Failure & Antonement

This weekend turned out to be a washout as far as running was concerned. 14 on Saturday turned into 10, and I got up to re-try this morning only to find it raining fairly hard at 6am, with a 75% chance of storms at 7am. Back to bed.

It's probably for the best. I'm humbled and ready to listen now, Hal Higdon.

I'll run four miles on Tuesday. I can find time for that, even though this is looking to be a very busy work week. Seven on Wednesday. Four on Thursday. Saturday calls for 15, and that will be a big challenge. Hopefully I'll get lucky with the weather -- both in terms of having a cool morning to run it and the rail trail not being a swamp.

I think my best bet is starting at Hanover Junction, running 4 miles north, turning around, and then running back to Hanover Junction, 3 miles south and then back will make it seem the least oppressive, give me a chance at the midpoint to refill bottles, and also not leave me 7.5 miles away from my car if I bonk again. Since the rail trail is boring, Shuffle will be a must. If it rains a lot this week -- and the forecast says it will, then I'll be trying to wring 15 garbage miles out of Manchester and York Haven.

I'm not trying to save the galaxy...just run 26.2 miles.

Note: This cartoon is not meant to imply that Hal Higdon is small and green or a stick figure.

What's Next?

Think back to your PSAT or SAT tests for this one.

Complete this series: Earthquake, hurricane....

We here at the Earn Your Donuts Research Labs have concluded that the next catastrophe is right around the corner, and it will probably take one of three forms:

Space rocks.

Dinosaurs coming back from extinction.

Cats rising up against their owners and taking over the world.

Now that I've had my MS Paint fun, I should get back to running.

Even though the above scenarios render the Philly Marathon unlikely to take place, I've paid my entry fee and so I should probably hedge my bets and train for it. Since we'd been without power (and plumbing, since we have a well) from early Sunday morning through yesterday afternoon, it made it difficult to find a way to get our runs in. I finally got out for a nice 10-miler this morning. Though I missed out running on the two nicest weather days in months (Monday and Tuesday), it was a cool, beautiful morning -- the kind of day where running is a joy. So, kind of the opposite of Saturday's run.

Hal Higdon's going to be even madder at me, though, since I lost a run yesterday I'm winging my midweek mileage again this week. I'll also probably do my long run on Monday, when the weather looks cooler, instead of Saturday. I've got a 14-miler this time. I'd rather run it in 50-something degrees than 70-something, but I know I can get through it either way. That's as far as I've run this summer, though, so for runs longer than that (15 miles the next week, and 17 two weeks after that) I'll really be hoping for some cooler temperatures.

Saturday Long Run: Return to Humiditytown

It was really, really humid this morning. The kind of humid that makes me think it's time to find another hobby. The kind of humid that makes me question the existence of good in this world. The kind of humid that makes me right write posts complaining about humid it is. The kind of humid that makes me screw up homophones.

Hal Higdon called for 9 this week. Since I've done such a great job of listening to him so far, even this week, my first full week "on program", I just ran my usual 10-mile route through Manchester and Mt. Wolf. I had a slow pace again today, but unlike Monday's unexplainable bonk, I'm just going to attribute this one to slogging through 100% humidity.

(Yours truly at my finishing point, Humiditytown Middle School)

Did I mention that it was really, really humid? It was 73 degrees at the start of my run, which is quite warmer than it's been for my morning runs the past two weeks but nothing special overall for the summer, but the humidity must have been AT LEAST 1000% if not infinitely more. It was very overcast, which allows me to forgo the visor, but I was still disgusting and sweaty within half a mile.

Since words are powerless to convey exactly how much I was sweating, let's again use the power of MS Paint to try to capture the level of disgustingness (That's not a word, spell check? Screw you!) we're talking about here (click to enlarge):


Good luck on your runs, everyone. I'll be inside playing video games. (And best wishes to anyone in Irene's path.)

HumidityFest 2011 -- In Pictures

At mile 1 one of today's run:



At mile 10 of today's run:

Not So Super After All

Over the past several months that I've been writing this blog, I've also enjoyed reading the blogs of other runners. Danny, one of the bloggers who comments here, writes a blog called "The Quest for Running Perfection." His blog, and his approach to running are both more serious and thoughtful than anything you'll find here. He's made a few comments on some of my recent posts that have gotten me thinking about my approach to my training. I'm going to address some of those thoughts in this post and a considerably more serious one that I'll write next week.

My degree is in Psychology, and so the "nature vs. nurture" debate was in the background of almost everything we talked about in my classes on social psych, personalities, and abnormal psychology. So when I chalked up Sammy Wanjiru's success to talent, Danny rightly called me out on it.

A bit chastised, I responded that I didn't mean to imply that Sammy was only great because of natural ability, or that his dedication and work ethic were not amazing, or his training regimen not among the most rigorous in the world.

But then, he hit me with this:

Or, that Brian could not have run a sub 2:12 marathon if he had put his mind to it at age 12. Really, you could have.

Well, unfortunately, my priorities at age 12 were a bit different. At 12 years old, when world class distance runners are probably already been training rigorously for years (Note: I'm not going to actually look this up for a post that's main purpose is to make fun of myself), I was busy with a rather lackluster basketball career, hiding from bullies (in hindsight, running more would have really helped!), and becoming really, really good at Nintendo.

I will probably never run a sub 3-hour marathon. I might never even run a sub 4 hour marathon. But I bet Meb Keflezighi hasn't beaten all three Super Mario Bros. games and I am almost certain that I could absolutely destroy Geoffrey and Emmanuel Mutai at "Bases Loaded". And let's not talk about "Contra", in which the fastest of Kenyan runners would only slow me down in my quest to save the world from the vile Red Falcon.

But while all of that was very cool in 7th grade, when running in road races was one of the farthest things from my mind, now that I am a runner with a total of $10 worth of prize money to my name, paid out in the form of a gift card to the Field House Sports Bar, I wish that I'd used my younger years a little more productively.

(Fireballs are banned by the USATF, you cheating lizard.)

I can see now, Bowser, Lord of the Koopas, that although I'd slain you so many times, you have defeated me even so.