Rollicking

What I Have

Britt + Joy + Weekend at Home + Train Ride + Bonfires + Coldplay Concert + Detroit + Road Trip with New Friends + Autumn + Winter + Life + One Point and Shoot Sony Camera

The only thing I need now is my camera's battery charger.

Race Recap: Men's Health Urbanathlon, Chicago

I finished the second, and potentially final, fall race of my schedule this past Saturday. It was the Men's Health Urbanathlon, a roughly 10.5 mile race through the heart of Chicago. The twist with this race is that I entered as the first leg of a three person relay team (my two teammates were some friends from Pritzker) and that the course contains a series of obstacles.

It was a good race - I don't have any official times, but my 3.4 mile leg of the race was finished in, at most, 22:00 flat (and most likely less, as I stopped my watch...only to find my hand must have slipped a few minutes later when the watch was still running). That translates to a 6:29/mile pace and a roughly 20:09 5K. That's about where I wanted to be three weeks out of my half marathon training, and I'm ready to put down some good miles over the winter time.

The race itself was slightly bizarre for someone used to more traditional road races - there were no mile markers to speak of, so I wasn't able to pick up any mile splits. Similarly, I had no idea where the end of my leg was, and never really started a kick of any sort. Instead, I turned a corner to find my teammate and a multitude of our fellow racers waiting for the handoffs. So who knows how things could have turned out, especially if this was a traditional 5K that lacked the construction hurdles and tubes (my obstacles).

Overall result: our team finished 16th out of 186 or so male teams, running the 10.5 mile race in 1:22:42. I had the intermediate leg of sorts, as our second runner had a roughly 5.4 mile run and our third runner had a roughly 2.7 mile run (including a run up the side of Soldier Field and climbing an 8 foot wall before the finish line). My leg was the easy way out compared to those guys!

Break It Down

The Gospel (Lk 10:25-37) for today is one of my favorites:

"There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said,
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law?
How do you read it?"
He said in reply,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live."

Race Recap: Banco Half Marathon, Chicago, 9/14/2008

Well, the Banco Half came and went. The conditions were less than ideal - a strong wind, rain, and cold temperatures made my half marathon debut an interesting race. Mile splits are below:

Mile 1: 9:06
Mile 2: 17:18 (8:11)
Mile 3: 25:44 (8:26)
Mile 4: 34:20 (8:36)
Mile 5: 42:46 (8:25)
Mile 6: 51:16 (8:29)
Mile 7: 1:00:24 (9:08)
Mile 8: 1:08:16 (7:51) <- ?!?!
Mile 9: 1:17:10 (8:54)
Mile 10: 1:26:27 (9:17)
Mile 11: 1:37:01 (10:34) <- bathroom break
Mile 12: 1:46:24 (9:22)
Mile 13.1: 1:56:26 (10:02 for 1.1 mile)

My plan for pacing was anywhere between 8:20 a mile and 9:10 a mile for the first 10 miles, and then I would see what I had left in the tank for the last 5K. I wanted to start slowly for the first 4 or 5, as well.

You can see that I took it easy for the first mile, mainly out of necessity due to the massive number of runners. Miles 2-6 were just about where I wanted them to be, but then Mile 7 was a little bizarre, for whatever reason. I recall cramping up a bit in my quads around the seventh mile marker, so I tried to pick it up over the 8th mile to compensate. Obviously, I overshot by running a 7:51 mile, much faster than I would have preferred at that point.

I really started to feel it after the 7:51 mile, as evidenced by miles 9 and 10, and also started to feel the pasta, cookies, and oranges I ate the night before the race (I wasn't able to fully digest the food by the onset of the race). I limped through the last three miles.

My new insoles never arrived - they'll probably get here tomorrow. The knees definitely hurt this afternoon, but not as badly as I feared they would, and I should be running again tomorrow or Tuesday morning. I did notice, though, that my legs felt more banged up in the later miles than they did during my two 13.1 mile training runs. So I suspect that the new insoles would have helped improve the last 5K of today's race. Some new Asics would have been even better.

