You Can't Always Get What You Want...

But if you try sometimes
you just might find
you miss by a second or two?

The summer of "Stones blog titles" continues with today's installment. The other day my younger son was getting ready to leave from camp and I overheard him talking to another boy. Andy was collecting his things/toys/crafts and the other boy wanted him to leave something so that he could play with it. "You can't always get what you want" was my son's reply! When I asked him about it in the car he said - you know, Dad, like that song you were singing the other day. 8 years old. Cool.

I had sort-of predicted that I'd finish in the range of 21:15 thru 21:30 but my time was 21:31 so I just missed. It started raining 15 mins before gun time; it started pouring cats & dogs 5 mins before! They delayed the start about 10 mins but there was no end in sight. So we ran in a downpour. Course: downhill .2 miles, then up over 9th street bridge, then mostly flat until a large hill at 1.5 miles. Then exactly back the same way.

I purposely went slow, controlled at start. In retrospect I could've gone faster like I typically do. My plan was to crest the bridge then settle into a steady working pace. That went fine. Mile 1 in 6:55 and feeling fine. I let up a bit as we eased into the hill...then slowed it down on the steep part. At no point did I feel that I was pushing into the 'red' zone. Then downhill to the 2 mm @ 7:09 / 14:04. I was expecting that. My conservative plan was to yield a mediocre reslut...but you can't have it both ways.

I thought I was working real hard during the 3rd mile. Set my sights on a guy with blue & white stripe shirt...caught & passed rather quickly (he must've gone out too fast?). Then there was a kid in red shirt about 10 yards in front of me. Slowly made up that ground...passed him with less than half mile left. I could hear his footsteps behind me as we turned onto 9th street for the bridge. As we crested same I saw that the next person in front of me was just rounding the next corner - a full block in front of me! I went down the hill fast, turned onto the finishing str8 (uphill couple of blocks). At this point I was just coasting with no one in front & no one right behind me. 3 mile split 6:48 / 20:52.

I felt like I had worked pretty hard, but it was that 2nd mile where I should've pushed a bit more. It's tough to measure it out evenly on the first 5k back. This is alot different than marathon running! I found some way to push the final tenth - done in 39 seconds - and the race director got a photo of me finishing. Blurry pic, but that's the way it was because I'd forgotten my hat and was taking full rain the face/glasses. Blurry race.

21:31 gives me plenty of room for improvement. Overall I finished 22 out of 295. But I'm only happy in the perspective that this is the first in a series of 5k's this summer. So the bar was set semi-low and I did what I did. Now I've got to step up the training and the race mentality. I was 6th in my 10-year age group. 6 of the top 22 finishers were men 40-49.

2 EZ yesterday; taking today off

Saturday - 2 miles @ 8:30 pace. nice day weather wise. Lots of standing around & chatting with people in teh park at our water/snack table. I was a bit surprised at how many people wear headphones listening to music while running. Tons of folks went by and couldn't hear us saying "free water stop" Soft pretzels & bagels too.
Generally this seemed to me that it ended up more of a social for us, but we were doing a community service too. One small step for raising public awareness of our running club. Maybe we might get a few new members... we'll have to wait & see.

My legs feel dead - I'm pretty sure that's normal at this point after a marathon. Feet ache, but that could be equal amounts of standing around for a few hours. I'm taking today off (Sunday) and hope to start back into running this week.

If I wasn't a runner I'm sure I'd be fat!

Yesterday in soda alone I must've consumed 600 calories.

Had a good weekend, Friday was the "Author's Tea" at kid's school, Saturday hangin out at the little league field, and Sunday my son's First Communion. I basically pigged out all weekend long. But that's one of the perks of being a runner!

Well, if you add up my mileage recently you will be able to tell that my taper has esentually turned into a total absence of running. After that last 20 miler I've been so unfocused that I've had no urge for running. A friend told me that can happen after alot of miles (hey-it's all relative here) and not to be worried. I hope to get a few easy runs in this week and today was the first. And it was a good one.

3 miles on the wheel at the Y doesn't sound like the makings of a good one. But it was. Here's how it went down. After the first mile at 8:20 pace I felt a strong surge of energy coming on. I increased the speed to 8 min pace, but was determined not to go any faster. I succeeded in mentally relaxing by thinking about my running form/posture. I do this sometimes as a way to distract myself from something else. I also closed my eyes almost all the way and just tried to 'sleep-run' comfortably. I only had one eye very slightly open - it was nice. Tom Petty's Free Falling was on the radio overhead. My pace was right on beat at 8:00 and I noticed the light relected on the tread's screen was bouncing up & down to my footsteps & in time with the music. Really lulled me into relaxed zone. Felt great. Bout 10 mins of this and the energy surge was gone. Don't remember ever running to free falling before, but it really was an instant hit to relaxation. I have to remember this trick for the big race. Been reminding myself in a tape loop in my head "do not go out too fast". I'm convinced that i should do 8:30 pace and forget BQ so that I can enjoy the experience. Been thinking about this alot.

From my feet down to my hair,

Bodies flying thru the air,
crawling up the f***ing walls,
Get off yer ass & show some balls!

Remember that song? Yes, my musical tastes have not moved forward much since the early 80's. Most of it's classic, but with a bit of punk in there too.

I am still hurting from last Sunday, and so decided to cancel today's workout. I may be just getting lazy at this point. My feet & toes are still aching, my knees feel something(tight?) and my back has been more & more painful the last 48 hrs.

Doesn't help that I've been home the last 2 days with a sick kid. Plus it's now been raining for 9 days straight. It actually stopped now, but scheduled to start up again tonight. Maybe I'll still make it for a lil run later - really what I need is a few slow miles to warm up and then a good stretch.

Muzak while running

I saw another running blogger iwth a post about song choices during runs. I have a unique approach to this and thought I'd re-post my comment from her blog here for my reader(s).??

""... I stick to the classics, I just hum them in my head because I'm tech challenged and my Sony Walkman 8 trac player broke years ago. For LSD I listen to any Sly & Robbie trax before heading out - that base line will stick with you for at least an hour! Try the apt titled Endurance, it's simple yet addictive. My all time fav for running faster pace is Love Stinks. Just hum it over & over on a loop in yer mind while you tap out that steady pace.""

Basically, I'm the only runner i know of that has a fixed set of songs in my mind that I just always replay the same tunes for every run. I know that sounds terribly boring, but these songs work for my pacing and they are very comfy, familiar, and feel good while running. They end up being like background muzak that i can notice when I want and then pay attention to anything else for a minute or two, and then pick up the song again without any break. (and no need to pause, replay, rewind,e tc). I have changed the list very little over the ten years that I've been running. Recently I've added some reggae, and dropped out a few classic rock standards...but overall I've been humming along to the same songs for 10 years and it's what works for me.