I've been in a motivational slump, but today - encouraged by a 5.2km I registered to run on Thursday night - a friend and I decided to hit my local run spot for 4.4k of huffing and puffing.

Got up at 5am, she sent me a text 15 minutes later telling me she's on her way. We met in the carpark and got going. About 1km in it started to rain, we considered stopping after lap one but through stupidity or in the hope of the 'running high' we kept going... through the rain.. it was nice, really. Hydrating by absorption - hah. We were about 300m from the car park when we noticed one of the most spectacular rainbows that either of us (or the other runners on the track) had seen.
You could see where it started and where it ended (GOLD GOLD GOLD!!) it was vibrant and just beautiful.
If that wasn't reward enough for my run this morning, I don't know what was.

Despite the rainy season, I have to conduct my lessons as per normal. This is the semester where I see myself conducting more indoor circuit/conditioning classes than actual outdoor ball classes.

So guys, if you have any creative ideas on effective propless conditioning exercises so that I can have more variety during class, please share! You can also offer partner exercises as well. I can pair them up easily.

Don't worry if it is tough. In fact, the tougher the better! I will do them myself or with my colleague to make sure I can do it before I teach it.

PS. I teach volleyball by the way. ;)

PS. Currently some of the exercises varies along doing bicycle crunches, standard pushups, leg lifts, partner v crunch, bridges, half squats etc...

Just need more ideas. ;)

Thanks in advance!

I don't always post my race reports here, but I'm so freaking proud of myself that I'm doing so for this race. I ran a really good race.

( Enjoy...with pictures! )

But, here's a question: the past two races I've run that I've PR'ed at, I've almost thrown up at the finish line. Like, literally stomach clenching and heaving. This is a new phenomenon and one I'm pretty sure I don't like. Is this just a side-effect of running hard or what?

Hi runners!

I need the collective wisdom of this community for two issues I've been having:

1. How on earth do I rid myself of a side stitch? I know that correct breathing can prevent them in the first place, but I always seem to acquire a killer stitch in my right side about halfway through my run. Any tips for getting it to go away?

2. Due to an old ankle injury, I find myself in need of an ankle brace. Does anyone have recommendations for ankle braces that fit inside shoes?

Thanks!

I guess nobody told this kid that you are supposed to run in lightweight racing shoes.
Or if they did, he sure didn't bother listening. Instead he won his State Championships
wearing these...



I want to say those are Air Jordans, but I don't even know if they still make them or not.

I lost someone very close to me and afterward I believed I could have saved him had I been a better friend to him. But everyone disappears, no matter who loves them.

-- Dave Eggers, What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng

Good morning runners! Here's the daily training thread!

I had a really great 10 miler yesterday on the NCR trail. And this morning I wake up to legs that feel quite fresh still, and raring for more miles. So miles I will give them. I'm headed out on a 3 hour drive to western Maryland where I'll be til Wednesday doing search & rescue training (the much cuter hbfs will be handling two more days of dailies duty and when I return I'll have internet in my house which means me doing this regularly again and a race report to go with it!). When I get to the cabin, I'm gonna do a 90 minute run around the trails, probably covering 10-11 miles. The weather is beautiful here; it's supposed to be mid 60s out there and clear.

So how is everyone else starting off their week, training and otherwise?

Question! How was your weekend? Highlights to gush about? Lowlights to grumble about? Hangovers you're still trying to shake?

In keeping with this month's music "theme" enjoy some Wyclef:



Discuss... and HAPPY RUNNING!

The time had finally arrived for him to acknowledge her brothers as family. He didn't feel rushed. He stared at the strapping young men and suddenly felt as though he were in the presence of giants. He was both humbled and in awe of them.

They were God's answer to his prayers. All those years of anguish and terror, in the dark hours of the night when desolation threatened to devour his very soul, he had prayed for a miracle.

And all along God had already given him four.

He had been truly blessed. He had a wonderful daughter, a noble son-in-law, and now...

"It appears I have four sons."


For the Roses by Julie Garwood

'What have you known of loss
That makes you different from other men?'
- Gilgamesh


When the desert refused my history,
Refused to acknowledge that I had lived
there, with you, among a vanished tribe,

two, three thousand years ago, you parted
the dawn rain, its thickest monsoon curtains,

and beckoned me to the northern canyons.
There, among the red rocks, you lived alone.
I had still not learned the style of nomads:

to walk between the rain drops to keep dry.
Wet and cold, I spoke like a poor man,

without irony. You showed me the relics
of our former life, proof that we'd at last
found each other, but in your arms I felt

singled out for loss. When you lit the fire
and poured the wine, "I am going," I murmured,
repeatedly, "going where no one has been
and no one will be... Will you come with me?"
You took my hand, and we walked through the streets

of an emptied world, vulnerable
to our suddenly bare history in which I was,

but you said won't again be, singled
out for loss in your arms, won't ever again
be exiled, never again, from your arms.

