Posts Tagged ‘pictures’

Heya folks, hope you had a good weekend with some fine running and other entertaining escapades.  My weekend brought a recovery 6 on Saturday and then yesterday, a 14-miler w/5 progression to Half pace, closing a 61mi week.

The 14 went well, though the progression was peppered with that negative brain chatter I can’t seem to stop.  “I’m afraid I can’t” or “I should be doing this better” does not help me, yet it’s constantly there for anything more than easy or recovery pace.  So I beseech the Running Gods, “Please, please, let this cycle crack the plateau and give me back some confidence.  Just a little something – like one of those runs I used to have where you’re going so fast but it feels mysteriously easy, or you average a wickedly low heart rate or gee I could do 3 more of those…something.”  please?

Or another thing those ole Running Gods could do is get rid of my ankle annoyance, which disappeared while I was Ibuprofening my groin last week, but now that I’m au naturel, it’s back and ain’t going anywhere.  Which leads me to this weekend’s entertaining little DIY project…

Ice Packs!
OK, so yeah, a bag of frozen peas makes a usable icepack.  But my favorite ice pack ever was a slushy gel one – it molded perfectly to the body’s nooks and crannies and seemed colder than anything.  Alas, I left it with Nick when we split, so lately I’ve been making do with a half-empty bag of crappy tasting green beans.

I’ve been wanting a proper ice pack, though – something sturdier and “real”, so I was looking around the web on Saturday and not liking the price tags on the fancy ones, when I happened upon a recipe for making your very own slush ice pack!

The Recipe
3 parts water and 1 part rubbing alcohol.  That’s it!

Pour the mixture into a ziplock (with at least one other one around it for leak insurance) or better yet, and what I did, get one of those comic strip looking ice packs at the drugstore because they don’t leak or sweat like a Ziplock will.  Stick it in the freezer overnight and voila!

Here’s my funny rubber icepack and some extra I put in a ziplock.  It’s green because I got wintergreen rubbing alcohol.  And it’s huge because I tried someone’s recipe of 2:1 which resulted in a very liquidy mix so I had to add a ton more water.

The rubber thing was definitely a good purchase ($11, but you can get them for 1/2 that online), it’s super sturdy and retains the cold well. As for attaching these (or any other ice packy thing) to a body part, I use a velcro IT Band strap I bought last year during my IT Band drama.  It makes a good clincher, but you can use a scarf, too.

Little tip on the recipe: if you want it to be less slushy, increase the water ratio – for a softer pack, add more alcohol.  Also, it’s toxic, so don’t go serving it in a daiquiri glass by mistake.

No, this is not another tired video about running drills, nutrition or hill sprints.  It’s time to get real and tackle the truly important subjects that we, as runners, must face on a daily basis in an effort to make a difference in the sport.  Like neatening up your headphone cord.

Note: I feel it’s important to remain consistent in the videos I present to you, so I made sure you get the same low quality you’ve come to expect.  You even get an added bonus with this one because I didn’t realize auto-focus was changing the lighting, so crossing my fingers…no epileptic seizures for you!   Until I get paid for this shyte, I’m not sweatin’ the particulars – it’s just fun.

Btw, if you want better quality, change the settings on the video from 360p to 480p (at the bottom of the YouTube playback window…it’ll sound way better).

Got My Insurance Bill
…via email today from the heatstroke 5K.
Hospital charges for ER + one-night stay: $34,988 (plus $600 in incidentals)
What the insurance company turns it into: $4760 (gee, somebody must know someone)
What they’re charging me: $150 in copays and another $150 for the releasing doctor to say I could leave.  The second $150 is total bullshit (I’m appealing it), as is the whole inflated pricing system.  I really don’t get the health system and never will.

The Sleep Nazi’s New Gadget
I’m loving my new-found affair with sleep – I swear, I feel rejuvenated and motivated again (thus the new video).   This is serious stuff!

So wouldn’t you know, after 7 months of nobody living above me, I finally got a new neighbor: a sweet, petite young woman who volunteered she’s “never around”…music to my ears.  That said, although she steps way lighter then the asshole did, the floors are always going to creak and I can hear stuff through the walls (not just hers).

So…I ordered this very cool white noise machine.  It’s got 1000 reviews and people love the thing – many of them apartment dwellers with my exact scenario.  Granted, I’m not thrilled about replacing sound with sound, but if it makes sleeping easier and deeper, I’m all for it.  I’ll keep you posted when I get it.

