Read-only memery

Oh dear, another meme tag from Zee.  Must… obey…

4 things that should go into room 101 and be removed from the face of the earth:

- The Himalayan Blackberry, Rubus armeniacus
- Diet soda
- Jay Leno
- Misery

3 things people do that make you want to shake them violently:

- Lie
- Not consider future consequences
- Put ketchup on hot dogs or mayo on hamburgers
2 things you find yourself moaning about:

- How computer generated special effects have ruined movies
- How people still go into Starbucks even when there are other lovely independent coffee shops on the same block

1 thing the above answers tell you about yourself:
- I’m less of a moaner than I used to be

Link to the original meme at freelancecynic.com so people know what it’s all about!
Be as honest as possible; this is about letting people get to know the real you!
Try not to insult anyone – unless they really deserve it or are very, very ugly!
Post these rules at the end of every meme!

How to get sore in just three easy steps

1. Run your Saturday-morning 13-miler fast, because you have something to do right after.
2. Participate in a sack race,  dodgeball, and  volleyball on Sunday, at the (practice) MiPL Olympics.
3. To kick off your six-mile Monday night run, on a warm evening, try to keep up with a guy who can run twice as fast and at least ten times as far as you at a stretch. Struggle to just finish, after that first mile-and-a-half.

Today, then, I ran a snail-slow three-mile recovery jog to Fred Meyer and back. About a 12 minute per mile pace. It didn’t feel great, but I made it through OK.

13-miler

Ok, Ok, you’ve seen it: this blog has been slowing down. Which is a shame. I enjoy the process of blogging, I like having a journal to look back on, I like talking about my running, and I like not feeling like a blog-slacker. One excuse I have is that I’ve been very busy with the kind of stuff that falls outside the purview of this blog. Good stuff, don’t worry.

Anyway. Saturday morning bright and early we had a 13-mile run. I had to be somewhere by 10:00, so I wanted to get done sort of quickly. We started at NW 21st and Raleigh, as always, then headed for the waterfront, then south to RiverPlace, then up to 4th, across to Duniway Park and around the park to Terwilliger. We ran all the way up Terwilliger, past the Chart House restaurant and to Capitol Highway, before turning around to finish up the out-and-back. I was in the lead handful of yellow runners, and we all commiserated a bit on the long uphills. Coming back was a lot more fun.

I did get my very first muscle cramp while running. It was in my thigh, and was very brief and very mild. So, not a big deal, but maybe a sign of things to come? Naaaah….

I’m still alive

On Saturday, our Portland Fit run was “just ten miles”. It’s an important milestone in any beginner’s marathon training program when you get to say that. “Oh, ten miles, pshaw!”

The route was an out-and-back up Thurman and Leif Erikson. So the first five miles were all uphill. Without winding myself, I still managed to do them at a pace a little under 10 minutes/mile. Progress! I am still getting faster and there is still some hope for a four hour marathon in October. I clocked a 7:12 mile on the fastest part coming back down, again trying not to wind myself. (Though I probably did, a little.) My legs never felt that great,  the whole time.

After that, I went home and napped, because I knew I had a long day ahead of me. Around two, I drove down to Eugene, arriving around four at a park on the Willamette where an old friend was getting married. It was a nice ceremony (non-religious, no “till death do we part” morbidity) but I had pretty much forgotten to eat anything after the run, and I was dying to get to the reception and get my hands on some food.

It turned out they also had this stuff called “alcohol” at the reception, which was a real novelty, apparently common in these parts. I had a great time until midnight, hanging out with some folks I hadn’t seen in a loooooooooong time (and many who I haven’t seen since I beat my social anxiety issues, not that long ago) then headed back home to Portland.

Sunday mid-morning I did the kayak lesson. Fun! I capsized twice and the instructor was very enthusiastic about that, saying it meant I was really pushing the edge like I was supposed to. I was just psyched that the Oakley Flak Jacket sunglasses I was stupidly wearing didn’t pop off either time. (Oh, and that I didn’t drown, and that I was good at shimmying back into the boat.)

Then I made leeeetle mini-quiches for a potluck (that’s how you can tell I’m gay, for those keeping score). It was nice spending some time really cooking; it’s been a while. They came out good.

Last night (Monday), I joined my usual Monday-night group for a six mile run, pleasant enough.

Catching up

Tuesday we were scheduled to run just 20 minutes, and I needed some cash, so I ran to the Fred Meyer and back. Since it was a short run, I picked up the intensity some. I went 2.35 miles in 20:00, with mile splits of 8:25 and 7:46. I could really feel how much faster the cool weather we’ve been having lately let me run. Maybe I still have hope for a sub-4:00:00 marathon in 12 weeks.

