Slownah and I once had a Feats of Strength competition. It was supposed to be first one to 5 wins. We counted races, games, anything of the sort. It was before we high jumped in our living room senior year. He beat me in basketball. He beat me at Pomona in the pouring rain. Then I rocked him in some 8s. We never made it to 5, but I'm still up 3-2. We're supposed to race a 100. Right now, I could definitely beat him in a pull-up war. I dominated Erison in the Subway Pull Up War 22-20. I dominated him just like a certain group of Freshman in Ann Arbor dominated college basketball in the early 90s. I loved the Fab Five. Want a delicious burger? 110 and B'Way just opened up a Five Guys. Guy Fieri is a tool. Fricken "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" is an alright show, but he always has sunglasses behind his head. And now "Minute To Win It" is everywhere. But a minute to win it can be sweet when a Buzzer Beater is involved. Bryce Drew hit one of the greatest Buzzer Beaters ever. He went to Valpo. Valpo has a sweet name, but IUPUI (pronounced eewy peewy) has a sweeter one. IUPUI is in Indiana, that's where Hoosiers takes place. Hoosiers is the Greatest Movie Ever (behind "The Naked Gun" of course). The Greatest Documentary Ever? THE FAB FIVE
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Follow that stream of conscious? Me neither really. The tourney starts tomorrow. Look for a basketball related post to go up Thursday morning.
We're starting to get ready for outdoors, which means we have been working out outside again. This weather needs to step its game up. A 4-mile tempo on a Wednesday morning isn't usually that bad of a thing...but when it's 38 and rainy...show's over. See ya later.
Yesterday was the official open to my 2010 track and field campaign. In all honesty, I was fairly nervous about how it would go. Training has been going fairly well, but jumping in to a fast 800 for an opening race can be a daunting thing (especially considering my training has been geared towards making me stronger and the only thing I had done faster than 60 pace all year was this past Monday when I did some 160 striders at 52 pace). However, the show must go on, and you've got to race to get better, so I got out there and went after it.
There were good and bad parts to the race. The good: thankfully the pace didn't feel unbearable. I was through in probably 52.8 and it didn't feel that terrible. The bad: I didn't position myself well enough in the first 200 meters and ended up tripping up over a runner I should have been in front of with 150 meters to go. I finished in 1:49.08 and had probably the best opening race to my season in recent memory (or ever, since all of my memories are fairly recent). I'm definitely upset that I didn't position myself, but pumped with the start to the season and knowing that I can pop a 1:48low right now. But, 1:49 will have to do for now, and definitely excited for what's about to go on the rest of the season.
While I was warming up for the race I had the newest Lady Gaga song stuck in my head (ra ra, ga ga ga-ah, ra ra, ga ga)...which brings me to the title of this journal entry, and a question that I pose to the reader. In terms of superstitions, when do we kick them and when do we keep them?
During my warmup I thought to myself: "What if I run really well? Does this mean that I need to have the Lady Gaga song stuck in my head for every race?"
And its a very interesting little conundrum. If something works for you even if you don't like it that much do you do it still? -- Training this week went well. Other than the snow that shortened my long run, I was pretty syked about how it went. Got in 68 miles and even with a race did a tough 4xmile workout on Tuesday. Ran 4:52, 4:47, 4:40, 4:37 with two and half minutes rest in between each one. Tough stuff for a guy like me, but got through it and then was ready for the race.
We also made a little progress on my racing schedule. It looks like I will be up at the Armory for a mile next weekend at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational and then will be heading to Boston for my last tune-up before USA Indoors to do an 8 Valentine's weekend. Pretty excited about what's to come....Let's Go!
(ps - enjoy yet another dunk as this week's picture)
As I mentioned last week, pretty much everything that is cool in life has to do with basketball. And just today, my life got a LOT cooler. My roommate, Mike Krisch, bought a Nerf Basketball Hoop. Morale in the apartment is at an all time high (while our downstairs neighbor's is simultaneously dropping from the pounding of our jumps).
