Monday, April 30, 2007

Learning to ride 4/30

Well I decided to give the bike a try today and turned out to be an interesting experience. For the first 20 minutes I rode with one of the brake pads rubbing up against the wheel which made the right much tougher than it should have been.
Once I got that taken care of, I started riding much quicker and it made things tenfold easier. I ended up getting in over an hour(14 miles) after I started thinking I was only going to get in 20 minutes. I also went after a little bit once I got past because I had no idea about what type of effort I could at until some guy went flying by. Next time I will know I can go after it a little bit more. Im not sure if I will ride tomorrow or just run. I am still contemplating a late night run tonight actually. We will see what happens.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Race...No more racing, its time to train

Well I ran a 10k race this morning and did exactly what I set to do. I wanted to go out fast and see how long i could hold it. Well i went out in 4:45/9:35 and then started to hit 5:20s to finish with 31:55.
I was going to race again on saturday but I have decided that I need to start building up for the half and stop running times I should be able to tempo. I plan to bike for a few days and then start building up to 85 if my groin can handle it.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Breaking In... 4/28

I just did an easy 6 in my new racing flats...the Nike Pegasus Racers. I like these shoes because they are basically a lightweight trainer and that is what I need for long tempos and workouts where I am going to be at a hard effort for up to 15 miles. Im not sure if I would race the half in these but depending on how they workout for the faster stuff they might get the nod.
Well tomorrow is the Pikes Peek 10k and I think the plan is going to just go after it from the start. Im 19 weeks away from the half so Im not expecting to be in great shape but at the same time if I want to run sub 5 min pace for 13 miles then I should be able to get the first few miles in 5 min pace.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Race Pt. 1

I suppose I should actually talk about the race from the past weekend since I finally found the pictures at fotojack.com. I guess they are kind of like the road race version of prettysporty. The race was a 5k in Alexandria and I ended up hitting 15:55.
From when I woke up I knew this was going to be an interesting event. My stomach was an intense amounts of pain and I knew exactly what the problem was but I did not have the time to take care of it.
Next I arrived fairly late and the line for the bus to get to the start was too long for my patience so I decided I would run to the start and I would just run in trainers. At this point my stomach is still killing me and I have to go back to my car and get in my racing gear and start my run to the start.
I was kind of nervous because I had never done the race so I didnt know the course but it turned out that everything was marked well enough that I found my way to the start fairly easily.
Of course when I get to the start the line for the bathroom was outrageous, so the stomach issue was starting to get more and more troubling. Well I decided to jog a little more and see what I could see; and low and behold a park was found. So I headed into the woods and finally took care of business.
Well that was the prerace adventure now about the race...

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

A Day of Rest 4/25

So I took the day off as of 5:28 p.m. I'm kind of glad I didn't decide to head out when I first got up because my foot start hurting and it got more painful as the day went on.
Its almost a good thing that I took the day off because I am way ahead of schedule. I have recently come to the conclusion that my focus for now is the Rock and Roll Half Marathon on Labor Day weekend.
The plan is to train for a top 10 finish or run 64 minutes; which is not actually all that far fetched. In Jack Daniels book my current 1500 pr is equivalent to a low 65 minute half, and I do not take my pr as correct indication of my highest fitness level. I also know that a half marathon is a completely different race from the 1500, but I have become much better as the years go by at handling the longer stuff.
I guess my outlook is based on the idea that you never know unless you give it a shot.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Daily Run 4/24

10 Miles
60:00 (6:00 pace)
Goal Effort: Medium

So much went wrong on that run its not even funny. The effort I put in was probably equivalent to a 56 minute ten miler.
The run started off well but I felt off almost the entire time. By off, I mean I felt tight in weird places and the tightness really restricted my stride. It was one of those things where the harder I pushed the worse my stride would feel. So I kept on pushing and there was point where I was pushing hard enough that my stride started to feel halfway normal.
Well as you can probably guess something else probably started to happen when my stride started to smooth out. Seemingly at the same time my stomach started to hurt(probably from needing to poo) and I was pounded by dehydration. I knew the weird feeling that I felt was dehydration because all the sweat magically vanished from my body.
At this point I decided I would push the ninth mile and cruise the last mile in. Well as I neared the ninth mile I started to fall apart(surprise, surprise) And of course I decided to push anyways. Well it took about two minutes for me to crack and go into a jog. After this I was like fuck it and just went back after it and started "grinding" for the first time in a long time. This ended up in a 5:30 for the ninth mile. I was pretty much busted when I finished and still managed to cruise a 6:30 to round out an imprefectly perfect 60 minute ten miler.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Hollywoodland 7.2

I was impressed mostly by the actual authentic noir nature of the film. There have been recent films that have claimed to be neo-noir films but most have not really lived up to the billing. Albeit the film was shot in color; it still managed to encapsulate a number of prevalent concepts present in the films of bogart, et al. The films cinematography screamed Chinatown and the lead female was developed heavily from the classic, Sunset Boulevard.
Im fairly particular about the ways films are put together and there were a few parts of the film that dont fit quite as well as they could have. For example, I liked how they connected the two lead males through the way the story was told but I also think they poorly timed the switching from one story to the next at improper times.
Barring a few minor things, I was really impressed by the film. The ending was well set up in my opinion.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Belief Pt. 2

I read an article on cnn that had some interesting questions. For example, what is the meaning of life? Thats a damn good question and I cant give the exact answer. I have never really pondered the question much at all simply because if there is a meaning then it will be shown to me clearly. Until then I have set out some guidelines to live by. First off, I try and do good things. Its a simple concept, and it usually has a positive outcome. Im not sure why anybody else would want to have a life driven by doing evil. After that, I try and put forth an effort to try and see everybody around me happy. So sometimes, actually a lot of times this requires me to put others before myself. If I can try and make people happy and frequently do good things, that I am fine with not really having any specific meaning to my life.
Another question that I found interesting was the question "If the universe had a beginning, then who created it?" I used to ponder this question myself until I thought about how it is a question which any answer will just lead to another question. For example, if you answer God then you cannot just leave it at that. By leaving it at that you are skipping over the question who created God? For me its hard to believe that God has just always existed because it goes beyond our realm of thought. We have an accepted belief system that everything has a beginning and an end. Well this means that for us to believe that something has just always existed we have to create a new belief system just to simply answer a question that really has no answer within our accepted understanding of how everything works.
I know I am throwing around terms and making generalizations about how everything works, but I want somebody to show me something besides God that does not have a beginning and an ending.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Belief Pt. 1

I suppose I am bothered by a specific incident, or else I would not write anything that might be in any way offensive to a potential reader. I have a lot of beliefs about things that tend to start arguments between most common individuals. In certain situations, I tend to listen and imagine what I would say if I were a confrontational person. As with everybody else, I tend to think I am right about my beliefs and everybody else is just confused. Confused is replaced for the typical word usage: wrong.
Well Ill stop stalling and get down to the good stuff. In America, Christianity is the religion. Why is that? What is it about this religion that makes it more correct than other religions. Furthermore, why is there denomination after denomination?
My biggest problem with religion is that gives an answer to questions without really answering questions. And it also gives answers to questions that really do not need answers. Religion also takes credit away from individuals....