Pottruck

Shorter workout today: 3.5mi in 24min, 20min spindown.

Pottruck

Did a hard-ish workout despite my earlier post. 6mi in 43:xx, 20min spindown, leg lifting circuit. Will see what tomorrow brings.

Had a song picked out, but can't remember at this late hour...

Comeuppance

I feel a little stiff today. Heh.

Dude, where's my pain?

Seriously, this is ridiculous: the running feels so good right now. I don't want to jinx it, but I feel like I can do a good workout everyday and everything is easy. I suppose I am running significantly fewer miles than in the summer/fall, but I've also been taking fewer off/easy days.

Today: another 4.33 in 30min. Started out at 7:18 pace and sweat maybe 3 drops in the first 15min. Then went up to 6:45 pace, 6:30 6:15, and ended the last .5mi at 6:05. Maybe I just had an easy treadmill, or maybe I should do more than a 1.0 incline? Or maybe just push? Finished with a 15min spindown.

Today's song comes from Stevie! TaraGirl (aka assistant to the associate dean) closed with this (I think it was this?) at her concert on Saturday. The lyrics are cheesy, but the first few bars have me doing a little dance in my room...

For once in my life I have someone who needs me
Someone Ive needed so long
For once, unafraid, I can go where life leads me
And somehow I know Ill be strong

The Loop

Relived the summer Sunday routine with Pavol (Blitzer would have come, but e just got in on a red-eye this morning). Beautiful gray wintry running day; just a little soft flurry of snow to make things interesting.

Running has felt like bouncing off clouds these past few days. Maybe just the fancy new Wigwam socks I bought at Pottruck earlier this week? ...Back up above 45mi this week.

Pottruck

Good running day. Warmed up with 30min at 8.0mph, then went up the ladder for the last 3, finishing my 7mi in just over 50 minutes! Made up the rest of my upper body lift upstairs.

Pottruck

3mi in 20:3x, lifted upper body.

Ugh. Strawberry Mansion

Ran to my favorite bridge, but it weren't pretty. If I learned one thing in Grenoble, it was that peanuts, tea, and running don't mix. The first two create some kind of nasty acid that, when combined with the third, equals misery. So what did I do today? Came home from work, wanted to warm up and load up before a long-ish run, and ate peanuts and drank chai. Baaad idea. I was in serious pain during the ~4-7th miles. But then it cleared up around the Columbia Bridge and I felt better for the segment around the museum and down 22nd. Maybe tomorrow's an off day.

Pottruck

Ran hard for 30min: started at 7:20 pace, and went up the ladder all the way to 6:00 pace (for the last ~1min). Something like 4.3mi total. Biked 10min to cool down, then lifted upper body. I just don't have the patience to do any distance indoors. I can't imagine 14-15mi again on a *%$^!ing treadmill.

Then (Clare, you'll be the only one to be able to decode this part so I'll write it as if to you) biked to Whole Foods (whole paycheck) to get red lentils for dinner; made a variation on my friend Johanna's vegan lentil/squash curried "soup" (really a gulash; similar to the one Tita did over Christmas), THE BREAD (1/3 whole wheat... I want to try the walnut version you've been doing; please send recipe?), and orange/almond/avocado salad we did while you were here. CDeux ate more of the gulash than me, and took half home, so (cue Dimitris voice) "it was... OK". No shaved truffle though; seems more like a breakfast thing (plus, with no shaver in the kitchen, it's hardly worth finding fresh truffle eh?).

Have been filling my ears with Maria Muldaur's great, twangy cover of this Dylan song:

Clouds so swift
Rain wont lift
Gate wont close
And the railing's froze
I'll get your mind off the wintertime
'Cause we ain't goin' nowhere
Whoo-ee! Ride me high
Tomorrows the day that
My man's comin' home
Oh, we gonna fly
Down into the easy chair!

Need to find some other favorite songs to mix in, or I'm going to kill it...

Pottruck

Evening session at the gym: 3mi fast in 20:10, then lifted legs.

Snowy Run

Still waking up early... waited for the sun to come out, then headed out for a snowy river run. It's frickin' freezing out there! Stopping to talk to Colin (walking Merlin) at the banks didn't help my frozen hands. Turned back at the Kelly Dr intersection, then came down 19th through Rittenhouse, and back to South and 22nd. Should be a little more than 4mi.

