August 2nd, 2009
Yesterday was Vova’s funeral which ended up being a wonderful day-long affair with a luncheon for 40 and a boozy party afterwards. He would have loved it, the sweetie.
Occasionally I link to music on this blog and while my main favorite genre is Alternative, I’m a sucker for any style so long as there’s a great hook or a beautiful melody. Nick made a wonderful slideshow of Vova through the decades with a heart-ripping A Capella song as the soundtrack. It’s by a Ukrainian group called Pikkardiyska Tertsia (translates to Picardy Third, a type of musical chord). Using this song was insurance that anyone who saw it would cry their eyes out. I’m moved every time I hear it and the climax just kills me – doesn’t matter that I’ve no idea what they’re singing.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If my fancy new audio player plugin isn’t showing in your browser (I had to download the newest version of Firefox) here’s a link to the song.
As for running, I had a banner month, reached a new mileage high with 285 and today’s LR finished off a 71 mile week, so things are looking good. ITBS, I scoff at you (though not too hard in case you come back).
Hudson had a 4-mile time trial listed for Friday, but if there’s one running phrase that makes me stick my fingers in my ears and go LALALALALALALA to drown out the thought, it’d be Time Trial. I simply don’t do them and I’m at peace with that decision. Something about running as hard as I can, alone, is comparable to sticking bamboo shoots up fingernails, so it ain’t ever gonna happen.
In its place, I’d planned a 4-mile tempo run, but it was so hot on Friday (dewpoint of 74, Heat Index 87) that I bagged it. I did want to get something LTish in this week though, so I did a steady-stateish/tempoish progression yesterday before the funeral, middle 4 went 7:15, 7:05, 7:04, 7:00. 7 miles total at 7:45.
Then today, I’d planned 15 and went 16, albeit a slow 16 on Forbidden Drive (local trail) with some rain off and on. Yesterday I was in high heels all day and had more than my share of wine, so I had no inclination to be anything but a turtle today. It was so gorgeous with a dark sky (I love ominous-looking rainy days) and all that green on the trail that it turned out to be a slice of heaven. Ended up with an 8:50 avg.
I’ll leave you with my month in review. The grey text means it was in the plan but I didn’t do it. The numbers on the far left are the weeks counting down to the marathon, so week 16 starts tomorrow. Woohoo!
Posted in Running | 
Tags: marathon training, mileage, music, nick's dad, pictures, running calendar, training plans
10 Responses to “Life Goes On”
Leave a Reply
Sign Up For My Newsletter and get
Click here for more info
|
|
|
|
Nice work all around, especially in this dreadful weather. I also have tremendous difficulty with time trials. I basically can only do them in a race environment. Have you considered that as an option?
I’m also 17 weeks out from M Day. Forgive me — what’s your goal race?
Love the musical piece. I’m sorry for your and Nick’s loss.
Subbing a race would be good (I did that in the Spring) but now there’s nothing going on and I’m happy to be out of the race loop for a while, especially with the heat as it is. Since I’ve been racing pretty regularly, I think I know where I stand anyway, so it’s skippable without harm.
My race is Philly (you can always check my At The Races page to see what my schedule is). Glad to see we’ll be racing the same week, we’ll be able to share excitement and freakouts simultaneously. :-) Thanks for the condolences, much appreciated.
That song is beautiful. I hate time trials, too. I’m w/ Doglb, always trying to find a race instead.
I can’t believe you mentioned Children of the Corn. That is one of the only horror movies I’ve ever seen. I think I had nightmares for weeks. Thanks for the memory (rolls eyes). LOL.
I thought it was Philly. That’s why I was confused. I think you and I register “weeks until” differently in our little anal-obsessive Excel calendars. I’m racing 12/7. More like 18 weeks, or 19. Sort of. Whatever.
Hah, we all have our methods of madness – and I gave more attention to your “also” than the “17″ :-). I count the race week as week 1. It’s confusing too, because Hudson counts up, so this coming week is week 5 to him, week 16 to me. Not to mention he starts Sunday as the first day of the week. I can’t wrap my head around that.
The new radio works well – it’s just like the satellite one we had in the Chevy.
7:06 miles sounds quick to me. I can’t manage that for a 5k race. Know what you mean about time trials – much better to use a race for those.
Good job on the month, Flo, and that not-a-ime-trial looks plenty speedy. I use Pftzinger’s counting method, where race week is 0. Haven’t even drawn up the schedule yet, but my next goal race is CIM, same as Julie’s. I was going to allow myself two weeks of recovery, but this morning I flipped open Hudson out of curiosity. I counted back the weeks and saw “8 Easy with 5 hill sprints”. I went out and did that, so I suppose I’ve started
Oh, and I’m going to be humming that song all day. It’s harsh that he had so little time after the diagnosis. My condolences to you and Nick.
Jim, you sure don’t waste any time, can’t even imagine how you pop out of one marathon and go immediately to another, you looney tune. But now that you’ve started, I was with you in sprint-land today, did my first set of hill sprints for the cycle – I forgot that they’re kinda fun.
Thanks for the condolences, too. (and thanks to anyone I didn’t say thank you to in previous posts…I’ve been scatter-brained)
Terrific! 71 is the new 21. LOL