every walk is a sort of crusade
A group of friends needed anther person to complete their team for the 2011 Bourbon Chase in October, and guess who they invited to join?
That’s right! The Bourbon Chase is a relay race across Kentucky through all of the major bourbon distilleries, starting at Jim Beam and ending in Lexington with a bourbon celebration. Score. It’s almost like an urban hike…but running and in rural Kentucky. Right?
Time to fire up the running shoes again…
Update: Our team name is Jim Beam Me Up.
Somerset Maugham once wrote that in each shave lies a philosophy. I couldn’t agree more. No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act.
I LOVED Kafka on the Shore, so was pretty excited when I found out Murakami had written a book about running.
Honestly, I had a little trouble getting into it…and it never really picked up speed (pun intended). He hit a few points that rang true (like the above), but overall kind of disappointing. Bummer. But it was short, so no harm done. I’ll go back for more Murakami…but maybe no more autobiographical accounts.
Turns out: New job + Old jobs + Training + Paul out of town = Blog fail.
Did a few races the past 2 months. To spare you from pages of details that you don’t care about anyway, here are a few haikus to fill you in.
USMS 15K Relay National Championship (5K Open Water Swim)
Poor Buoy Placement
Can Make For Frustrating Swim
In Indiana
Markey Race for Women’s Cancer (Sprint Triathlon)
Thunder And Lightning
Cannot Stop Us From Racing
In Our Wet Clothing
4th of July Bluegrass 10K (10K Run)
Fun To Run Fast In
The Bluegrass But Blisters Sting
Go America
Music City Tri (Olympic Distance Triathlon)
Nashville Has Hills
Do I Still Like Triathlon?
Heat Stroke Feels Like Death
For full race reports (if you really want them), go here.
First up this muggy 4th of July: the Bluegrass 10K!
Full race report here.
Then a walk with Kristin and Spike downtown for a beer, the Lexington 4th of July parade, and some other displays of good ol’ ‘Merican culture.
(If you can’t read the shirt, it says “Infidel: Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11”. I also stumbled across this article on Wonkette this morning. God Bless America.)
To be fair, there was also a gay pride booth that my friend Roy was working at, and the roller derby girls had a float in the parade, so it wasn’t all anger and jihad. Overall, it was a great day.
Happy 4th!
Finished the NYC Fitness Magazine Women’s Half Marathon this weekend, 2 laps around Central Park.
It was my first “women’s” race, and I don’t know if I’ll ever opt to do one again (I have never seen so much Lululemon in one place before in my life…and we all know how I feel about them.) Did you know, though, that the race legally can’t exclude men, so there were some men who ran with us (as highlighted in the above photo.) I don’t know what they did with the purple goodie bag full of Weight Watchers shakes and Tampax.
Went a PR, which was good, but it didn’t feel awesome (largely due to some poor decisions made the night before regarding food and hydration.)
post-race, in margaret’s apartment
But I did get to see some old friends and hang out in New York on a beautiful Sunday…it was great.
view from margaret’s window
For a full race report, go here.
I’ve started listening to podcasts on my longer runs (it’s been hard to get my NPR fix since my 80-mile daily commute came to an end), but only after an extended battle with my iPod shuffle.
The new shuffle is way more complicated than it needs to be when it comes to podcasts (IMHO). After a few failed attempts to try to get my playlist to play both podcasts and music (considering I worked with tech companies for the last 3 years I should probably be more embarrassed about how difficult this was for me…), my very resourceful, very handsome husband took time away from studying neuroanatomy to get on Google, figure it out, and explain it to me.
So for those of you who have the new shuffle and are either too lazy or dumb (like me) to read and understand the instructions Apple provides online, here is how to do it:
Ta da! Magic.
Welcome to Thunder Road. Feel the thunder.
Colleague and I traveled down to Charlotte, NC…home of Bank of America, bars that don’t open on the weekends, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and Carolina barbecue void…to run our half marathon this past weekend. After hitting up the expo (above) and carbo-loading the night before (beer, fried pickles with ranch, and gravy cheese fries) we woke up the next morning rarin’ to go…and promptly missed the start of the race. Along with about 1,000 other people. But we followed the mad crush and it eventually carried us across the starting line at the very rear of the group. We were off!
…and then we were stuck behind everyone who made it to the starting line on time, including all the walkers. Because we started so far back, the first 6 miles were exceptionally crowded and consisted of a lot of dodging and passing. But, when it was all said and done, we were both well under 2 hours and right on our best times. The fried pickles did their job.