"Are you the happiest and the saddest right now that you've ever been?"
"Of course I am."
"Why?"
"Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you."

"I would rather write than do anything else. In fact, some wise guy, knowing of my penchant for gallantry to young women, asked me during a question-and-answer session once, "If you had to choose between writing and women, Dr. Asimov, which would you choose?"

I answered instantly, "Well, I can type for 12 hours without getting tired."

The beauty of poetry and holiness of love are simply the roses under which they try to hide its rottenness. Romeo is just the same sort of animal as all the rest of us.

Sorry, folks.  I should have spent a little more time seeing how this community operates before assuming that posting updates to my blog was an appropriate use of space here.  Sorry for clogging the pages.    

Happy running!

effin j 

By small and small: midnight to four a.m.
by Jack Gilbert

For eleven years I have regretted it,
regretted that I did not do what
I wanted to do as I sat there those
four hours watching her die. I wanted
to crawl in among the machinery
and hold her in my arms, knowing
the elementary, leftover bit of her
mind would dimly recognize it was me
carrying her to where she was going.


Michiko Dead
by Jack Gilbert

He manages like somebody carrying a box
that is too heavy, first with his arms
underneath. When their strength gives out,
he moves the hands forward, hooking them
on the corners, pulling the weight against
his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly
when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes
different muscles take over. Afterward,
he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood
drains out of the arm that is stretched up
to steady the box and the arm goes numb. But now
the man can hold underneath again, so that
he can go on without ever putting the box down.

Jack Gilbert, "By small and small: midnight to four a.m." and  “Michiko Dead”  from The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992.

No, I didn't run it; I was a "caller". For some reason, neither the organization that times the race nor the organization that runs it have clocks to put at the mile markers, so they have volunteers calling out the times.

I called the 3 mile and 6 mile points of the 10K and the 3 mile point of the 5K.

The 10K started at 8 am and the 5K started at 9:15 am. there were people still in the 10K race when the leaders of the 5K were crossing the finish line Some people did a double header and ran both races.

The winning time for the 10K was 29:49 (4:48 pace); the first woman to cross the finish line did it in 35:41 (which is about my PR for a 5K), a 5:43 pace. She was 24th overall.

The winning time for the 5K was 14:07; a 4:33 pace. The first woman across the finish line was 19th overall, with a time of 16:45, a pace of 5:24. She was 19th overall.

"There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size."

I heard this in the film Adaptation and read this book.

What's the best way, any way really, to go from couch to 5k? I've been walking 1 - 2 miles a day. I am overweight, really overweight, and I'm a bit worried about destroying my joints by running. But I want to run to lose weight faster, and finish a 5k.

The Master Speed by Robert Frost

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste,
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still --
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

Bowery Blues

by Jack Kerouac

The story of man
Makes me sick
Inside, outside,
I don’t know why
Something so conditional
And all talk
Should hurt me so.

I am hurt
I am scared
I want to live
I want to die
I don’t know
Where to turn
In the Void
And when
To cut
Out

For no Church told me
No Guru holds me
No advice
Just stone
Of New York
And on the cafeteria
We hear
The saxophone
O dead Ruby
Died of Shot
In Thirty Two,
Sounding like old times
And de bombed
Empty decapitated
Murder by the clock.

And I see Shadows
Dancing into Doom
In love, holding
TIght the lovely asses
Of the little girls
In love with sex
Showing themselves
In white undergarments
At elevated windows
Hoping for the Worst.

I can’t take it
Anymore
If I can’t hold
My little behind
To me in my room

Then it’s goodbye
Sangsara
For me
Besides
Girls aren’t as good
As they look
And Samadhi
Is better
Than you think
When it starts in
Hitting your head
In with Buzz
Of glittergold
Heaven’s Angels
Wailing

Saying

We’ve been waiting for you
Since Morning, Jack
Why were you so long
Dallying in the sooty room?
This transcendental Brilliance
Is the better part
(of Nothingness
I sing)

Okay.
Quit.
Mad.
Stop.