Archive for March, 2010

I’ve been lax on my blog duties this week: one post, no newsletter, no video. Thanks to the Financial Marathon, I’ve been knee-deep in web domains and keyword research, ultimately ending up with 17 new domains!  That’s a lot of new websites to build.  I love researching with a passion and when I’m in the midst of it, it’s all I want to focus on.

So I bought the domains, did the graphics in one fell swoop, then started figuring out ways to automate a lot of the work as much as I can. Thanks to iMacros and Excel, my system’s just about down, so then it’ll be a matter of rinse and repeat and then I buy another handful of domains.  That’s where I’m going to focus my Spring work concentration.

I know I said a few weeks ago that I’d like to ultimately monetize this blog through writing ebooks and eventually attract paid advertisers but I’ve since changed my mind. What’s the phrase? “Don’t shit where you eat.”

Not that I eat here, but this blog is my baby and I write it because I enjoy it, so to mix money stuff into it just feels wrong. Plus, I really love being an anonymous web builder, just doing my thing out on the interwebs with no one knowing my business. It’s the lurker in me, I guess.

Runs!

I’ve had a solid week of good running and enjoying myself out on the roads.  The weather suddenly broke, as I’m sure most of you are experiencing.  Woohoo!!  Shorts and shortsleeves…heaven.  Picking up where I left off last:

Wednesday was a 9-miler at 8:25/mi.

Thursday I had a 14-miler in which I wanted to do some tempo miles but I got out there and something was going on with my back.  It was very windy which didn’t help, I think I was hunching over or something, so I bagged the quality and had to stop and stretch a few times, which I never do.  So that was 14mi@8:44.

Friday was a lovely day off.

Yesterday was an 11-miler with 5 tempo.  It was pretty windy again but I did ok, with 5@7:19, 7:53/mi for the whole run.   The tempo portion started out not so great, I looked down and saw 7:25 which was just about my targeted MP last cycle, but I wasn’t surprised since my paces haven’t been so hot in general.  Over the bridge I slowed down even more, but when I got to mile 4, I said fuck this, and sped up.  My HR was higher than it should have been for tempo pace, but I didn’t care.  I just wanted to know I could run faster.  So the last couple miles were 7:05s.  I needed that.

Today was a strangely good run, a 17-miler @8:31 that started out tired, likely thanks to yesterday’s tempo, but it was beautiful out so I took it to the trails.   The trail starts 5.5mi from my house and for that whole portion I was pretty draggy, but when I got into the trail, it was like a switch turned on.

There was snow, mud and puddles but the air was cool and crisp which felt amazing against my bare legs and arms.  Just doing all the fancy footwork energized me.  It became a game of wending my way around the few walkers to find the least puddly bits and not slip on the snowy patches.

I took a gel at 1:25 into the run (trying to be more consistent with that) and as I came back out onto the street, I held the energy up enough to play speed games against some unsuspecting runners, running the last 5 miles in 7:58s.

Weekly Wrap-up

All in all, it was a great week.  The decision I mentioned last post about speeding up a bit in general made my weekly average 8:28/mi, when it’s been around 8:40ish previously.  I had some ankle tightness the last couple days but right now it feels fine.  Mileage total was 68 miles, so nothing huge but hopefully, juuuust right.  I’m thinking with the warmer temps this week, I might find it easier to get close to my old paces again.

I won’t push, but I’ll certainly take note since this is basically my second year as a “serious” runner.  I consider Winter and Spring 2009 to be my running puberty as the new paces emerged, so now that I have something to compare to, I guess I can call this my running adolescence.

Now if I can find an old hygiene class textbook, I’ll be set.

Today was one of those days when everything goes right.

I had a voiceover in the morning at a studio that I don’t get a lot of work from, not for any reason but that I haven’t built up any relationships there, though they have my demo and that’s how I got this job.

Now, when you do voiceovers, the client is often there at the session – “client” usually meaning  the ad agency or whatever company has hired you, though sometimes the actual client client is there (meaning the company who hired the ad agency to begin with).  Then sometimes, like today, there’s no one but you and the engineer present, but the client (in this case the ad agency) does a phone patch, so they are able to be with you at the session without having to physically be in the studio.

Today’s session was uber fun because the ad agency fellow was a total sweetie, before I started he asked me all sorts of questions about my background, where I was from and things that didn’t have anything to do with the job.  When it got time to do the spot, they were so happy with it that one of the ad people, remembering I’d said I was from Arkansas, asked me to audition for another spot with a Southern accent.  So I may get another job from this one, plus the impression I left the engineer with was that I’m a pleasure to work with which will surely get passed to the higher-ups.

Oh, and I got a parking spot right in front of the building, which in downtown Philly is no small feat.  Then when I got home, I got a spot right in front of my apartment.  A lucky day.

Today’s run

48 degrees!! Capris and a top…heaven.  11mi w/Billat 30-30s (ended up doing 21 reps).

When I do a quality session it’s usually bookended with a pretty good chunk of miles – today, 6.75mi till I started the fast part.  Because I don’t want to “use myself up” before I get to the work, I always take those miles preceding it very easy – usually 8:45s before I get to the good stuff.  But today was different.

At about 2.5 miles, there was a large group of middle-school boys running on the path.  They weren’t too fast but to get past them, I sped up to around 8:15 pace.  After I passed, I considered slowing back down because I didn’t want to compromise the 30-30s but it hit me that I’ve been spending a lot of time in 8:30-8:45 land these days or sub 8:00s, but hardly any time at 8:15ish, though I did more of that last cycle.

It felt pretty good going that pace, easier than the 8:45s for some reason so I kept on.  Then, when it came time for the workout, I had no problems, in fact I was faster this week than last.  So, many thanks to the school boys, you helped me decide to do more 8:15ish runs in the next few weeks.

Arms and Legs

You know the arm/leg connection?  That if you move your arms faster, your legs will go faster as well?  I’ve known this tidbit for a long time but don’t make good use of it because 1. I always get the feeling that I’m wasting energy using the arms that way and 2. I’m not able to speed my arms up easily, it’s like the pace rut I mention above, making my arms move faster isn’t as easy as just thinking it, when you’re already going fast it seems like they’re moving as fast as they can.

But no.  This time I made a concerted effort to really pump my arms and let it see if it tuckered me out more or what.  The What is that I went fucking fast!  I had a few sub 6s in there, which I never do.  Yeah, it was only for 30secs each, but 5:xx is not something I ever see.  So I’ll be messing around with this again.  It’s not something I think is useful for regular marathony stuff (aside from the Billats, of course) but when I get to do 400s come Spring, I’ll see if it’s transferable.  I still think it makes you more tired but maybe that’s because you end up running faster in general.

So that’s my great day today.  Hope you guys had a great one, too!