The Hot Week Ahead
It’s going to be a challenge with another heatwave of 100s and 90s.  I also pulled something in my groin on Saturday’s run which is still hanging about despite yesterday’s rest day, so hopefully it’ll be fine by the time I need to run hard, though considering the temps, we’ll see how hard “hard” is.  I had to bag my hill sprints today which bummed me out, but I’ll do them later in the week.

Be careful everyone, get out there early as you can, drink up and don’t be macho with your paces.

We finally got a break today: 67 degrees with low humidity and a breeze.  I mentioned to my 3:20 forum friends how funny it is that in the Spring, I’d have thought 67 was uncomfortably hot.  Now, it’s heavenly.

So…yesterday I did 8 w/hill sprints (been a long time since I did those) and today was 10mi with six 2-min fartleks.  It took me a couple to get to speed and I avoided looking at the Garmin till after each one was over, so paces are goofy: 6:58, 6:55, then 6:35, 6:32, 6:40, 6:37.  Recoveries went from 1:28 to 1:47 (one longer when I stopped to get a drink).  All in all, a fair 12 minutes of speed, not fabulous but good for getting back into it.

More Sleepy Thoughts
Since that last post about sleep, I’ve been reading more on the subject; its recovery properties, athletic articles, regular people articles and I am kicking myself in the head for not paying attention sooner.  This small thing is no small thing.  Though I can’t imagine why I ever thought it was.

Going from 6 to 8 hours is huge!  When you do the math, two hours comes out to 8% of a day, that’s a substantial chunk of life.  Now, I can see that time being more valuable spent awake than asleep if I had kids or a big fancy job, but I don’t.  I’ve been spending that 8% putzing around! What. A. Waste.

Of course, it’s very much a work in progress – adding 2 hours is a lot so I’m currently in the lie-there-forever-before-falling-asleep stage.  Last night, this was exacerbated by an hour of helicopters buzzing around and then some sporadic waking, so I still only got 6-6½ hours.  But I’m ok with this, life changes take time and that is something I’ve got plenty of.

Oh, and here’s an unexpected bonus about going to bed early: I’m eating less.   Getting my ass on the bed by 9pm for 10pm shut-eye means 3 less hours to snack.  And since I’m on this scarily healthful kick of fruit salad for dessert and evening snack, I have a feeling optimum race weight is going to find itself with little or no input from me.  Add to this: improved recovery, alertness, motivation and mood elevation…what’s not to love?

Well, ok, what I don’t love is it makes me feel old going to bed so early, but this will change when it gets cooler in the Fall.  For now, they say to stick to a rigid schedule, which makes sense, so I’ve picked 10pm to sleep and 5:30am to rise, eventually 6am if weather permits.

Who is this stranger inhabiting my body, anyway?  Honestly, I’ve no idea.  I’ve heard she’s a close relation to this bad girl…not sure I believe it, though.
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Father’s Day was last Sunday and tomorrow would have been my father’s birthday.  I feel really bad that I’ve never talked about him.  Not that I would have talked about my mom, but since she killed herself it eclipsed everything on the family front.  I’ll relink that story here for newer readers but I took it off the menu because it’s not something you want in your face all the time.  Anyway…

Both my parents were New Yorkers and architects.  They moved to Vermont, then DeSilva Island, CA, where I was born.  When I was 4, my dad got a teaching position at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, so my parents, my brother and I moved to the bible belt – a strange place for a family of Jewish athiests/agnostics.  But it became home.

Btw, it’s funny that when I talk about my father, I call him “my father” or “my dad”, but he was neither of those things, he was always Papa or Pop.

He became a professor of architecture; I loved visiting him at work, hanging around those giant marble halls where everything seemed so important and at the same time intensely creative.  He loved technology and I remember him being thrilled when the University got one of those humongous computers where he, the 2-finger typist, could happily entertain himself for hours.  It’s safe to say I get my humor and technological curiosity from him.

His students loved him.  I still have a t-shirt made so many decades ago when his entire 5th-year class surprised him by wearing his face across their chests – the “Mort” shirts.  His friendships were deep, his personality self-deprecating, loving and kind.

When I was 12, my parents divorced, ending that screaming match of a marriage.   He moved just a few blocks away so we were still able to spend quality time together, but abbreviated as it is when you’re not living with a person anymore.  I didn’t notice it at the time, busy growing up as I was.  The suck of it is that I moved to NYC when I was 17 and didn’t go home that often, so my memories are cloudy and mostly through the eyes of a child.

