I was happy with the workout. This was the first time we've run faster intervals this year, and I felt good doing it. I really think I have a chance to pr in both the 5k and the mile in the next three weeks, which would be awesome.

Off to Terrier after work today... good luck to the Tufts guys who are running.

Oh yeah, Nate and I ran an easy 5.5 this morning. My legs were sore, but not too bad.

More to come

Apologies for the brevity of this post. It's late, and I'm tired. I'll add more tomorrow. Nate and I ran 10 by 400 at Tufts today. I felt pretty good, but my calves and soleus muscles are pretty musch shredded. 11 miles on the day, and Anna's after. Mmmmmm.

Gross

Terrible run this morning. Or, terrible weather at least. I needed to be at work at 8:30 for a Products Liability Group breakfast, which meant that I had to be out to door earlier than usual. Nate and I embarked at 6:00am, and were greeted with 34 degrees, slush, and freezing rain. Pretty much the worst conditions mother nature could cook up. Not to mention that the sun wasn't even close to being up at this point. The first 5 miles of the run were pretty much indistinguishable from 9:00pm, or 2:00am. Nate and I were pretty wet by the time we made it over to the Common. The precipitation started to slow down about 7 miles into the run, which was nice. We ran our Boston Tour loop, and then added on around BU, to Harvard Ave, and back Beacon. The run was 1:15:10, which we're calling 11. On one hand, it was good to get 11 in, on the other it was just plain terrible weather, and I had to rush like crazy to get to work on time afterwards.

Tomorrow Nate, Rosen and I are planning to work out at Tufts. Now that students are back, we should have no trouble using the track, which will be nice. The plan is to do some 400 repeats. I would prefer doing some longer intervals, and I guess one workout like this won't be so bad. The Terrier Classic is Friday night (same meet we broke the DMR school record in last year), and some Tufts guys are running, so I might stop by after work. I'm really excited for Saturday evening. The Reebok Boston Indoor Games are being held at the Reggie Lewis Center, and it should be a great track meet. There are a ton of Olympic and World Champions competing, and I was fortunate enough to get tickets from Rosen's dad. The men's 2 mile is stacked, and there's a chance the American record could be broken. I'm pretty excited to see the meet.

New Kicks

This morning was a great run. It was pretty much perfect winter running weather. The sun was just coming up as we went out the door, there wasn't a cloud in the sky or even a hint of wind. Bromka, Hog and I went out to Tufts and looped around campus. It's a 9 mile loop. There were some really icy spots that made some turns difficult, but overall it was a pretty solid run.

My legs felt really good, but I think it was becuase I was wearing my new pair of Asics Kayano Xs. I've been through several versions since junior year of high school, including a ton of pairs of the VIIs, the VIIIs (which were way too stiff), the VIs (which got me through my first 70 mile weeks in high school) and the IXs (not a fan).

I alternate between the Kayanos, and Asics DS Trainers. That is to say, I have two pairs going at once, and wear them on alternating days, or close to alternating days. I usually wear the Kayanos for my long runs. Some of the DS Trainers I've worn over the years include the ever faithful VIs, which are awesome becuase www.roadrunnersports.com is still offering them, the VIIs, which were not cushioned enough, the IXs, which were equally as bad as their predecessor. Right now I'm in the Xs, which are pretty great. I'm psyched to try the XIs when they come down in price. Oh yeah, the Vs were pretty great too. These were around junior year of HS. If I could find pictures of previous models I would, but I'm too lazy to do a really comprehensive google image search.

Here are some pictures from the Has-Been's Mile for you to enjoy:




This is probably about 150m into the race. From left to right is Me, Rosen, Hog, AK, JR Cruz, Bromka, and Ethan Danahy.









This one is a little further along. Hog, Rosen, JR, AK and I have gotten a little separation from the pack.This was enjoyable. I think this is with about 400 left when I'm checking to see how close Hog is...(We're lapping Dan "Tex" Berry, btw.)
The thrill of victory, haha. I would have never ever done this as a Tufts athlete, but I figure that it was almost more appropriate to celebrate Has-Been's than to celebrate winning a real race.(Thanks to Allison Wade for taking these photos. She runs two really great running websites, www.mensracing.com and www.fast-women.com)

Snow

This morning's run was pretty ugly. Hog and I got going at 6:45, and stepped into a blizzard. We ran the 8 mile Brookline loop, and it was snowy, windy, rainy and cold. The section coming back on Beacon St. was really bad. Runs like these are good though, they make you feel tough. For an example of how we looked afterwards (this is Bromka and I, even though Hog and I were the ones braving the elements on this particular morning....)
And, while we're on the topic of getting up early and running, Nike released a really sweet commercial recently. The theme is getting out of bed, and getting it done. Here's the link....

http://www.nike.com/nikeair/us/
(The commercial also features "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" by AC/DC, a great song)

Once you're there, click the shoe in the middle, and the link to the commercial should be just below the shoe to the left. It features such great athletes as Alex Rodriguez, Tom Brady, Justin Gatlin, Xiang Liu, and Joan Benoit Samuelson. All these athletes are really really good at what they do (or did....). Pretty inspiring....

Updated To Do List

We just finished the new To-Do List. AK wasn't back yet, so we couldn't fill in his goals yet... when we do, I'll update the picture. Enjoy....

Sunday afternoon

This morning I had a really good long run. Since yesterday was Has-Been's, there were a lot of alumni in town. At John Harvard's last night I suggested that we have a group long run this morning. At 10:30, me, AK, Bromka, Hog, JR Cruz, Steve Kaye, Jason Burke, and Ethan Danahy set out on the Charles for a nice long run. It was great weather out... about 32, sunny, and not too windy. Along the way we ran into Owen McKenna, a Junior at Bowdoin who was in Boston for the weekend. We went west along the Chuck to the Watertown Bridge. We can back all the way to BU, where the older alumni turned back. Hog, Bromka and I kept going toward downtown, around the Christian Science Center, out the the Common, and back Marlborough Street. Bromka turned at Mass Ave, and Hog and I kept going all the way back to BU, and up Brookline Street. The run was 1:52:39, which we'll call 16. My feet hurt a little (which I think was from wearing spikes yesterday), but other than that I felt great. It's really exciting to be able to run 16 miles and not really feel that tired during or after the run. Boston is going to go very well if I can keep having runs like these.

And, in house related news, last night marked the completion of the first weekly to do list. Below are results:As you can see, some of us did very well (AK and myself), while others of us didn't (Bromka and Skip). We'll vote on Best Week Ever, and Worst Week Ever tonight, and update the list to reflect the upcoming week's goals. Stay tuned....

[Edit: I'd like to apologize for the lack of race pictures. I even brought my camera to Has-Been's, but forgot to have anyone take pictures during or after the race. If Allison Wade puts any of the ones she took at the meet, they'll be up on MacRunsBoston right quick.]