Miles of musings on the road to Marathon #8. Running, teaching, and bird sightings guaranteed.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Gyms are funny places

Ok, I hit the Y for my weekly-ish session of some lifting and some speedwork on the treadmill. While I'm there I watch some guy on a treadmill crank the thing up to around a 6:30 mile pace, which is pretty fast for a treadmill, then he runs the few minutes that he's on it hanging onto the console part of the treadmill apparantly looking as if he let go he'd fly back into the wall! Look pal, if your legs can't handle the pace, SLOW DOWN!

Then there are people who use the nautilus machines but can't really lift the weight that they'd like to but still want to look like they can. So what ends up happening is that they pull down/up/sidways will all the muscles they can muster no matter which ones they're supposed to be so carefully isolating which is why they're in the nautilus room in the first place.

I think that it stems from our society's overwhelming urge to be fit and to be as fit as possible no matter if its really doing any good, or if it's being done correctly or whatever. It's every muscle for itself in there I tell ya.

Had my first introduction to helping coach the local HS Track team. It's a gym full of kids all being put through calesthetics drills for like 45 minutes before they're even allowed to run a step! Granted a base of some of that can be helpful but coach, we're here to run please? And besides that my boys are the fittest ones on the team having just come off a winter track season and cross-country season where they made the state meet. So come on coach, let 'em go out and hit the track and pavement for a few miles.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Cathy Mitchell Food Expert?

Ok,
who is the mysterious Cathy Mitchell, Food Expert seen on your television currently hawking the Flip-n-Grip and it's amazing culinary sibling the Scoop-n-Strain?
Well I had never heard of her and if she's such a food expert as she's claiming she ought to be all over the web right? Wrong!
All I find are links to the sites that sell me the above mentioned kitchen tools I need so badly.
What kind of an Expert isn't findable on the web? Well I did find the site that runs the as-seen-on-tv company that she works for and found her bio.
Seems she is quite the homemaker, in fact she won the Betty Crocker Homemaker of the Year award! Of course this was in 1965 and since then she's gone on to become the darling of the infomercial world.
So there you go, not such an expert at food after all, more an expert infomercial retailer!

Oh, and online reviews of the scoop and strain call it flimsy and ineffective. Buyer beware.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Where does the time go?

I mean really. Weeks here, days there. I was reminded of the abitraryness of the calender the other day as I filled in my daily training log. Perhaps I was just reminded of the lunacy of keeping a daily running log. Do I ever look back and compare? Yes, well in fact I do occasionaly. But here I've been dutifully running my 35-ish miles per week and thinking I was doing well and feeling pretty good about it when I noticed this week that while I have been running these 35 miles between monday and sunday, your traditional 7 day grind, I have been doing closer to 49 miles when I look at Thurs to Tuesday! So where's my week? I am a slave to the mon-sun system but I'm training on a Thurs-Tues system!
Oh woe is me!

You know you have too many pairs of old running shoes when:
You wear one of each from two separate pairs in the running pile to work.

Birds are returning:
Bluebirds
Robins
Redwing Blackbirds
Red Tail Hawks
Starlings

Monday, March 07, 2005

Thinking and Reflecting

So what is the difference between thinking about something that you do and reflecting on something that you do? Perhaps its in the depth of the thoughts? Perhaps its in how you implement those thoughts into actions down the line.

What's more stressful, working on an Ambulance or working as a High School teacher, facing 100 kids a day, every day, all day, and knowing you're responsible for their learning.
Having had experience with both, I'd have to say they both push the Stress-O-Meter off the scale.

So 15 snowy windy miles on the road on my own two feet yesterday and no complaints from the legs today. Must be doing something right I guess.

Remember, get yer free ipod while they're still the cool thing, don't wanna miss out do ya?
http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=13564103

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Playing Possum

So, I always thought that a possum (or is that an opossum?) played possum by flipping onto its back and sticking its feet up in the air, eyes closed.
Well sorry to burst anyone's bubble who might also hold such an idea but that's just not the case as I learned firsthand today.
Do tell, do tell.

Well here I am innocently rambling along on a brisk but enjoyable 10mile jaunt around the neighborhood when what should cross the not un-busy street in front of my on a jaunt of it's own but an opossum. Well when I have encountered other charming woodland fauna on the roads such as skunks, squirrels, rabbits and deer I have been able to convince them that while a lesiurely pace may be quite suitable for the forest, it's lousy for crossing the road, and with a scuff of my foot against the pavement I've sent them scurrying on their way. (no, I did not kick them, I made a noise that spooked them out of the road). Well try this with a possum and what happens? It stops and plays possum! In the middle of the road! NOT A GOOD PLAN MR. POSSUM! But there it was standing still, playing possum the wrong way, no legs all sticking up in the air or anything!
So, I stood traffic guard until it decided to move on its merry way.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

12 weeks to go

Ok,
12 weeks or so and counting until Marathon #6. Training continues. I was pleased as punch the other day to discover that the pace I wanted to run at to have a shot at qualifying for Boston was actually 9 seconds per mile SLOWER than I'd been running at! Lucky me. Now this is looking easier than ever.
very pleased.

Why do people try so hard at using the Nautilus machines at the Y? I mean, there's in shape and there's working out, and then there's the folks that for no apparant reason feel they need to lift the largest stack of nautilus weights they can. Why? I guess I'm just more about functional muscule mass, functional weightlifting. Lift to be able to run better, swim better, be a little fitter, but lifting to lift more, leave that to the free weight room, not the nautilus room.

Shoe recommendations:
Mizuno Wave Rider
Mizuno Precision

And we're off

Okay folks here we go.
Here's a little something I tried that I thought I'd share...

Running isn't as bad as you think. It's true. Pop a mix in the iPod and off you go.

ta ta.