a day late

I’m not yet sure what the frequency of these posts will be; my guess is somewhere between once a day and once every other day. Nevertheless, I have to write post facto about yesterday because it was quite a memorable run.

First of all, I think I hit every stoplight red over the entire six miles. While it’s occasionally nice to get the minute of rest, it’s frustrating to have to stop every minute for 40-someodd minutes and wait for the little white/green man to tell me it’s okay to cross.

Second, there are only a few things that can actually stop me from running. Extreme pain is the obvious one, but a lesser-thought-of example is having to go to the bathroom. It’s really quite incredible how quickly having to go to the bathroom (either #1 or #2) can steal away your ability to run. If it escalates to a near-emergency, you have no choice but to divert all your energy toward keeping everything inside. This makes it quite difficult to move your legs fast.

Yesterday was one of the closest near-emergencies I’ve ever experienced. Luckily for me, I happened to be running along the edge of campus when I realized I couldn’t go any further. I ran into the first building that looked like it might be open and -thankfully- found the bathroom in time.

That’s the second reason yesterday was memorable. Almost a disaster, but memorable nevertheless.

Today’s run was pretty uneventful… it was a little bit slower than the last few, but I’m also feeling quite a bit tired/sore. I think the transition to this new program is hitting me pretty hard (an extra day of running each week, and longer distances). Hopefully my body will settle in soon and it’ll be back to business.

let’s get this party started…

So, first official post.

I feel this overwhelming pressure to make sure it’s fantastic, worth reading over and over again, worthy of at least a pulitzer nomination, and nothing less! Oooooor, i could just write about my day. Since that was the point to begin with, let’s go with that.

This morning was the first day in our* second training program. It was cold out… about 20 F I think. Admittedly, in the grand scheme of things, that isn’t all that cold. But it was 65 F this weekend, so it felt cold. Anyway, it was pretty well paced; I’ll save the details of my runs for later posts.

For now, some back-story:

After a summer of haphazard running, we started a four-month pre-training program in September. That program built up from basically ground-zero to a weekly long run of about 10 miles. Now we’re starting another, more intensive program that is also four months long. The end of the program? Sunday, 15 June 2008. We’ll be in Estes Park, Colorado, running a marathon at 9,000 ft above sea level. Every now and then, when I write/say that out loud, I think “What am I doing?!” Most of the time, though, I make noises like Homer when he’s holding a donut and I smile.

*I’m training with my best friend from high school and his brother. I think I’m going to abstain from using people’s real names in this blog, so I’ll make them up… Chuck and Larry. Sounds good.

hello world

even though there was a ‘hello world’ post pre-loaded, i’ll admit that’s the first thing i wanted to do… i can’t hide the programmer inside me.

say what you want about people who blog; i’ve been wanting to do this for a while now.  i’m hoping it’ll be nice to write things down for a change!  if you’ve stumbled across this blog randomly, you can expect a lot of talk about running, a good deal about life, and a sprinkling of physics here and there.  remove from direct heat, let simmer 45 min and enjoy!