Overall, I was satisfied with the race. I thought I had a serious shot to go sub-1:50 today, but the beat up shoes, old insoles, difficult conditions, and strain of carrying my meal from last night were a bit much to overcome. It's OK, though - this was my first race in more than 4 years, and, as my races always are, it was a terrific learning experience and the sheer magnitude of the event was something completely novel. Of the factors that hampered my performance, all but one (the extreme weather) were preventable, and should be nonfactors in my next race.

So, in the end, I've learned the following:

1) I need to eat less food earlier in the evening the night before a half marathon. I also need to attempt to use the same eating patterns for my long training runs that I do for the eventual race so that I can tweak my eating habits as needed.
2) I need to arrive at the race earlier than I did today, and I shouldn't walk to the race. I walked from my place to the starting line, a good 12-15 block walk, after meeting with two of my classmates who also ran the race. On a day like today, with the flooding and winds, spending time walking around with water-logged shoes before a race even begins is tremendously energy-consuming.
3) I need to improve my pure foot speed. I basically jumped from my winter training plan, which was used simply to get back into shape, to the half plan without doing any basic 5K workouts. I don't have any idea what my 5K time is right now, but I'm guessing it's at least 22:00 or 23:00. If I could shave some minutes off that before my next training cycle, especially by utilizing a training plan that maintained at least 60 min long runs on Sundays, than my next distance race should be a significant improvement over the Banco Half.
4) I need to make sure my shoes/insoles are sufficient.
5) I need to make sure my gear is ready to go. My Suunto heart rate monitor died about 1/4 in the race, and I suspect it was the battery of the watch (I changed the heart rate strap battery two weeks ago). If the last 5K of this race was problematic due to endurance issues, they likely could have been remedied by simply having a functional heart rate monitor.

Overall, my self-grade for the race was a B+ (or an A-, even, given the conditions). There are two shorter races coming up this fall that will finish up my fall training cycle: the Chicago Men's Health Urbanathlon, which I'm running as a tri with two of my class mates, and (potentially) an 8K, the Hyde Park Gargoyle Gallop. Then it's on to winter, and then hopefully a 5K or two, a spring half, and (maybe) a full marathon.

Mileage Charts

For whatever it's worth, I've included some graphs of my mileage over the past number of months and weeks:

I'm A Little Nervous

About the pain that presented itself in my outer knee when I finished my 4.2 mile tempo run this morning. It lingered throughout the morning and early afternoon, then went away in the evening. The same thing happened yesterday.

The shoes (seen in my last post) will have, as of tomorrow, 301 miles on them and they're lighter weight Asics. Most of my training has been on asphalt and concrete, so it would make sense that this pair is getting worn out around this time. It's disappointing, though, that the shoes have started their last leg during my taper for the half.

Anyways, there's no way I'll be able to pick up a new pair of Asics before the race. I have a 2 mile tune up run tomorrow, then I'm off until Sunday morning. I also have some new insoles arriving on Friday or Saturday. So I'm hoping that the taper, along with the new insoles, will get me through this race unscathed.

Grading Myself for this Sunday

A: sub 1:50
B+: sub 2:00
B: sub 2:10
C: finishing

That's really about it. After four years away from racing, it feels pretty fantastic just to be back in a position to do this sort of thing.

A Man Without A Party

It's too bad that Rove & Co. buried McCain in the South Carolina primary of 2000. The last third of McCain's speech tonight probably reminded a good number of independents and moderates why they supported him so strongly back then and throughout the early years of the Bush presidency. It's a shame the guy sold out along the way.

My own disillusionment started with this.

Well...

That was quite good - the exact speech that he needed to give.

Keira Knightley v. Breast Enhancement

She refuses to allow studio execs to digitally enlarge her breasts in upcoming promos - an admirable stand.

McCain Goes Negative.

We knew it was coming, especially when Steve Schmidt joined the McCain camp. But the reasonably civil, rational debate that the likes of Andrew Sullivan and Matthew Yglesias expected has now been thrown to the curb, at least by the Republicans, in favor of the new highly negative ads produced by the McCain folks. It's an act of desperation for a stale, bungling campaign that has failed to generate any enthusiasm at any level, whether it be from small donors, the blogosphere, live audiences, the participants in Web 2.0 (McCain has 8,704 subscribers on his YouTube channel; Obama has 65,248- even Ron Paul has 53,326 subcribers!), or the voting public - see the trend at Pollster.com's National Poll of Polls. The new ads are, at best, juvenile indeed:




There are roughly 98 days left until the election. It's disappointing to think that these two ads may only be the beginning.

