Pride Weekend Running

I went out for 8 miles on Saturday. I wasn't feeling it. Just about the whole time it felt hard, though I wasn't running very fast, nor was it very hot (though it was too hot for Blue to join me). I was probably a little dehydrated. 

On Sunday, GF & I had a rather lame adventure getting to the Pride Race. We'd planned to bus it, because parking uptown during Pride is hideous. The #7 bus never came, so we drove & parked near the start of the race (see? that wasn't much of an adventure). There were many more runners than last year, so I guess their advertising paid off. It was hot (80), the sun was blazing down, but there were tons of people yelling and cheering (and heckling, but I didn't hear that cuz I was rocking out to Russian pop) at this year's Pride Race.  It was a 4k this time, which is a distance I've never actually run as a race (automatic PR!). I wasn't entirely sure whether the distance was 4k or 5k until I got to the corner where we turn into the park. Sure enough, 4k! The clock said 18:xx as I ran past, but I stopped my watch at 19:33, so that's what I'm going with. I experimented with using the inhaler before the race and although I felt weird and jumpy for the first mile or so, I didn't cough up a lung afterward.

We watched a little of the parade and saw GF's coworker wearing his Pride duds. I was tired of standing, so we walked, originally intending to find the bus back to my car. We ended up taking a detour to Brit's and had some beer and snacks before finding the bus and heading back to the relative calm of South Minneapolis.

After a way too short nap, it was back to uptown to see Aelita: Queen of Mars at the Walker. Here is what they had to say about it:

Wrought with subtle erotic tensions and national predilections of the moment, the Martian adventure is known for its incredible leaps of fantasy running parallel to documentary-style depictions of 1920s Moscow. Love crosses light years in this popular Russian classic, presented in a rare 35mm print from the Walker’s Ruben/Bentson Film and Video Collection.
Composer Dennis James returns to the Walker with collaborator Mark Goldstein, known as the Filmharmonia Duo, performing with unusual historical instruments—including a theatrical organ and a theremin—to accurately capture the essence of the unique film for this rare event.

We thought it was just plain cool. The live music was especially good. When the film had an unscheduled stop just over halfway through, the organist talked about creating the score and how a theramin works. You can watch it, if you're interested, on youtube (but you'll miss the awesome live music). The shots of Moscow in the 1920s are amazing.

Running around

I've changed marathon training plans about a dozen times now. Maybe I just like planning? I started off with the plan I used last year, 5 runs a week, three week build up and one week cut back cycle, topping out at 46 mpw. I ran two 20 milers, one 18 miler and three 15 milers. I didn't train enough, either distance-wise or for the downhill extravaganza that is Pocatello.

Originally, for this year's marathon (Tucson!), I planned running 5 days a week and running long every other week. Then I remembered that I had pretty good luck and felt pretty good with the Runner's World smart coach training plan I'd used back in 2008. I played with that for a bit, but didn't change the whole plan because it had me running 4 days a week instead of 5. Somehow, that made me feel like a loser (it's just more of that comparing my 44 1/2 year old self with my younger self and not being happy with the comparison). Five days a week was how I trained for the Trail Mix 25k and that went alright. But, I wasn't loving my 5 day a week running schedule. I was dreading my third run in a row during the week and could barely drag myself out of bed for my Sunday recovery run. In May, after Trail Mix, I switched up my schedule to the Runner's World 4 day a week schedule (Monday-easy; Wednesday-speed/tempo, Thursday-easy; Saturday-long). Guess what? Running is kind of fun again.

I've got the same number of miles I was running over 5 days, so I'm running longer on my 4-day-a-week schedule. And, not only will I be running six (6!) 20 milers, but I top out at 58 miles per week. Yes, that sounds a little crazy. And it was at first, when I was trying to hit training paces that RW figured out based on my half marathon time from Pocatello (1:45ish). They were all too fast and I was feeling crappy about training. So, I had RW figure them again based on a couple of recent 10k races. The paces might actually be a bit too slow, but I'm hitting them and feeling pretty good, so this is how they'll stay for awhile (or until I run what feels like a good race and figure the paces out all over again).

My 14 mile long run last week was ok for about the first 12 miles and then it felt really hard and I felt like I was running really slow (9:56 pace, though, so not really slow). I wasn't really optimistic about Saturday's 16 miler, especially since I started biking to work 2 days a week (hey, let's throw in ~40 miles of biking per week with marathon training and see what happens!). But Saturday turned out to be great. First 6 miles with Blue the dog, who was a little too hot with the high 60s humid weather. Then out for another 10 alone and half way through it started just pouring rain. But hey, that made it cooler and it was actually kind of nice. I sort of waited for the run to start feeling hard, but it felt pretty good the whole time. And 9:43 pace, so faster than the week before. Huh. Sometimes you have good days and sometimes you don't.

Ah, cut back week.7 miles this morning in the steam bath. I have no idea what the dew point was this morning, but it was tropical.

Summer projects thus far

 

I painted the front porch this weekend. little boy had painted the whole thing three years ago when we moved in, but it was already sad and peeling and needed to be repainted. It doesn't help that the gutters are less than efficient and dump water right  down on the steps. With the washing, scraping and painting, that was a lot of work! Whatever I paid the boy back in the day, it wasn't enough.

Square foot garden is the other project. I can't seem to space plants correctly. The previous two summers here, I just put things in, spacing them more or less like the seed directions said. Looking at other gardens, other people get more veggies into a much smaller space. I read Kerstin's book about square foot gardening and there is my attempt. I've got 4 tomato plants, 2 eggplants, 2 peppers, kale, beans, rosemary, oregano, sage, lemon thyme, onions and basil in that 4 foot square box. The metal framework on the end is electrical conduit and trellis netting for the tomatoes. We will see whether that works better than the tomato cages I've been using.