Weekend Trips and Nice Cool Dips

I am taking off work early this Friday and driving down to Bandera. Nancy's training group are running there on Saturday morning so we're going to camp overnight. Maybe I can get in a training run on Friday afternoon (a first sighting for Cactus Rose and Bandera), maybe not. Either way I'm not bothered - it's Gavin's first camping trip and we will have a good time. We have to get back to town by midday on Saturday because Nancy needs to rack her bike for the Danskin triathlon on Sunday. My weekends are getting booked up quickly. Next weekend is the Dr Pepper 10k in Dublin, then the following Saturday I am running the Scenic Drive between Bastrop and Buescher State Parks with some friends. I'm thinking about going down the night before and camping out but we'll see how Gavin does this weekend first. The day after that Nancy is doing the Pflugerville triathlon and the following week is the final race in the Rogue Trail series. Then we're into July.

We're going to visit the swimming pool at Walnut Creek tonight. Gavin loves the water, and I'm looking forward to teaching him how to swim - that is going to be one of our special father-son things. I used to be a competitive swimmer in my younger days and I want my boy to be as confident and "at home" in the water as I am. I need to start swimming more too - it's a great cross training. I wish the pools here stayed open longer - with our climate it seems such a waste that most of them close in August.

I went to the Hill of Life last night to run repeats on the big hill. Man, it was hot. I set my goal for 4 repeats and managed it, but had to have recovery breaks between repeats (and walk part of the uphills). And I thought I was good at hills too - I guess I have some work to do!!! I figure it took me on average 10 minutes to complete one down and up. By the end, I was sweating like a politician on a lie detector - I could wring the water out of my shirt (yuck). Here's the odd thing though - it felt good.

I'm thinking of doing one of the Capt'n Karl's 12 hour all-night runs - either the August one at Perdanales or the September one at Inks Lake. Can't do "Mule Shoe" in July as it clashes with El Scorcho. Never done a timed race like that before - should be fun. Any advice on which park would be the better to run at?

The Michael Myers bush

You know that bit in the "Halloween" movie where Jamie Lee Curtis looks out of the window and there's Michael Myers standing in the front yard across the street? Creepy, right? Well when I first started early morning runs around my neighborhood several years ago I too had my Michael Myers moment.

At the far end of my loop there are no street lights and it can be incredibly dark. Bear in mind this is 4am, the neighborhood is deserted (one of the reasons I like the early mornings) and all sensible folks are tucked up in bed. This particular morning, as I came round a bend, there in one of the front yards was a tall figure. Just standing there. Staring at me. Thoughts started cascading though my head - psychotic knife wielding lunatic, imminent horrible demise, damn I was running really well too. Scared? I just about screamed like a schoolgirl!!! Of course, on second glance it turned out to be just a tall thin bush which left me feeling not a little sheepish. That was the morning I learnt that you can get still get cold chills while running in Texas.

So it was christened the "Michael Myers bush", and it still got me for a few runs before I adopted it as a landmark on my usual route, alongside such luminaries as "badly directed security light", "plastic duck yard" and "New Orleans house".

I ran the route this morning and it was a strange run. I started out feeling stiff and sore, and my legs were tired. I did a pretty hard leg workout last night so I'm not that surprised, but after about a mile all the tiredness faded away and I started to feel good. In fact, the further I ran the better I felt and by the last loop I felt great. The only thing holding me back was Charlie (my dog). I guess since I stopped running the neighborhood regularly he's gotten a little out of shape because he was breathing pretty heavily by the time we got home. Nancy even asked me "what did you do to the dog?" The strange thing is, if I got up to go run tomorrow, he would be as excited and ready to go as he was this morning.

Odd random fact - I've run this well-worn 6 mile route three times in the last two weeks and each time I've run exactly the same time - to the second. What are the chances?

Looping the Loop

Well I had a great time again this weekend volunteering at the Loop 30k. Summary as follows - worked packets, marked trail, did setup, drank beer, did various odd jobs, cheered on runners, talked to friends (some of whom I hadn't seen for a while), ate some hot dogs, did some teardown, drank more beer, went home, slept. I've discovered that working these races is almost as much fun as running them (sometimes more so). I've also been challenged to emulate a very impressive move on a stability ball (involving a plank rolling up into pike rolling up into a handstand) before the next race (we had a few quiet moments at packet pickup). Now that's me out of the way, let's move on to the real story.

Nancy ran the 30k - only her second race of this distance (her first was the Maze) and enjoyed herself. She did really well, especially considering she was only running road 5ks up until this year. Since January, she's run two road half marathons, and two 25k and two 30k trail races. She was worried beforehand that she wouldn't be able to make the cutoff because she's not fast, but she's got a lot of heart and if I had to put money on anyone to finish a race I'd put it on her. I'd been out marking the first half of the course the evening before and I knew how rocky parts of it were (no real big hills, but almost constant up and down), but it turns out she prefers this terrain to the windy dirt trails of Walnut Creek.

She was going to run with another friend of ours - Celeste - who was running her first 30k trail race. I've known Celeste for a number of years - we both joined the same running group to train for our first marathon four or five years ago. She was the first person I met on the first day, both wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into. Back then we'd just found out that Nancy was expecting and all season Celeste would ask me how "little Iestyn" was doing (Iestyn was our top pick for a boy's name, but when he was born we both thought he looked more like a Gavin). We've kept in touch ever since, but how strange that they'd end up training and running trails together.