I took yesterday and today off from work, since we shipped a dot-one release of the product on Tuesday. Tuesday night I played dominos and did karaoke (“Money for Nothing”, because the night’s theme was “colors”, but I felt limiting it to the visible wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum was discriminatory, and it was the only song I could think of with “microwave” in the lyrics). Wednesday morning I did not one but two coffee-related events. First there was early coffee and bagels, and event hosted by G, that only one other person showed up for. I almost didn’t show myself, having gone to the wrong Noah’s bagels first. After that, a koffeeklatch in Sellwood hosted by E. Those are always fun. Then home to lunch. (Write a diary long enough and I guess you start to sound like Samuel Pepys, yes.)

I was cleaning up some downstairs when I stumbled and broke the fall with my neck. Um, yikes. I was carrying a heavy Rubbermaid-type container of books when I tripped; the box landed on a bed and my throat landed on the lip of the box. It gave me a painful sore throat but didn’t mess up my voice too much, which was good, since I had a match.com date last night. The throat feels quite a bit better this morning, which is very encouraging, since I know these throat things can take a long time to heal sometimes.

So, today I need to run 45 minutes, donate some books, finish up the loads of laundry I’ve started, maybe watch a few more episodes of Arrested Development, and meet another first date tonight. I should probably get started on some of that.

Why I’d Rather Be Running

Yesterday was most definitely one of those running-keeps-me-sane days. Just a terrible, terrible day — my poor little SSRI pills must have been exhausted, trying to keep me from despair (what, and you don’t anthropomorphize your medications?) (or inject parentheticals into clauses set off by dashes?) — until 6:15 and the group run at the Beaverton PRC. It didn’t take long for me to notice that, physically, I was feeling great. My legs never got tired, and my lungs held out pretty well too. This with one day’s rest after a 15-miler? Color me happy. Mile splits 9:37, 9:02, 8:28, 8:48, 8:39, and the last .94 miles, before my lungs gave out, were at a for-me-blistering 7:43 pace. I was a little dizzy and could feel my heart pound in my temples and I felt great. All the worry about little small-picture drama fell away, the worry about larger things was put into perspective, and I was able to feel the important things again: I’m alive and living (two different things), doing things I love, and fairly happy with myself. Hooray for endo-pharmacology!

What to do the rest of the day after a fifteen mile run

1. Grab a late breakfast with E. Mmm… coffee. MMMMMMMmmmmm bacon!
2. Go to the Portland International Beerfest. Drink a good bit of beer. Don’t skip the South African birds’-eye chili mead. You really can taste the chilis. Vaguely recognize one of the beer serving volunteers. “Don’t I know you?…” “Are you in Meetin?” I’ve played dominos a few times with her, that’s right! Make a mental note that this is the first time you’ve run into a MiPLer you know outside of an event. Kind of outside an event, anyway.
3. Whatever you do, don’t forget to use the following guaranteed successful opening gambit in a conversation with someone attending their first Meetin Portland event, who also happens to be a chiropractor: “So, do you really believe there’s such a thing as a ’subluxation’?” Bonus points for heroic attempts to salvage the converstion after that.
4. Wander over to the nearby public bocce courts and play a game of bocce for the first time in your life. Tipsiness might or might not help here.
5. Go over to Powell’s and start reading a Nick Hornby novel while drinking a mocha. Purchase said novel, based on the hilarity of the first handful of pages.
6. Take the MAX back over to Lloyd center, where your car is parked. Be one of those annoying idiots talking on your cellphone on the train. Hi, mom!
7. Between the MAX stop and Lloyd Center, wander past the finish area for the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride. Get held up crossing the street by a small pack of finishers rolling by. Clap loudly, somewhat to the consternation of other pedestrians who just want to cross the damned street. Don’t they realize these people just biked here from Seattle, in one day?
8. Go home, eat, check your mail and IM to see if your closest friend is still so mad at you that he won’t communicate with you, even though you know he must know you would never do anything to intentionally hurt or embarrass him, and feel awful about it, even if still confused about why it was so hurtful. He seems to be still mad, yes.
9. Go over to the Marquam Nature Park shelter to lead a 3.4-mile round trip night hike up to Council Crest and back. Be amazed that eight other people actually show up for this. Recognize one of them as someone you sent a message to on match.com, but never got a response from. You didn’t know she was in MiPL. Have the good sense not to say anything about match.com during the hike.
10. Go to sleep, already!