After a shower we headed out in search of some real Carolina barbecue, something we had been looking forward to for months. We found the Tourism Center downtown and asked where we could get some. Blank stare from the lady who works there. Apparently it doesn’t exist in Charlotte. But we ended up finding an awesome soul food place that also served beer and red velvet cake. So. Happy.
After more fried goodness, we went looking for a bar where we could relax and talk about how awesome we are and how weird it is that Charlotte has no barbecue. We were surprised once again to find that almost all of the bars in town are closed on the weekend. What.
We finally found one that was open…and stayed there for 5 hours. Until we both went home and fell asleep at 7pm. Thanks to the snow storm in the middle of the country the trip home was a nightmare for both of us, but I’ll spare you my rant about a 12 hour wait in the airport and Colleague’s 3-hour train ride to Raleigh because apparently there were no flights out of Charlotte to Boston.
Overall: success! More or less. Disappointments included the barbecue situation, not getting to go to the Dale Earnhardt Jr bar, and lack of revving engine noises broadcast over loudspeakers throughout the race (though they did play a really loud, prolonged one at the start.)
Next up: Marathon. Probably. (And probably another half before that.)
My colleague and I are a little less than 3 weeks out from our NASCAR half marathon in NC. We’ve both done a decent job of staying on course with training. Two weekends ago I did an 11.5 mile run, so this past weekend I was planning on going for a full 13. The Friday morning prior to my run one of the Masters swimmers (who also coaches triatheletes training for the Ironman) suggested that instead of a straight 13 mile run, break it up: 6.5 miles Saturday night, 6.5 miles Sunday morning (the day you would normally take off). Though probably more appropriate for individuals training for a full marathon as opposed to a half, it’s a good way to keep your mileage up while giving your body a little bit of a break.
So I took his advice and on Monday, my knees and shins felt just fine. Ready for the post-Thanksgiving dinner 13 miler coming up this weekend. Ug.
Sidenote: Congrats to Joe on breaking 4 hours in the Philly marathon!
To me, few things are more festive than football in the fall. So imagine my excitement when an old coworker/friend from California, who is in business school at Michigan, invited us up for the Illinois game this past weekend. No better way to embrace the season.
…except it didn’t feel like fall up north. We got to Michigan Friday night and it was 27 degrees. After 5 years in California, neither Paul or I are equipped to deal with any temperature below 50, so we swung by an REI on the way into town. I was also planning on doing my 10 mile run the following morning before the noon game started (because it definitely wasn’t going to be happening after the game) and needed to get some basic gear for running in the cold. It was in REI that, in addition to a hat and ear warmers, I was totally suckered into buying a beautiful, completely overpriced running jacket (because I own exactly one long-sleeved shirt that I wear for running…my justification for the purchase.) I experienced feelings of extreme guilt for spending so much on a stupid jacket…until I stepped outside at 7:30 the next morning in 23 degree weather to start my run. I am in love. I love my jacket.
But enough about clothing. After pre-gaming at the Michigan Business School Party Bus, we (and 111,000 other people) headed into the stadium…the biggest stadium in the country. (I guess Michigan had the biggest, then Penn State built a bigger one, then Michigan rebutted and updated theirs to be the biggest again. Pouring millions into a sports arena even though you can already seat over 100,000 people just to be bigger than the next guy…how American can you get.) We sat in the student section and enjoyed some chili cheese fries, irish hot chocolate, and a lot of touchdowns. Some idiot showed up wearing an Ohio State hat, both he and the hat were thrown out of the stadium. The game went into triple overtime, Michigan won 67-65 (the score was higher than the basketball score for the two teams last year.)
It was fun to be in college again for a weekend..and it only took me 3 days to recover. Our hosts were wonderful. Go Blue.
Being new in town and unemployed, where the one person I do know well is attempting to survive the first year of med school, while living in a small apartment with very little furniture (our living room is 2 chairs), no internet, no TV, and few working appliances…I need to get out, find ways to maximize my enjoyment during this rare period of time off.
And so, in the spirit of productivity and enjoying my (hopefully) short-lived freedom, my days have been (and will continue to be) devoted to three central activities:
And coaching (but that messes up my title, and it’s a job, so I left that out.) Not a bad way to spend your day. Anyone who’s around is welcome to join in the trifecta.
Rambulatory Ambulatory 
