Dow 10k (and 1 mile) Run

I ran the Dow Run 10k this Saturday.  I ran the race last year (which was my first ever 10k), and finished in 44:35 (7:11 pace) which I was pretty happy with.  Last year, I wanted to finish under 45:00, which I beat by 25 seconds, but I was a bit disappointed when I found out that I'd taken 4th in my age group (AG) by only 5 seconds.  Surely, somewhere in the 6.2 miles I could have cut a corner a little tighter, or uttered one sentence fewer to a friend in the first mile, or done something to shave off those 5 seconds.

This year, I've run 60% more miles, but I didn't seem to be any faster than last year (foreshadowing).  So I came into the race not expecting much.  My goal was to finish in 44:30, to at least show some improvement and, in a sense, win 3rd place from the year before.  Obviously, AG placement is very dependent on who else chooses to race that day.

The course is super flat, and fairly boring, in my opinion.  It mostly wanders through neighborhoods in town, and thankfully has enough turns that you can focus on the next corner rather than the runners pulling away from you out front.  My strategy was to run as close to even 7:15 splits as possible for the first 4 miles or so, and then see what was left in the tank to make up a bit of time over the last few miles. I don't have a fancy GPS watch, so I have to rely on my mental math during the race, and my ability to remember where I was afterward to figure out what happened.  Both years, I've learned that my brain quits working after 4 miles.

Mile 1: 7:25
I really didn't want to go out too fast, in which I succeeded.  I stayed near other runners with the fancy watches to over hear them talking a bit about the pace just to make sure.

Mile 2: 14:33 / 7:08 mile / 7:18 pace
I tried really hard throughout the race to think about my form and run easy and light.  I kept within site of a friend who ran it in 42:43 last year and has nice running form.  Whenever I'd look up at him, I'd remember to relax and run correctly.

Mile 3: 21:40 / 7:07 mile / 7:13 pace
I seemed rather alone on the course during mile 3, but started making up ground on half a dozen runners who were about 100 yards ahead.

Mile 4: 28:40 / 7:00 mile / 7:10 pace
A friend of mine running the race said that this is about where he lost sight of me, but that throughout the race I looked like I was running effortlessly.  I really appreciated this comment.  I managed to work past 10 or so runners through miles 4 and 5, before once again ending up by myself.  No one in front for a hundred yards, and no one behind that I was aware of. (Maybe they were there but running very quietly.)

Mile 5: ??:??
Brain shutting down.  About all I could concentrate on at this point was my form and not letting myself take off early and running out of gas.

Mile 6: ??:??
I kept telling myself that at 40:00 I could kick it up a gear in effort and that's about what I did. I had to slow down slightly maybe about a third of a mile from the finish line, because I didn't think I could hold the increased pace, but I was still going pretty darn fast. I passed one more person with in the final hundred yards, and pulled even with another guy, but he wasn't going to let me past, and I didn't have anything left to push with.  He beat me by 1 second.  (But don't worry, turns out he was 17, and thus not in my AG.)

Finish: 43:08 / 6:57 pace
As I crossed the finish line, I didn't really grasp what I'd just done.  I knew it was a significant improvement over the year before, but I couldn't remember the exact time.  I also couldn't even begin to divide 43:08 by 6.2 to calculate the pace. (I have a degree in physics and love to do math problems like this in my head.  The easy way is to know that it was somewhere around a 7:00 pace, so start with 7:00 * 6.2 = (7*6)+(7*0.2) = 42 + (7*1/5) = 42 + 7/5 = 43 + 2/5 = 43:24.  From there I was 16 seconds faster and 16 seconds over 6.2 miles is about 2 or 3 seconds, so I was at about a 6:57 pace.  But, in my stupor, I couldn't do the math, nor could I even think of a way to do the math.)  I got some food and water, and it wasn't until I was talking to a friend who told me I'd gone under 7 minute miles.  I was very surprised.  The math on the final 2.2 miles is that I did them in about 14:28, which is a 6:35 pace.  I'm still puzzled by that number, because it doesn't seem reasonable, but apparently I did it.  Hooray!

The official results are:
43:08 10k -- PR by 1:27
9th out of 265 overall
9th out of 129 men (where were all the fast women this year?)
2nd out of 26 AG (30-34)

After my race, I gave myself 45 minutes to tighten up, and then did a 1-mile run with Julia.  She ran the entire time and finished in 10:23, which was about 3 minutes faster than I anticipated.  About three quarters of the way through she looked up at me and said "this is kinda fun!".  Afterward she asked if she could run the 5k next year.  I told her she'd have to wait for a few years . . .