25K = 15.53 miles

This morning at 7am Portland Fit had the second of its long “benchmark runs”, the first being the half-marathon. Today’s was a 15-miler, and I’d been looking forward to it all week. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know how much I love running a new personal longest!

It was great. The route was largely flat. My legs started out with some muscle pain. That’s happened before, and it usually disappears after several miles, but I can’t help but wonder during those miles: “what if it doesn’t go away this time?” That would make it one unpleasant morning.

But, sure enough, around four and a half or five miles, the legs loosened up, my body hit its stride, and I started flying along much more pleasantly. Every mile after that got better and more fun. I had my FM radio on, and listened to NPR until Weekend Edition Saturday started repeating itself (that’s what happens when you run for two and a half hours) and then switched to some Pop Hits station. Antisocial, yes, but enjoyable. Finishing up, I felt like I could have gone another five or ten miles, but contented myself with a 200 yard sprint to my car instead, followed by a few extra laps around the parking lot to get my GPS mileage up to the full 15.5.

The totals according to the Garmin: 15.54 miles in 2:31:32, which is an average 9:44 pace. My heartrate averaged 82% of max, a level at which I’m not breathing hard at all.

Morning Run

I did a 30-minute run this morning, which should have been easy enough, but my legs hurt. Just kind of a generalized muscle pain, concentrated more in the calves than thighs. Bleargh. Hopefully it will be better by Saurday morning’s 15-miler.

Cooper? I hardly know ‘er!

I’ve had the same car now for 11 years, and I’m a terrible car owner, so it isn’t in the best of shape. It’s a ‘96 Mazda 626 ES, and was once actually a really nice car. But time, poor maintenance, crummy driving, and insane interior-chewing-up dogs have taken their toll.

Now, I know buying a brand-new car isn’t the right move for me, money-wise. (In fact, it’s never the right move.) But I think it is the right move for me, happiness-wise. And as long as I’m in it for happiness, I should get the car I want (within reason), right? So, for $1000 deposit, a factory in England is producing a car that looks exactly like this one for me: (note that this in in fact a color picture, not an artistically-rendered example of black-and-white photography.)

It’s supposed to be delivered by the end of August. This isn’t actually a done deal yet, because the Mini dealership lets you cancel at any time and get the full deposit back — apparently they don’t have any problem selling the ones people decide not to get. But my buyer’s remorse seems to be lessening, not increasing, so I suspect I’m going to go through with it. I even had an upbeat dream last night about enjoying my new Mini. So: oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy new car new car new car! :-D

 

 

 

Dull training report

Last night it was 85 degrees and sunny, but I ran five miles with the PRC group and it wasn’t too bad! The first couple miles were about a 9:00 pace, then I dropped back to the slower group that was doing about 10:30s. I dropped back mostly for social, not physiological, reasons. (They were more fun to talk to.)

Today it’s supposed to get up above 100 degrees, so I got a 30-minute run in this morning. Just an average run around my hilly neighborhood, averaging around a 10:00 pace.

I miss being bored, a little

I got my car back from the shop Friday afternoon (some broken air hoses) and returned the rental car. Since I had a lot to do on Saturday and had to get up early, I decided not to drink much or stay out late at the MiPL Running of the Bulls. Five drinks and five hours later… OK, so much for that decision.

Saturday morning I didn’t have time to join the Portland Fit group for the long run, so I got up at 5am and did 10 miles by myself. Once again, doing the long run from my house was a lot of fun, mostly because of the “Wow! I just ran all the way to here from my house!” factor. I ran down on the west side of I5 to where it meets 217, crossed what most be one of the world’s least-used bicycle and pedestrian bridges to get to the west side of I5, ran the length of Kruse Way, to Boones Ferry, hung a left there and then ran along Kerr Parkway up and over the Mountain Park neighborhood, eventually returning along Capitol Highway and Taylors Ferry. It was a nice slow run, and my ankle (and everything else) held up fine.

Then I frantically threw an enormous number of purses, women’s shoes, and in-the-box Simpsons toys into my car and drove over to a friend’s house for a yard sale. My crazy collection of had-a-shopping-addicted-wife goods gave her a real yard-sale inferiority complex, I’m afraid… since my main goal was to get rid of the stuff, I priced everything very low (new purses for $5, new shoes mostly for $5 or $10, depending) and made perhaps $100 or more. My friend made $2.50. Well, she spent a lot less acquiring her junk, though. Anyway, it was fun seeing the stuff go to people who would like it, and kind of interesting to see who had what taste in purses. My wife had some seriously ugly purses, and some of them did sell… I’ll say no more.

