Weekend Training Schedule & Friday Links

Just a quick end of week post this time around, as the week was mostly a loss to work time demands and other things that made for a lackluster training week. This weekend we won't be going anywhere, so I'll be able to get in a decent run tomorrow morning and then a proper longer run Sunday morning. My mother-in-law is coming to visit this weekend and to see A in her performance as part of the Capital Fringe Festival down in DC. But, I get along very well with my in-laws, and we haven't seen any of them since the holidays, so I can honestly say it'll be nice to see her this weekend.

I'm also hopeful I'll have some time to work on a cross training regimen that will complement my running. I need to get beyond just running and into exercising on my rest days as well...so that's a project for this weekend.

And now, a few links for this Friday.

With the Olympics beginning this evening in London, I'm including some links to running-related Olympics sites. See? Running. Olympics. Theme. Nice.

Sir Roger Bannister is rumored to be the person who will light the Olympic Torch tonight. That would be awesome.

Here's a preview and predictions for every Track & Field event, courtesy of Runner's World. Includes the marathon, decathlon and everyone's favorite event, steeplechase.

So how do you warm up for running in the freaking Olympics? Now you know. From Runner's World.

Apparently, NBC will produce more than 5500 hours of programming over the next 17 days. That's insane. More insane is that you can see just about all of it through some medium (TV, computer, mobile, psychic link with the Hive Mind, etc). So, here's a TV viewing guide from Sports Illustrated.

And finally, the Hive Mind itself: NBC's Olympics homepage. You can plug in directly and become one with the Olympics. Plus watch events online and do 1.4 million other things that will sap your productivity at work.

I'll be heading to Alliance Comics for my bi-weekly comics run tomorrow. I've got Justice League #11 and Manhattan Projects #5 to pick up.

However, as I've said before, I've never really gotten into any Marvel books. I'm not sure why. I guess it was hard to drop into a book like "Avengers vs. X-Men" or "Invincible Iron Man" after years or sometimes decades of issues. Not being familiar with past crossovers or plots means I'm spending most of my time playing catch up, or just missing things, which is no fun. And really, beyond the headliner series like Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, etc, I've never really been enthused about the rest of the Marvel line up. For example, "Avengers Academy" holds no appeal for me.

All this explains, in a way, why I'm looking forward to the relaunching of several key Marvel titles in December and early 2013. Marvel is rebooting "Avengers" and "Uncanny Avengers" (I think that's the title...please correct me if I get these wrong). I believe they're also going to reboot Thor and Iron Man, as Marvel announced earlier that those books would be coming to an end in the Fall. I'm most interested in checking out the new Avengers book, which will be written by Jonathan Hickman. At the very least, it'll provide a good opportunity to get in on the ground floor of potentially interesting Marvel titles.

Which brings me to my final link. Brian Hibbs, staff writer at CBR and comic book store owner, has a new column out wherein he talks about the economics of the Marvel NOW! reboot, and why it isn't all rainbows and butterflies for store owners. Very interesting meshing of my day job and hobby. Check it out.

B'more Stinks! Literally.

So it was a sparse posting week, but work was hectic earlier in the week and, as you can tell from my training log, I got a little off track over the weekend. And the stress at work made it even tougher to get out of bed in the morning and on the road.

And it figures that the earlier part of the week saw some decent weather, temperature and humidity wise. And that now that I'm back out on the road, the heat and humidity has returned with a vengeance. 

Anyway, the run this morning was a pretty typical three-miler. Luckily, the humidity hadn't really cranked up yet, so it was pretty comfortable. The one thing I noticed this morning was the summer Baltimore stink was more pronounced. As anyone who lives and runs in a city knows, the summer heat brings out the various smells and odors of an urban environment that you just don't get in January. This morning, I was treated to the following smells. 

1. Stewed garbage from a city garbage truck. I shudder to think about the awful brew that ferments in those trucks in the 100 degree heat.
2. The smell of a new adhesive bandage, amplified by 100 times. I don't know what caused it, but it was strong. 
3. The distinct, and deeply unpleasant smell of crap. Not dog crap. Person crap. Again, I didn't see any immediate cause (I think we all know what I'm talking about here), but the smell was unmistakable. It was right around an Irish pub on my route, but usually one gets the typical odors of stale beer, old cigarettes, and the occasional urine or vomit. You know, your run-of-the-mill eau-de-frat house. Crap is aggressive, even for this bar. 