Spring is finally showing up here in Michigan. It turns out this pile of sticks

Spring is finally showing up here in Michigan. It turns out this pile of sticks I was staring at all winter is really a rhododendron! The other bush in the picture has a cardinal nest in it. As a further bonus, our grass also comes with dozens of little yellow flowers. Yay spring!

Born to Run

I've been reading a lot lately, which means I've been scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to read.  I devoted nearly a year of my life to the Wheel of Time, and I finished that a few months ago.  So, it came down to me instructing Shannon to just find me something interesting at the library on a recent trip there with the girls.  Shannon generally does a pretty good job of this, and she brought home a stack of books, including one that I'd been avoiding for a few years.

"Born to Run - A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" was written by Christopher McDougall in 2009, and you've probably heard of it.  It's probably the single most significant driving force behind the barefoot/minimalist running movement that has grown over the last decade.  The graph below shows the number of google searches over the last half dozen years for "barefoot running" "tarahumara" and "minimalist running".  The terms all show a nice surge through 2009, with the highest blue spike in August.  "Born to Run" spent the first of it's 15 non-consecutive weeks on the New York Times best sellers list on June 7th.  You can mouse-over for specific dates info.

[I think it's interesting to see that "barefoot running" shows seasonal variation, with high searches in the spring and summer.  "Tarahumara" shows a peak with the release of the book, and a general decline afterwards; though it is still above pre-book levels.  "Minimalist running" however, has a much more constant increase over time, and doesn't seem to have been influenced much by the book.  Another note: Utah is 1st, 2nd and 1st, respectively, in searching for these terms.]

Anyway, it's clear that somewhere in the 2009/2010 time frame, barefoot or minimalist running became a bit of a fad.  Minimalist running shoe sales went from $450,000 in 2006 to $59,000,000 in 2012 (wikipedia).  I like to run, but I don't like fads.  (Or at least, I like to imagine that I don't like fads, which is probably what just about everyone tells themselves.)  Whatever it was about this book that was driving the whole world to kick off their shoes, eat chia, decry traditional training practices, villainize Nike and vow to become an ultramarathoner, it sounded suspicious to me.

As I've documented, in 2012 I played around with running barefoot a little bit, got some minimalist shoes and then haven't run in a standard shoe since.  I'm about 300 miles in to my KSOs, which are showing some wear, and I've generally enjoyed them.  I've run exactly one race in them, a 10k, which I had never run before, so I honestly can't say much for the specific results.  I've not sustained a significant running injury in them, but, I never had a significant running injury in traditional shoes, despite many more miles and a marathon in them.  [Well, I probably had a mild to moderate case of shin splints back in 2000 or 2001.]

But this was supposed to be a book review.  So here goes.  I finally read the book, because I figured I had enough of my own opinion that I could read it without being swayed unduly by all the witch-doctory-ness that had captivated the rest of the country.  The book is very entertaining.  McDougall writes for various magazines (Men's Health, Runner's World, Outside Men's Journal, Esquire, etc.) and was a oft-injured recreational runner.  He got started down a story about the Tarahumara, which grabbed his interest and lead to the book.

The Tarahumara are native americans(?) (native mexicans?) who live in the mountains of northern Mexico (southwest of the city of Chihuahua).  They're poor farmers, who live about how you'd expect poor native farmers to live, without running water, electricity or much else.  Oh, and they're basically the best distance runners in the world.  They're pretty content to keep to themselves, but when people have managed to get them out to run in races like a 100 mile race through the mountains of Colorado, they'd win.

The first half of the book focuses almost entirely on the history and stories of the Tarahumara as well as some significant American ultramarathons and ultramarathoners.  I kept waiting for it to get to the part that ignited a running revolution.  It eventually got there, but not as forcefully as I'd expected.  (Though, perhaps my expectations made it seem less forceful.)  The author gets into theories on evolution and to what extent humans are designed for distance running.

The book is very entertaining, and tells a terrific story of some amazing races.  It's not going to drastically change anything I do, but maybe that's just because I'm stubborn.  ;)  Oh, and it did get me out the door for 8.75 miles yesterday, my longest run in over 2 years.

No one was available to play the fishing game with Ella so she decided to play

No one was available to play the fishing game with Ella, so she decided to play with Winston (our fish) and Soggy Baby (the doll). I'm not sure if Winston really likes this game much.

Cross country skiing is a bit trickier with 30 pounds on your back.

Cross country skiing is a bit trickier with 30 pounds on your back.