Anyway, the girls had a very enjoyable run and I think they chatted the entire way. Every time they came through the start/finish they had big smiles, and I'd refill Nancy's handheld with pedialtye (my secret weapon) and make sure they were both getting enough salty stuff. They finished together in around 4 hours and 50 minutes so they were well ahead of the cutoff, but more importantly they really enjoyed running together.

Reward supper last night was my "Greek" hamburger - basically lean beef patties (I guess for really authentic Greek it should have been lamb) stuffed with feta cheese, and seasoned with black pepper and rock salt. The sauce was a mustard/mayo/relish/ketchup/garlic/red onion combination with some tomato, lettuce and pickle served on grilled wholewheat buns with some spicy potato wedges on the side. They were pretty good.

Free Race - Alive Alive O!!!

Hooray, I'm going to run the Dr Pepper 10k in Dublin's fair (Texas) city on June 14th. I got comped an entry today, plus free bus up and back for myself, Nancy and Gavin. On top of that Gavin will be doing the 2k fun run - his first ever race!!! I am so excited about that - he's going to have so much fun. It starts after the 10k finishes so I get to see it/cheer him on/run it with him too. It looks like being a fun day out. Better dust me old road shoes off, lace 'em back up again and hit that road.

I don't remember when I last ran a 10k but it's been a while.

Frustrations

I can run for a long time at a reasonably fast pace without much effort. I can hold plank for several minutes. I can spend hours being diplomatic with "petty office politics" clients who are crying out for a good slap, but give me an evening looking after a 3 year old in a bad temper and I'm exhausted. Usually Gavin is a really good boy. Usually. But not tonight.

It's a scientific fact that your offspring are born with the ability to push your buttons. Yet in the midst of the battlefield they can melt your heart instantly with one look or one "sorry daddy" and make you feel guilty for ever telling them off. Nancy was off riding her bike this evening and the boy took me on a real rollercoaster. He wouldn't listen, he was into everything, he was sulky, he was being a complete horse's butt. We made pasta together a few nights ago and had a fun time flouring the dough, rolling and hand cranking it through the machine, but tonight? Let's just say night and day and change the subject.

Let's talk about running instead. I guess summer is just about here, which makes running much more of a challenge. I read an article the other day about hot weather running that said it takes about two weeks to acclimatize. I think I'm getting there as the heat didn't really effect me too badly on my run last night. Certainly not as much as Saturday. As I'm into maintenance mode I've cut back on some of my runs and substituted in more cross training at home with aerobic weights, core workouts and yoga. I did the same last summer and it paid big dividends. My legs are very stiff these days so I could do with spending a lot more time stretching (which I definitely don't do enough of).

This weekend is another change up for me. It's the Loop 30k on Sunday which Nancy is running, and I am volunteering at. It's oddly gratifying to stand around and watch a bunch of people work hard. It's also Nancy's birthday on Saturday so Gavin and I are going to bake her a cake tomorrow night. We got her a pair of Vasque Velocity trail shoes for her birthday - giftwrapped (well, shipped - does that count?). I may or may not have gotten her something else, but I'm not going to say because she may read this. What an old romantic I am.

Last comment. Naughty little three year olds look like angels when they're sleeping.

The Long Walk

I recently reread an old Stephen King novel called "The Long Walk" which is the most disturbing of all the King novels I've read. Many things are left deliberately vague - we learn more as we read, and at the beginning we really have no idea what is going on - and this helps maintain the suspense. The setting is a kind of alternative reality where the US is run by a military dictatorship overseen by a mysteriously powerful figure known only as "the Major".

"The Long Walk" is the premier sporting event in this alternative reality, the premise being that each year a hundred 18 year old boys compete in an endurance walk from the Canadian border down through the State of Maine. The story is told in third person form from the viewpoint of the protagonist Ray Garraty, a participant in the walk. The last boy left standing wins "the prize" (yet another vague concept), but the catch is that once they're in the walk there are no rest stops and no quitting - unless they maintain a pace of at least 4 miles an hour they will be shot dead by the outriding soldiers. Thus 99 out of the 100 boys are literally on a death march. We only realize fully what is going on when the first boy "gets his ticket". The book concentrates on the relationships that develop between the walkers, the mental disintegration that takes place, and explores the grisly motivation of the onlookers. In other words an examination of human nature. Genuinely creepy.

I thought about this book a lot yesterday while I was running at McKinney Roughs. This was quite simply the worst run I've had in a long time. It was hot and incredibly humid, but I didn't feel good from the start. I had no energy and no motivation - I think I started out too fast and just didn't enjoy myself at all. I was planning on doing 30 miles, but stopped at 15 having drained and refilled my camelbak twice. I don't think anyone ran more than that, so at least I wasn't alone in feeling crappy.

On the other hand, I did a good two and a half hour run at Bull Creek this morning and felt as good today as I had felt bad yesterday. I don't have any explanation for this. It was just as hot and humid but I felt strong and fast, was able to hit the uphills hard, speed around the switchbacks, find good rhythm on the flats, and still have plenty left at the end.

I think I need to be more consistent with my running. I've build my marathon base over the last few years on regular midweek runs, and I haven't been keeping to them as I should of late. Having said that, we are moving into Texas summertime and I am in maintenance mode. I am starting to lean toward not doing the Arkansas Traveler 100 and instead doing a new 60k race that Joe is doing in Bryan the same weekend. That seems to fit my race calendar and buildup a little better.

Stay tuned though, I may have changed my mind again by tomorrow.