He died in 1988 at age 61 of a heart attack.  He’d been remarried for less than a year which was heartbreaking in its own right.

But I’m not writing this with sadness in mind.  He’d have gotten a huge kick out of all the adventures I’ve had, am having.

Anyway, that’s about all I wanted to say, just to acknowledge him.  Love you, Pop.

I said I was going to take 2 days off but a cohort from the Sub3:20 thread was in town (Hi Matthew!) and I couldn’t pass up a chance to run with one of my imaginary friends.  Plus, my ankle was feeling right as rain, so I ran the mile downtown to meet him.

I’ve never run downtown except during a race when the streets are closed and I realized how blessed I am to have my river loop.  All that starting and stopping at stoplights and curbs was ridiculous…but a novel activity nonetheless.  Matthew was cool and easy to hang with, albeit hurting from having done a marathon just 2 days before, so we jogged recovery pace and then walked.

While my ankle felt fine, my right pinky toe (as mentioned in the shoe surgery post) was still smarting behind the Kinvara’s rubber trim so after I got home, I inspected the shoe to figure out a plan of attack.

The good surprise was that the mesh underlay is not connected to the rubber, so I was able to leave the liner intact.  Note: if you’d like to modify your shoes but aren’t knowledgeable about sewing or tailoring, you might want to consult a friend who is since they’ll understand construction, thus defacing them as minimally as possible.  Or practice on a spare pair.

Et Voila!  Looks crazy up close but you can’t tell it’s there otherwise.  Happiness restored.  My toe thanked me and told me we were going places together.  I believe her.

Not on my person…my shoes.  Or rather, a shoe.  It’s always one shoe, the right shoe, to be exact.  This time, my lovely Kinvaras are giving me a hotspot on my right pinky toe, so I’m going to give it a week, trading off with my Elixirs, and if my toe doesn’t get hardened to the rub, seam ripper and scissors, here I come.

I’ve been operating on my running shoes for quite some time now, so I thought I’d give you a tour of my previous operations so if you ever have a troublesome shoe, this might give you some guts to go in and make your own modifications.

The first shoes I ever chopped into were my Mizuno Inspire 4s.  Great shoes, except on the right one, the plastic trim was keeping the shoe tighter across my foot than was comfortable, so I took a seam ripper (necessary tool if you’re going to cut stitches), opened up the side of the shoe and trimmed off the plastic that goes down to the sole.  Worked perfectly and I did it for every pair I bought afterwards.

The next shoe I operated on were the Inspire 5s, though this time, in a different place.  I remember running in my first pair and doing hills and the knuckle of my big toe kept jamming on the pretty piping trim, though I didn’t realize it at the time, I thought I had a stress fracture (at the time, I thought every ouch was a potential stress fracture).  I suffered for about 10 days with my foot killing me, making donuts out of moleskin to protect the area, but it wasn’t till I sat down and thought about it, that I realized it was the damn trim.  So I took some scissors and snipped right though it; fixed it like magic, made more room for my foot and no more jamming.  Did that for each of the numerous pairs I had in that series.

Now with the Kinvaras, it’s a little more difficult because the rubber part that’s rubbing isn’t stitched, it’s glued, which means this’ll be another scissor job.  It’s always a little scary the first time you attack a pair of shoes, but since the alternative is not wearing them at all, it’s worth it.  And it’s not like you change the structure of the shoe with a snip or a cut, it’s just a small thing but it makes all the difference in the world. Still, I’ll give it a week and if my toe doesn’t get used to it, that white rubber bit is getting snipped.

Hot Speed
Oh summer, how I hate ye for runnin’.  I set my alarm for 6:15 so I could get out at 7 for a speed session (need my morning coffee first) but still got stuck in 78 degrees with 66 dewpoint.  The one treat I gave myself is instead of starting at 2.5 miles, I started at 1.75 (which meant less slogging home). Workout was the usual lately: 6x.5mi w/90 sec rec’s.

Took it by effort, averaged 6:46 pace, splits were 3:26, 3:21, 3:23, 3:22, 3:26, 3:24.  I refused to think about the pace as it related to any sort of race pace, focusing instead on the fact that I got points for doing it and finishing it and that if I’m racing this summer, I should get used to manning up.  I was satisfied when it was over.

And with that, have a fab weekend folks.  Great racing to those braving the elements and I’ll see you back here next week.