Just finished shoveling. Doesn't it look nice? More snow this month than the las

Just finished shoveling. Doesn't it look nice? More snow this month than the last 18 put together I think. My cross country skis are calling to me today.

Feet

I just hope someone goes for a walk in the snow this evening and spends a few minutes wondering who on earth left behind these footprints.

Room by Room pt 3

Continuing our tour through our new house, today we're looking at:

ANOTHER TRIPLE FEATURE -- Upstairs Bathroom / Main Floor Bathroom / Downstairs SpiderRoom Bathroom

Who wants to talk about bathrooms?  If you raised your hand, it might have to ask you to please leave my blog and never return.  They're a necessary part of the house, for sure.  And we spend more time there than we probably realize.  Plus, our house has 4 of them.  Yes, when we get home from a long road trip, we can all run to the bathroom at the same time!  If that's not living it up, I don't know what is.  I've covered the master bath, so today we'll cover the other 3.

The upstairs bathroom is doomed to a life of elastic bands and blonde hair all over the floor.  This bath has the only bathtub in the house, and a fair amount of drawers and storage space.  (Like hot sauce and winter weather, descriptions of the size of storage space has as much to do with what you're used to as it does with what you have.)  There is some potential dead space in the back behind the tub that has been utilized with some glass shelves that go from wall to wall (it's only 2 feet or so) which is a nice use of space.  The mirror is big and nice, and the lights dim, so you can set the right mood for forcing your children to brush their teeth.

One thing that the previous owners apparently didn't believe in is toilet paper roll holders.  Neither this bathroom, nor the one on the main floor had one until this morning.  While willing to leave the TP homeless and left to a nomadic life sitting on the counter (not entirely fair from me here; the previous owners had a free-standing TP holder) the bathroom does have a very important blow dryer holster mounted to the wall.  I'm not sure why suspending the blow dryer 3 inches above the counter is better than setting it down, but surely there must be a reason.  The hook total keeps climbing in this room, with 6 mounted on the back of the door for towels and whatnot. 

The main floor bath is just a little half bath which hides behind a pocket door.  I don't know what, it is about pocket doors, but I've always liked them.  This bathroom has a medicine cabinet as well as a small wall-mounted shelf, which helps make up for the fact that there is no enclosed storage underneath the sink.  Whatever you put down there the whole world has to look at.

I really like the water-pump style faucet.  We need more reading material in there, because I can tell you that the paint job is mediocre.  All the bathrooms in the house are equipped with exhaust fans, but this bathroom has one with an additional built in light!  Oooooh!

In our first trip to the basement on the tour, we'll take a look at the oft-forgotten 4th bathroom. (I imagine this tour being done in the style of "Clue" (the movie) with us all running from room to room in whatever random order I'm choosing for this tour.)  This bathroom has a shower and is fully functional, though clearly not all that nice.  But, it does have a TP holder, and a hook for a towel.

I have yet to use the facilities down here, and in the month we've been in the home we've probably only used it once or twice.  I've found a few spiders down here, which isn't surprising, and doesn't make me want to start making any regular visits.  The purpose of this bathroom is just to save us from an accident when some kid is playing downstairs too long and suddenly realizes that they've got to go RIGHT NOW.  In a few more years, I'm sure there will be some sleepovers down there, and we'll be able to lock the kids down there and hopefully not hear from them all night long.

Best thing: The faucet in the main floor bath just manages to beat out the pocket door.

Worst thing: Spiders!

Room by Room, pt 2

Continuing our tour through our new house, today we're looking at:

 

TRIPLE FEATURE -- Ella's Room / Julia's Room / Green Room !!!!

My attention span is way too short to go through one room at a time.  And besides, bedrooms are kinda boring.  4 walls, a door and a closet.  But, here we go:

The Green Room wasn't just named so because it was our staging room while working on our master bedroom.  It's also really green.  With, of course, the blue, yellow and red stripes down at the bottom.  The room makes me feel like I'm inside a Crayola box.  It's easily the biggest of the other three bedrooms, but has the most glaring downsides, which are the color, the very small closet (only about 4 feet wide), and the world's worst curtains.  Seriously, they're yellow, barely opaque at all, and remind me of making curtains out of a low quality used Jr. Jazz jersey.  But other than that, the room is great!  The room is currently empty, because we really don't need it right now.  Someday we'll either have some guests to make use of it, or perhaps another kid.  We don't have any furniture to go in there, so for now it stays empty.

