The O.C. is bad for you

Nate and I did our Boston loop this morning. 7.5. My stomach didn't feel very good, which I think was a result of the McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder I ate the night before. I rarely eat McDonalds, but had a craving for it last night. Oh well.

Some bad news about Saturday. I got a call from Ethan, the new Tufts coach, who said that Nate and I might not be able to race at the Tufts meet this weekend due to limited unattached-athlete entries. I understand why they may not want too many open athletes competing, especially becuase the meet is already very crowded. I hope they are able to make an exception, becuase I'm in really great shape right now, and may not have a chance to run a 5k on the track for a really long time. We'll see.

I just got done watching the O.C. There are so many things about that show that I dislike. I apologize for not writing about them now, but (like every night) I have to iron clothes, pack lunch, and go to bed. I promise at some point I will express the reasons why I get so aggitated watching the O.C.

Hump day

This morning I ran the 8 mile Brookline loop by myself. Nate was running a workout after work, and Bromka was sleeping in, having achieved on of his goals during the State of the Union. It was a nice change actually, considering I haven't run by myself in a while. I was able to go as fast or as slow as I wanted, and running alone gives you time to think about stuff, or just chill out and not think about anything if you want. My legs felt pretty good, which I think is a result of the last two days having been pretty light. This is fine. My hope is that I'll feel good enough on Saturday to run well in the 5k.

So, about oversleeping yesterday.... I have a new routine each morning. Instead of using my radio as an alarm, I've switched to my Ipod. My clock alarm was working ok, but I got tired of hearing the same songs each morning, or the same stupid DJs talking about things that aren't very interesting. I realized that I could set my Ipod to play at a certain time, and hooked it up to my computer speakers. For the most part, this has been a great change. I get to hear really good music from really good speakers as I wake up, rather than static or bad DJs. Well, the playlist I picked a few days ago was a random mix of songs. One of the songs on it was Ravel's Bolero. Now, if you know Ravel's Bolero, you realize that the first 6-7 minutes of it are relatively soft. Not the best thing to get you out of bed. So, I didn't wake up until about 8 minutes into the song when the music finally starts to pick up. Guess I learned my lesson. Classical music is great, just not great to wake you up.


To listen to Ravel's Bolero (which is excellent), click here.

Quick

Quick update. It's late, I've got to iron clothes, make lunch, and hit the sack. After oversleeping a little this morning (for reasons I'll explain tomorrow), I did a quick run the morning before work. 5.5 loop to Science Museum and back to Mass Ave. I think my body needed a recovery day, and this run provided one. More tomorrow......

Not much

Hey all.... not too much to post about today. This morning Nate, Bromka and I ran our Boston loop. I cut it short down Mass Ave for a bathroom stop, and totalled 6.5 miles. My legs were tired from the long run, but my calves felt much better than they had the past few days. This is a good thing. I may or may not workout on Wednesday with Nate. I know I'm going to race the 5k at Tufts this weekend.

The To-Do List has been finished for the last week, and here are the results. Our apartment (i.e. my roomates) really needs some motivation to keep this going. It would help if we were all home at the same time, or if people cared about it as much as I did. Anyway.....
EDIT: Here is the new To-Do List for this week. I think it's a really good one. If we can achieve these goals, the house will be doing really well..... (Also, we're not actually talking about sword for Hog, Bromka needs a third goal, and if AK can achieve his 3rd goal, I'll have a really sweet blog update as a result. Finally, it's 10:52, and Skip isn't home yet. Honestly....)

New Territory

This morning Nate and I did a really long run. When all was said and done we had gone 19.5 miles in 2 hours, 13 minutes. We went out Comm. Ave all the way to the Newton Fire House (about 9 miles out), turned around, followed Comm. Ave back to BC, down Beacon to Kenmore, back up Comm Ave toward BU Bridge, back to Brookline, and looped around the block to total 2:13. This was a really tough long run. We definitely weren't going super fast; I think we averaged around 6:45-6:50. My legs got really tired around 15 miles or so, and then really tired around 18 miles. Even though this was really fatiguing, it gave me a glimpse into what the last 6-8 miles of the marathon will feel like. I'm used to dealing with pain, as I've run my fair share of races and workouts over the last 10 years. However, the fatigue you feel as a result of a long run is fundamentally different from the pain you feel during a shorter race. Dealing with pain in a mile race, or a 5 mile XC race is sort of like holding your breath. You try to deal with it as long as you can, and it really really hurts, especially at the very end. Fatigue at the end of a long run is like trying to run up stairs with a really heavy backback on. It never really hurts too intensely, it's just that you want it to stop pretty badly. This is how I felt at the end of the run today. My legs were just very tired. I could have kept going, but I just didn't want to. I think continuing to get runs like this in will help me out a lot for the marathon.

Last night I was able to attend the Reebok Boston Indoor Games at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston. It was a really well run and exciting track meet. In the last 3-5 years Reebok has done a great job of marketing this meet, to the point where now it's one of the best indoor meets in the country. The two races I enjoyed seeing most were the women's 5k, and the men's 2 mile. The women's 5k featured Tirunesh Dibaba, a 20 (I think) year old from Ethiopia. She won the 10k at the World Championships last summer in Athens with one of the most blistering kicks I've ever seen. Watching her run in person was simply amazing. She basically has a perfect stride, and just seems to float around the track, it was beautiful to watch. (Click here for a short video clip of the race. It's about halfway through the 5k, Dibaba is in red) Dibaba ran 14:35, which is less than 3 seconds off her own indoor world record. Perhaps the best part of the whole race were all the Ethiopian fans at the meet cheering madly for her and waving Ethiopian flags the whole time. Another race that was pretty exciting to see was the men's 2 mile. The field was stacked with a TON of great athletes. World Championship and Olympic medalists, etc. etc. Unfortunately, the pace-maker ran away from the pack really early, so the race turned into a tactical affair. Craig Mottram of Australia won the race, covering the last 800m in about 1:56. It was fun to see, as the whole pack was intact with 600m to go. Also, 4 Saratoga athletes ran in the high school invitational miles, which is pretty cool. Go Toga......