A tale of two races

Seven years ago I started my racing adventure when I ran the Crim 10 miler. It was not an overwhelming success.

Big races aren't really my thing. I mean, they're fun if you're there with people, and crowd support can get you through some tough times, but I'm much more of happy camper on the trails, and you just can't fit thousands of people comfortably doing that sort of race.

But I digress. I didn't discover my passion for trails until '06, and really I should be talking about this weekend, not history.

This Saturday was the 35th running of the Crim; my 6th. And though this was the first time I didn't score a course person best, I was very happy with the way it went.

I had a good time and didn't blow up.
My pace for the first three miles and the last three was almost exactly the same (7:40 vs 7:41)
I got to meet some daily mile friends.

This was Saturday. On Sunday, I ran the Merrell Down and Dirty Mud run. Sadly, there was really very little running through mud.

As I parked and started wandering around looking for packet pickup, I started chatting up a women who mentioned doing Tough Mudder. It turned out she had run the Crim the day before, and has almost exactly the same 10 Mile PR as I.

It also turned out that she ran the Woodstock half last year, and that she ran a good chunk of it with someone who I had trained for that race. Small world.

I started to pick up a few more more friends (One was the daily mile friend I met at the crim the day before; two were from my west bloomfield running group) we all sort of figured we were all at about the same speed. We hung together for a bit during the race, but once we got the a balance obstacle I was toast. My balance is kind of the suck.

Something to work on, I guess.

Anyway, the obstacles were fun for the most part, although the variety was a lot better at Warrior Dash. The hills were a lot more fun during this race, though. I think I know where to go for hill training.

On the other hand, after the race (where I believe I came in last of five of us) we agreed to think about doing the Michigan Tough Mudder next year. And I'm getting pretty excited about pursuing the possibility!

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Thursdays

The thing about thursdays: there's a group run that starts near a couple of rail-trails. If I time it right, I can do both.

Also, I seem to be on the tues/thurs/sat schedule for weight training.

Take this all together, and Thursday becomes my heavy workout day; about an hour for weights, an hour with the group and 2.5-3 biking on the rail trail. And a lot of sore feeling today.

Some thoughts from weight training:
deep knee squats are a bad idea, I think. No injuries, by my quads are in pretty rough shape.

What happened to my lats? I used to be able to do 20 pull ups. Now I'm lucky if I can do two with good form.

I need to do more "V" up type exercises. A half dozen of those were harder on my abs than two dozen crunches.

Some thoughts on biking:
2" of sand is rough going.
I really need to make sure I research the map.
Take more water. And things to eat. And maybe even something to listen to.

Some thoughts on running:
I don't know if it was because of all the biking and weight training before, or that I haven't been running hard this summer, but running at an 8-8:15 pace was really stressing out my heart. Right around the 30 minute mark I went from 170s to 190s, and that's not really all that great of a sign.

It could mean I'm out of shape. It could also mean that I went into atrial tachycardia. Or both. Neither of which would really surprise me.

All well. Something to watch in the future, I suppose. :)

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Books this year

I know, I've been as remiss in updating the books of this year as I have been updating in general. Still, Better late than never, and so forth. :)

Reamde -Neal Stephenson
Winds of War -Herman Wouk
War and Remembrance
Monster Hunter International -Larry Correia
Swarm -BV Larson
Extinction
The Weapon -Michael kWilliamson
Ex-Heroes -Peter Clines
On Basilisk station -David Weber
The cold commands -Richard K Morgan
The Steel Remains
Thirteen
Legion of the damned -William C Dietz
Hounded -Kevin Hearne
Hexed
Hammered
Tricked
Valor's Choice -Hanya Huff
Better part of Valor
The spirit Ring -LM bujold
Shards of Honor
Barrayar
Warrior's apprentice
Vor Game
Cetaganda
Borders of infinity
The Blade itself -Joe Abercrombie
Before they are hanged
last argument of kings
Ready Player One -Ernest Cline
Heartless -Gail Carriger
Timeless
Lies of Locke Lamora -Scott Lynch
Way of Kings -Brandon Sanderson
Name of the wind -Patrick Rothfuss
The wise man's fear
Ghost Story -Jim Butcher
Theft of Swords - Michael Sullivan
Invincible - Jack Campbell
Redshirts -John Scalzi
Fuzzy Nation
Bloody Jack -LA Meyer
Hyperion -Dan Simmons

A number of repeats; usually when something is lacking in a book that's other wise acceptable, I go to a book I've read that had the missing feature in plenty.

Still have an awful lot of books waiting in the wings!

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