friends

Good morning runners! Happy weekend! Here's the daily training thread!

I had a GREAT workout on the track last night (in significantly less than ideal conditions) as sort of a tune-up for tomorrow's 5k. It was the first time I wore my Brooks T6 racers and HOLY CRAP(!) I'm in love. Today I'll just do an easy/recovery paced 4-5 mile shakeout and maybe some strides at the end.

So what is everyone else up to today, training and otherwise?

Question! I'm in charge of Thanksgiving dinner this year. So I need recipes and cooking suggestions! Anything from the starters to the dessert is welcome and appreciated!

Also, I'd like to send out a BIG GOOD LUCK to kara_called, kelj99, tia1982, erismichelle, hbfs, and any other runners who are racing this weekend or otherwise going for some manner of PR!

If you figure out the relevance here, you're quite a wit. Enjoy:


Discuss... and HAPPY RUNNING!

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.

Heart like the train station in Amsterdam
in the winter, even the birds listen to
the ting, ting, ting of time, blind. Time is black…

A couple of weeks ago I was up to running over 3 miles (my longest run being 4 miles). It was difficult, but I could do it (I have a 5K coming up on December 5th). However, the last two times I've been out running I've barely made it half that distance before hitting the wall and having to walk. Its not like I've taken any time off or anything and I can't understand how I've regressed so fast. Tonight, I just got back home after running a measely 1.5 miles.

It has gotten colder here in Boston, but I don't think that is to blame. Is this normal? Do you have to take a couple of steps back to get ahead again?

Here I thought I've made it so far only to realize that I have a very long way still to go.

♥ Anyway, people who are always looking out for perfect strangers are very often people who wont look out for the ones they're supposed to look out for. In my opinion. If you're just doing what you're supposed to then you dont get to be a hero.

♥ Who knows? Maybe birthdays are dangerous. Like Christmas. Ornaments hanging from trees, wreaths from the doors, and bodies from the steampipes all over America.

♥ Black: ...But the point is I done tried the other way. And I dont mean chippied, neither. Runnin blindfold through the woods with the bit tween your teeth. Oh man. Didnt I try it though. If you can find a soul that give it a better shot than me I'd like to meet him. I surely would. And what do you reckon it got me?
White: I dont know. What did it get you?
Black: Death in life. That's what it got me.
White: Death in life.
Black: Yeah. Walkin around death. Too dead to even know enough to lay down.

♥ ... You want to help people that's in trouble you pretty much got to go where the trouble is at. You aint got a lot of choice.

♥ White: Let me ask you something.
Black: Ask it.
White: Why cant you people just accept it that some people dont even want to believe in God.
Black: I accept that.
White: You do?
Black: Sure I do. Meanin that I believe it to be a fact. I'm lookin at it ever day. I better accept it.
White: Then why cant you leave us alone?
Black: To do your own thing.
White: Yes.
Black: Hangin from them steampipes and all.
White: If that's what we want to do, yes.

♥ ...But the point of course is that the drunk's concern aint that he's goin to die from drinkin-which he is. It's that he's goin to run out of whiskey fore he gets a chance to do it.

♥ Belief aint like unbelief. If you a believer then you got to come finally to the well of belief itself and then you dont have to look no further. There aint no further. But the unbeliever has got a problem. He has set out to unravel the world, but everthing he can point to that aint true leaves two new things layin there. If God walked the earth when he got done makin it then when you get up in the mornin you get to put your feet on a real floor and you dont have to worry about where it come from. But if he didnt then you got to come up with a whole other description of what you even mean by real. And you got to judge everthing by that same light. If light it is. Includin yourself. One question fits all. So what do you think, Professor? Is you real?

~~The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy.

"We seem to have forgotten the dignity of the only instruments, among all our inventions, that can carry and make articulate the thoughts, the soul of man. Even when used without so high an intention, words may yet be innocent and make a pleasant noise in the world, like brooks on moss or stones, or the wind in trees. But their misuse perverts the divine. And we have now come to a pass where truthlessness is tolerated, and even expected in politics, diplomacy, advertisement, the education of children, and the privacy of marriage. The depth of our degradation of words may be measured by the surprise any newspaper editor would feel if his news were criticized merely for being untrue."
- Freya Stark

hi!

I've been running a steady 27-28min 5k now for about two months (prior to that I did the c25k program). So running for about 4 months total at this point. I'm in a position where I am running 5k comfortably but not mega fast, so I'm wondering if I should start to focus on running it faster, or if I should think about adding mileage to my daily runs? At what point did you start to run beyond 5k? Should I be running it in 25 minutes and then try to add miles? As a novice runner, I'm not really sure where to go from here!

Thanks so much for your insight.

xoxo
Melissaaaaa

'The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.'

Hi everybody, I am hoping to get some tips from you expert runners, I am a newbie so please be gentle. :)

Basically I really admire people who can run, and to me its like exercise with a purpose (other than losing weight that is), I love the idea of running 5ks, espeically ones for causes like here for example we have runs for Breast Cancer and stuff like that.

Anyways, so I am really new to running, meaning I've barely done it yet. I really want to sign up for a 5k that takes place here in April. Problem is, in addition to being a new runner, I am completely out of shape, so I get tired really easily.

My questions are:

1. Whats the best way to ease into a new running routine? How many days a week should I run? How long? My schedule is kinda all over the place, I have school/work and my work schedule is random, so I never really have specific days I am free, more like random alloted times. Should I just try to work around my schedule or is it better to try and have specific days/times you run?

2. Is April a realistic goal for someone new to running/out of shape to run a 5k or should I pick an event later on next year.

3. Any general tips to someone new to running?

My cousin ran the San Fransisco marathon this summer and it really inspiried me. So I definitly wanna give running a shot.

Sorry if something like this has been posted a lot, I know you can find tips online but I like hearing things from people.

Thanks!

So last time I went running I had some interesting encounters. It made the run a lot more enjoyable in the ever freezing weather here in New Jersey.

For my usually run around the area, there is a part where I need to run in a wooded area for a bit. I tell you man, I had never heard so much random animals noises and scurrying in my life. I kept expecting something to just pop up cause it was just that loud.

So I finally get out of it, glad to have not been attacked by some random little critter. Good enough. So I keep on running and then I see a black squirrel! This is the first time I'd ever seen one before so I take it they are pretty random in New Jersey. Amused at this point I keep on running.


I continue running, nothing too exciting at this point. I look to the left of me, and I see a chicken.

Yeah a chicken. A pretty odd site in the suburban town I'm currently in but lo and behold I see a chicken just chilling there. At this point I'm like this run can't be getting any wilder.

As I am close to finishing, I'm feeling great. Almost there! Suddenly this huge bird comes flying out of nowhere. I easily get startled and almost afraid for a minute thinking this bird might go at me. It was this huge falcon just chilling there! I got pretty close to it to. I never realized they got that big. I can only imagine how big a bald eagle must be.

Finally I made it home, glad to have not been attacked. Although a run in the summer put me uncomfortably close to a black bear once. I think I've seen it all New Jersey has to offer.

So question for you guys, what are some weird/cool things you hAve seen while running?

So everyone knows what to do (or at least where to look) for couch to 5k advice, but that's not what I'm doing.

My last 4 races were either half or full marathons, I run 10ish miles 6ish days a week, but I'm evidently doing a 5k turkey trot in 2 weeks. I'd like to do as well as I can, but I have no idea how fast I should run at that distance, nor how to train for it.

The McMillan calculator says that I should aim for a 24:14 (a 7:48 pace)(I told it I ran a 3:56 marathon, since I could have done that if not for the Nor'Easter (I ended up with 4:01:11)).

That's only 2 minutes faster than the only 5k I ever raced, 3.5 years ago, when I was running about 1/4 as much as I am now.

