Heart-Shaped Box

3 mile Heart-Shaped Box Loop

To keep things interesting, but still keep a finger on the pulse of how far I've gone on any given run, I often use pre-planned routes. When you can't get to a park with mile markers, don't have technology to take with you on the road, or don't want to do much more prep work than closing your laptop and stepping out your door, these Google mapped neighborhood runs are handy. On hotter days I keep the loops short, so I can hydrate & refuel in consistent intervals at a makeshift waterstation I have set up near home. It works out well because, despite early possible suspicions to the contrary, my neighbors, as far as I can tell, do not have designs against me, and leave my water/food supply alone while I'm spending hours at a time running patterns you might find in a box of Lucky Charms* past their windows at any given moment of the day or night. 

I've had this particular little 3 mile loop (the one shown above) mapped out for quite some time now. It's the least hilly of my running options that still covers the 3 mile range in one go**. Just yesterday, I was faced with a 13.1 mile run on my training schedule—the halfway half marathon, as it were, because there's only 8 weeks left of training!—and I went at it alone, as is often the case, running slight variations on this same heart-shaped pattern in just over 2 hours. 

This past week saw another kind of heart beat me to the punch: right smack dab in the middle of Tokyo. Joseph Tame ran his own half marathon with a course that resembles the ubiquitous Apple logo, as a thankful send off for Steve Jobs. I'm familiar with parts of the path he made this logo's run in, and am quite envious of the nice areas he ran through. If this is a race that catches on as something annual, I'd be interested to give it a go. 

See why iHeart Steve Jobs

Footnotes:

Last of the Less Than Halves

For those keeping track, I just wrapped up week 8 of marathon training, as if it were a birthday present for my cousin and all I had for paper was the comics section of last Sunday's newspaper. With the swift exit of taper week 6 (two Sundays ago), I've seen the last of my less than half marathon long distance runs. I've wandered into the uncertain terrain of Tusken Raiders' territory that I was initially intimidated by, way back when, while I was deciding over which training program to embrace for my second date with miss marathon. The weekends are where the intermediate milage really diverges the most from the Novice 1 & 2 programs. Higdon calls for 2 hefty runs stacked back to back at week's end. Saturdays are a medium distance "marathon pace"* run, and then there's Sundays' Oolong Tea slow distance run.

I've found it helpful, when no other scheduling conflicts are present, to separate my weekend long runs as much as possible; like prize fighters after that end of the round bell dings, returning to their respective corners to gather their strength before jumping back out into the ring to bludgeon each other with their padded fists. Which is exactly what happens when running the long runs, especially if you don't space them out adequately. The recipe for recovery, that has been doing coin & card based sleight of hand magic tricks for me, is resting in between bouts as much as possible. On Saturdays, I'll run as early in the morning as possible. As soon as the sun is in the sky, my feet are on the ground. Then, on Sundays, I'll push my longest run of the week as far into the evening as possible, without intentionally interfering with any HBO programs (though there's always On Demand, and not all of them are all that great anymore). 

Mondays are reserved for cross-training, usually cycling, which is a relief since those double digit socks full of quarters that are swung at my legs repeatedly on Sundays' LSDs don't really take too much of a toll on those slightly different muscles being exercised like Linda Blair the following day on Schwinny Cooper. When I was using Novice 1, for Tokyo 2011, the LSD was on Saturdays, leaving Sunday as a cross-training day, sandwiched between Friday & Monday rest days. It was a typical occurrence that the long run would leave me nearly incapacitated with ITBS symptoms, to the point where I often skipped out, or cut back, on the amount of cross-training I could do. Thankfully, so far, I've been able to adhere to a fully implemented cross-training routine of cycling or walking. I must admit, I do feel a benefit from "active resting" as cross-training sometimes seems to be, so I'm glad to feature it more prominently, or at least practice it more consistently, in my current training schedule. Looking over the Novice 1 schedule right now is slightly reassuring; if I've made it this far without incident, I must certainly be a better runner than I was back in December. 

During the moments prior to my first marathon, before we lined up for the race, there was a bit of nonchalant wisdom imparted on me while Vin was having a conversation with a fellow runner. It has stuck with me ever since hearing it, and it's practical advice, or if nothing more, a clear reality check, which I will share with you now. Vin was chatting it up with someone from his running club, an experienced marathon runner from Australia (I think). Vin was explaining his runner's knee injury during the training program we both followed, and he said, since he was concerned with further injury, "I'm in survival mode today". His fellow club runner, not even looking up from his seat, scratched his shoulder while he stared off out the window and muttered, "It's all survival mode". And there you have it folks; marathons: in summation, "It's all survival mode". Wise words indeed... 