Actually, because I ran an out and back route today, rather than a loop, I got to enjoy all these smells twice. Wonderful. October can't roll around quickly enough.

ArtScape Escape Weekend Review

We made it back yesterday without any trouble after our weekend away from the hipster insanity of ArtScape. We found a parking spot in the neighborhood without much trouble, although we took the first spot we found. It was 10 minutes from our apartment, but better than looking around for 30 minutes. Our street was still teeming with people and the streets were pretty gross, so we were glad we got out of town.

My intention was to do a three-mile run on Saturday and a 4 or 5 mile run on Sunday. Below is the route I had intended to run:

Unfortunately, I ran a hybrid of the three-mile route above and the longer route I had mapped out for Sunday. Instead of turning down Constitution Ave and back towards my sister-in-law's apartment, I ran around the Capitol, as I had planned for Sunday. Running back up Capitol Hill and past the Library of Congress, I thought I was on Independence Ave SE, but a moment later realized I was in fact running down Pennsylvania Ave SE. Not a huge deal, but as you can see from the map below, by the time I figured out where the hell I was going, I had added an entire extra mile on to my route.

Not a big deal, but then I ended up walking about another 4 miles that afternoon going to the Folger Library and then down to the Air & Space Museum. And that's not counting walking through the museum, which, as anyone who's been can attest, is enormous. So, call it 5 miles of walking total. By the time my wife picked me up (she had gone to two performances as part of the Capital Fringe Festival instead), my legs were cooked. And they were still tired when I woke up on Sunday, so I bagged my planned long run and took the dog for a leisurely walk instead.

So, it was not the most successful of training weekends, but I got a decent amount of exercise in for my legs, even if it wasn't all running. And I got to see some exhibits I hadn't seen in a long time at Air & Space and a very cool special exhibit at the Folger. But tomorrow, it's back to the schedule to be ready for the Blue Moon Run at the end of August.



Weekend Training Schedule: July 20-22, 2012

This week's weekend training post is going up a bit early, as I'm taking today off and heading down to Washington for the weekend. This weekend is ArtScape here in Baltimore, wherein ~350K people descend on our neighborhood for the largest free arts festival in the country (I think). Basically, it's three days of art exhibits, performances, food, music, etc. Which is wonderful for the city, but it's terrible for neighborhood residents. We live a block from the festival, and the last few years the whole weekend has been total loss. Roads get blocked off starting the Monday before and going until the Tuesday after; illegal street vendors set up their tents in front of our building and hawk their wares while blocking the sidewalk (a call to BPD usually puts an end to that, yet they return year after year); traffic along our street is jammed for a week, basically; we have to park our car and not move it, otherwise we'll never get a spot. Nevermind the trash and unpleasant people the festival brings in (a small minority of festival-goers, of course, but still it makes things nasty if they decide to hassle you).

So, last year we decided to pack up and get out of town for the weekend to avoid the awfulness. My sister-in-law lives in DC, so we're packing up, taking the dog and spending the weekend down there. I took today off so we can get out before the festival begins at noon.

I was going to run this morning before we left, but just didn't feel like it. I'll get 3 miles in tomorrow, and I've mapped out a nice loop in DC that will take me around Capitol Hill on Sunday morning, which should be lovely. Come Monday, I'll post that route.

In between, we're going to be tourists, of a sort. Having been born in DC and having grown up 90 minutes from the city, I spent a lot of time at the museums, monuments and other attractions in the city as a kid. It's been a good number of years since either of us spent time in the Smithsonians. So, we're going to hit up the tourist circuit in DC. I want to see an exhibit on the history of London at the Folger Shakespeare Library as well and I'd like to pay a visit to the National Archives, which I haven't visited since literally elementary school.

We'll also go to brunch on Sunday at a restaurant in DC with a patio so we can take The Bear. They even have a Pooch Menu, which includes non-alcoholic dog beer in addition to entrees like a raw bone or dog-friendly meatballs in gravy with rice. We'll stick with water and the meatballs...dog beer is a bit much even for this dog person.

New Comic Wednesday (No Running...Sorry)

As some of the nerdier of you may know, this past weekend was San Diego Comic-Con, alternatively known as Comic-Con International (CCI) or just plain Comic-Con. The last of these titles is actually a misnomer, as there are many comic conventions across this great land of ours (as well as around this pale blue dot we call Earth), all of which can be called "comic-con". But certainly, CCI is the biggest, taking over the entire San Diego convention center and selling 125K tickets within hours of offering them to the geeked out masses.

