Recovery Runs, Broken iPods, and Missing Water

Following a late night at Hacienda Holiday, my friend “The Champion” requested I accompany him on a 6M run. The Champion is climbing Mt. Rainer this weekend, and has been training for it for weeks. As an aside, the Champion has been one of my closest friends since college but lives in Arizona now.

Our run was an easy pace, and we had an amazing conversation about how difficult it is to actually ‘be’ in a moment, and how often we let things slip away because we are so busy thinking as oppose to listening. We also discussed the ever important questions we had of the other’s sport (i.e. what do you do when you have to go to the bathroom on a mountain/running a marathon). Well, we are boys after all.

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A few weeks ago my iPod, named “The Emergence of Fall and Joy,” broke whilst I was running in the rain. Since then the light doesn’t work and it won’t hold a charge for very long. So I had to buy a new one. Only thing is, Apple stopped making the iPod shuffle 2.0, they have a new version about the size of a stick of Trident and the controls are on the headphones. So, basically, not so great for running.

This led to driving to several different ‘box stores’ to by an ‘older’ version. Sadly, I couldn’t find the old version in any color other than hot pink. What I was able to find, however, was a refurbished silver one. The new iPod has been christened “Ghost of Great Expectations.”

I’m also planning on getting my old one fixed, because these babies are now officially on relic status.
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In case you are unaware, I place 8oz bottles of water on my long run courses; one every 5M. For most of my long runs, mile 15 is located alongside MSU’s campus. I hide the 15M water bottle by some bushes the night before my run. During my 21M run a few weeks ago someone got to my water before I did, and I was quite upset to see it smashed and empty. This is not something I dealt with very well because I was thirsty and because it meant no water until mile 20.

Stupid students.

Well, for my 23M run, I moved my route a bit and hid my water (and a Gatorade) by where my friends would be tailgating. They had agreed to put them on ice and give them to me on my way through. Well, again somebody destroyed my hydration at mile 15. Fortunately, my friends went to buy a water bottle for me (apparently they don’t bring water to a tailgate).

Mile 15 is the only place where water has ever gone missing off the course. And I’m not entirely sure what I can do about it. If I find a more difficult place to hide them, I might as well burry it. Hummm…suggestions?

Hacienda Holiday

Every Labor Day a wonderfully destructive group of my friends get together for a little event we call Hacienda Holiday. This weekend is filled with the three essentials: sacrificing meat on a grill, breaking mildly expensive things, and risking lives in water (because “the river will take your life if you don’t respect it. Ain’t no current in a lake, but there current in that river.”)

As you can imagine, fitting in a long run during such festive activities is difficult. So I mashed my 23M long run in early Saturday morning in East Lansing; and it was a perfect Fall for a long run. My goal pace was marathon pace plus 30sec, and of course I ran my first mile 30 seconds too fast! However I quickly settled down and stayed fairly close to my goal pace.

Then miles 19 and 20 came along, where I plopped down +8sec on and +14sec my goal pace. Surprisingly, however, I was feeling good as I grabbed my last water on the course and therefore decided to try and push my last 3M. I was able to hit the next three at 7:17, 7:08, and 7:16. I was feeling so good I decided to do one more, a very pleasing 7:08.

Overall it was a great run with an average of 7:21/M (-9sec of goal pace). Everything about the run was good, except for the missing water bottle at mile 15; which I will discuss later this week.

And finally, in case you were wondering, putting circus peanuts and marshmallows in a microwave will create an awful mess and cause said microwave to stop functioning for several hours. In case you didn’t already know that.