Running powerfully.....

Last night I went out to St. Peters to run with a few new friends I became acquainted with through the website Meetup.com. The group run was actually sponsored by a local running store called Fleet Feet. Anyway, St. Peters is pretty much on the outer fringe of how far I like to travel for anything other than a special occasion since it is on the opposite side of the city from me and further west. It takes about 45 minutes in light traffic and with traffic you are looking at an hour or more easily sitting on the highway. However, I discovered a bike spinning class from 6-7 pm near the run store and then the run from 7-8 pm so I could get in a weekly mini duathlon workout which sounds promising. However, my bikes chose not to cooperate and the tires kept going flat as I was preparing to go so I had to skip the cycling this week but I did check it out first before the run to know what to expect if I decide to go next week. Only two cyclists showed up and neither of them were what I would call experienced cyclists so I am undecided on attending next week. I arrived at the run as everyone was just starting out so although I saw my friends who are slower than me, I took off with some of the fast guys to try and get a good workout in. In addition, with a 7 pm starting time it was completely dark outside and several of the runners had head lights on allowing them to see directly ahead of them. I latched on to the back of two runners who had lights (I didn't) and just hung on as the initial pace was pretty fast and two guys just took off at what looked like sub 6 minute per mile pace. They were gone from sight in short order. I was moving at a good clip and eventually I moved up past the two guys I had been pacing off of and found the back of a newer runner up ahead to pace off of and "steal" his headlight view though I stayed about 15 feet behind him for over a mile before he slowed down or I sped up and caught him. We chatted briefly and introduced ourselves. We were both moving at a pretty good clip probably around 8:15-8:30 pace per mile which is just off race pace for me. However, because of the quick pace we were gobbling up territory fast and running on sidewalks which were constantly either going up or down in elevation or curving around the road terrain which meant that I had to pay close attention to where my feet where being placed so I didn't fall and get hurt in the darkness etc. I haven't run on sidewalks like this at such a pace since college and I was instantly transported back to my runs in college with the cross country team where we would be flying along at a pace that was fast but under control though we had to be careful what was ahead of us due to our pace. I didn't give it much thought at the time but we were quite power runners and I have missed that feeling of floating along with another runner on training runs. Since I have been back running over the past 18 months or so I have only felt fast while doing speed work on the track or in races. This was the first road workout I have experienced in over ten years where I finished it thinking, "I am back baby!" My legs felt strong and powerful and were working, but at any point I could have picked up the pace if I needed to and it was all run at what coaches call threshold pace which is basically so fast that you are near race pace but your body is coping well and discarding the lactate that is being created in your body just as fast as it is created. In short a gloriously fast but controlled run. I didn't realize how much I missed running like this until I re-experienced the feeling last night. I will probably try the mini-duathlon next week but may drop back and hold off running so fast next time assuming I do the spinning class first.

Rain, Rain go Away.......

Normally I would not be posting but the weather has turned uncooperative in Honolulu with a constant downpour of rain this morning. I of course did not really bring any clothes for rainy weather (my jacket is water proof though) so my plan of walking through it on my way to pick up my race packet at the Expo died quickly since I gave the key to the apartment to the parents. I will wait for a ride from either Cara or the parents to get to the Expo.

This morning I just took a shower and watched an episode of the Office with Cara before she had to go to work. As she was leaving Cara fell down the stairs outside her apartment since they were slick with rain and she was only wearing flat bottomed sandals. Not smart since they have no traction but I guess people are so use to wearing them here that they forget about the downside to wearing flat shoes when the weather turns bad. She bruised her elbow and back and was generally shaken up and then called into work to take the day off but apparently they needed her to sign something so she had to go in. She's quite a trooper! Since then I have caught up on email and surfed the web. Good times.

Dad and I were suppose to go to Pearl Harbor to do the tourist thing but he called and said it was closed due to the rain. He is on his way over here to do something else but either traffic is bad or he got lost; maybe both! (Mom just called to say he did get lost!)

I may not write more before the trip is over since I will be pretty busy. I promise a full update on all my vacation activities when I get home though.

The Past is Prologue to the Future.....