Recent Addition to Reading List

Lolita, Vladimir Nobokov

So.....

I'm done moving.

An update:

Finished:
Hunting for Hope, Scott Russell Sanders
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
True at First Light, Ernest Hemingway
A Man Without A Country, Kurt Vonnegut
The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, Charles Bukowski
Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality, Dr. Pauline Chen
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death, Jean-Dominique Bauby
How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

In Progress:
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, Atul Gawande
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, Atul Gawande
Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Summer Reading List (Evolving)

Here's what I have so far (bolded titles have been finished):

Hunting for Hope, Scott Russell Sanders - written by my favorite professor at IU

On the Road, Jack Kerouac - a classic, and the timing feels right

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, Robert M. Pirsig - the subject matter intrigued me

True at First Light, Ernest Hemingway - it's Hemingway. I can't go wrong.

A Man Without A Country, Kurt Vonnegut - it's Vonnegut. I can't go wrong.

The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, Charles Bukowski - a different strain of Bukowski

Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond - recommended by an IU professor in order to 'round out any quality liberal arts education'

A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson - recommended by same professor that recommended Diamond, for the same reason

Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut - I've never read it, for some reason

Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality, Dr. Pauline Chen - on the Pritzker reading list, and something I've been interested in for some time now

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, Atul Gawande - another quality book recommended by the Pritzker folks

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, Atul Gawande - Pritzker, again

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death, Jean-Dominique Bauby - Pritzker, again, and I've heard good things

How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman - Pritzker, again.

Choke, Chuck Palahniuk - written by Fight Club author. Involves a dropout med student. Interested?

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Pritzker, again. Good things, again.

Finish the Harry Potter series

The list will evolve as I finish some of these works, I'm sure. There's also quite a few of books from the Pritzker recommended reads list - I'm partially following the list for two reasons: I've never been a fan of medically-oriented TV shows (Scrubs, ER, etc.). This is primarily because I don't watch TV all that much and secondly because I find other things more worthwhile. The second reason is that my exposure to medical literature is limited and doesn't extend far beyond Michael Crichton, sadly. So I hope to resolve that situation.

Medical Specialties

It's difficult to keep an open mind regarding one's future when a financial aid information sheet asks:

"Name of medical specialties under consideration:

Specialty #1)
Specialty #2)
Specialty #3)"

That question, along with, "Are you considering primary care as a specialty?", is geared toward third years, or at least one would think. But it lends a sense of immediacy to my summer.

Prediction

If Hillary gets remotely close to securing the nomination, or if she does, Evan Bayh will be named her VP candidate. He helps win votes in a red state, brings a Midwestern flavor to the ticket (since Hillary disowns her own roots except when she's, you know, campaigning in the Midwest), and he's been used to offer a moderate dimension to the national Democratic scene before (see the DNC from a few years back).

In doing so, Bayh would finally receive the national PR he needs to make a legitimate run at the White House - his campaign stalled early on this year, but I think it's interesting that he still dropped out earlier than what most expected. Maybe it was some early signal calling on the Clinton campaign's behalf; they did, after all, anticipate having the election wrapped up by Super Tuesday.

Why Clinton Always Asks For A Debate

Days before the next primary - it's simple, really. She knows that the more time Barack spends on the ground, traveling from locale to locale, the worse it is for her campaign. Generally, the advantage Barack has from a day on the road is significantly greater, considering his lack of name recognition and voters' skepticism of a young first term Senator, than it is for Hillary, considering her household name and familiarity.

Thursday In Bloomington

Cubs Win over the Brew Crew, Crean starts to settle in, I'm essentially done for the week (academically, my lab work remains on the docket), Initiation for the chemistry fraternity is tomorrow evening, my graduation date is officially set, and I'm struggling to find time to make it to 4 graduation ceremonies (Biology, Biochemistry, English, University-wide) during the span of one Saturday.

We'll see how it works.

Stories Like This

Break your heart.

