You know what your long run needs?

You know what would make the miles just melt away on your long run this weekend? A hilarious running podcast to listen to, but in the event that you can’t find one you could always listen to the latest episode of Banned on the Run. It’s full of awkward silences that will make you think that your iPod battery has died and will also totally throw off your pace. You don’t have to thank us, we do it for the joy we get out of it.

From your comments on yesterday’s post I gather that no one wants to listen to me whine and complain about running in the heat, and if that’s the case then you’re not going to like what’s coming. I went out yesterday for a 6 miler in the devastating heat (read: 82 degrees with very little humidity) and I was sweating like a pig in a synagogue. It was almost hot enough to make me long for the snow and wind that I complained bitterly about during the winter months. Almost. I managed to stick to a route that is mostly in the shade but it was easily 70 degrees in the shade and that slight breeze in my face wasn’t helping my pace. I tell you guys, it’s hard running here in Colorado in the summer months; I could barely even see the mountains with the glare from the sun in my face! But I struggled through it because I know that some of you look to me for inspiration. So next time you think that you’ve got it rough or that the conditions won’t permit you to run I want you to think back to me running 6 (six!) miles on a shady path, with mountain views and little to no humidity. Perhaps you’ll be able to turn those feelings of envy and hatred into determination and go run in any conditions.

Hey! Where the hell is my afternoon thunderstorm?

I don’t usually like to make snap judgments about people that I don’t know but I think it’s pretty safe to say that the local TV weather girl is a lying whore! A couple of days ago she told me, nay, promised me that we were going to get some afternoon thunderstorms. Based on this information I decided to sleep in and go run after work because I wasn’t worried about it being sunny and 90+ degrees when I got home. Well apparently I forgot to take into account that our local weather girl is a compulsive liar who gets her rocks off by duping handsome bloggers into running in the extreme heat of the day. Well played madam, but I’ll have you know that I’m not that easily duped nor am I that committed to running that I would be foolish enough to run in such conditions. ‘I’ll show her,’ I thought to myself and instead I went down into the basement and ran on the treadmill. It was as boring as watching the weather channel, (Oooh burn! Chalk one up for Vanilla!) but it was worth it to avoid the heat.

One run on the treadmill is bearable, especially considering that it put me 1 - 0 up on the weather girl. Two runs on the treadmill in a week crosses the line from bearable to irritating and three treadmilling sessions in a week would trigger a DEFCON 2 level emergency in which all sharp objects must be placed out of my reach and the shoelaces are removed from all my shoes, thus preventing me from having four treadmill runs in a week which would cause the universe to collapse on itself. I don’t want any of you to worry but last night Candis forced me to run on the treadmill for the second day in a row, putting me into the irritating category (shut up, you know what I mean).

I had planned on running outside last night, but was informed when I arrived home that Candis had a meeting she needed to go to and I had to stay home and watch our two boys. I started to protest that she couldn’t just spring these things on me at the last minute but then she did that thing that women like to do where they say “Don’t you remember? We talked about this a couple of days ago,” when clearly we did not have any such conversation and even if we did, I’m really supposed to remember conversations from a couple of days ago? If the conversation did take place, and I’m not admitting that it did, she probably tricked me by talking to me while I was in the middle of trying to do something else like watching TV or sleeping or breathing. Of course there’s no point in me trying to argue this because then it just makes it look like I don’t pay attention to her which somehow equates to not loving her in the female mind. It’s easier and much less energy to just say that I do remember the conversation (which never existed) so I can get back to watching Ice Road Truckers uninterrupted. Incidentally, I need to share with you sometime how Candis came to have a meeting last night because it’s hilarious, not to mention a little humiliating for her.

Anyway, that’s the (longwinded) story of how I came to have two treadmill runs in a row and the reason that I’ll be running outside tonight when I get home... or simply not running at all (hmmm... tempting). It’s supposed to be hot and sunny again tonight, at least that’s what the weather girl says, but I can’t possibly torture myself on the treadmill for another day.

The Curious Case of Cyclists

I’m back from my two week blog sabbatical and today I want to try to formulate my opinion on those spandex-loving, pedal pushers that we call cyclists. You know what they say about opinions; they’re like A-holes, everyone has one but mine’s the only one that doesn’t stink. Coincidentally cyclists are sometimes like A-holes too. Sometimes. When I started running I was one of those annoying people who waved at everyone else on the path; runners, cyclists, rollerbladers, dog walkers, squirrels and speed-walkers. If you were out there exercising then we were kindred spirits and I figured the decent human thing to do was to acknowledge each other. Can you guess which of the aforementioned groups proved to be least likely to return my smiling head nod? If you answered ‘squirrels’ you’re absolutely right, but cyclists were only slightly behind them, scientifically proving that cyclists are only slightly smarter than squirrels.