As you may also know, Wednesday is when new comics are released, although different comics come out throughout each month.

Since it's Wednesday, and I don't have anything particularly interesting to post where running is concerned, I thought I would drop a post about my own New Comics Wednesday. It's a bit long, so if you're looking for running stuff, it won't be in the paragraphs that follow. Sorry. it was a rest day.

Comic books are a deceptive hobby, because each book by itself is relatively low-cost at around $3.00 or $4.00 each. Some longer running and/or less well-known books can be even cheaper, at around $2.50. So it's very easy to get into a dozen books and end up spending $50 a month or more on new books alone. Then you have additional expenses if you collect other memorabilia associated with your favorite books like action figures, posters, clothing, toys, and trade paperbacks or graphic novels. This is where The Big Two (Marvel and DC Comics) make a lot of money, in addition to proceeds from their movies. Big franchises like Batman, Superman, etc are prime areas for this money suck.

So, I have a self-imposed maximum of five books on my "pull list" at any given time, with two or three additional slots for impulse buys. A pull list is simply a list of books which you buy every month, and is typically maintained by your local comic store. In my case, my local store, Alliance Comics in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, pulls my books and I stop in once every other week to get them. Right now, my pull list only has four books on it; I have one non-subscription book I'm trying out as well:

• Batman (DC Comics): My personal favorite superhero since I was a kid. I've really liked the New 52 reboot of the series with the recently-concluded Court of Owls story arc. The book is darker and more similar to the Christopher Nolan movies than the campier or more cartoonish earlier movies in the franchise (e.g. the Val Kilmer and George Clooney films). The writing is strong and the art is also very good. The Batman presented here is not perfect, and has become more conflicted about his place in Gotham over the last few issues. Now, with the Court of Owls done, DC announced at CCI that the new story arc beginning in the fall will bring back The Joker, which will be fantastic. Some of the ideas Scott Snyder, the writer for Batman (and who will be at Baltimore Comic-Con in Sept), has talked about for The Joker, are very compelling. A solid monthly pick up.





Cover from Batman #1, source: DC Comics



• Justice League (DC Comics): The second of my two Big Two superhero selections, and the most recent addition to my pull list. I have not been an historical JL fan, but the New 52 offered me a nice jumping on point and I've been pleased with the writing thus far. I've particularly liked the recent Journey of the Villain arc over the last two issues (the arc wraps up with the latest issue #11, which is out today). I prefer JL to Avengers for reasons I don't really know. I've yet to really get into reading a Marvel book, but that could change; I have an open mind. I'm sure Batman's presence on the JL team has something to do with my affinity. But I also enjoy the other characters and think the writers have done a good job of making them individual characters. The next few issues going into the end of 2012 are supposed to tackle how the JL goes from a bunch of individual heroes to a cohesive team that can oppose the new villain Graves. And Aquaman leads the way in this issue, I hear! Good stuff!



Cover from Justice League #1, source DC Comics







• The Walking Dead (Image): Arguably my favorite book for a litany of reasons. Up until two years ago, I had never heard of TWD, but ended up loving the AMC TV show. I was surprised to learn about the comic, and once I checked it out, I was hooked. The local library had all of the past issues, so I consumed those to catch up in the book. Last week issue #100 came out right before CCI to great fanfare. I read it this weekend and loved it. TWD is consistently great, both from a story and artistic standpoint. The story is of course a zombie apocalypse, but after 100 issues, creator Robert Kirkman has gone way beyond that to explore these survivors' lives, such as they are. The book is not for young children; there's lots of gore (even though the book is drawn in black and white, it's still messy) lots of f-bombs and other adult language/situations. But it's a wonderful read each month and I can't wait to see how Rick and the survivors make it out of the latest horror show they found themselves in at the end of issue 100.