I feel like I should be able to knock rather more than that off of my time from back then. Am I nuts? My 10 mile easy pace is 10:15-10:30, 10 mile tempo (I'm not sure I'm using that term correctly. A 10 mile run that is quick, but by no means all out) is about 8:20-8:15, my marathon race pace is about 9 even.

Any and all ideas about what I should aim for, and how best to achieve it (do you taper for a 5k?), would be welcome.

Thank you very much.

The world’s spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind’s muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash, cannot be dammed, and that trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness. Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness; you raise your sights; you look along it, mildly, acknowledging its presence without interest and gazing beyond it into the realm of the real where subjects and objects act and rest purely, without utterance.

Can anybody recommend an external desktop hard drive that's 2TB, and preferably has a firewire interface?

Good rainy Friday morning!

What's everyone up to this weekend, training-wise and otherwise?

For me, it's finally here: NCAA Division III Mideast Regionals. I've been thinking about this race for months, and now it's tomorrow. The weather isn't exactly what I'd have dreamed up (hurricane-y?), but in every other area, this season has exceeded my expectations. I'm fitter, stronger, and stronger than I've ever been in my career, and I'm ready to race well and run a good time tomorrow, even if the conditions are a total mess. And I can't wait. The taper seems to be working. Yesterday, we only ran for 20 minutes, and we have another 20 on tap today. I'm antsy and want to run lots RIGHT NOW, which seems right :)
So obviously me weekend plans are to race on Saturday, then a celebratory Italian dinner (with jakshadows, perfectstormpsu, and supermanz), and then an early night because supermanz is running a 5k on Sunday morning. Sunday night is our end-of-season party, which means that sometime on Sunday I will have a nervous breakdown over gift cards or dessert selection - but whatever, it always works out in the end :)

A big "Good Luck!" to everyone racing this weekend - kick some serious butt! And everyone who is training hard, you guys rock, too.

Have a great weekend, runners! :)

Edit: I can't embed this, but it's awesome - The Gloomers cause Friday the 13th

I ran again today. 3.75 uninterrupted miles in the pouring rain – get in! I felt a bit stiff and had a few niggles, but my foot felt fine and I think it's just because I've been sat on my ass for 4 weeks. I felt like I was going really slowly but when I got back calculated my pace I really wasn't. So yay to that!

This is only my second pain-free run since the Amsterdam marathon on 18th October, so it'd probably be really stupid to run a half marathon on Sunday, right? My boyfriend is running and I have to drive him but I really don't feel like tagging along as a groupie – it would be torture! He's going to try to smash his PB so I wouldn't even try to run with him, but I could take a relaxing jog round at the back and have a jolly good time, right?

On a scale of 1 to window licking(10), how insane would it be?

500 comics! Who knew.

asofterworld.com

Clarissa has always been the most hard-hearted, and the one most prone to romance. She's endured teasing on the subject for more than thirty years; she decided long ago to give in and enjoy her own voluptuous, undisciplined responses, which, as Richard put it, tend to be as unkind and adoring as those of a particularly irritating, precocious child. She knows that a poet like Richard would move sternly through the same morning, editing it, dismissing incidental ugliness along with incidental beauty, seeking the economic and historical truth behind these old brick town houses, the austere stone complications of the Episcopal church and the thin middle-aged man walking his Jack Russell terrier (these are suddenly ubiquitous along Fifth Avenue, these feisty, bowlegged little dogs), while she, Clarissa, simply enjoys without reason the houses, the church, the man, and the dog. It's childish, she knows. It lacks edge. If she were to express it publicly (now, at her age), this love of hers would consign her to the realm of the duped and the simpleminded, Christians with acoustic guitars or wives who've agreed to be harmless in exchange for their keep. Still, this indiscriminate love feels entirely serious to her, as if everything in the world is part of a vast, inscrutable intention and has its own secret name, a name that cannot be conveyed in language but it simply the sight and the feel of the thing itself.

The Hours - Michael Cunningham