Now I’m pretty sure that I have some cyclists that read Half-Fast (at least I did until I wrote that first paragraph) and I know I have some triathletes who visit, my wife for one, so please hear me out before you go getting all offended or leaving me nasty comments or putting my pillow and some blankets on the couch. This past week I had the misfortune of being accused by a cyclist of being a ‘douchebag’ and showing signs of ‘douchetardation’ in my very own comments section, which is annoying because I thought ‘douchetardation’ was pretty funny. Anyway, I’m probably projecting my displeasure at that one cyclist onto all cyclists which is a lot of fun for me, but completely unfair to cyclists in general. I hear that painting people with a broad brush and creating stereotypes is not a nice thing to do and can apparently be quite insulting, not to mention that it could lead to me being wrong about something which would be a travesty. Just as there are a few runners who are idiots (I can think of at least three), I’m sure that there are only a few cyclists who are idiots and the rest are probably nice people. For example, I bet all of you reading this are of the nice variety (read: please don’t be mean in the comments, I’m a crier).

Still, there’s a part of me (the part of me that sucks at cycling) that wonders if there really are nice cyclists out there. Take the Fat Cyclist for instance, on the one hand he is a cyclist and a law-breaker. On the other hand he has a blog that’s well worth reading, a writing style that I find quite similar to my own (i.e. plenty of baseless braggadocio and sarcasm except immeasurably better all-around) and he has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity which would indicate that he’s a nice person. It’s so confusing. Could it be that cyclists are people too? Can it be that they deserve equal rights, even equal access to the roads? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they do because I’m a forward thinker like that. Cyclists, you’re OK in my book. I can imagine what a sense of relief you’re feeling knowing that you have my approval, but there’s no need to thank me.

So go ahead fellow runners, add a cyclist to your reader. You’ll feel good about having some diversity in your reader and you’ll realize that there’s more to life than running.

30 Days, 30 Runs, 30 New Curse Words Learned

You know how sometimes people decide to do something (e.g. running) every day for a set period of time (e.g. 30 days) and then when that period of time comes to an end they decide they’re just going to keep doing the thing they were doing every day anyway because they wouldn't know what to do if they stopped, or they feel like they’re on such a roll that they just can’t stop? You know how that sometimes happens? Yeah, me neither. What the hell is wrong with those people? My 30 day running streak is over and I’m taking some days off. That’s right, days - plural!

The streak will officially be over at midnight tonight. I knew from the start that I would not be enticed by the thought of continuing the streak, just as I knew before my marathon that I wasn’t going to get bitten by the marathon bug and sign up for another one. I accomplished my goal of running at least a mile for 30 straight days and I learned a very important lesson: I need my rest days. My joints hurt, my muscles are stiff in all the wrong places and my pace has deteriorated faster than everyone’s respect for Governor Sanford. Running every day in the month of June has pushed me to the brink of burnout, I know this because usually when I see runners during my morning commute I wish that I could be out running with them. This morning I saw a couple of runners and thought “ha ha suckers! I don’t have to run today, it’s July!” So yeah, I’m taking a couple of days off and then I’m getting back into it. I’ve got 6 weeks before the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon so it shouldn’t take long for motivation to kick in.

Here are numbers for June:
Total Miles: 105 - New monthly PR!
# of Runs: 30 - (Duh!)
Average Pace: 9:36
# of 1 mile runs: 11 (Way more than I wanted.)
# of innocent bystanders I innocently screamed at during runs: 2
# of different shoes used for running in June: 4
Chance of me doing this ever again: 0%

Site News
I’m taking a little Blog Sabbatical this week (present post excluded) because I’ve never really taken any time away from this blog and because I deserve it. I’ll be back again on Monday, unless I decide to make it a 2 week sabbatical in which case I’ll see you all the following Monday. I hope you all have a fun and safe 4th of July, and I’ll catch you all on the flip side.

What Can You Say?

This is a running blog. Occasionally I get sidetracked with other topics but even then they are usually loosely related to running. With that in mind I started out to write a post about running today, I was going to completely avoid the subject of Michael Jackson because there’s really no way to tie it to running other than to say I have some of his songs on my running playlist. The thing is, it feels wrong to me to just ignore it outright and not say anything about his tragic passing last night. That’s how big Michael Jackson is. That’s how much of an impact he had on this world. There is no reason whatsoever that I should be feeling compelled to talk about Michael Jackson today on a running blog, any yet here I am babbling incoherently about him. Perhaps that’s the biggest compliment I can pay him, he is too big of an icon to ignore.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson, The King of Pop.

