Training Log: Bits & Pieces

Three runs in the last five days, which means five workouts in seven days. That’s right about on target. Off-days are important, but they always make me nervous. I’m afraid that things are going to come up immediately afterward, and all of a sudden I’m going to have three or four off-days in a row, and lose conditioning.

I haven’t gone over thirty minutes yet, and two days I only got in twenty minutes, one because of scheduling constraints, the other because I just didn’t have it in me. It’s amazing where the mind can go even during a short run. Within a mile or two, I can feel good enough to think I could set a time goal, and tear up the marathon course (at least by my personal mediocre middle-age standards), and before I know it, I’m feeling like the idea of even completing a marathon will be an impossible stretch, a set up for failure and embarrassment. Both mindsets are completely believable to me—within minutes of each other!

The best run of the last three was yesterday in a downpour, which was the best once since . . . the previous one in a downpour, which got me thinking about weather. Minnesota’s two marquee marathons, Grandma’s and Twin Cities, used to practically guarantee cool weather (ideal for 26.2 miles); however, in recent years, they have resembled long-distance saunas. When I ran Grandma’s in 2006 (my first and only marathon to this point), the humidity at the start was frighteningly close to triple digits, and by the time I hit Duluth, the sun was baking the streets of the town, with no shade anywhere. When I watched the 2006 & 2007 Twin Cities Marathons (both sunny, hot, and humid) I was happy to be on the sidelines cheering and had no desire whatsoever to participate. Part of the reason I decided to register this year was because it’s been such a cool, gray spring that I managed to convince myself that October 5, 2008 might actually be a traditional, cool autumn day. I’ll be crossing my fingers for the next five months on that issue.

A Chronicle of Minor Negligence and Irresponsibility

Five Things I Didn't Do This Week:

• Change my oil.
• Iron my shirts.
• Cross the state line.
• Dance.
• Enter The New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest.

Training Log: Day Two

Gray, rainy, and windy all day, 40 degrees at 5:15 according to the State Farm agent’s about a mile into my run.

The trees are on the verge of leafing out, something they may be regretting tonight if we get snow as predicted. I got thirty minutes in the hard way this evening. It’s hardly inviting weather for a workout, but once I got the kinks worked out, it was my best run since . . . well, since the last time I ran in weather like this. At least until the last half-mile home stretch which was directly into the wind and rain.

Afterwards, apropos of nothing except perhaps his dad’s seemingly foolish run in the blustery weather, R. asked if I was ever going to run another marathon. When I told him I had just signed up for the Twin Cities, his face lit up, as did his younger brother’s, and they raised their palms to me for high fives. An unforeseen bonus! Great to have their enthusiastic support!

Training Log: Day One

A few weeks ago I started toying with the idea of signing up for the Twin Cities Marathon. I had all but decided not to enter when I learned that two friends had registered, so due to peer pressure and the idea of camaraderie and the other ideas (fitness, accomplishment, it's not going to be any easier to attempt such a thing a year or two down the road, etc.) that had me considering the marathon in the first place, I decided to go ahead with it. Buyer's remorse settled in pretty quickly, but 48 hours later I got my first training run in, so things are underway.

Made it 30 minutes without stopping today (with the exception of two brief red lights). Five months to add four hours of endurance. I think my weekly basketball game is wreaking havoc with my ankles. Only one more month of that. If I can make it through that without getting injured, I want to think the ankle joint tightness will ease up.

Nevada

Maine

A List of Delightful Words (in no particular order, along with three ugly words and two words that don't sound like what they mean)

pugilist anathema palimpsest
fedora porkpie penultimate
antepenultimate cahoots Poughkeepsie
Schenectady gadfly conundrum
filch consternation coagulate
ostensible conduit languid
goad quench slake
quintessential epitome terrestrial (though certainly not extra-terrestrial) quixotic Ishmael
Galilee Guillaume Shiloh
Antietam quandary inchoate
diaspora niche lucid
ripe unctuous poseur
somnambulist preternatural quisling
a cappella mooncalf portent(s)
cantankerous curmudgeon prelapsarian
farcical guano guile
segue fugue echolocation
scurvy beriberi lemur
tapir Liverpudlian Glaswegian
shenanigans bivouac succotash
ricochet tsunami ectomorph
exoskeleton iconoclast galoot
pinochle gibbous shivaree
excoriate boomerang (as a verb) sublime (as a verb)
nocuous antagonym zeugma
endive legerdemain akimbo
lithe svelte scrappy
mallard piebald skewbald
schwa apocryphal enigma
flange anachronism verisimilitude
staccato descant torque
frankenstein (as a verb) snarky shindig
plethora filibuster logy
dais diaspora avuncular
disingenuous




UGLY WORDS


negligible familiarity bureaucracy


WORDS THAT DON'T SOUND LIKE WHAT THEY ARE

limpid pulchritude