Next up on Saturday (am I still writing about Saturday?) — meeting another woman from match.com. We met for coffee. There was definitely a lot more connection with her than with the first match.com date I went on, and I hope we go out again. We talked for almost three hours, then I had to rush off for…

The MiPL “Food on a Stick” pot-luck party. This was at a house that was actually in my neighborhood, a MiPL first for me. I brought olives of various kinds on fancy long toothpicks, served in glasses and cushioned by a protective layer of gin or vodka, with a little vermouth in there for luck. Yeah, OK: I made Martinis. But I had a whole color-coded set of different types of olive skewers prepared ahead of time (frantically, in the half-hour before the event) to make it more fun. The”food on a stick” theme worked out great, actually: it was the best and most creative pot-luck I’ve been to. We had fresh corn dogs, salad on a stick (it was impressive), pasta and meatballs on a stick (amazing), strawberry shortcake on a stick (delicious), and a bunch of other very creative and tasty items.

I made it home and to sleep around 11, or maybe a little later, thankful to have survived my very badly overscheduled Saturday. More to come on how Sunday went later, perhaps.

Random Sprinkling of Blog Bits

I haven’t had too much to write about since getting back from Eugene. I slept like the dead the night of the Fourth, and felt much less exhausted the next day. My car started stalling out, so I guess the “check engine” light that came on a few days ago wasn’t a trick. It’s in the shop now, and I’m tooling around for the moment in a rented Kia Spectra, which is more fun to drive than I would have thought. If I had a single moment of free time this weekend, I’d head over to test-drive the new car of my dreams, a MINI. I went to Voodoo Doughnuts (“The Magic Is In The Hole”) last night for the first time, which is pretty tragic for a wanna-be hipster who’s lived in the Portland area for ten years. Well, I’ve only been a wanna-be hipster for seven months or so. But still. I got me a Mango Tango doughnut, a mango-cream filled raised number topped with a coating of Tang powder. Just like the astronauts would eat, if they orbited the block around SW Second and Ankeny.

Other random bits:

• Zee describes our lunch and walk last weekend, with a high degree of accuracy. She neglects to mention how cute Rennie is drinking from a water fountain though.
• I argue with Kelly about religion, here and especially here.
• Before my doughnut, I had two slices of Amaretto cheesecake at Mama Mia’s. Before that, I had a metric assload of family-style-served Italian favorites there. Not what I’d call the best night for me, nutrition-wise.
• I didn’t run yesterday or today, as I wait for my ankle to firm up a bit. I will be jogging a bit tonight, though, as I take part in Portland’s legendary Running of the Bullsh*tters. If you’re in Portland and want to run from bar to bar dressed in white with a red bandanna, this is the event for you! Convince me you heard about it here first, and I’ll buy you a drink! (I’ll be the one dressed in white.)

Butte to Butte official results

The official results are up. With a gun-to-tape time of 53:55, I was 810th out of 2416 finishers, and 74th out of 169 males aged 35-39.

The Butte to Butte 10K, Eugene, OR

This was the 34th annual running of the Butte to Butte 10K road race in Eugene, and to the naive, it looked like a beautiful morning for it. Sunny and beautiful. Sunny and beautiful and hellishly hot for 8am. They had a huge turnout — 4300 people, I think they said, and it overwhelmed the line for the porta-potties, which shortly before the beginning of the race seemed to be stretching at least an eighth of a mile. I didn’t need the porta-potty, and everything else went smoothly enough pre-race, so that was OK. Well, it was also irksome that they started 10 or 15 minutes late.

You can see from the elevation profile that the race is pretty simple: straight up for a mile, straight down for a mile and a quarter, then basically flat. It’s a cruel way to start a race. The first three miles already suck since I warm up slowly; do I need this too? Ah well, the Western States 100 starts straight up a ski slope at Squaw Valley; stop yer whinin’.

The road was jam-packed for the first quarter-mile at least, and I walked the very steepest part right before the crest of the hill (a planned walk), so I’m happy enough to have come in at 10:01 for mile one. Turning north and sharply downhill on Fox Hollow Road (I went to Kindergarten at Fox Hollow Elementary nearby) I used my usual kamikaze downhill style to pick up some time. It worked, too: mile two came in at 7:06. There was still a lot of people-dodging going on, though, and somewhere on the hill I rolled my ankle on the edge of a sidewalk. “That’s not good,” I said out loud. It hurt for twenty more steps or so, then the pain went away, but I knew from past experience that it would be back in the hours and days after the race.