Is there any cooler dance move than the moonwalk?
In running related news, Kristina, the marathon mama has finally moved to her new blog that you should totally check out and subscribe to in your reader. The name of her new blog is Marathon Mama, which you might be thinking is the same as the old name but you’re wrong. The old blog was called ‘the marathon mama’ which is significant because if you order your blogroll alphabetically, as I do, it means that she just jumped up a few spots. She’s crafty. Kristina, I will always remember that you started Marathon Mama on the day that Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died.

Could’ve done without that

It’s been a long week. My reader and my inbox consist of a lot more bolded entries than un-bolded ones, something that will be remedied soon by the ‘mark all items as read’ button. What a fantastic invention that was. My work days have been consumed by meetings and presentations to people who lack the capacity to think logically and my nights have been filling up with obligations too. What I’ve been needing is a long, hard run followed by a good night’s sleep. What I’ve had to settle for is short, quick one milers followed by equally short nights, so when the opportunity arose to get in a four mile run I was pretty excited. For the record I don’t consider a four mile run to be a ‘long, hard run’ but it was something other than the worthless one milers that I’d been squeezing in to my hectic schedule (which I pronounce shed-yool because it makes me sound better than you).

Just as I was about to head out the door, a light rain started to fall. I love running in the rain. More specifically, I love being seen running in the rain by my neighbors and motorists because it probably makes them think I’m hardcore... or an idiot, I’m not sure which. Actually, there’s a pretty good chance that they were thinking the latter because I was listening to The Moth Podcast, recommended to me by Amy Lawson, which unlike our podcast is laugh out loud funny. So there I was barreling down the street, in the rain, unable to suppress my laughter. I’m sure I made some motorist’s day. Things were looking up until I came across this:

Walk closed? This cannot be! This is my favorite trail to run on and now it’s closed, just like that. I’m pretty sure I didn’t authorize this! [Edit: Candis tells me I did authorize it because we got to vote on the new public swimming facility/rec center that is being built in the field to the right of the path, which is why the path is closed. Whatever. That vote is more suspect that the Iranian election.] How come no one consulted me before closing the path? That was my happy place! You can’t just go around closing people’s happy places without consulting them!

I was in shock. Judging by the construction going on to the right of the path, my running trail (yes, MY running trail) is going to be closed for quite some time. I just stood there in front of the walk closed sign, completely gob-smacked. I contemplated climbing the fence and going on about my business but decided that the last thing I needed was to rack myself on the top of the fence.

I eventually managed to pick up the broken pieces of my run and move on. I found a way around the construction and picked up the trail further down but this is going to be a major inconvenience and a source of much future whining. I just hope you guys are strong enough to put up with it.

Guess Who’s Back

As part of my constant striving to improve the Half-Fast brand and my dedication to bringing my inanity to a wider audience I am pleased to announce that the Podcast is BACK!

... back again,
Podcast’s back, tell a friend,
Guess who’s back guess who’s back
Guess who’s back guess who’s back...

Yes, it went away for a little while and I think there may still be a few bootleg copies of the last podcast floating around the internet but it’s back! Not only is it back but it has its own blog and a new name: Banned on the Run. Head on over and check it out. You can subscribe to the RSS feed, listen to the podcast on the site or download it to iTunes.

The first episode is mostly the 4 of us (Amy, Raz, Nitmos and myself) catching up and discussing our running as of late. We also manage to cover the appropriate way to volunteer for a race, Valerie Bertinelli, and pregnant running since Amy is pregnant (congrats to Amy by the way). Also you get to witness a few mood swings during the podcast but we’ve asked Nitmos to try to avoid that on future episodes.

Please note: The views and opinions expressed within the podcast do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of this blog, even when it sounds like it was me that was expressing them. Any complaints regarding the podcast should be directed at Amy since it was probably her fault, technical questions should be directed to Raz, snubs and shunning should be directed at Nitmos and any praise, adulation, reverence and exaltation should be directed at me.

Streak Update
I’m 22 for 22 as of last night, but I can’t wait for this month to be over. My groin injury has been giving me problems on and off during the month and I really think it could use a day or two off and probably some RCE (that’s R.I.C.E without the I, you keep that ice pack away from my groin). I originally mentioned that I wanted to see how fast I could run a mile and I still do, but thus far I haven’t gone all out on any of my 1 mile days. I’ve taken them pretty easy because they are supposed to be rest days and my legs have been feeling pretty hammered. Remind me again why I’m doing this?

Site News

Those of you that actually visit Half-Fast, as opposed to the lazy ones who just view the feed on their reader (totally how I read most of your blogs by the way), may notice some changes. Or you may not, depending on how observant you are, which I would guesstimate to be somewhere between ‘not very’ and ‘huh?’ based on you returning here seemingly oblivious to my continual insults. Anyway, since you are no doubt confused and your head is spinning from having read multi-clause sentences that included parentheticals, I’ll explain. The banner image is different, which is nice because it no longer features a stolen part of someone else’s copyrighted image. Now I can put it on t-shirts and market it without being fearful of a lawsuit and you can all buy the shirts to show your subservience love of this fine site that occasionally, but lovingly, mocks your total ineptitude and complete lack of anything resembling common sense. Emphasis on the word lovingly.

I’ve also made some other changes around here. I tried to make it a little cleaner, to simplify the look a little so that your raisin-sized brains don’t get so easily confused. There are a whole multitude of little changes that you probably won’t even notice, for example I changed the font, I removed a lot of grey (because it was depressing), I changed some borders, and most notably I’ve stopped hiding my contempt for you saps.

If you notice any glitches or errors then please feel free to let me know about them in the comments, but make sure that it’s actually a glitch and not something that you’re doing wrong because that seems much more likely doesn’t it? I mean, I was already wrong once this month so the odds are against it happening again.

P.S. Please come back again tomorrow.

There’s No Running in Margaritaville...

... which is why I left work early and got my run in before going to the restaurant last night. Those of you who were hoping for a video of me running falling on the treadmill after imbibing some margaritas! are just going to have to wait because I’m sure it will happen some day. Yes, I had a margarita! with dinner and no, that is not cause for revoking my man card as some of you had hoped. I mean, take a look at this picture and tell me that’s not manly.

I hold it with my pinkie extended because I’m classy!
Incidentally this is not the first time that some of you have clamored for my man card. There have been various attempts at confiscating it here, here, here and here (which is ridiculous since my wife wrote that post!), but I’m happy to report that I am still firmly in possession of it. I keep it right here in my man-bag with my guyliner. You can have my man card when you pry it from my cold, dead, well-manicured hands you heathen barbarians!

Ha! Just when you thought that Nitmos was going to have the unmanliest post of the day all locked up I slap you with this one. Winner: me! Wait... I won right?

Streak Update

I thought it would be nice if I used pictures of different streakers each time I gave a streak update and since the last Streakapalooza post featured a man streaking this one features a woman. Quick lesson for all you current and future streakers out there: If you’re going to streak a sporting event then do it right and remove all your clothes. Streaking in your underwear is like sending out those e-mails promising naked Jessica Biel pictures that end up downloading viruses to my computer, at first you’re all excited and filled with hope but then it’s nothing but disappointment. It would be like Googling “naked Jessica Biel pictures” and winding up and some stupid running blog. See how disappointed you are.

So far I’ve run every day in the month of June except today, but fear not I still have plenty of time to get in today’s run. Actually, I’m supposed to meet some folks after work tonight at the Rio for dinner and yes, you guessed it, margaritas! (I think whenever you write margaritas! it should have an exclamation point behind it.) I’m either going to have to leave work a little early to get my run in or try to run on the treadmill tonight after dinner and margaritas! Either way it sounds like a good time.

For the first week or so it was kind of fun to try and run every day but the novelty is definitely starting to wear off. The one thing that it has done is made me more dedicated to finding time to run. For example if the above situation would have occurred last month I would have already postponed today’s run in order to order some margaritas! and spicy Mexican food, instead I find myself figuring out how to run despite the other things that are going on. Don’t worry too much though, in true Half-Fast spirit I’m certain that once we hit July I’ll be back to postponing runs at the drop of a hat, especially if it’s my running hat. Can you imagine running in a hat that had just been dropped on the ground and was all dirty? Ewww, gross! You would have to wash the hat first and let it dry which would put your running on hold for at least a couple of days. Man, I wish July would hurry up and get here, I am just bubbling with good excuses not to run!

The Hills

I’ve started to focus my runs lately on preparing myself for the torturous Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon in early August which has an elevation profile that resembles your 401K as of late (see here). The scenic route, made all that much more scenic when I am running on it, winds gently down the Clear Creek Valley and drops nearly 1000 feet between the start and finish. According to the race website it is “one of the most pleasurable races in the western US and one of the fastest,” what they don’t tell you is that it will completely shred your quads.

I’ve been getting myself ready for Georgetown by running a lot of the hills in and around our neighborhood. One evening last week whilst running the hills I had an epiphany, or maybe I just sharted, it’s so hard to tell the difference, but all of a sudden I realized why they named that MTV show The Hills: It is just as insufferable and uppity as actually running the hills. Both are equally painful, although I do feel good about myself after running the hills and that definitely cannot be said after watching The Hills.

In the hopes of staving off the quad shredding as long as possible I’m focusing on running down the hills during my training runs, but the crappy thing about running down a hill is that it usually means that at some point you’re going to have to run ‘uppity’ one. I suppose you could say that my training has been up and down, but not figuratively, literally. The other aspect of this race is that it is run at a high altitude which you might think that I would be used to since I’m in Denver but I just like to remind you all every now and then that I run at high altitude and you don’t. Although, even in Denver we’re only at an altitude of 5280 feet, and this race starts at 8500 feet and doesn’t get below 8000 feet until past the half way mark.

In order to better acclimate myself to the higher altitude I’ve been doing all my runs using only one lung. When I told Candis this she looked at me incredulously and said “what do you mean that you’re only using one of your lungs?” so I had to explain to her that there was less oxygen at higher altitudes and she was like “I know that, but how are you only using one of your lungs?” which completely surprised me that she didn’t know how to use only one of her lungs. I mean everyone knows that your right nostril goes to your right lung and your left nostril goes to your left lung. So I told her that I just breath in through one nostril instead of both and she rolled her eyes and called me an idiot, but she was the one that didn’t know how to breath into just one lung. Then, as if that wasn’t enough she tells me that using one nostril sends the air to both lungs and I cracked up laughing because clearly she thinks that people only have two lungs and I was like “well if we only have two lungs, one for each nostril, then where does the air go when I breathe in through my mouth?” She just shook her head and walked off, obviously realizing that she was wrong and couldn’t argue with my superior logic. So yeah, I’ve been practicing breathing with just one lung, that way when I run the race using all three lungs it will feel the same because there’s less oxygen at higher altitudes (because oxygen is afraid of heights).

One More Reason Not to Tri

Those of you who are familiar with Half-Fast will be wondering when I have ever really tried at anything but take another look at the headline you boneheads it says tri, not try.

As if I needed another reason not to do triathlons, news outlets are reporting that 40+ triathletes became sick after participating in the Boathouse International Triathlon in May. Officials believe that the cause of the sickness was the 1.5k swim in the Oklahoma River which tests have since revealed contained parasites, bacteria, flotsam and jetsam and more than double the accepted amount of E. coli for “primary body contact recreation in which there is a chance water could be ingested.” A chance water could be ingested? If I were to ever do a triathlon (which is waaaaaay less likely after this story) there is not a ‘chance’ of ingested water, it’s a certainty. I would swallow so much water that I wouldn’t need to hydrate on the bike, in fact I’d probably need a catheter.

Other reports stated that lab analysis of stool samples from several of the sick triathletes indicated “exposure to water that was contaminated with human or animal waste.” That’s disgusting. It’s no wonder those guys got sick, I’m getting ill just thinking about it.

Since the title of this post claims that this is one more reason that I’m not going to be doing triathlons anytime soon, allow me to tell you what the other reasons are. 1 Swimming. 2 Biking. 3 I don’t want to. 4 Vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. (See: symptoms of drinking parasitic, E. coli-laced river water.) 5 I don’t like catheters. Now you may be thinking that the fourth item belongs above swimming and biking but you’d be wrong. Swimming and biking are much worse. Besides I have a little secret that totally cures vomiting and diarrhea, it’s called Pepto-Bismol. If you don’t have any Pepto-Bismol handy then alternately, you can just not drink and swim in a river that has a history of fecal coliform pollution. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

[Story Source: USA Today]

On a more pleasant note, Candis completed her triathlon last Friday without any of the aforementioned symptoms. She finished in pretty much the same time as the last one she did in September even though this one had a slightly longer swim course (read: more time to be exposed to human and animal waste). In an effort to provide you with a positive race report I’m going to say that she totally rocked the bike portion and not much else. I will add that she finished 5th in her age group and would have been 3rd had she been able to run at anything close to her normal pace.

____________________________
I’m 10 for 10 on the running streak and will do run #11 after work today. The novelty is starting to wear off, so get ready for some of those whining posts that you’ve all been looking forward to.