Hmmm

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5.25 miles in 54:17 today. I did the first half at under 160bpm then cranked it up to 175 – 180 for the last half. I’m start­ing to learn to relax into a longer stride and lean for­ward so that I’m always falling for­ward and catch­ing myself, just like that Lau­rie Ander­son song. it makes it a lot eas­i­er to keep mov­ing for­ward when grav­i­ty is doing the work for me.

One killer advan­tage of run­ning out­doors instead of on the tread­mill is that I’m get­ting used to see­ing the world go past at a faster pace. Some­times when I’m walk­ing down the side­walk I see the path ahead of me like a video game, like I could sprint to the left, jump up on the trash can, pro­pel myself off the side of the wall and land on the hood of that Cadil­lac, roll across the roof and dash across the street. You know, if I want to get past those tourists in front of me.

Now if I will just start slim­ming down and look­ing bet­ter, the world will be com­plete. (yeah, right)

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, now I want a nap.

Published by splicer

16 Replies to “Hmmm”

  1. The rea­son I run on a
    The rea­son I run on a tread­mill is that I run so fast that, even if out­side, every­thing goes by at such a blur that I can’t see it anyway. 🙂

  2. Yeah, you are a men­ace on
    Yeah, you are a men­ace on two feet. You’re always run­ning over old ladies and orphans. I’m glad you slow down when you drive.

    I swear you must aim for the orphans.

  3. Well, it’s a point sys­tem,
    Well, it’s a point sys­tem, you see. More points for cer­tain, so-called, help­less per­sons. The more help­less, the greater the sat­is­fac­tion AND num­ber of points awarded.

    The Flash

  5. It’s good that you’re
    It’s good that you’re run­ning, but the books I’ve read about run­ning say that lean­ing for­ward and try­ing to length­en your stride are not the things to do. Also, how come you’re run­ning near your heart’s thresh­old? Aren’t you sup­posed to be work­ing on endurence? It sounds like you’re work­ing out in zones 3 and 4 when you’d see the most gains in your endurance if you ran in zone 2.

    I’ve got a book or two you might want to check out.

    Also, were you able to resched­ule things so we can ride on Sunday?

  6. Wow.… anx­ious­ly await­ing
    Wow.… anx­ious­ly await­ing your email.

    Did it have any­thing to do with you mov­ing to SF and becom­ing one of my new housemates?

    If you had the same dream that did, I’ll be real­ly freaked out.

  7. I’ll e‑mail you as soon as
    I’ll e‑mail you as soon as my com­pa­ny leaves…butit involved some weird naked group pho­to, you hav­ing an obses­sion with Eng­lish soaps, some time warp train sta­tion thing…and oth­er unusu­al things.

  8. Def­i­nite­ly not this Sun­day,
    Def­i­nite­ly not this Sun­day, but after that it’s look­ing better.

    I’m run­ning near my heart’s thresh­old because if I were going any slow­er I’d be walk­ing. So maybe I should be walk­ing, but I refuse. Also, because I have this psy­cho­log­i­cal thing that says I’m not work­ing out if I don’t get to breathe hard some­times. Run­ning at 160bpm does not involve breath­ing hard. 

    Run­ning faster is fun­ner; run­ning slow­er is tedious. Hav­ing a lit­tle bit of fun out there makes a big dif­fer­ence in me going back to it the next time. 

    It seems like my lungs are capa­ble enough, and my legs are capa­ble enough. What I think I need to do to build endurance is strength­en my heart. And isn’t 80 – 85% of maxHR a good lev­el for strength­en­ing my heart? That’s 155 – 165 and mak­ing sure I stay in that range seems to have been pret­ty good for me.

    As far as tak­ing longer strides, I notice that when I get tired I tend to take short­er, quick­er steps and I end up spend­ing a lot of ener­gy bounc­ing up and down but not get­ting any­where. When I slow and length­en my pace it becomes eas­i­er and I get to where I want to go faster. I seri­ous­ly doubt that any rep­utable books or coach­es rec­om­mend tak­ing lit­tle tiny steps.

  9. crap. I just wrote a WAY
    crap. I just wrote a WAY too long mes­sage that I’m now going to summarize.

    Until you’ve been run­ning for a few months, you should train in the 60%-70% heart rate range. Your max­i­mum heart rate is 186 (220 minus your age)
    60%-70% is 111 – 130
    80%-85% is 149 to 158

    Run­ners, espe­cial­ly begin­ners, often run too fast and fair­ly quick­ly injure them­selves. Run (or walk quick­ly) in the 60 – 70% zone for sev­er­al months before train­ing faster than that. You should be able to have a con­ver­sa­tion while run­ning (or walk­ing) if you are with­in that range. So much for heavy breathing.

    Any­way, I’m not going to retype the pas­sages about how foot speed is much more impor­tant than stride length — and how try­ing to strength­en your stride can lead to injury. And yes, the author does say that it might feel like baby steps, but until you’re tak­ing 90 steps with your right foot per minute, you should work on improv­ing your step turnover before you try to length­en your stride.

  10. Well, obvi­ous­ly my actu­al
    Well, obvi­ous­ly my actu­al maxHR is not real­ly 186. And again you’re mak­ing assump­tions that direct­ly con­tra­dict what I’ve described as my actu­al expe­ri­ence. I can absolute­ly car­ry a con­ver­sa­tion or sing loud­ly at 170bpm. 170bpm is not me breath­ing hard. I’m out of breath when I’m run­ning at a HR of 195, which is what I’ve been doing for the last year or more until I got the HR mon­i­tor and could actu­al­ly watch my heartrate as I went along. OBVIOUSLY run­ning at 195bpm is a bad idea.

    But I guess I should con­sid­er that maybe you’re right. Maybe I should give up run­ning and just walk. I know I won’t do that though, because walk­ing will be a chore and run­ning is actu­al­ly fun.

    Three steps per sec­ond (count­ing both feet) sounds fast, but it sounds fast for ped­al cadence on the bike, too, and on the bike it’s actu­al­ly a mod­er­ate cadence. Next time I run (which may not be until I get back from Ten­nessee) I’ll try count­ing and see how I’m doing.

    So where do you stand on the heel-toe ver­sus run­ning-on-tip­toe con­tro­ver­sy? Seems like that’s a sprint­er ver­sus run­ner thing.

  11. I won­der if your heart
    I won­der if your heart mon­i­tor is giv­ing you the wrong data. 186 is a pret­ty fast heartrate. I think what Max­i­mum heart rate means in these terms is “this is the fastest your heart should beat — if it’s beat­ing faster than this you’re putting too much strain on it”. I know that in high school I some­times got my heart rate up to 210 – 220 or so, and I was 16 – 17 years old. That does­n’t work with that for­mu­la that every­one uses either.

    How­ev­er, if you can car­ry on a con­ver­sa­tion at 170, you’re in a lot bet­ter shape than I am. 

    I don’t think you should give up run­ning. I just don’t want you to injure your­self. I’d be so stoked if you were a run­ner for the rest of your life!

    Run­ning on tip-toes does­n’t real­ly work for me. I think you’re right, that’s more of a sprint­er thing. I’m a heal-toe kind of guy.

    Why are you going to Ten­nessee? And when?

    Oh, and I don’t know if I men­tioned in my post (I’d copied 4 – 5 pas­sages from var­i­ous books before I acci­den­tal­ly erased every­thing and had to start over) I’ll be around this Sun­day, Next Sun­day and then again on May 23rd.

    We’re also hav­ing a Bar­beque which you’ll receive an invi­ta­tion to on Sun­day May 16th, so please put that on your cal­en­dar and try to come over for that.

    Also, I have some­thing for you — I’ll get it to you when you get back from Tennessee.

  12. “Max­i­mum heart rate” does
    “Max­i­mum heart rate” does NOT mean “the num­ber at which your heart explodes.”

    It is, as you said, the high­est SAFE rate, and just because some­one’s used to exceed­ing their appro­pri­ate rate does­n’t make it safe or healthy.

    How­ev­er, there are some peo­ple, and in some mat­ters I am one of them, who absolute­ly can­not be told “you have to walk before you run.” 🙂

    With Amer­i­cans’ Puri­tan her­itage, the “no pain, no gain” pro­gram­ming is hard for us to shake off. Any­thing of val­ue MUST require pain, sac­ri­fice, hard work, heavy breath­ing, mus­cle ache, sweat, and EFFORT, my god it’s got­ta involve huge steam­ing piles of EFFORT or it can­not be of value.

  13. Hey… unre­lat­ed to run­ning,
    Hey… unre­lat­ed to run­ning, but I found you lj doing a google search for Janet Laval­ley. I was a huge fan of Tribe in the 90s… I was won­der­ing if you had her solo album. I thought the thing was­n’t released… I’ve been look­ing for addi­tion­al music by Janet/Tribe for years, but with­out much luck!

  14. I don’t have it, but I would
    I don’t have it, but I would LOVE to get my hands on a boot­leg of the album. I gath­er that Sony Music just shelved it, for which I believe they should be tried for crimes against humanity.

    adding “Janet LaVal­ley” to my keywords

  15. i have 4 of the songs from
    i have 4 of the songs from that unre­leased disc in dig­i­tal for­mat, the rest on tape.…
    it’s very good mate­r­i­al. sony was insane.
    janet is such a great vocal­ist. it’s a shame the way her voice got buried in the mix on “sleep­er.” maybe the album would have gone far­ther if they just let her out of the cage. she’s clear and up front here and you feel it.

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