Money quotes:

"it is walking on that thin line between sanity and insanity. that feeling of total abandonment by a government and a country you used to love because politics are fighting this war......and its a losing battle....and we’re the ones ultimently paying the price.
Ryan Wood, Myspace blog, Adhamiya"

"A few days ago I realized why I am here in Baghdad dealing with all the gunfire, the rocket attacks, the IEDs, the car bombs, the death. I have only been here going on a month and a half. Already I have seen what war really is... but officially its called “full spectrum operations.” No I don’t down Bush, he is my CinC, and I think he is doing an good job with what Clinton left him. I don’t debate why we are involved in Iraq. I just know why I am here. It is not for the smiling Iraqi kids, or the even the feeling of wearing the uniform ( it feels damn good though :) . I am here for the soldier on patrol with me.
But why are you there in the states. Why are you having that nice dinner, watching TV, going out on dates...
Daniel Gomez, e-mail to friends and family. Sept. 27, 2006"

Running, Part II

As of yesterday's run, I doubled my mileage from January to February.

Conditions are crazy here in Bloomington, though. Most of the roads I run on have a good amount of traffic, and some of those roads are extremely narrow residential thoroughfares. This means that I often have to run on the sidewalk, which I try to avoid due to cracks in the sidewalk tripping me up. Running on asphalt is generally better for your legs than concrete, as well.

But yesterday, the roads were icy and crowded, so I did my run on the sidewalks. In some locations, it was fine - for some reason, a narrow path of non-ice had been carved out on the sidewalk. But in other spots, it was quite treacherous, and the entire path was frozen over for a number of yards. That slowed down my pace quite a bit, but it was still a good run.

McCain and Lobbyists

Regarding the Times story that broke today about McCain: this about as huge of a blow to McCain's chances at this stage in the game as one could imagine. Imagine this scenario: these allegations turn out to be false, Iseman and McCain clear up the currently muddied waters, and the Times somehow offers an apology for this story.

That would never happen - the story seems solid, and it follows the Rovian formula of attacking your opponent on his or her strongest issue. For McCain, it's his persona as a straight-shooting, honorable kind of guy. This is somewhat ironic, considering McCain's sharp attacks on Obama's oratory over the past two weeks.

But imagine this story is retracted. The damage is still done. What has happened? People unaware of McCain's checkered past with lobbyists and insider deals is now brought back up to the surface for political newcomers to see. Obama's talking points about removing or curbing the influence of lobbyists acquires a greater resonance. McCain loses momentum and is put on the defensive: is this the type of experience that he expects from Obama? These are things that can't be undone even in the wake of a retraction.

No, this is not very good for the McCain team.

And the actions of Alcalde & Fay don't offer much support for their lobbyist - they removed her bio from the firm's webpage.

The side note on all of this is why the Times held on to the story for so long - the Huffington Post is all over this issue. It seems, though, that the McCain team has been aware of the story for quite some time and has been fighting its publication. So no, it doesn't appear this was some sort of surprise for the GOP until after the primaries were all-but-finished. It does make one wonder, though - if you're the Republicans at the convention, how do you handle this?

A Surprise

The new Microsoft Office 2008 for Macs is actually quite good, considering how badly flawed the 2007 edition is for PC.

Running

I've already logged more miles during the month of February than I logged through September, October, and November combined.

It feels good to be done with interviews.

Giants Win!

What an amazing game. How many great plays were there for the Giants? Watching the Giants defense was watching hard-nosed, smashmouth football at its finest. It's going to be a long time before we forget this one.

What strikes me about this game: 1) the Giants just flat-out wanted this one more, and they wanted it badly. The defense was incredible - play after play, they kept on coming after the Patriots, bottling up holes, hitting hard, roughing up Brady. 2) Eli Manning - what type of maturation has this been for him since the Patriots and Giants first matched up during the regular season? What about the tremendous scramble and throw he made after being bottled up and grabbed? Amazing play from Manning - if you can't single out one individual on the Giants defense, then Eli deserves the MVP, which he did win. 3) Belichick's lack of class. Who walks off the field before the game's even done, after congratulating only the opposing coach. He didn't congratulate the Giants defensive players, or Eli, or Burress, or anyone. He just walked off. I suppose it's the same person who videotaped a Super Bowl practice just prior to one of the narrowest victories in Super Bowl history (the Rams). Completely classless. 4) On the flipside, how good must it feel to be Tom Coughlin? You go from being on the brink of losing your job to winning the Super Bowl over the 'greatest team ever'. Cheers to that guy.