After suiting up in Bath High team shorts circa 2003 and my 24KOBE yellow headband I found myself on the losing end in the inaugural game of H-O-R-S-E to Krisch. Then, I put on a clinic in the dunking category (see above video: After a failed first attempt, I straight dominate the next dunk right in Krisch and Christine’s (she took last in Horse) laughing faces).
There is only one rule on our Nerf Hoop: if you don't break the rim at least once in a game, you haven't done your job. -- I also have been doing some running and getting pretty pumped for my first race next weekend at Penn State. It looks like its going to be a pretty quick 800 and even though I haven't really busted the rust off the old legs, they're going to have to be really ready to go come next weekend. Should be a fun time though as even though I hate the state of Pennsylvania (far too many drives across the extremely long state) I seem to run pretty well there.
Hit 67 miles on the week with some morning cross training as well. Ran some tempo miles on Tuesday and then some 500s and 300s at 3k pace and mile pace on Friday in what turned out to be an extremely hard workout.
Can't wait to spike up and race for the first time in 2010...Let's Go!
So I ended up not racing this weekend. My calf was sore after Thursday's strides and the trainers told me I had a micro-tear on it, which led to some bruising and soreness. We decided that since it was only mid-January, there was really no point to test the thing and make me miss more than I needed to. So instead we decided to just go for easy runs and get in some elliptical running on the weekend. I'll be heading back up to Penn State in two weeks to get after an 800 again. Being at a meet all day is a boring thing when you're not running, and I definitely found some reasons to get moving and racing again (Penn State had a runner go 2:19 in the 1k, he'll hopefully be in the 800 in a couple of weeks as well).
This week we'll do things a little differently in that I'll go over my training for the week first (since I thankfully didn't miss that much by not racing) and then I'll explain what "Let's Go!" actually means since I have used it a few times on this site. The week was a good one of training even though I had to take a few lighter days. Tuesday we did some 5k type work. This is the kind of stuff that makes me cringe. It's in between the tempo pace and the fast pace, so it hurts like a B. We did 4x (400, 800, 400) and each set had the pace of the 400 move down starting at 69 and moving down to 65. This is the kind of stuff where not one interval gets you, but they all start adding up and you definitely question if you'll be able to finish it up. Thankfully for us, we hit the times pretty perfectly and would only go a little too quick on the 400s.
Then on Thursday we did the old double workout trick. This isn't the most fun trick in the book, but it is one that I had seen before. I had to wake up and go run a 20 minute tempo on the treadmill in the morning. Then, we came back to the track in the afternoon and did 8x150 meters at a pretty quick pace. Neither of these workouts really gets you, but then when you're sitting at home that night you realize that you are pretty tired indeed. I like the two workout days though, they make you feel blue collar. Then, we had to take a few easy days to let the calf heal, and its definitely feeling better. In total I hit 65 miles for the week with some cross training mixed in there as well. And after the meet i'm feeling ready to go. Which reminds me: "Let's Go!"
My Uncle sent out an email wondering where "Let's Go" came from. Its origins I do not know, but I do know that my cousins Joe and Dan got me hooked on it. I have a small theory that everything in life that I think is cool comes from basketball (much more on that in future posts), and "Let's Go" came from exactly that. I originally started saying it when my cousin Joe and I were about to street race in downtown Boston after USA Indoors last year and he kept on talking trash to me saying, "let's go." The word quickly became a staple in my lexicon. After winning an early season 1500 at ASU (see video page) I was quite excited and kept on shouting "Let's Go!" to my teammates. One of them said to me, "Dude, the race is over, there's nowhere to go anymore." Fair enough.
However, This is a thank you to my cousins for letting me take some of their basketball coolness and bring it to the short shorts and tight tights world of nerdy track and field. And as always: Let's Go!
