I often find myself running through questionable neighbourhoods with names beginning with castle or ending in hill, dale, and vale. At times the median income dips below $250,000. It’s hard to feel safe. Continue reading
Posted in Running Tids & Bits, The Gear Junkie
Husband has been letting his hair grow wild all summer. A last youthful hurrah if you will, before his Boston qualifying times slow.
Continue reading
Posted in Running Tids & Bits
I’ve already complained about summer joggers. Winter runners are friendly. Summer jogger are not. My return hello/nod/gesture of acknowledgement is about 90% in winter. In summer that per cent dips toward 10%*. Continue reading
A selection of articles from around the Internets that every runner should read. Each one guaranteed* to make you run faster. Continue reading
Posted in Mixed Tapes, Running Tids & Bits
Tagged blog, cookies, exercise, fitness, food, Garmin, gear, health, marathon, running, sport psychology
My “new to me” washing machine, which I think was produced sometime after women stopped beating clothes on rocks and sometime before The Internet, is a problem. Continue reading
Posted in Running Tids & Bits
Packing keeps a person honest. All that hidden stuff tucked away in rarely explored corners is suddenly front and center, impossible to ignore as you try to fit it into a paper box liberated from your office recycling pile. Stuff like my rapidly growing running shoe “collection”, found spread across three different regions in my small urban dwelling. Continue reading
Posted in The Gear Junkie
Tagged exercise, fitness, gear, health, marathon, running, running shoes
Longtime* readers may remember a matrimonial dispute involving a dirt track and a Garmin. Longtime readers may remember giving their two cents Continue reading
Not pictured: me.
Time to spring clean. Actually that time was about 4 weeks ago, but I’m a procrastinator. And if I’m being really honest spring cleaning is procrastination for a task I want to do even less. Continue reading
I have an Around the Bay FuelBelt curse. I do not know what I did to deserve a cursing, but I can only imagine that the transgression was particularly bad. There is no other explanation. See evidence from 2009.
Yesterday I broke the cardinal rule of racing: do not try anything new on race day. I tried three new FuelBelt brand water bottles. I carry my own liquid during Around the Bay because the aid stations are ”approximately every five kilometres”. This is neither accurate nor frequent enough for my compulsion liking.
At 6 am I filled the three new bottles with lemon-lime Gatorade, packed my FuelBelt, and drove to the bay. As I got ready for the race the bottles felt strangely sticky and I assumed – wrongly, I’ve since learned- that I spilled some Gatorade in my sleep-deprived state of bottle filling. I am very apt to spill Gatorade or get distracted and overfill bottles, so this was not a conclusion without precedence. Also, I was worried about race day attire and did not give my FuelBelt the attention it needed. At least I got the what to wear part right. I cluelessly strapped on the belt and lined up behind the start banner.
At 3K (every 3K is to my liking) I grab Bottle 1 from its house on the front left for my first refreshing drink. Mysteriously, the bottle is empty. What happened to my lemon-lime Gatorade? I looked around, confused, as though I might find the precious neon electrolytes somewhere on the road. As the sticky liquid quickly seeped through my wicking layers I found the Gatorade. In my increasing damp shirt and tights. The entire contents drained all over me. Not only was I sticky mess, but I looked like I lemon-lime peed my pants. No, I am not that hardcore. To my relief Bottles 2 and 3 seemed reasonably intact, in that they still contained some (but not all) fluid. At 6K I attempted to drink from Bottle 2. Half went in my mouth, half dribbled down my shirt into my welcoming bra. Of course. Repeat at 9K with Bottle 3. As though I was drinking from a childish joke cup. Half in, half down my shirt, leaving an attractive lemon-lime bib around my neck.
Not one to let a lemon-lime leak throw me off my game, I stoically soldiered on. Upon successful completion of the race I hugged a friend and promptly adhered to him, my Gatorade forming some sort of superglue. That last part is a lie, but he did smell faintly of lime after. Before contaminating anyone else I dashed to the stadium washroom for a quick hooker bath to scrub away the remaining substance. And so ended my fourth run around the bay.
Title: Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar On Me. 1987.
Posted in My Amazing Races, Running Tids & Bits
PSA: Do not google image "teen steam".
Remember Who’s the Boss? I thought Sam was so cool, which I realize confirms all the nerdy suspicions you ever had about me. Do cut me some slack. I lived in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t have cable (it’s not available in the middle of nowhere, even today) and so I watched the three channels we managed to get with our antenna, however fuzzy. The station airing Who’s the Boss transmitted to nowhere. About eight times a day.
