Wednesday, June 28, 2006

AH, NOW I REMEMBER

So, I post a picture of my beautiful wife and the comments come out of the woodwork. I guess I don’t blame you.

Last night’s run left me saying to myself “Ah, now I remember why I run.” It was my first pain-free run in probably 10 or 11 weeks. After warming up with my training group for about 2 miles, Jenna, Jim and I picked up the pace and ran around 10 miles – probably around 7:30 pace. I wouldn’t call it effortless, but it was pretty close – at least when I compare it to any recent run.

I can feel “it” coming together. “It” being the elements I need to be in place in order to enjoy running again and hopefully run fast. Those elements include things like getting out the door without even thinking about it, planning out my weeks, thinking about races, filling in my log book – instead of ignoring it because filling it in wasn’t much different than leaving it blank, actually thinking of a blog entry prior to sitting down and typing it up, etc. Heck, I’m even trying to do some of the little things, like crunches, stretching and hydrating. Someday I may even get serious enough to watch my nutrition.

I enjoy reading and asking for advice on message boards as much as the next guy. Yet some of the things I read still blow me away. Yesterday someone was asking how soon they could start running after having a stress fracture. Umm yeah, I’m going to take advice on a stress fracture from some knuckleheads, rather than the doctor who’s been treating me. Sure, go ahead and ask for other people’s experiences, but to flat out ask “When can I start running again?” seems really silly.

One person I forgot to congratulate from Grandma’s Half is Heather May who ran 1:20:48 and was the 3rd woman. I don’t know Heather personally, but she used to hang out on Beck’s Donnybrook so some readers may be familiar with her name.

Alright, I’ll close with a little baseball talk. I’ve mentioned that I like to just hang out in the evenings and watch the Twins play. It’s hard to know what’s going on in the entire league unless you’re more than a casual observer. Well the Twins are white-hot right now, having won 14 of their last 15. The problem is they can’t make up any ground on the Tigers or White Sox.

The Twins have a bunch of young talent on their team, including my new favorite player, Joe Mauer. Joe is 23 years old and is currently leading the league in hitting with a .389 average. Two nights ago he went 4 for 5 and last night he was 5 for 5. Earlier in the year he went like 12 for 15 in a 3-game series against the Mariners. He’s a machine.

Minnesotans are a bunch of homers. We love it when guys on the home team do great and we even love it when guys from Minnesota, playing on other teams, do great. So imagine how we react when guys from Minnesota do great while playing for a Minnesota team. Mauer is from St. Paul. Time to get a #7 jersey.

Oh yeah, closed circuit to those Tribe fans out there; what’s going on?

Quotes of the day;
“The experts are always telling us to ‘Listen to your body!’ But if I listened to my body, I’d live on toffee pops and port wine. Don’t tell me to listen to my body…It’s trying to turn me into a blob!” – Roger Robinson, New Zealand masters runner

9 comments:

Bart said...

Being a Twins fan, you may appreciate this story. Way back when I first joined the Coast Guard, I was stationed on an ice breaker in the Great Lakes. We went to a shipyard in Milwaukee for a month or so. While I was there I saw the Twins play a series against the Brewers. It was Kirby Puckett's rookie year, and he absolutely killed the Brewers the entire series. From that point, I knew Puckett was going to be a special player.

SRR said...

"Toffee pops and wine." I'd be living on chocolae, chocolate, and more chocolate!

Like the quote!

Beanie said...

going back to your previous post...wowzers, you snagged yourself a beauty didn't you? ;)

my hubby lost his ring within a year of our being married. we had to wait till we could afford a new one, but I didn't stop bugging him about it till he replaced it!

glad you finally had a great run.

brent said...

hopefully some of AL teams will actually start losing while we are winning. i'm a total fair-weather baseball fam. football, different story.

brent said...

fair-weather *FAN* i meant.

Chad said...

Bart, actually I didn't get to MN till 1996. Prior to that I was a Reds fan - so I never really saw much of Puckett.

RR, I'm not sure what toffee pops are. Maybe we need a NZ blogger, like Evan, to explain.

Yvonne, in America it's called "out kicking your coverage" (using football terms) when an average Joe marries a hottie. Now that I mentioned my ring loss it sounds like it's quite common - hopefully just for the men since our rings are a "little" cheaper.

Brent, it'd be nice if the Twins could play either the Tigers or White Sox during this hot streak - to see if it's for real.

Lance Notstrong said...

It's great when "it" all starts coming together :-)

Trisaratops said...

Tribe...ugh...was at the St. Louis game Thursday where we had 2 errors in bottom of the 9th to lose it. That was fun in an Indians jersey. :) I totally blame Eric Wedge for putting our catcher at 1st base for NO REASON and having some bush-league catcher in. Our ownership stinks and won't shell out any dough. Hopefully we'll do some trading....

Chad said...

Sara, that's a different tune than you were whistling in May.