I am a big fan of South Park and by extension Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Some years ago they made a movie called Team America World Police which I have read was partially inspired by the 1982 movie Megaforce. I was 9 years old when that movie came out, and I think Matt and Trey were approximately the same age or slightly older. Megaforce was heavily marketed to the kids of my generation and we all rushed out to see it once it hit theatres. Unfortunately it was not exactly a blockbuster and soon made a quick exit from the local cineplex. Nevertheless, I think it inspired many kids to dream of riding their own rocket propelled motorcycles to hero status. Sadly, it does not enjoy widespread appeal beyond a tiny subset of the population who were say, boys 8-12 years old in 1982. Yeah, you kind of had to be there to get it.

I have also heard that Matt and Trey like to watch the movie several times a month for inspiration working on South Park and one episode even references the movie explicitly. Early in the Bush Administration there was a movement to downsize troop levels per Rumsfeld and the theory behind the move was that technology would allow us to do the same job with fewer troops. I heard one reporter say it sounded like someone at the Pentagon had based the plan on watching Megaforce which I had to laugh at, but admittedly was a truly insightful comment. The plot line of the movie involves a small rapid reaction military force made up of members from numerous nations who use light and fast vehicles like motorcycles and jeeps outfitted with lasers and advanced rockets to outmaneuver and outflank slow and cumbersome tanks and standard military weapon systems of the time period and would be sent in where conventional forces doing the job might be impossible or imprudent for some political reason. Does that sound familiar?

Though they lacked the flying motorcycles in the movie, the special forces in Task Force Dagger that helped overthrow the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan could in some ways be the modern equivalent of the Megaforce idea of using a handful of highly trained troops with technology backing them up to achieve amazing tactical victories. In the Afghanistan case the military had a few elite spotters on the ground who were sending in targeted coordinates to planes circling above them and were able to defeat huge massed forces with local assistance from anti Taliban locals who performed essentially mop up operations after the bombs from fighter planes and the C-130 gunships did their work. However, once the war shifted from just defeating a military force to actually trying to mold the people of Afghanistan into a cohesive and fully functional government the handful of special forces were too few in number to effect profound change in winning the peace. As the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has continued and the need for additional troops became obvious I think the Pentagon plans to create a permanent smaller military force ala Megaforce all but died in the planning stages. However, Megaforce itself shall live on in infamy among the thirty somethings who walked out of megaplexes dreaming of flying motorcycles with rockets.

In locating clips to post to my blog I came across this quote which I thought did a brilliant job of summarizing the movie, "This is one of those rare movies that punched right through the bottom of bad, and came out at the top of awesome. " I could not put it any better. This movie is so cheesy bad that it became great for its unabashed flag waving cheese factor....and that is a hard task to accomplish. The mystery science theatre boys did a ten minute commentary on the flick which was kinda funny: If you have some time check it out:




My only complaint about the mystery science theatre clip is that it does not include enough of the action of the movie which is really what appealed to me in the first place. So, check out this clip starting from 1:24 into the thing to see what appealed to any neoconservative hawks who favored a smaller rapid reaction type of military similar to the Megaforce team:



I will leave you with this vintage Hunter quote which he delivered to the bad guy right before he flies off on his motorcycle after hopping up onto the guy's tank and knocking on the hatch, "The good guys always win, even in the 80's." As Charlie Munger might say, "I have nothing to add."

How do you like them apples?

I went to the library last night and renewed my card while checking out some new books. I am a huge fan of the local library and used to check out books all the time. When I was young I would always return the books before the due date since I was too poor to afford the fines, and I loved to read but couldn't pay for all the books that I wanted to absorb in my fertile mind. As I became older and started working I would get sidetracked with work and the days would fly by without my having finished all the various books I checked out. So, I responded with two divergent strategies; I started buying more books and have now amassed quite a library of my own, and alternatively, I started running up fines for those books I checked out. When I went to renew my card last night I had 27 dollars in fines on my card! Actually, about half of that was to pay to replace a book I "lost" which was over twenty years old about the standards of how to repair historic masonry according to the Department of the Interior standards to allow one to qualify for tax credits. I actually couldn't find it for over 2 months and they finally just charged me the cost to replace it via email but a week later I found it in my trunk. I actually was ok with paying the cost of the book to keep it since it was a hard to find item that I tried to purchase online by looking on Amazon and other websites to no avail. I had turned the rest of the books back in a few weeks late but the idea of paying over 20 dollars in fines seemed on some level absurd so I delayed checking anything out. Finally yesterday I faced the music and paid off my fine. Now I can check books out again but have decided to turn over a new leaf and try and avoid any further late fees or other fines. We will see how that goes.

The whole episode brought to mind a good flick Good Will Hunting in which Matt Damon's character makes reference to the fact that one could obtain the equivalent of an Ivy League education with just a library card and a $1.50 in fines. A good movie even if Matt does underestimate the fines in my case. I don't purport to assert that I am anywhere near as smart as Matt's character; but I do agree you can certainly improve yourself with little to no cost via a local library. Andrew Carnegie agreed and commissioned the building of hundreds of libraries throughout the country around the turn of the 20th century many of which are still in use today. Here is the scene where Matt references the powers of a library card and takes the arrogant Harvard Grad student to task:

Snowing and 29 degrees

I woke up to a light snow this morning (it is not sticking to the roads yet) which means that running outside will be cold. The wind is also averaging about 20 mph which means it feels much colder. There is a running store that holds a Monday evening run at 6 pm that I normally try to attend. There is a good size crowd of about 20-40 runners who show up on a regular basis though fewer came with the change in daylight savings time as the start time meant we were running in the dark. However, the run only began as a fixture on the scene last spring and we haven't been faced with these type of temperatures and weather before for a group run. So, I am kind of curious to see if they will still hold the run, and if so, how many crazy folks will show up????? Normally I would go run with the crazies but with my marathon coming up I don't want to get sick or injured by doing this run so the jury is still out on attending. I may just do a workout at 24 hour fitness that includes running and perhaps a class or two--that would be the smart thing to do.

Great River Road Run 10 Miler

Saturday marked my final race prior to the Hawaii marathon and it was an out and back course beginning in downtown Alton Illinois as pictured above and heading north along what locals call the Great River Road for five miles before turning around and heading back 5 miles to the finish. The Mississippi River is directly along side the course for the entire five mile stretch and it is usually fairly windy either going out or coming back. Today the wind was at our back on the outbound section but we had to fight a slight headwind on the return trip.

I last ran this race back in 2001 with a then girlfriend. Most road races from that long ago have long since subsided into a blur in my mind but this race stands out. First of all, the course was unusual in that it was (and is) totally flat which is hard to find in this part of the country. Second, I was running the race with my girlfriend at the time who, truth be told, was a much better distance runner than I was. She was a rather competitive sort of person and was continually dismayed when my times started dropping in shorter 5k's and 10k's we were running. Despite my improvements however, she would normally leave me sometime before the finish because, well, she was competitive and didn't want to lose. I understood completely and it did not really bother me that in the 10 plus races we did before the Alton 10 miler, she beat me in all of them. However, at Alton my fitness had improved to the point that I was able to stay with her for several miles until she took off ahead of me. Again, not unusual, but this time I was able to slowly but surely gain ground on her until I caught back up--it really helped that the terrain was all flat as I am good at holding my pace on the flats where she excelled at running on hills. I tried to run with her but she demanded that I continue on without her as we were probably only about a mile from the finish and she was having a hard time maintaining her pace---basically she tried to pick up the pace midway through the race to leave me behind and was paying a high price as her body was experiencing the adverse consequences of running too hard for too long. I reluctantly went ahead of her and finished maybe 30 seconds before she did. It was weird after that race because it seemed like she couldn't get over my having run a race faster than her, and I think she derived some psychic sense of personal fulfillment from being the faster runner in our duo that I unwittingly shattered for her. I really didn't care which one of us ran any particular race faster, but for her, the results really mattered which was eye opening for me. Since I was no longer part of an official team, I just viewed the races as fun runs to complete to challenge myself but never really considered them "races" where I was trying to beat anyone including her. She avoided running any other flat courses with me since she feared a repeat performance which I found hilarious. Good memories. I kind of miss her--or at least the idea of her despite her singular focus on beyond the "top dog" runner.

Back to the 2008 race: So, I ran a near perfect race almost a month ago which was a half marathon and I knew I would be hard pressed to beat my average pace per mile achieved then. I resolved to try and come as close as possible to my ten mile split in the half marathon which was approximately 121 minutes. I was on pace for the first 5 miles--actually about 20 seconds ahead of where I needed to be. Unfortunately at the turnaround the wind was now directly in our face and though it was mild, you could certainly feel it and it gave me a chill and slowed me down a bit. I didn't stop for water until mile 6 and then I walked while drinking the water and knew my hopes to equal my previous pace per mile were blown. Still, I was able to recover and improve my average pace per mile slightly over the last two miles. My finish time was approximately 121:45 which was just slightly over the predicted pace I expected of 121:00. If I had not stopped for water I would have been almost exactly on pace. It was a good effort and the weather was decent but not great--probably about 50-55 degrees with slight winds. I was able to get away with running in shorts too which was awesome considering I will be doing so again in Hawaii. There aren't too many late November days allowing for shorts here. I went back after the race and took a few pictures of the scenic grain silos near the start/finish area which you can see above. The picture with the barricades is the part of river road way we ran out on the left side. The barricades are there to keep cars off the roadway near the finish though they detoured them around the downtown part of Alton. Overall I was pleased with my effort in the race and the time I ran. However, I think my time in the half marathon may have been the pinnacle of my fitness, and I am thinking about how to tweak my marathon strategy to take into account having something less than another perfect race day. Stay tuned.

Hawaii plans.....

First of all I wanted to throw a "shout out" to Ashley, Cara's friend from Hawaii by way of Texas originally and any of her friends/family that are checking this out. Welcome and thanks for reading the blog.

I am heading over to Hawaii this coming Saturday for approximately a week to enjoy a vacation and also run in the Honolulu marathon with my sister Cara. It should be fun and is something I have been training toward specifically for about 6 months. I ran in high school and also for two years in college so I have a decent background in running to be attempting what many consider a daunting distance--26.2 miles. With that being said, I took a number of years off getting fat and lazy until one day I ran in a local 5k (3.1 mile) race and my time was such an embarrassment it galvanized me back into running regularly. That happened about 18 months ago, but I am still over fifty pounds heavier than my competitive running weight (competitive runners are very skinny!!!). However, I carry the extra weight well and could be mistaken for a football player these days. That reminds me, sometime ago Cara was home and came across a pair of my old running tights from high school cleaning out her closet. She couldn't believe I could ever actually fit in them as I think she or mom had confiscated them at one point for Cara to wear for skating when she herself was in high school. I think I only wore them once or twice since tights were not "cool" for the boys to run in and I usually wore them underneath a heavier pair of loose running pants but they did fit. Running a lot of miles will make most people skinny provided they are burning more calories than they consume which definitely was me in high school.

While in Hawaii I also have tentative plans to cycle the Hawaii Ironman bike course of 112 miles on the Big Island from Kona to Hawi and back and would also like to check out Crossfit Oahu--though doing that might be problematic. I started doing crossfit workouts in St. Louis last year for about 6 weeks and they were some of the toughest athletic experiences I have endured outside of running. However, the local affiliate here was quite a distance away from my home and I opted to just workout instead at the local gym with the high gas prices at the time and the distance involved. The crossfit workouts really helped get me in better shape but they tend to make parts of your body sore that you didn't realize could actually be sore--maybe not the best idea in the week before a marathon. Yet, I am usually up for any type of crazy athletic endeavor so stay tuned on the crossfit Oahu front--they have a vacation special for $30 bucks which gives you 5 workouts and a T-Shirt, and I am usually a pushover for schwag like that. The local affiliate in St. Louis charges either 10 or 15 bucks for each workout so the offer is enticing. Ashley--if you are needing someplace to workout regularly where they will push you to accomplish more than you thought possible you should look up the Crossfit Oahu website. I tried to get Cara interested in it but I don't think she ever followed through.

I also need to spend some time this coming week figuring out what else I want to try and do while in Hawaii since before I know it I will be heading to the airport for the flight out. Till next time.