What I didn’t watch was her 1988 workout video, Alyssa Milano’s Teen Steam Workout. I love that in the 1980s the only qualifications for releasing a workout video were skinniness and small screen fame. By the power of YouTube, a cross training experience for you to enjoy:
I love the shoes. Bonus points if you can identify the make.
Title: Counting Crows – Mr. Jones. 1993.
I am weak. I mean, obviously I need a pair of pants to wear over my superman running tights. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to use the word necessity. These athletic pants in which I do not actually intend to be athletic are definitely a necessary-not-frivolous purchase. I think even Charlie Sheen Charlie Sheen Charlie Sheen would approve of this pant purchase.
p.s. I admit it. I don’t have much to say today and a wiser blogger than me recently gave some helpful tips on how to craft a blog post out of absolutely nothing. The result: a photo of someone (attention stalkers: not me) in a pair of pants and a link to a blog post about posting about nothing and the required Charlie Sheen mention. Success? I think so.
Title: Sinead O’Connor – The Emporer’s New Clothes. 1990.
My lovely parents, who know me very well, gave me a gift card for running shoes for Christmas. Not just any shoes. Vibram FiveFingers. Which I have always pronounced vee, rhymes with tea, brams but Husband opts for vib, rhymes with bib, rams and other seem to say vi, rhymes with eye, brams. I am a geek, therefore I checked online for the official pronunciation. For the unofficial record, I am correct.
Vibram FiveFinger Komodo at MEC
Selection was limited in winter, but with spring (allegedly, sigh) around the corner MEC restocked and I am now the owner of toe shoes. They look …. really, really weird on my feet. Also, so far I love them. I thought they might feel creepy as my toes are used to being in close proximity, but they are surprisingly comfortable in their own little houses. I’m wearing them now. With my housecoat.
Now to find some deer and other wildlife to chase down for dinner, as is my Homo sapien nature …
Title: Blind Melon – Toes Across the Floor. 1995.
Most days after work I head to run club or yoga or pilates. Usually I change at the office because it’s easier – no long wait in the change room line or no change room for which to line up.
So I enter the office washroom stall in my professional work wear and attempt to wrangle out of my nylons and other girly things without allowing anything to fall in the lidless toilet or touch the floor.
Moments (many minutes) late I emerge, like Superman, in tights, various base layers (euphemism for tight tops) and legwarmers. I sneak out of the washroom and run at top speed down the aisles that lead back to my desk in an effort to move so quickly no one can see me before I can cover up with my parka and dash out the door. It never works.
Title: Crash Test Dummies – Superman Song. 1991.
As I walk to work every morning many runners trot by. I want the kind of life that allows me to run at 8am. Unless that kind of life involves shift work. Or unemploment. By that kind of life I mean winning the lottery, my current plan for financial freedom. That and selling never worn running shoes.
A few regular morning joggers stand out: the lady in blue jeans and a baggy XXXL Campus Crew sweat shirt, the New Balance guy who is on the far side of a century and always seems to be wearing a brand new white pair of running shoes, the parka jogger with a temperature regulation problem. Today I spotted a runner who is either a 1980s superhero training for a comeback or a very patriotic southern expat. (Or both.)
1. White Converse hightop all stars:
2. Red-pink legwarmers:
3. Bright blue tights:
4. A fire engine red hoodie:
My comparably dull running attire would never be worthy of a stranger’s blog.
Title: Five For Fighting – Superman (It’s Not Easy). 200.
Posted in Running Tids & Bits
I thought I found them. I was wrong. Physio-appointment wrong. 10-minute running shoe buying is not recommended. 3-hour running shoe buying isn’t working for me either.
I have purchased five pairs of running shoes since January. Less than 50 days before I’m supposed to run 42.2K in Boston and I still don’t have a pair of shoes that I don’t want to tear off my feet mid-run. I am Goldilocks – too hard, too soft, too this, too that, but so far nothing is just right. I’m begging, can someone please recommend a lightweight high mileage trainer for skinny feet and a neutral gait? Five shoes in two months. I will try anything.
So wah, my 827 pairs of shoes aren’t just right. I feel a little like the guilt-ridden kid who just can’t finish their brocoli despite knowing all about the starving children around the world. Maybe I should ship the shoe discards to the hungry kids? I’m not sure how cosmic balance works.
Title: Jimmy Eat World – The Middle. 2002.
Posted in Running Tids & Bits
Tagged Boston Marathon, exercise, fitness, gear, health, marathon, running, running shoes
My Running Shorts: short stories about my life on the run.