By the time we hit the flat, I was really getting fatigued. I glanced at my heart rate for the first time and noticed it was around 95% of my max — not something I could keep up for long. I made an effort to run easier.

The next four miles were a slog through South Eugene in the 70°F heat and full sun. Yeah, I know: 70 doesn’t sound hot. First, apply the 20 degree rule: when running, it feels about 20 degrees warmer out there than it is. Ninety degrees? Feels hot. Then add in the 10° or so my Zoloft seems to add to my internal thermostat, and see where that leaves me. I was carrying my own water, so at both aid stations I grabbed a cup of water and dumped the whole thing over my head. Miles three, four, and five labored by at 7:52, 8:28, and 8:38. (Mile three included a quarter-mile of the downhill, recall.)

Hot. Hot. Not having fun. Hot. That’s kind of the story of the rest of the race. I did manage to pick up the pace a bit for the jaunt through downtown during my 8:24 mile six, and I still had enough left, barely, to sprint the last 50 yards or so to the finish (thankfully, the last 50 yards or so were downhill). They didn’t have chip timing, but I was careful with my stopwatch, so I can confidently report that my tape-to-tape time was 52:28, an 8:26 average pace if you assume that I actually ran 10K, and not the 10.1K reported by my Garmin. Given the heat and the hills, I’m happy with the time. My official time is 54-something — it took a long long time to cross the start line.

I made my way to the nearest empty spot of shade, caught my breath, noted with relief that I was still alive and walking, and called my Mom on the cell phone to locate her and our friend J — who was also kind enough to provide the driving support for my race — in the crowd. I also called my friend M, who had carpooled with me to Eugene to visit a friend of his, and who had said he was going to be there to see me run. He didn’t pick up. Turns out he was there at the finish, but never saw me go by and didn’t hear his phone ring. Huh!

My ankle, as predicted, started to hurt pretty soon after. I’m confident it will heal in two or three days, though; I’ve had this happen before.

I have been selling myself short (very nearly literally)

I was whining to my Mom about what kind of things I needed to do to make myself more attractive, at least if the desired qualities in a guy sought on match.com were any indication.

“I need to grow two inches.”

“What? How tall are you? 5′ 10″?”

“No, I’m 5′ 8″.”

“Are you sure?”

Yes, I was sure. Of course I’m 5′8″. I’ve always been 5′8″. Maybe 5′8″1/2. Maybe. But match.com doesn’t let you list half inches, and I’m not going to stretch the truth there by rounding up. It’s just me.

Mom asked again after dinner. I threw up my hands and said we should measure me to make sure. You know the drill: I took off my shoes, she marked a point on the wall, we measured.

HOLY CR*P! I’m Five Foot Nine! When did I gain this extra inch? The new Scott is not only happier, more fit, and more outgoing; he’s taller too! I’m halfway to the magic desirable 5′10″! We rushed right to the computer and updated my match profile.

Various and sundry

Boy, posting that last post about my slightly dented heart was cathartic, but it sure did make some people worry. Maybe this shouldn’t be “that kind of blog.” Still, I like writing in my public diary here, and as long as my subject material doesn’t hurt anyone or damage my employment prospects, I think I’ll continue.

Last night I jogged 30 minutes in the heat and on the hills. The first two miles came in at about 10 minutes and the third mile included The Hill. Sheer willpower alone got me up it without slowing to a walk. After that, I headed over for a relaxing MiPL event at The Grotto, where I somehow didn’t get struck by lightning.

Then  when I woke up this morning, I had enough stuff in my personal email in-box to make me happy. All’s good. Except my car’s Check Engine light is on. Boooooo. Time to buy a new car.

How to be happy

I think the trick to being happy, at least for me, is to be engaged in the process of making a journey, rather than sitting complacently at the destination. Eliminating more clutter from my life makes me happy. Working toward running longer and longer distances makes me happy. Struggling toward being more true to myself and more straightforward in relationships of all kinds makes me happy. Getting better at being more social makes me happy. None of these things have a fixed ending, and that makes me happy too.

It’s a fine line between being happy with the journey and making yourself unhappy because you always want more. Actively remembering that the trip is better than the destination goes a long way toward fighting that: you should always want more.

But also be careful of what you think it is you want more of. I suppose the most common example of a confused goal is to always want more money. Money itself shouldn’t make anyone who is healthy happy for long: it’s just colored paper and bits in a computer system somewhere. Rather, money is a tool to achieve other goals.