way off schedule

The trip to Nevada was fantastic, but boy oh boy am I off my running schedule…. turns out climbing all day doesn’t leave enough energy to run. Plus, we left NV yesterday at around 9:00 am, and I got home at 8:00 am this morning (virtually non-stop driving)! On top of eating nothing but junk for the entire drive, I was not feeling an 18 mile run today. I’m gonna go out now and get 5 in. I think I’ll shift this week around and try to put the 18er on Tuesday. We’ll see… but stay tuned for updates. Man, I’m tired…

annnnnd break…

Finally, it’s here. Possibly my last ever “spring break” in the true sense of the phrase. It is likely that starting next year, I’ll be doing so much research that I will just work right through spring break, and it will only continue until I finish my program. Sounds kind of ominous when put that way, eh? Anyway, since this is my last real spring break, I’m going to do my best to enjoy it!

This was one of two “recruiting weekends” for our physics department’s incoming grad class. Somehow I managed to assume a pretty significant role in this weekend, so I was really busy doing things for the recruits. Yesterday I brought about half of them (~10 or so) up hiking with some other grads. It was a great time. And talk about Boulder weather… it was about 45 and sunny when we started up the trail. When we were about a quarter mile from the parking lot on the way down, it started snowing! I thought it was actually kind of a nice touch for the visitors. Then, I went to an awesome Vietnamese restaurant for dinner with some friends, too (leftovers being eaten at this very moment).

I just got in a “short” long run this afternoon, 9 miles. It’s beautiful outside, and though it was a little windy, a gorgeous day for running. I think I need to pick up some new shoes, though. I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks that my shins are a little more sore then normal. Better safe than sorry on that front. Some random muscles in my legs have been kind of tired for the past couple of days, but I think it’s from the hiking. Not used to that sort of motion. But, no big deal.

In the interest of enjoying my spring break (see above), I’m out. I’m gonna hit up REI and get some gear for my trip this week! A few of my friends and I are going to Nevada to rock climb for a few days. Two of them are already out there, and two more of us are driving out on Wednesday. Should be a blast! Updates will follow, obviously (afterward, though). Time to get out and enjoy the sunshine

ok, I think I’m back…

Man, it’s actually been really hard to post so infrequently. I have this work/grading to do, and all I can think about is “Geez, I’d really like to write up a quick post now…”

Alas, I’m doing my best to prioritize this semester. BUT, here I am. Through a random series of events [went climbing late last night, forgot I had to read a bunch of applications/grade them, didn't get to bed until 2:00 am, realized that waking up at 7:30 wasn't going to give me enough time to run] I’m not running this morning. Unfortunately, I decided this upon waking. Otherwise, I might have picked up an extra 30 minutes or an hour of sleep. Oh well.

So, there has definitely been at least one significant update since last time. Sunday’s long run was an amazing sixteen miles! New distance PR! And, I finally decided it was silly for me to be running such long distances without food or liquids. So after a bit of online research, I picked up a nutrition belt from Nathan on Saturday. I went with that one because it was pretty small/simple, and I believe I can add more bottle holders if necessary.

Boy, oh boy, did that ever make a HUGE difference! I set an alarm for 45 minutes while running, and chowed down an Accel Gel and one bottle of water/Gatorade mix each time. I’ll admit that it was a little awkward trying to run/eat/drink, but I’ll get better at it. Needless to say, about twenty minutes after I had the first one, I could tell that I was feeling better.

Long story short, by the time I got to the last mile, I felt like I still had some juice and even kicked in a little bit. While I was kinda thirsty, it wasn’t NEARLY as bad as the previous long runs. Overall, it was great. And, the whole thing took me about 2:07… an average of sub-eight minute miles. Kick. Ass.

Our break is next week, so I think I’ll be able to get back on a normal posting schedule. Here’s hoping.

brief update

As I mentioned before, these posts will be sorta brief until things settle down (I think I’ve just entered the “settle zone”). But, I gotta comment on this morning’s run.

It was great. Great as in greeeeaaaaaat. Seriously, it was that good. A little over seven miles in about fifty one minutes. Plus, it was sunny and about 40 F. Good stuff.

Tomorrow morning I’m going for a trail run with my friend who’s on the tri team at school. Should be cool. We ran together once this summer (it was a little unfair because he wasn’t used to running at altitude / at all). It should be a great match-up this time. I’m actually pretty curious to see how his running has changed since he’s been all super-athlete (all tri athletes are super in my book) for the past few months. Tomorrow’s a short day for me… 3 miles… so we’ll probably run around in the mountains for twenty/twenty five minutes or so. Hopefully it’ll be nice out! Well, time to hit the hay so I can be rested for the work-filled weekend ahead.

I’m still alive!

Yikes, it’s been far too long since I’ve been back here. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks; school has been very intense, and a few of my best friends from college also came out to stay with me for a few days, too! Everyone has now left (bummer), so hopefully I can get back into school-mode and get my work done (I pretty much paused all school work while they were here… they’re my best friends, after all). We got in some beautiful skiing while they were out here (I traded a short run day for a ski day… seemed like a reasonable trade), which was fun. They went up once more, too, while I stayed home and did a little work.

Mostly, running has been fine. Unexciting, but fine. With all the hecticness (?) of the past week, it seemed my running was a little off balance. Probably just because of the shake up in the routine. But, I did have a good speed day yesterday. It was three one-mile repeats at 5k-10k pace. I decided to shoot for 6-6:30 min/mi pace (about a 19:00 5k, which was about where I ran in the Fall… though I’ve yet to break 19:00…), and was reasonably consistent. It was tough to find a mile strip that I could run without having to worry about intersections/cars. I found a section of road that only had one big intersection, but it had four-way stop signs so I was fine. The start and finish were two major roads with traffic lights and stuff, so it was tight. Anyway, I ran ~6:15, 5:55, 6:30, which looks kind of funky until you know that it was uphill one way and downhill the other way (~200 ft vertical). You can probably figure out which one was run downhill.

Spring break is in a week and a half, at which point I hope things will settle down a little bit. Until then, I’m just hanging on the best I can.

a converted atheist?

I’m not really the religious type. At all. My only formal experience with religion was getting kicked out of Sunday school at some point during the first few years of my life. That said, yesterday’s run made me almost feel like I had found a religion… of sorts.

I’m a physicist, so I have a really hard time with the “explain nature and the universe via a big dude upstairs” thing. But, my less sardonic take the situation is more like this…

• religion is something you devote time to, in order to enrich your life
• faith inspires you and compels you to perpetuate its existence
• religion has a ‘house’ that manifests the seat of the source of your faith
• faith tests your will and devotion to your religion (see bullet #2)

And I could go on. However, it occurred to me yesterday that for all the crap I give people about faith in God and organized religion, I, too, follow a doctrine that satisfies all these criteria.

Running is my religion, and the road is my church.

It hit my by surprise and I almost had to stop on the side of the road. The parallels are uncanny. I deliberately spend a couple hours every Sunday morning at my ‘church.’ I won’t drag the analogy out too far, but I think anyone who runs a lot can sympathize with what I’m getting at.

Just a thought. (Though, a biggie in my opinion.)

So, think the inspiration for that entire diatribe was yesterday’s 14 mile-er. Another distance PR for me (by 2 miles this time!), and I actually ran a good pace. I’ve been having trouble keeping my pace to 1-2:00 slower than my normal, weekday pace. However, I FORCED myself to go (what felt like painfully) slowly for the entire 14 miles. Turns out that what feels like a turtle’s pace was actually 8 min/mile, which was great! Not only did I feel better while running (I was barely breathing hard at any point along the way), I also felt great all day. Well, tired, but great, nevertheless. So, that’s even a little faster than I would have liked (8:30 would be perfect for now), but it’s a step in the right direction.

Ok, so that was the good stuff… now one bad thing to even things out:

It snowed three inches Saturday night. ‘Nuff said. However, it’s worth mentioning that I got TWO full-on, muddy, slushy, freezing showers thanks to the DOT’s plows. That sucked.

Finally, a closing thought. I was running due West about 3/4 of the way through Sunday’s run, and as I passed a numbered street sign (all the cross-roads are numbered, in order) I thought “Sweet, only 54 blocks to go!” That’s when I knew I had fully converted to my new religion.