Wednesday: 4.5 miles in 31:46. I ran over at RIS on the gravel path for a couple of miles until police lights and a rogue raccoon drew me away from my course. Around the corner from where I was running a woman had hit a man with her car. She got out to help him and was herself hit. The man survived but the woman did not. This gave me a lot to think about that night, especially considering all the night running I've been doing and the couple of near misses I have documented in this here blog. You get to pondering your mortality and thinking back to the economic and ethics courses I've taken. Without getting to heavy in this brief summary of my week and in the remaining 10 minutes of my run, I began to contemplate the worth of an individual life as only a trained economist would: value. I compared my standing with other people in a general sense and you realize the significantly more important lives of fathers and mothers, people with dependents who rely on the existence of a person. I suppose that is the best way to value life. The shin felt really bad and I was easily convinced to go out to trivia where I had a pitiful performance, not sure how the team did as I ducked out early to make sure I actually slept before work.
Thursday: 3 miles in 22:32 on the treadmill over at NBD. My shin continued to feel pretty lousy and I tried to adjust the treadmill in accordance with some advice I received from Johnny Van Deventer around this time last year. He had tried running on one of those alterG treadmills, the kind that reduce your body weight and allow you to run without putting the same amount of stress on ye olde bones. They are amazing and I'd love to have one to train on considering the fragility of my skeletal system. Anyway, he mentioned that he had to put the treadmill on a slight incline to take some of the stress off of the lower legs but that it also made his stride a bit more natural. I gave it a shot and putting it around the 1 or 2 incline made the pain in my shin a little less. So that was good. It didn't feel great, but it felt better than worse. I did a lot more balance exercises and some oblique work with the kettle weights. I showered up, made dinner, and headed over to Huge Jim's to work on some music. We are playing a benefit concert for the Soundstation in February and are still working out our set list which will mostly be original music. We toyed around with some covers and tried some dueling bass action and it was good fun.
Friday: I took off because my shin felt terrible when I woke up and though it felt a little better over the course of the day, by the time I would have a chance to run, I had to drive down to New Brunswick for a fundraiser for the GSTC. We had to pack a Road Runner Sports and buy a certain amount of product in order to get $2,000 from the store. It definitely worked out and I even loosened the purse strings and got some new running shorts and some calf sleeves. Yes, calf sleeves. They are compression and I have been wearing them 24/7. I bought them in neon pink because, as is true with KT Tape, it is gear which in my mind is the equivalence of being beaten. At the same time, as the KT Tape did with my achilles, I believe it has made a significant difference in my legs.
Saturday: I woke up and the legs felt great. I met Papa Rolls at his house and went for an easy 6 in 39:50. We were rolling at around 6:15 pace for most of the run and everything felt great. I went to Grad School and definitely was flying under the radar with only smelling slightly of my run - yes, I changed and deodorized. Only Lizzie was fully aware of my state and I appreciate what I believe to have been her discretion at keeping it that way. I got back and immediately went for a 20 mile ride in 1:26:35 (that 13mph ride doesn't sound impressive but it really, really hurt) with KB who has probably been hitting the refresh button on his computer waiting for his shout out. We rode up into the Watchung Mountains then over into Watchung before heading back and doing a short loop around town. He definitely put me through some hurt at points as the climbs were wiiiiiiiiiiiiindy. I hadn't felt that kind of fatigue in a long time, probably during some hill workouts in college. It was awesome catching up with KB and this is where I look back nostalgically and repeat a brief skeleton of our conversation back to KB as we reminisce. We talked about work, relationships, his upcoming move to SanFran, and about people in a very general sense of the word, again. We watched Troy and ate bagel bites after the ride and unfortunately didn't meet up later that night as was planned. I headed to Guitar Center with Huge Jim and sold off an old instrument and bought a new loop pedal which will make songwriting about a thousand times easier. I then headed into Newark with the Cabin Boy for some with the TFA crew. I lost money, got lost on a nacho run to Bello's where non-asian Kevin and I ended up in Harrison as we tried to dodge a bad accident on McCarter. A delicious ride.
Sunday: 9.5 in 1:00:17 from the Sneaker Factory with Papa Rolls. Negative split by about a minute over a hilly course that included going up Wyoming, South Orange Ave, through a part of South Mountain, and back again. There were hills going both way but it was mostly downhill coming back and coming down Wyoming we were running down around 5:40 pace. Felt easy, felt good, and I will take it. The shin felt great until the pounding downhills but it felt pretty good afterward and after my nap at my brothers. Also, best way to wake from a nap might be having an adorable 11 month baby walk over and through himself onto your chest. You can't even be upset by that. I got back, toyed around with my new pedals, wrote a couple new songs, and watched Forrest Gump. I may have cried a couple of times during the film but now I have to end this post as I do not feel like watching the SAG Awards, aka rich actors patting themselves on the back for being such great members of our society.
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Week in Review
Next week's goal: 41 miles, 1 bike ride, 2 lifts
Monday 36 minutes 5.5 miles
Tuesday 39 minutes 6 miles
Wednesday 32 minutes 4.5 miles
Thursday 22 minutes 3 miles
Friday 0 minutes 0 miles
Saturday 40 minutes 6 miles; 86 minutes 20 miles ride
Sunday 60 minutes 9.5 miles
Totals: 316 minutes 35 miles (-6 miles)
Next week's goal: 41 miles, 1 bike ride, 2 lifts
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