Someday I'm gonna leave this dirty little town,
Where the talk is cheap on the dirty little streets,
And the trees are dying underneath a sky that's purple and brown.

Folks round here say I'll never go,
But there's something about me that they don't know.
I've already left this place in my mind,
Till my body goes, it's just a matter of time.

Back to Pottruck

Woke up to a city covered in snow! Was considering bundling up for another river run, but was freezing, and so worked from home instead. Hit Pottruck late and ran 6mi going from an easy 8.2mph up the ladder in .1mph increments every mile, for 43:00 on the nose, then biked a single "Cascade®" to cool down, about 9mi.

It's weird: when you don't run, "the burn" is gone, and you feel like your training is going to go to shit, but a down week (one where you cram yourself with multiple pains aux raisins every morning, hit every cheese course after dinner, and go for the tartiflette, the croziflette, etc. at dinner time) every now and again appears to actually be beneficial.

Catching Up + Back On (the) Track

My week in Nice was my least runningest in a long time; like, probably in a year. I may not have even broken 25 miles, and that's with an 18mi head start from Sunday/Monday. DNR on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday (went to Nice-Rennes Pro-A volleyball match instead!) Touched down this afternoon at a chilly PHL, and was lycra'd up and on the trail within an hour of reaching Thornton Manor. Not the only crazy out in sub 25 degree weather either. Did a loop up to Columbia Bridge and ending at TJ's, so something between 6-7mi.

Encore une fois

Yesterday I walked up to the museums, but didn't run. The Chagall museum was small but nice: a few dozen large pieces in a space that he designed. The Musée Matisse, unfortunately, was closed. Boo. Next time.

Today I snuck in a run along the Promenade in between the last session and dinner. A little longer than last time, around 35min? Not sure exactly. Am looking forward to being back in Philly and having time to do some long runs.

Promenade des Anglais

Did a shitty pre-sunrise run along the Promenade des Anglais, the long boardwalk that runs along the beach in Nice. Only lasted about 25min, so conservatively, 3mi? I would have liked to go longer, but the trip here was one of the most disorienting trans-Atlantic journeys I've taken in a long time, and both my sleeping and eating schedules are totally out of whack (this used to be old hat for me, shuttling back and forth to London). After my long run on Sunday "The Burn", as Clare calls it, was in full effect, and dinner with Cara (no, not that Cara; more like another C: both are whipsmart, English-majoring, wallet-losing Ephs), lunch with Christoforos (yes, that Christoforos! In the country for a physics conference and to visit Emma friends), and multi-meals on Air France (Delta ticket, Air France flight; take that Fly America Act!) only put a small dent in my appetite. Finally got some food in Nice on Tuesday afternoon, but a late night hacking slides on Sunday plus a screaming baby on the flight led to me crashing sans diner yesterday evening. So I'm chalking up the lack of energy to a lack of sleep and calories. POPL is great; I'm all rah-rah research again.

Dashing off to PHL

...I like to fly tired. Quick trip to Pottruck, 3mi in 20:5x, 5min spin down. Allons-y!

SuperLoop®

Ran the East Falls loop, with an extension up to Ridge Ave and into the Wissahickon Valley Park. I turned around after the second hill but before the parking lot at the trailhead for Forbidden Drive. That's 15mi, so call this one more than 14mi? Today felt so much better than yesterday. Back to basics: eat lots of carbs, get a good night's rest, and, what do you know, the running will be easy (...err until I got to the boathouses up above Columbia Bridge on the Kelly Drive side; the last 4ish miles were a bit of work).

Evidently I'm not the only nut who still thinks Sundays are for running. Must have seen 10 people wearing their race shirts from November. I'm still a gear phobe. I'll stick to my cotton t-shirt (and, OK, the one nice technical ziptop I own) thank you.

US Grant: Run, then Cut.

Finally got outside for a morning run. Felt like crap though. Didn't eat a real dinner after TGIF last night, and felt like I had nothing in the tank on the 2nd half. Bailed out at Market St. So call it 5mi.

Pottruck

Yick. Five gym trips in five days this week. Must get outdoors! 3mi downstairs, went up to get a bike, but they were all taken, so just ran 1mi more. Warmer weather this weekend. Hoping for longer runs on the river if the rain holds.

P'ruck

Didn't sleep much last night as I was hacking slides for talk (Tikz/Pgf is the coolest! It produces beeee-eau-ti-ful graphics. But also a huge time sink). Got a few hours this morning. Strangely, on days when I haven't slept, I seem to have more energy late in the day. Anyways, another easy day: 3mi, fast (or, more like I was doing last year around this time); biked 11mi in 20min. Are 'Cascades' easier than 'Foothills'?

The beater has a flat, so I got to ride 'Shadowfax' (Clare's dubbing) and new helmet to West Philly today. An already-short ride over the bridge was even shorter. Want to ride it eeeevery day.

Pottruck

Another crowded day at the gym. Legs were killing me today (lifting +2 days always hurts) so took an easy day: 3mi in 21:40, then did another half-assed upper-body lift, then did 20min spin on the bike. Stressed about PLAN-X talk...

East Falls, Pottruck

See, now this is why I never did my leg lifting workouts---it's hard to motivate the next day when your muscles are all stiff! But my approach---skipping them---is not the solution. Better to just do them and eventually they'll stop hurting so much.

Unlike last semester, Tuesdays are my empty day, and I plan to work from CC if I can avoid getting sucked onto campus for faculty hiring talks, colloquia, etc. Today I woke up @ 7, got the TOPLAS final version done in the morning, hacked on PLAN-X slides a bit until lunch, took a nap, and set out from home for East Falls around 4.30. Kept the pace easy; my legs were whining until around the Girard St bridge. The middle half was better, and the last bit from US Grant to 36th & Walnut almost felt good. Finished with a quick upper body circuit (bench, row, raises) at Pottruck.

Still not sure what to do with myself sans programme de formation. So far I've been trying to organize each week with one each of a long run (~90 minutes+), a sort-of long run (7+ miles), and a hard day or speedwork, three whatever-I-feel like days, and a day of rest or cross-training. So basically just doing the easy weeks in the middle of marathon training. But it's getting monotonous. Maybe the bike and pool are the solutions.

Pottruck

First day of the semester, and the gym is a %$&!ing mess with all the undergrads back. Ran 5mi in 35:16, then spun down for 8 on the bike (in a sweltering room that must have been 75+ degrees!), then lifted legs: squats, extensions, hamstrings, abductors, lunges.

Finally discovered the provenence of the honky tonk song that I like so much from my shuffle: Chris Isaak's 'I want your love'. The man can sing.

First Love

I will always love running in this fair city, even when my mouth still tastes like whiskey. Ran this loop: Mount Auburn to Brattle to Fayerwether to Huron, Fresh Pond loop, back to Mem Drive, over the bridge near the Cambridge Rowing club, up to the Weeks footbridge, back behind Dunster back to V's place on Banks Street. About 7mi in 50min if my watch and GMap Pedometer are to be believed (I'm skeptical; it seems a little fast--I did kick it up for the Fresh Pond bit, but did the rest at a comfortable pace, which for me is usually a tad slower than 7:30.)

Pottruck

3mi fast, lifted upper body, 10min (~1.4mi) cooldown. Off to Boston now...

Strawberry Mansion

Another day, another minor calamity. I've been clumsy/unlucky lately: sliced the top of my thumb off into my thai squash soup, stabbed myself and passed out on Christmas morning, and had a picture frame fall on me at Pheobe's last night. Today, in the middle of my Pottruck <-> Strawberry Mansion run, I slipped on the wet, leaf-covered stairs coming down from the bridge and fell hard on my tailbone and left forearm. The former is all swollen and the latter scraped the skin off and is starting to swell up too. Damn you Fairmount Park Commission! Clean up your steps!

Anyways, since I was at the turnaround---the furthest point from my bike---I didn't really have much choice, so picked myself up and ran it in, tho' a bit slower than on the way out. ~10mi in some unspectacular time. Maybe 80 minutes?

Pottruck

Mmmoolllliiieeeee! Your trip to the gym is ready!

Run: 3mi in 20:38

Lift: bench, rowing, press, tris, curls.

Bike: 10.1mi of little hills in 20:000.

Columbia Bridge

First run of '07: home to Columbia Bridge to TJ's. More than 6mi. Saw a large pack of runners out for a 6.30 run. Ahh resolutions. Let's see how many of you are still here in February [note: I'm not actually this snarky! Hooray for fitness!] My list is blelow.

Resolved:

• to run a 19:30 5k, 70:00 at BSR, and 90:00 at PDR;
• to ride a century (in < 5hrs?)
• to gain some weight;
• to keep friends and family before fitness.