Variant Cover from Walking Dead #100, source Image Comics



• Manhattan Projects (Image): This is the most surprising member of my pull list, as it came out of nowhere and is now one of my favorites. Like TWD, this is a creator-owned comic, in that the creator retains the rights to the intellectual property in contrast to Marvel and DC, where creators usually at least share ownership with the company. That's another post for another day, but suffice to say this model begets a lot more "out there" books and MP is no different. The premise is simple: what if the Manhattan Project had actually been a front for a government operation where the best minds in the world could work on projects even crazier than an atom bomb? We're talking contact with aliens, different dimensions, etc. The characters are all familiar: Robert Oppenheimer, Einstein, Richard Feynman, Enrico Fermi, etc. But nearly everything has a twist. Oppenheimer, the director of the projects, has multiple personalities (not all of which are good); Einstein is actually from a parallel universe and may not be a good guy; Feynman is actually quite normal actually; Fermi is actually a supergenius, super-old alien. Oh, and when FDR suffers an aneurysm (the book takes place in 1945), they put his consciousness into the first AI supercomputer environment. So, not your typical comic! But it's addictive for an amateur science nerd like me. And I got in with issue #1, so I hope it continues for a long time a la TWD.



Cover from Manhattan Projects #1, source: Image Comics



The fifth slot on my pull list remains empty for now. New books are released or announced all the time, so I won't suffer from a lack of contenders. At CCI, for instance, Image announced a dozen new books under development for release in the next several months; Dark Horse announced a new Star Wars comic book coming in January 2013; DC talked more about the next wave of New 52 series that will start to come out this fall and the New 52 "zero issues" coming out in October; and Marvel talked up its Marvel NOW! project, which is an end for several key series including Thor and The Incredible Iron Man, and the beginning of several new titles utilizing the X-Men and Avengers, among other characters. And obviously, new Thor and Iron Man books will come out in 2013, given all the hype around the movies, etc. So, plenty of material coming.

Finally, the one book I'm reading that's on a month-to-month basis is The Massive, from Dark Horse Comics. It's a story about an environmentalist group led by a former mercenary, who are on a ship, The Kapital, searching for its sister ship, The Massive, after a series of huge natural disasters have ravaged the planet. It's only on issue #2, but it's been OK thus far. A little slow, as the book goes back and forth between the present (in the story) and the past to explain the characters, the disasters, etc. I really like the art and colors in The Massive, so I hope it picks up in issue #3.



Cover from The Massive #1, source: Dark Horse Comics





Motivation Along the Timeline

Running, like most sports or any activity that requires a great deal of practice, also requires a great deal of commitment and discipline in order to do it well. Although each person has their own goal for where they want to take their running/kayaking/writing, etc. For some, the goal is to finish a 5K; others want to complete 10 ultra marathons. There's certainly no single achievement that every runner must reach to consider themselves accomplished.

But I would venture to say that every runner who sticks with the sport at any level, must possess something inside, some drive or personal reason for continuing to get out there and run 3 miles every morning or 120 miles every week. Of course whatever that fire might be is different for each runner, but I think at some point, we all have some basic desire that gets up and out the door.

That's what I took away from the article in the Sunday New York Times about Ryan Hall and his close linking of running with his Christian beliefs. Without getting into a discussion on religion, I'll just say I'm not particularly religious, although I was raised in the Episcopalian Church and have both an interest and respect for religion and those who are ardent believers/practitioners.

So, I found Sunday's article interesting because it discusses both Hall's personal beliefs when it comes to running and faith, and addresses a key area of recreational running that I thin often goes overlooked: motivation. Everyone is motivated to voluntarily go run around a few miles several times a week. But the actual substance of that motivation varies widely.

I guess for me, my motivation can be broken into two parts: short-term and long-term. Short-term (i.e. over the next six months to one year) I want to just feel better, fitter than I was walking out of the CFA exam a month ago. I want to get back to the point where I can run a half marathon. I felt better, physically and mentally, when I was running upwards of 15 mile long runs.

Longer term, I guess you could say my motivation is to extend the longer term. While 30 (my current age) isn't old by really any modern definition (although in the 12th century in Europe, I'd be well along towards late middle age, but that's another entry for another day), I know that eventually, things will slow down and what seems easy now won't seem so easy in maybe 10 or 15 years, much less further down the line. So, I want to get into healthy habits now, so when I'm 60 or, ideally, 90(!) I won't feel or act my age. I'm not really afraid of aging, per se, but of the amplification of the effects of aging when one doesn't establish healthy habits earlier in life. Running is one part of that, of course, but healthier eating, sleeping and mental outlook are also big parts over the longer term.