 

Julia's room is the most boring of the rooms.  White walls, regular closet and non-hideous curtains.  She was very excited about the pink light switch cover, though, which was her main reasoning for picking the room.  With both girls we haven't worried about the quality or color of the paint on the walls because I don't think we'll ever be seeing it much.  Julia has already done a pretty good job of getting her artwork up on the walls.  I'm sure Ella won't be far behind.  As we now have a basement where girls can play and toys can be messy, we're trying to strike a balance between toys and messes in their rooms vs the basement.  Evidently Julia still prefers her room for cutting pieces of paper into confetti.  The girls also got to pick rugs out for their bedrooms.  Julia very specifically wanted something pink and fuzzy.  We went to 5 or 6 stores before finding this one, which didn't quite put her into over-the-top euphoria, but at least made her happy.  (She wanted an oval rug.)

 

Ella's room is very much like Julia's.  It's square, same closet, blue and grey walls (very masculine) and ok-sized, but not huge.  It came with a move-in surprise, however: the hanging chair!  This has been a big hit with both the girls from the very beginning.  We weren't expecting it to come with the house, but it did, and we're ok with that.  I've been very diligent about reminding everyone that it is a chair, not a swing, even to the point of correcting people if they don't call it a chair.  (They're all probably getting tired of that.)  Amazingly, Julia hasn't thrown any fits over the fact that the chair is in Ella's room and not hers.  She hasn't demanded her own chair, either.  All I can think of is that she considers the chair and the pink light switch cover a fair trade.  No complaints from her means no complaints from me.

 

Best thing: The swing chair.

 

Worst thing: The terrible yellow curtains.  But since those are so easily thrown away and replaced, I'll change my vote to the very small closet in the Green Room.  If anyone ever lives in there, they might complain about that, particularly if they're a teen-age girl.

Room by Room

About a month ago, we moved out of our apartment and into a house.  As both of our blogs went almost completely dark.  (Not that my blog isn't prone to doing that from time to time anyway.)  As virtually all readers of my blog live far away from here, and realistically will never come visit, I figured I'd give a tour of our home, one room at a time.  We gave Shannon's parents a skype-tour by carrying the laptop around the house, but you'll have to ask them if it was useful, or just nauseating.

We start the tour with: the Master Bedroom

We're heading straight to my bedroom, because it's already had a partial unveiling on facebook.  This room is the only one that required work before we could move in.  Yes, a purple paint job (with bronze/copper by the windows!) moved the room into the "requires work" category.  I think a picture is in order so you can appreciate what we had to work with:

Because we've got 4 bedrooms, Shannon and lived in the Green Room (pun intended) until the master could be repainted.  Together, Shannon and I had zero prior painting experience.  But, armed with videos from the internet, advice from Home Depot employees and the firm knowledge that it can't get worse than purple, we painted our room gray ("Manhattan Mist") with white trim, to match the already white baseboards.  Before I allow anyone into my bedroom, I think I'll make them sign a waiver to never closely inspect the paint job.  It's not perfect, but so long as I keep the photos sufficiently small on my blog, it looks pretty good.

The room is 12'x15' or so, with the two window bump-outs.  On one side of the room we have a walk-in closet which is probably about 4'x10'.  It's sufficient for our needs, and thankfully not purple.  On the other side of the room is the master bath.  The shower is a bit on the small side, but everything works, and we've got a total of eight electrical outlets.  Let's see . . . curling iron, straightening iron, blow dryer, electric razor, air freshener, electric toothbrush (x2) and . . . I can't even think of an 8th thing to plug in.  Suggestions?  (Christmas present opportunities?)  Not that we even own half the things I listed, or regularly use those that we do have.  For the record, I'm not sure if all 8 are on one circuit.  They're all next to each other, so I assume they are, in which case you may not be able to run all those things at once anyway.  Two recurring things I'll be highlighting on our tour are dimmer switches and hooks.  We have at least 11 dimmer switches, and close to 40 hooks.  (I'm not sure of the number, but we'll all know by the time we're done.)  Our bedroom and bathroom both have dimmer switches.  I guess it's nice to set the amount of light in my bedroom and bathroom at just the levels I want.  The bathroom has 6 hooks for towels and robes and whatnot, and 4 hooks in the closet.  Flooring in all the bedrooms is laminate (looks like wood).

A final note about this tour: I'm putting in lots of pictures, and they'll show the house as it was when I decided to take the pictures.  I'm not cleaning up for you guys!  A lot of the walls are still bare, and things are dirty, and I don't care!

Favorite thing about the room: That it's no longer purple.  Also, the bathroom is plenty big for storing our stuff in the various drawers and cabinets, with room for collecting dirty clothes, too.

Least favorite thing: The small shower.  This could be partially solved by re-working the shower head so it doesn't stick so far out into the shower space.