I've been reading a lot of books lately. Yesterday, I read for 8 consecutive hours. This isn't a point of pride exactly, so much as a mere statement of fact. You will make various assumptions about me based on that fact. They are likely to be accurate and not flattering. Still, the truth is its own justification, and all that.  

You could argue that none of those sentences need the commas they have. I'd like to delete them, but won't. I'm going to use one there as well. But not in the previous sentence to this one.

Writing is hard. Well that's not strictly true. Writing things I don't hate is hard. I've been trying to do that in other places and so there has been nothing here for a bit. 

Stasis.

Turns out you can run just as much without worrying a thing about it. Nice to know, or rather, since I knew it already, nice to experience. I haven't read much in the way of running training theory for a few weeks now, and indeed I've still ran everyday. 

 

I'd like to transition here to something about the "holiday season", or whatever, but I'll just start with this: People, for the most part, have an unhealthy relationship with running, or "cardio" in general. I can't tell you how many times I've seen ads prompting people to earn their calories, or have a guilt free meal by sweating on a treadmill for twenty minutes. 

As if bulimia was the only reason to run consistently. (Exercise bulimia is a thing, by the way, and it's not something we should encourage. Not that it's an exact comparison, but we'd never suggest someone enjoy their pie without guilt, because they're going to fast for the next 48 hours, after perhaps vomiting.)

How about asserting that consistently good exercise and eating habits are their own justification? Provide their own satisfaction and rewards? That a fucking vegetable tastes good and running is fun?

Fuck. I dunno. I'm a scrawny guy who likes vegetables, likes running. So I don't get it, exactly. And can't. But I feel like reinforcing a cycle of binge/punishment is probably the worst possible thing we can do.

Happy holidays?

I'd like to ask a favor of you. Please check the link to follow, then act as you see fit. If that includes a contribution of money, or perhaps further sharing on social media, that would be perfect.

Click this link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/development-of-kafwa-basic-school-2014

The story of the school is there at the link, for the most part, which hopefully you've read by now. The story from my perspective is that this is my brother's effort, to help the village in Zambia where he currently lives. So that is, to be honest, at least part of the reason for my investment. The other, of course, is that this is a very worthwhile project regardless, and the residents have done a tremendous amount of work already. (Have you ever made 25000 bricks?) The only thing left is the funding. Which, hopefully a decent effort can be made to collect the needed funds. It's simply a matter of enough people choosing to do so.

I like one of these covers significantly more than the other

Kilian is on the cover of Outside this month, and appears to be laying on some hay, jacket open, making come hither eyes. Walking past the magazine section in my local bookstore, I have to say, this was a little, uh, uncomfortable? Disconcerting? Strange? Something like that.

As jarring as Kilian's attempts to seduce the magazine browsing public were, seeing this cover in person quickly diverted my attention. I won't attempt to tell the story, because you can read the accompanying article here, and Scott's personal blog here. You could always, of course, click the link on my blogroll. It's the one that says Run Fast. Run Vegan. I considered saying it was the one that said bad mother fucker on it, but thought that perhaps the Pulp Fiction reference was a little too dated, and anyway, that you should actually be directed to the blog, because the quality of writing is absurdly high (and has been for years), and joking aside, Sam Jackson's line would've been accurate enough. 

Polar vortex

The title of this post is a forced reference to the fact that it's fucking cold now, quite suddenly. Anyway.

Matt Fitzgerald has a new book out, promoting what he calls 80/20 training. I haven't read it. But, here's a lecture from an exercise scientist discussing polarized training, which is more or less the same thing, except without a catchy name.

 http://www.canal-insep.fr/fr/training-periodization-deep-root-cultural-heritage-and-innovative-paradigms-2013/ei_13_10_va_pr_stephen_seiler-mov

This more or less lines up with what is now conventional wisdom, but perhaps not conventional action. My training for the past couple years, for instance, has mostly been medium distance, medium effort. Probably not for the best. Trying to rectify that.

Some things

Some running things:

For being a "volume guy" and having nothing in the way of natural speed, my race times run somewhat counter to what you might expect, or what calculators indicate. It seems that, decent mileage aside, I can pretty well assume I'll slightly underperform as the race distance increases. Looking at my PR's, there aren't any exceptions to this. Could this simply be a pacing issue? Wouldn't really doubt it.

When getting passed, does anyone not look at the person now ahead of you and think "My pace looks like that? Oh god, surely I'm not that slow. And they're pulling away from me? Which means... oh no..." This happened, like, eight times to me this weekend.

Half marathons are still a pretty chill distance though. No searing oxygen debt, and it's over before your legs can really go to hell.

Some non-running things:

When you get home and the dogs are like OH MY GOD I THOUGHT YOU'D NEVER COME HOME BUT YOU DID AND HERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW LET ME JUMP ALL OVER YOU life basically peaks. This happens every day, so that's a pretty good state of affairs. Dogs are the best.

Just try to be this happy about something as often as possible, and things will be ok. The tao of dog.

Larabars are the best packaged food product, an assertion I believe with all my being to be true. They have seasonal flavors, one of which is pumpkin pie. That will get all the focus, but snickerdoodle is the real star. (Gingerbread is whatever.) It tastes like a fucking cookie. A great fucking cookie. They say it's just fruit and nuts but that's bullshit. Pretty sure they're just putting real cookie in there and lying to everyone. I don't care.

Today I realized that I don't know any of the lyrics to many of my favorite songs. Certainly can't understand them when listening, and never bothered to look the lyrics up. The growling, shrieking, screaming, etc., functions almost like another instrument. You understand the vocals in the same way you understand a guitar. But even still, not sure I could explain the appeal to anyone.

Kansas Half (empty)

The Lawrence Half was rough. That is objectively true, owing to the hills and up to 30 mph wind, but especially true in my case, because I don't think anyone bombed harder than me.

1:29:32

Ugh.

Can't say I'm pleased, but neither can I say I'm surprised, or that I didn't deserve it. Went out like an asshole, as I do, trying to race a bit over my head, running more of a dream pace than a goal pace. This is typical for me, and typically, it does not work. (But those times it does are pretty sweet.) In local races, I'm basically always going to attempt to go with the lead pack, if such a thing exists, even if this is objectively an awful idea.

I'd like to fix this, uh, quirk, someday, but I've said that too often already and done nothing at all.

So, the first 3 miles were great, the next 7 were fine, and the last 3 were, to put it kindly, slow as shit. I wasn't wearing a Garmin, but I'm not sure it would have registered the movement regardless. It got to the point that my legs couldn't make anything else work hard; that is, my breathing was as controlled as it is this second, because my legs were just toast.

C'est la vie.

There are more races soon - indeed, I may run another two half marathons this month - and a decent portion of my race rust is now hopefully knocked off.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