I guess I'd also add a medium term motivation, although it's more of a goal. Medium term, to me, means around five years out, just to be specific. I watched the Ironman World Championships this weekend on NBC; it's one of my favorite sporting events to watch, even if it's not live and it's edited, etc. I like that they profile both the pros and age groupers competing in the event. It's inspiring to see, for example, a guy who lost both legs in an accident complete the course, or a woman who used to weigh over 300 pounds but lost nearly half that, become an Ironman (Ironwoman? Ironperson?). It's also insane to watch the pros do the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and then top it all off with a 26.2 marathon in the Hawaiian heat. And do it in under 8 hours. Just crazy to me.

Got a hankering for some Ironman clips? Here's a link to the Ironman YouTube channel.

But every time I watch it, I find myself saying, that would be cool to do. So I'd like to build toward that goal, although it'll take some time. Firstly, I don't own a road bike, nor do I have easy access to a pool, so a big part of the training remains out of my reach at this point. But also, until further notice, every six months I start a new training program of sorts with the CFA exam. By the time April and May roll around, I'm spending as much time studying per day as I would training for an Ironman. Doing both, for me, at least, is unreasonable.

So, until those small, tiny details are resolved, I'll focus on building up my mileage base and getting consistent in getting out the door or to the gym. And I've promised myself that when I get done with the CFA program, I'm buying myself a road bike. So there's some more motivation!

Friday Link(s) and Weekend Training Schedule: July 14 & 15, 2012

Another work week comes to a close and another too-short weekend dawns on the horizon. Here in Baltimore, the kiln-like 100s of last week have been replaced by more seasonal low 90s. So, at least I should be able to get up at a reasonable hour to get my run done.

This week, I am planning on doing just one run of somewhere between four and five miles. My strained tendon or whatever it might be on the outside of my foot, feels better and I am lucky that at no time was it painful to walk. So, I think it's just a mild over-use injury. Nonetheless, after yesterday's run, I thought it prudent to take today and tomorrow off from running.

So, my "long" run will be Sunday morning. If my foot feels better, I'll try 4.5 miles; if not, I'll keep it to 4 for another week and see how it feels. Tomorrow morning I'm getting a haircut...so no running. But I may go to the gym and log some time on the bike or some other cross training. I really do need to figure out a cross training regimine for my "rest days" so this might be a good opportunity to do that.

And now, a little piece of the Interwebs that I came across and thought worth highlighting. No religion, politics or anything heavy. Just interesting (to me, at least). Maybe thought-provoking. Maybe not. Although cat videos can make you think, right? Sure they can!

I'm a big fan of the site Brain Pickings. It's essentially a smorgisbord of ideas, books, excerpts and hyperlinks compiled by Maria Popova, who writes for Wired UK magazine and The Atlantic. Here's a description from the site itself:

Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are.

If that sounds cool, it is. To wit: A post from Wednesday discussing Carl Sagan's reading list. The idea of having a broad understanding of topics and fields ancillary to your own, while also seeking a deep understanding of your "home" field, is one I very much like.

Don't know who Carl Sagan was? No problem; here's a link to his Wikipedia page to get a quick download.

Still interested? Check out this three minute video from YouTube called Pale Blue Dot. It's Sagan narrating and is a great way to place everything, literally everything, in perspective.

So, this is actually a series of interesting links, but the one that caused me to think about everything else was the one for Sagan's reading list. So, check it out and enjoy.

Tweaks (not Tweaking!)

Having gotten back to running on a consistent basis only in the last six weeks, I knew I was pushing it by ramping up the mileage at a relatively rapid pace. While 3 mile runs and a 4 mile weekly "long" run are not long distances by many measurements, getting there from a base of zero miles was sure to make me sore. But I had taken care not to push it too much: I have mostly stuck to running every other day with rest in between; once I got to 3 mile easy runs, I resolved to hang out there for several weeks; same with the long run...a few weeks of 4 milers before going to 4.5, etc; icing my aches afterwards; being better about stretching post-run. All of which seemed to help. Until Tuesday, that is.

Tuesday's run was normal. Nothing extraordinary in the 3 miles that I could tell. But by lunch time on Tuesday, I could feel that I had tweaked something in my right foot. Namely the tendons on the outside of my foot (my best guess). It was a little sore when I walked and most uncomfortable when I walked uphill or downhill. Yesterday morning when I got up, it was pretty stiff and painful, but it loosened up and didn't feel too bad after my walk in to the office. However it was barking by the time I got home from the walk (mostly uphill) from the office back home.

So I was worried that I had really done something to the foot. It was stiff and sore this morning when I woke up for my 3 miler, but loosened up somewhat by the time I was dressed and out the door for the run. I stretched it out best I could and set off at an easy pace. While I could always tell the strain was there, it wasn't acutely painful. Nonetheless, I could feel the strain a few times as I ran down the hills going to the harbor, so I turned at Pratt St and headed back up towards home, cutting 0.25 mile off my distance. By the time I ran uphill and got back home, my foot definitely hurt; I'd say 3 on a scale of 10.

I iced my foot before showering and getting ready for work and, instead of walking, took the bus to work today, which I think was prudent. It feels better now, but we'll see how I feel this evening as to whether I'll be walking home or taking the bus again. Tomorrow is a rest day anyway, so I'll see how I feel by tomorrow night or Saturday morning before running again...I'd rather not have to bag the Sunday run.

The Walking Dead and The Running Dead

Today marks the release of the 100th issue of the zombie apocalypse comic series The Walking Dead and I am pretty excited about it. It's long been one of my favorite books to read month in and month out, and I can't wait to pick up my copy this Saturday.

But this is a running blog (right? sure it is!) so I'll tie all this comic nerdiness in to running by highlighting a growing sub-segment of trail races: the zombie race. I first heard about these maybe a year or so ago. They're produced by the same people who brought you the Warrior Dash and other "themed" races that take a basic 5K trail race and dress it up in mud, obstacles, or some theme. The 10 mile Tough Mudder series is also of this ilk, although geared towards an even smaller sub-set of runners. Here I'll focus only on the zombie run.

Basically, the gist is that you run through the woods and attempt to complete an obstacle course, all the while being chased by flesh-eating "zombies," who are other runners dressed up as the undead. Each runner wears a flag belt, representing your health, and the zombies will try to grab those flags. If they grab them all, you "die" and can't be considered for any prizes. There are also health packs you can grab on the course that will keep you alive. There are also numerous paths to take to the finish line, some 5K, others longer, so you have to think as well as run for your life.

It's a novel idea that capitalizes on the recent zombie zeitgeist. The Baltimore race is scheduled for the final Saturday in October, but actually takes place in Darlington, MD, which is an hour north of Baltimore and within spitting distance of the PA border. That's sort of like putting a race in western New Jersey and saying it's being held in New York.

However, the geographic misnomer is the least of my misgivings about this whole class of races. The biggest impediment has to be the cost, and the obvious cash-grab going on.

A sensible cost for a 5K is anywhere up to $40, IMHO. Anything beyond that and you should calculate the $ per mile and $ per minute you'll be spending. Some higher costs are worthier than others. For instance, the Baltimore Running Festival's 5K entry fee is $40 until August 1, then $45 thereafter. But that's a big deal running festival (~20K runners or something) where you're paying for, in theory, insurance, closing the course (busy city streets), paying for police presence (it's Baltimore, come on now), your Under Armour shirt, the post race party, support on the course, etc. So, you could at least present an argument that you're getting $40 of value. Personally, I don't want to pay more than $30 for a 5K and that's pushing it...$25 is more like it, but I realize that's becoming less reasonable. To each their own.

The EARLY registration option for the Baltimore Run for Your Lives 5K is $77!! Yeah, that's right: 7-7. If you register after 09/12/12, the fee goes up to $87. That's just slightly less than A and I paid for our entry fee to the Freedom's Run Half Marathon combined. That works out to $3.44 per mile for the half and a whopping $24.84 per mile for the 5K! Even with differences in insurance and facilities costs (although honestly, I'd assume running through a national battlefield isn't cheap either), the value dispersion is striking.

However, the most egregious money grab of the zombie run is that they charge for spectator tickets. That's right, you pay $77 to run the damn thing and your friend/spouse/misguided co-worker has to pay $32 just to watch the whole thing unfold, but from The Safe Zone. Oh, and no free beer. And nobody gets free food. So, two people cost basically $100, plus food and drinks and souvenirs beyond your medal and t-shirt, assuming only one is running.

In conclusion, these sorts of races are only fun if you're not really going for the running and don't think about how much money you've plopped down to run for 30 minutes. They're all about entertainment and profit margins. And there's nothing wrong with that, I suppose, especially if someone is willing to pay $80 to complete an obstacle course. A fool and his money are easily parted, so good on the race organizers for finding a niche to exploit at the junction between the growing crowd of recreational runners and pop culture. I suppose it's only a matter of time before someone produces a Vampire Scamper or Werewolf Twilight Trot or something like that.