Footnotes:

Running in the Rain

With the start of week 6 I had officially glided onto the center stage of the 2nd taper week on Hal Higdon's intermediate schedule, like I was auditioning for the Ice Capades. This was a rather notable week of training, because this was the last of the low mileage runs, the last of the less than halves, if you will. Sure, there's other taper weeks peppered throughout the coming schedule, but as of Sunday, I've seen my final single digit LSD—until the week prior to that rascally old marathon—and now I'm greeted accordingly by an across the board mid-week bump in distance. This is when the intermediate nature of the path I've chosen becomes ostensibly challenging, and who am I to argue otherwise? As for now...so far, so good.

Wednesday was exactly what I was waiting for: predictions of rain had meteorologists agreeing that the temperature would make a steep, almost instantaneous, drop, and I had been looking forward to running in a light summer rain ever since, well, summer started. So when I woke up in the morning to see a backdrop of clear skies and the same old mid-90's train traveling along the elevated heatwave track, I was more than mildly disappointed. So I waited for the weathermen to get it together, or the weather systems to bend to their collective will; one of the two was bound to happen eventually. In the interim, I was left pondering precipitation of past days on Philosopher's Way. 

Is there really ever a bad time to stroll down

Philosopher's Road (哲学の道)? 

and so...

Run For Your Lives!!!

With Halloween right around the corner—well, close enough, anyway—the horror fan in me rejoices for a season where I no longer have to look for sheepish excuses to repeatedly play Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead II, & Shaun of the Dead (or any number of movies with dead in the title really*); I can just do it without having to worry about being thought of as some sort of social deviant, for 'tis the season to be jolly...

But what's a running enthusiast to do during the autumnal equinox? Well...here on the horizon, coming to a Baltimore near you, we have Run For Your Lives, a fun looking 5-K race that embraces those basic survival instincts one might require during a zombie apocalypse. While I'm wearing my incredulous cap that the promo video might not be quite accurate to the actual event, I am intrigued that the event coordinators have seemingly found a way to blend the increasing popularity of mud running with the fantasy fulfilling horror thrills of a haunted hayride, but, presumably, without the tractor.

As I personally won't be able to participate in this run come October—I'll be half marathon & full marathoning my way through the streets of Tokyo & Osaka, respectively—I'm extremely interested in how they pull off this event. I'm hoping for its success to spread like the zombie plague, so that someday I'll have a chance to test my mettle against the pretend undead, you know, before the real thing is upon us. I am slightly reeling from sticker shock of the admittance fee on what is just a 5-K ($67!), but I also expect this to be one of the more unique running experiences of the year. It might be one of the few races that coming in last place, means you probably had the most fun, since, with multiple paths to choose from, you finish either as a survivor or a zombie**.

For more information go to the official site: here.

In the meantime, people looking to participate may want to brush up on their living dead knowledge by reading through Max Brook's The Zombie Survival Guide & World War Z. After that, maybe a viewing of The Adventures of Milo & Otis is mandatory. Not because it has anything to do with Zombies, but because after all this bleakness, what could be more appropriate to cleanse the palate than a quaint narrated tale of a puppy & kitten who fast become lifelong best friends?

Footnotes:
*Except for Dead Man Walking; that movie was nothing like I thought it was going to be.

**I am rather curious what the appetite of a vegan turned zombie would be. I posit that zombies crave brains because the human head is melon shaped, therefore a vegan zombie would raid the pumpkin patch—where Linus awaits the arrival of the Great Pumpkin—sinking his or her teeth deep into hordes of gourds found within.

Quinoa Sushi

Continuing with the trend of failing successfully, I tried my hand at making quinoa sushi over the weekend. It was my first attempt at working with quinoa beyond just being a base for something else as the main dish, and while I can't claim it a culinary masterpiece, I will say that I tasted the potential for something special enough that I'm willing to go at it again in the near future, in order to perfect it.

Nori Maki Roll + Assorted Veggies

The main issue, as you might gather from looking at the near crumbling columns in the photo above, is that, unlike short-grain rice, quinoa doesn't cling to itself very well. So once you slice into the norimaki, you are instantly at odds with an avalanche of sandlike grains dropping onto your plate as if you just flipped over an hourglass and you're desperately running out of time trying to keep it all together well enough to eat it in a decidedly decent manner. Quinoa sushi, is basically the "sloppy Joe" of sushis.

If you had planned on dipping your sushi in the traditional soy sauce dish, forget about it. Introducing liquid to the quinoa equation will exacerbate the already delicate situation. It essentially melts away like tossing a bucket of water on the wicked witch of the west. Oh, what a world, what a world....

Though this is technically a failure, I've already formulated ideas for succeeding the next time the sushi mood strikes me like a katana blade to the stomach. Maybe this time around I overstepped my boundaries and tempted fate by introducing too many outside elements that were never meant to be sushi: quinoa, spinach*, & sweet potato** being the main culprits, but I also used carrots & the more traditional kappa (cucumber). I'll certainly post any further discoveries in the swashbuckling misadventures of amateur sushi making, but for now I leave you with a failed swipe at glory; one in which I swallowed my pride, as much as I swallowed a paucity of blundered plunders. Moving on...

Footnotes: