Cheese Sandwich: The Long Run

For the people who may still be following this, (chiefly, Mom and Dad) - my partner and I ran the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in San Diego today. It was more challenging than I anticipated, but I finished in 5 hours and 30 minutes. I'm not unhappy with my time, though I'd been hoping for 5 hours or better. There were a lot more hills than I expected, and we trained on very flat terrain.

Monica finished 10 minutes ahead of me. She stayed with me through mile 20 where it began to appear as though I wouldn't be able to run the last six miles. I was able to take some acetaminophen at 18, but it didn't really take effect until well into 20. I was able to resume running and finished running.

There's more to say about the experience, but I'm tired and I've got to get ready for an early flight out of here tomorrow.

It was a remarkable experience.

Cheese Omelet: Prior to Departure

In a couple of hours, I'll be leaving for San Diego. Just bringing a carry-on again, it's a short trip. I'll have the Macbook with me, so I should be able to post something now and then.

We ran three miles yesterday morning, the last mile I was running at a 9:41 pace, and I kept slowing down to let M. keep up. I wanted to run hard to see how I felt, and I guess I felt pretty good. Not running, sitting down or walking, I notice a hundred little aches and pains and each becomes a potentially crippling disaster in my mind. Not sure why I default to worry and anxiety, but it's just another part of the challenge for me.

The most serious complaint may be a bit of Piriformis Syndrome. I've got some mild pain in my left hip that becomes an ache in my thigh when I sit in the car. Most of the rest of the time, it's just a mild pain. I was bending down, cleaning some grills in a bucket of water on Saturday, and when I stood up, it was like my left leg just turned "off" for a second, which was the second time that happened in the last couple of weeks. Running, I feel it at the beginning as a slightly greater pain, but it quickly fades. My worry is it will come back strong at mile 20 or so. Kind of need both legs to, you know, run.

Part of the treatment is to take an NSAID (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc.) to reduce inflammation and swelling, but I've been advised not to take those as I've only got the one kidney. So I researched what the issue is with NSAIDs and kidney function and that was interesting. The same, or similar, molecule (it's like a hormone), responsible for the inflammation response regulates blood flow in the kidneys by dilating the blood vessels. The NSAID would inhibit that response. And that dilation typically happens as the body senses dehydration - which is pretty much what's going on through most of a marathon. So if I took an NSAID, I wouldn't be able to regulate blood flow through my kidney properly, and I've only got the one.

But I did find some good stretches for piriformis, and there are some yoga poses that help, so I'll be doing those the next couple of days. I don't think it's going to be a show-stopper.

We'll know on Sunday.

Cheese Omelet: Wind and Rain

Four days of this nonsense is starting to make me a bit irritable. We caught a break between bands yesterday and ran five miles. It was still raining, just not pouring.

It's a little troubling, but I'm feeling more aches and pains now with these little short runs than I did with the long ones. I've got some kind of issue going on in my left hip. Feels more muscle related than joint, so I'm hoping it'll recover quickly. I'm on for a massage on Friday, and I think I'll take the Saturday yoga class after that morning's five miles to try to keep everything loose.

Kottke pointed to a 1999 interview with David Foster Wallace yesterday. Wallace, you may recall, was a gifted American writer who suffered from depression for most of his life. He came to my attention with his Kenyon College commencement, which I still read from time to time, although it's no longer available online. Anyway, I enjoyed the interview, particularly the answer to question 13 regarding which writers move him:

"‘Move’ is tricky. I heard all kinds of sneery stuff about the book Bridges of Madison Country when it came out, and joined in the sneering, and then saw the movie version on an airplane and bawled my head off at the end, which was mortifying. I find the part of It’s a Wonderful Life when Jimmy Stewart is yelling at Donna Reed that he doesn’t want to get married and stuck in dreary airless little Bedford Falls and at the same time hugging her and kissing on her and crying and saying ‘Mara, Mara!’ tremendously moving. I find the end of Lord of the Rings when Frodo says ‘I have been too badly wounded, Sam’ moving."

I cry at Kodak commercials. But I feel better about it now.

Watched the season finale to American Idol last night. Just because it's a shared cultural experience. I was pleased to see Kris take it over Glambert, though I think Adam Lambert is probably the "larger" talent. Both clearly have the potential to go on to do wonderful things. Bear in mind that most of the voters are teenage girls. What was Rod Stewart thinking with that wardrobe and song choice? Sheesh! And Steve Martin looked rather unhappy all through his song, which was otherwise very nice.

Well, time to saddle up.

Cheese Omelet: Like the Wind

It is, as my neighbor is fond of saying, "a blustery day." Quite a change from the weekend. Apart from the inconvenience of wet dog and paw prints on the floor, it's a welcome one.

Had a three mile run yesterday with M. I wanted to bag it because it was raining, but she said we should go, so we did. I can feel a difference in my own energy level. For the last several weeks we've been running more than 10 miles every Saturday, five miles on Mondays and 9 or 10 on Wednesdays. But last Saturday was only 10 and yesterday was only 3, and here I am in GHD on Tuesday. Plus, I did housework last night. So, yeah, I can feel the difference.

But I'm also concerned about how this might affect the run on the 31st. When we ran three yesterday, I wanted to run fast, it just felt good. Can't do that on the 31st, or I'll fade early. On the next few runs, I'm going to try and focus on pace. We need to do 11:27 miles to finish in five hours. As training has progressed, we've sort of abandoned any real commitment to five hours, as our pace has settled around 12:00 minutes. But I'm hoping the recovery time will help us recoup some of that, and I think it likely will. At any rate, I think I want to make sure we don't start out running anything under 11:00 to 11:10. We did the 15 mile run at an 11:06 pace, but the 16 mile run the following week fell to 11:33. The next two were over 12, as were the 10 mile mid-week runs. I just think we hadn't had sufficient time to recover. I believe five hours is achievable, but we'll see. Just running my first marathon is my real goal.

Facebook has occupied most of my online attention. It's great for keeping up with old friends, and the occasional random utterance or photograph, it's unrewarding at anything more than a superficial level. And I'm kind of unhappy with the pictures I upload. They seem washed-out to me. I'm going to post one here I took last week in the D.C. Metro, just to see if it looks any better to me:

And, with that, I have to get out of here.

DVD: Last Chance Harvey

Predictable, cliché, trite, but charming because of two wonderful actors and, let's face it, I'm a sucker for the story. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I find older actresses so much more interesting and attractive. Emma Thompson, Mary McDonnell. Sigh.

Plus, at the end of Stranger Than Fiction, who didn't want to see a movie with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson in it?

DVD: Taken

Sucked. Liam Neeson is great, but could they have made this story any more predictable, cliché? Awful, awful, awful. Not even good in a "bad" way, like the Transporter series. Forget the money, I'd want my time back. I was just resting anyway, so it's all good. But man, that sucked.

Cheese Omelet: Running On Empty

Wow, more than half of May is gone, and only two posts in April. Groundhog Day is not dead, it's merely resting.

I'm finally through the toughest part of the marathon training, and if anything has precluded my active engagement here, it's fatigue. Anyone can run a marathon, if you can survive the training!

There's a whole post coming about the marathon and the training, but it's going to wait until after the race. Seems kind of presumptive to write about it before. But I think I've learned a few things, and I'd like to write them down if for no other reason than to distill them within my own mind.

And, to preclude any concerned e-mails, I don't think we've over-trained. I'm aware of that phenomenon, and while I am inexperienced at this sort of thing, I'm fairly confident we did it about right. That is to say, I may be at the ragged edge of being overtrained, but I think we're okay.

Lessons learned aside, it's been an amazing experience and I'm looking forward to the race. My partner and I are starting to discuss what sort of running regimen we hope to pursue following the race. Neither of us has been able to have a very active social life in the latter weeks of training, but we don't wish to abandon the habits and gains we've made either. So we're going to explore where the balance may be.

In non-running news, I'm happy to report that 10.5.7 was installed on the MacBook, and everything is fine. Every update inevitably comes with a raft of horror stories, though my experience has been that OS X updates are unremarkable affairs - and I take no special precautions prior to installing. But that's just me. You should probably backup.

Some of you may recall my ordeal with my iPhone and its experience with Tropical Storm Faye. I had tried to see if I could get a replacement for it, but at first you couldn't even buy a replacement for full price! Later, you could, but by then it had recovered all of its functionality and reliability, with exception of the battery level indicator. It would remain "full" right up until it went dead. Back in March, even that seemed to resolve itself and the iPhone was working as a full-up round.

In February, while still coping with the lack of battery information, I bought an Incase combination case and external battery. It worked well, giving me about 7 hours of online time on the 3G network, during boring presentations at a conference. The case fit snugly, too snugly. It was very difficult to remove, though it went on rather easily. In April, I noticed cracks in the plastic back of the iPhone. At first, I thought they may be due to a couple of falls the iPhone had taken from my kitchen bar to the tile floor. (Amazingly, the screen survived intact.) Upon closer inspection, the cracks seemed to follow a concentric pattern symmetric with the longitudinal axis of the iPhone. This seemed to suggest a compression force from the sides of the phone, which would be consistent with the installation and removal of the Incase battery case. I was pretty unhappy about it, but the phone was otherwise completely operational.

My intention has been to buy whatever new model Apple offers this summer and keep the old iPhone as a back-up, as it is my only phone. Then I read that Apple had changed its policy with regard to moisture-damaged iPhones, allowing you to buy a replacement at a discount, without increasing the duration of your contract. So I made an appointment at the Genius Bar for last Monday and went in to see if they would let me buy a replacement at a discount.

I'm happy to say that they did, and it was a very pleasant, hassle-free process. Plus, it's awesome that the Genius Bar is actually open before 8:00 in the morning! So now I have a "new" iPhone, though the warranty in effect is the same as the original, which is to say it will expire in July. I'm probably going to spring for Applecare on this. My old phone had acquired some dust between the glass and the screen, and that is apparently covered by warranty.

I don't recommend the Incase battery case. Apart from perhaps damaging your iPhone on removal, it doesn't hold a charge very long. It internally discharges, so you have to recharge it all the time, and can't just charge it and have it ready to go when you need it. There's a newer model out, that's actually less expensive than the one I bought, which may address some of those issues.

Not much else to report, as mostly I've just been running and resting. I also hope to write a longish appreciation of Battlestar Galactica, but I'm waiting for a friend to finish the series so I don't spoil it for her. They're making rapid progress, so it shouldn't be too long.

It appears as though I'll be going to Italy some time this summer as part of my job. Looking forward to that, although I'll be with three other individuals, so how much independence I may have to do the kinds of things I might like to do is uncertain.

I have a couple of other pieces in mind, one a further meditation on narrative; and the other a commentary on the 10th anniversary of The Cluetrain Manifesto - ten years of relentless commercialization of our social lives. I was dismayed to learn that the 10th anniversary is something that is actually going to be celebrated, further promoting the pernicious lie that "markets are conversations." All this amidst our current economic meltdown. Irony: The fifth fundamental force of the universe. Anyway, file that one under "ranting into the void to no discernible effect."

And somewhere in the not too distant future, I hope to do a redesign of Groundhog Day and use the latest iteration of Tinderbox to do it. The most recent version of the software breaks this version of the blog, and I don't know how to fix it. So I figure I'll start from scratch and try and re-learn Tinderbox in the process.

My family is well, I'm happy to say. Bodhi is as energetic as ever, though we perhaps don't walk quite as much - as I am much less energetic!

Two weeks from today, as I write this, I should be about halfway through the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon. After that, things will probably pick up around here.