As I said, to each their own. But you've been warned. Don't become a zombie to faddish "races" that are out to make a buck! Be like Rick Grimes and stay away from the hordes crowding these events!

*If you insist on spending money to be chased by fit actors pretending to be zombies, go to the event's website. They run these things all over the country...a cash cow!

Running in the Jungle

Another steamy weekend here on the East Coast has come and gone. We stayed inside most of the time, and the AC labored all weekend to keep up with the oven-like heat.

Running was even more onerous. Saturday we woke up and it was already 85 degrees outside (heat index 97!) at 7:30 AM, so A took Teddy, our dog, for his walk but cut it short and carried him home the final few blocks.. I was contemplating my 3 mile run outside, but the heat worried me, so I decided to head indoors and did my run on the treadmill at the gym.

The rest of the day I spent catching up on reading one of my new favorite comics, The Manhattan Projects (MP). Yes, I read comics. No, I'm not 14. Yes, I read the classic books (namely Batman and Justice League). No, I'm not one of those crazed fanboys you see wearing Storm Trooper outfits at conventions. Although I will be going to Baltimore's Comic-Con in September, but in shorts and a t-shirt. Comics are a nice distraction from my dry day job; it spices up my reading and the stories, when you find a good writer, are engaging.

Anyway, I'll post more comic-related stuff at some other time. Suffice to say I've really gotten into MP and I was able to score a first print, issue #1 off eBay for $8 to complete my series thus far (I came into it on issue #3). A hazy, hot and humid afternoon sitting in the air conditioning was a perfect time to catch up.

Sunday we woke up early again and I took Tedward for his walk. He did much better, as the temps were a little lower. He made it the whole way (about a mile round trip on his usual route) and was zonked the rest of the day. After I got him back, I changed and headed out for my 4 mile "long" run. No gym for me, thank goodness. I headed south, towards the Inner Harbor, around the waterfront, turned around at the Rusty Scupper restaurant (food: meh) and headed back up St. Paul St all the way back into Mt. Vernon. Here's a map of my route.

The run back from the harbor was tougher, being uphill, than the trip down. But overall, it wasn't that bad and much better overall than last Sunday, when I flamed out about three blocks from the end.

Today was a rest day. Tomorrow is another 3 miler that should be much more comfortable.

Weekend Training Schedule: July 7-8, 2012

Since I ran yesterday, and am committed to not over-training in the early days of the Second Age of Morning Running, I did not run this morning. But to make up for that, I want to run both Saturday and Sunday.

The forecast for this weekend hasn’t changed all that much. All three days are supposed to see triple digit highs with high humidity. As a result, my running this weekend will take place early in the mornings, which is not conducive for sleeping in, but very conducive for avoiding heat stroke.

I plan on getting three miles in tomorrow morning around 7AM, followed by a “long” run of 3.5 to 4 miles Sunday morning around the same time. I put long in quotation marks because obviously that’s not long in the “My long run this weekend will be my final 20 miler before the marathon,” sense of long. But hey, I’m recently back to running and don’t wish to try to crank out 6 miles and shatter my knee.

And I need to get up and out the door early because my 3.5 mile run last Sunday morning devolved into a death march right around mile three. I waited until after 9AM to head out, which may sound early chronologically speaking, but climatologically speaking it really wasn’t. It was already well above 80 and humid by the time I got going and by the time I staggered home, it was nearly 90.

And with that, I’m off for lunch out in the fetid oven that is downtown Baltimore in July.

Running in Geologic Time

Nobody reading this blog, whether on purpose, after losing a bet, or through the black-box algorithms of a misguided Google search, will be surprised to learn that running in the early morning or late at night during the summer is the way to go. Baltimore and Washington in the summer tend to become roiling concrete kilns with oppressive humidity mixed in for good measure. Of course, folks living in Florida or Arizona or elsewhere in the Deep South or Southwest will say, "You think you're hot? Just try living in Orlando/New Orleans/Jackson/Flagstaff in July!" To which I say, you're probably right that it's worse there than here on any given day from June through mid-September. But that's the point, right? Many of us have to deal with the heat and running in some fashion. Really, when the temperature goes above 85 (arbitrary number), you're dying on your run whether it's in Boston or Birmingham.

To that end, I present this screenshot of the Weather Channel's forecast for Baltimore for the next five days:

For Baltimore, that's absurd. The 108 high on Saturday is particularly crazy, because the tropical humidity has arrived, which could make the heat index go somewhere around 115. 

All this is by way of saying that running early in the morning is a must for me these days. There was a time, a brief time, an Age of Lunch Running (in the geological meaning...as in shorter than an epoch, period, era or eon), when I thought running during my lunch hour would work great for my schedule. Wrong! Turns out it takes more than an hour to change into running clothes, get outside of a skyscraper, run, cool down, come back to the gym in the office, change, shower, put work clothes back on and get back to my desk. Which didn't work.

Moreover, while lunch running is fine for winter months, once you hit May, it's terrible until late September around here. Much of Baltimore, you'll be shocked to learn, lacks decent tree cover, especially downtown. So you're in the direct sun at the hottest part of the day. At first, it was a bit of a badge of honor to run in such hot conditions. Nobody else was out running and it felt like the summer corrollary to running in a snow storm in January or a downpour in April: you're a hard ass! Right?!

Wrong. Stupid. And wrong.

The hottest day I ever ran in reached 97 degrees (gross of the heat index); it took me a day to rehydrate and my body was sluggish for two days. Terrible idea and it was the beginning of the end of the Age of Lunch Running.

Now, I prefer to run before work for both climatological and scheduling reasons. I prefer to be done with my exercise early so I don't have to motivate myself at 5:30 PM after working all day to do it. The Age of Evening Running was even shorter than the Age of Lunch Running and never really got off the ground. I much prefer the quiet, largely car- and pedestrian-free streets of Baltimore at 6AM, in addition to the cooler temperatures.

Currently, I am in the early years of the Second Age of Morning Running. If I can maintain consistent running, I think I have a real chance to get it to an epoch eventually. 108 degree days will certainly help me keep motivated to wake up at 6AM when it's a cool 80 degrees, as it was this morning.

Reset Button

So the whole idea of being better about posting? Apparently that was just talk, because as you can tell, I haven't posted a SINGLE THING since last June. Not even a pitiful, "I'm super busy so can't post!" post. Just awful. While I haven't been sitting around watching paint dry these past twelve months, I did take a complete hiatus from running for the last six (or so).

I continued to run off and on without much in the way of consistency throughout last summer and into the winter. But it really wasn't substantial and I never got my endurance (and thus distance) back up much beyond 5K range. A (the wife) actually got more in to running than I did (probably write a separate post about that later). We ran the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race in November since we were visiting the in-laws for that holiday, but that was my last race, really. I ran intermittently throughout the holidays and into early January.

But then I started studying for Level II of the Chartered Financial Analyst exam and quickly became consumed by that effort. Not having ANY business or financial background when I came in to the industry a few years back, the CFA curriculum has been a whole new world for me. As a result, it's required a lot more time than many other candidates. Level II, as any candidate or charterholder will tell you, is probably the most difficult level of the three. Why that is, is not actually very interesting. Suffice to say that I was studying every night after work and eventually all day every day every weekend.

That, combined with the dark, coldness of early winter mornings helped ease me out of running into sedentariness (is that a word?). Once I stopped running in early February, I never started back up. But I did tell myself I would start up again after the exam, which was back in early June. And, within a week of being done with that test, I was back huffing and puffing on the roads.

So, after about 3.5 weeks of pretty good consistency, I think I should start posting again on a somewhat regular basis. When I posted regularly, it was a good motivator. And since A and I have signed up for a 6 miler at the end of August and a half marathon in mid-October (aggressive!), I'm going to need all the motivation I can get!

To that end, consider this a reset of the blog. A fresh start, with a few changes. Of course, the main topics of the blog will be running and all that. But I'm going to try to stick with consistency here as well when it comes to posting. So I'll likely integrate additional topics into my posts that are not running related. Why? Because it's my blog, that's why! I'm envisioning something like 75% running/exercise and 25% other stuff. We'll see how that goes.

Finally, in terms of frequency of posting, don't expect me to suddenly go from zero posts to 20 per week. Frankly, I don't think I have enough to talk about to make that happen. But some days will have one post, some none, some might have several shorter posts. Again, I'll play it by ear.