It's February

And the birds outside my bedroom window are chirping away. The weather has been beautiful this weekend - 33 degrees today, but it feels warmer because the sun is bright and the snow outside has melted. No ice is left on the sidewalks, either, which made my run yesterday feel much less treacherous than the one I did on Friday evening, when I nearly fell on three or four separate occasions.

Republican Debate

I caught the last five minutes or so of the Republican debate this evening.

It's very difficult for me to envision either Romney or McCain defeating an Obama-led ticket in the fall. I'm a fan of McCain, but he seemed surprisingly arrogant in his exchanges with Romney. Mitt was the same as ever - you don't believe 85% of the words that come out of his mouth. This is an incredibly weak Republican field, as a whole, though. I'm still shocked that Huckabee hasn't caught on to a greater degree.

Oh well. We'll see what happens in a few days, but it appears as if my Huckabee prediction has already been proven incorrect. It's still incredible to think that McCain campaign workers in New Hampshire were losing their posts as recent ago as the dog days of summer. Hopefully John can come full circle; I still have hope that a McCain-Obama contest would bring a new civility to national politics.

Obama and South Carolina

I can't believe some of the things I'm reading in the wake of Barack's landslide South Carolina victory. Witness what some of the Republicans over at National Review's Corner are saying:

Peter Wehner discusses Obama's ability to rise above the typical political fray:

"Barack Obama's speech tonight was simply exceptional — and a reminder of why he is one of the most remarkable political talents in our lifetime. He was able to speak in ways that seem to rise above conventional politics, even as he was able to masterfully push back against the Clinton attacks of the last several weeks. His capacity to touch and stir authentic emotions is remarkable. And unlike Clinton and especially Edwards, the Obama message is about unity, not divisions; and hopes rather than grievances. If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, Republicans have a great deal to fear. He has tremendous break-out potential."

And then he continues:

"Politics is, at the end of the day, about ideas and philosophy, not simply rhetoric. But, as all the great presidents have shown, rhetoric matters, too. Beyond that, Hillary Clinton is a conventional liberal, as is Obama; the difference is that Obama is a graceful and dignified person who draws people to him rather than drives them away. He is impossible to dislike. And when you see Obama and Clinton together, or back to back, is there any doubt who is the more impressive person — or the more formidable political figure?"

And then Rich Lowry says:

"That was not only a stirring victory speech by Obama, but a devastating rebuke to the Clintons clothed in inspirational liberal terms.

Obama embraced diversity, the subtext being that Hillary can't win blacks and is depending on keeping him from winning whites; he said that the old politics objects even to saying that Republicans have ideas, a dig at Hillary's ridiculous attacks on what he said about Republicans formerly being the party of ideas; he said that the old Washington thinking values time spent in Washington and proximity to the White House, a slap at Hillary touting her time as First Lady; he attacked Washington lobbyists, when Hillary has defended their role in the process; he said we can overcome racial categories, a rebuke to the Clinton strategy of polarizing the campaign along racial lines.

Then, he grounded his message of hope in Edwardesque stories illustrating the need for better health care, education, and wages—a lunch-bucket appeal. Near the end, there was a soaring call for national unity, echoing his famous 2004 convention speech, "I didn't see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina, I saw South Carolina." And he framed his fight with Hillary, in another reference to the way she and her husband have fought this campaign, thusly, "It's not about black versus against white, it's the past versus the future." Ouch. And when he said the old politics was about "divisions, distractions, and drama," could there be any three words better suited to describe Clintonian attack politics?

Overall, a stunningly deft performance, and a moving one. It's the best liberal case you'll ever hear for moving on from the Clintons."

And then David Freddoso:

"He is getting above the fray right now. I really think it will work for him in the future. Clintonian politics may have died tonight — but let's not say such a thing too hastily.

Hillary fled without a concession speech because a 30-point defeat, after the disgraceful, negative, and even at times racially charged campaign she ran, is an embarrassment.

By the way, did anyone else notice the cable networks cutting Bill off earlier?"

What a win. Here's Barack's speech: