Monochromatic Outlook

Safe­ly off the air­plane and back on home turf. As much as I did­n’t want to leave, I have to admit that it’s nice to be back in San Fran­cis­co. The trip to Nashville was too short, but it will be nice to sleep in my own bed and it’s already nice to hit famil­iar spots instead of being a guest in a strange city.

Had din­ner at the World Wrapps by Safe­way on Mar­ket Street. There’s a woman I … Read the rest

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 … Read the rest

…but of course it did­n’t occur to me until today.

When A. drove me home last night she asked me whether I con­sid­er myself to be a Bud­dhist or a Chris­t­ian, instead of the mean­der­ing long-wind­ed answer I gave I should have sim­ply said,

“I con­sid­er myself bisectual.”… Read the rest

6.0 miles today, the far­thest I’ve ever run. And I did it in 56:52. I paid atten­tion to my heartrate, but those last two miles were real tough for me and I was up to 180 for most of it. I kept my heartrate clos­er to 160 for the first two miles but it got pro­gres­sive­ly more chal­leng­ing from there.

I have to be care­ful about this ten­den­cy to think a run “does­n’t count” unless I … Read the rest

5.25 miles, 53:53. Took 3 min­utes off of the first time I ran this course. That makes me feel real good. I also kept a close eye on my heartrate, tried to stay down clos­er to 165, but I did catch myself up at 170 and even 175.

I’m notic­ing that there are a cou­ple spe­cif­ic events at which I have to check my heartrate: when I pass by a beau­ti­ful woman, and … Read the rest

I read a Star Trek nov­el recent­ly. Or actu­al­ly, I’ll admit to read­ing two of them. The first was pret­ty decent low-rent enter­tain­ment. The oth­er was hor­ren­dous­ly bad.

I’m try­ing to think up a term for an entire cast of char­ac­ters that are reflec­tions of the author’s own van­i­ty. A «Mary Sue» is a char­ac­ter in genre (usu­al­ly fan) fic­tion who rep­re­sents the author’s fan­ta­sy of her­self. She’s usu­al­ly the extra crew mem­ber who becomes well-liked by all the main char­ac­ters … Read the rest

Today while run­ning, I saw a woman wear­ing a pink dress and a match­ing pink iPod mini. I hate to admit it, but that was real­ly damn hot.… Read the rest

5.25 miles along the Embar­cadero, from Jef­fer­son and Pow­ell to SBC Park and back, in 56:52. I kept my heartrate under 170 most of the way, although I caught myself creep­ing up as high as 175 a cou­ple of times, but I eased back as soon as I saw it.

170 is still out­side my range… that’s about 91% of what my maxHR is sup­posed to be. I should be stay­ing clos­er to the 70… Read the rest

4.0 miles in 37:21 on real out­door pave­ment, not the tread­mill. That’s the far­thest I’ve ever run out­doors. I was think­ing about going for the fifth lap to make it five miles, but after my pace dropped dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the fourth mile after run­ning three steady 8:45 miles, so I fig­ured that was a good sign that it was about time to call it a day.

I’m a lit­tle con­cerned because I feel like I’m … Read the rest

For Katie, who was tak­en too young, raped and beat­en until she was no more. I’m sor­ry I tried to for­get; I was almost as young as you were and I did­n’t know that I could sur­vive knowing.

For Ann, who took her own life. You were a fel­low suf­fer­ing being. I wish I could have shared in your pain and com­fort­ed you the way you reached out and com­fort­ed me after the earthquake.

For Rachel, who over­dosed twen­ty years … Read the rest