I've been tapering all my life + ChCh

Route through Pacific Grove; return route on Oceanview Blvd.

Path along Oceanside Blvd., Pacific Grove, CA

It is 1 week from tomorrow until the Napa Valley Marathon.  Training the last two weeks has been poor and spotty: few runs, none of much quality.   Forecast for race day looks to be cold and rainy (though out here, the weather forecasts seem notoriously inaccurate so far out).  Since I last posted...the day of the great climb up Cantelow hill (see previous post), I've run two times.  Earlier in the week, we took a short, impromptu trip down the coast to Monterey Bay, one of our favorite places, and stayed at Asilomar.  I think one of my top 5 favorite roads to run on can be found here: Oceanview Blvd., which runs from the Monterey Bay Aquarium through Pacific Grove and to Asilomar State Beach.  It is a spectacularly beautiful road and no matter how poorly I feel, I get a thrill just to lay down the few miles this road covers.  Distance was a little over 7.5 miles and pace was around 7:41 (I was tired and legs still hurt from Cantelow; note from route profile that I found myself another nice hill.) 

The trip to Asilomar was a bit surreal.  Beautiful weather, the sound of the sea, great times with Arlen and Jackson...that all was great + a trip to one of my favorite restaurants in America: Passionfish.  Yet upon arrival--literally the moment we were checking in to Asilomar (and unbeknownst to us at the time)--the terrible earthquake that left Christchurch, NZ in ruins was hitting.  At that moment, as we are checking in to a beautiful resort on a sublimely beautiful day, 100s of people were dead or dying.  

We found out about the quake a couple of hours later (Asilomar has no tvs or internet connectivity in the rooms) when our son Mitchell called. 

You see, my wife Arlen and her two sons are New Zealanders.  Mitchell and my other son Daniel were born in Christchurch and lived there before moving to the USA.  Arlen, although born and raised in Wellington, NZ, always considered Christchurch (hereafter ChCh) her New Zealand home.  As for me, a midwest boy raised in Kansas City, MO, what connections might I have?  Well most obviously, I'm married to a Kiwi who was severely traumatized by the news.  Additionally, I have a courtesy appointment at the University of Canterbury (National Centre for Research on Europe) which is in ChCh.  I have some friends who work there, including a very dear friend, Martin.  Needless to say, we were deeply worried about him. 

I visited ChCh for several days in 2005.  I loved the city.  Absolutely loved the vibe of it.  As a runner, the city had everything: coast, beautiful trails, hills, Hagley Park, a nice central city.  We stayed in a hotel in the central city overlooking the city skyline. Well, "skyline" isn't really the right word as there really were very few tall buildings. 

Of course now there are none.  Including the CTV building where (as I write this) an estimated 120 people are still missing, most likely dead.  Overall, 200+ people are missing.  Probably dead.  Meaning the death toll will hit close to 400.  A terrible tragedy.  Our friend Martin is ok, but he has no house to live in.  So I guess "ok" is relative.  We have a house.  We were on vacation when this happened.  He has no house.  No power. No water.  As do 10s of thousands of Kiwis.

June 2005: ChCh Cathedral (I took this)

[Interlude: the Haiti earthquake, which had a magnitude similar to the Sept. ChCh quake (the first ChCh quake resulted in 0 deaths), lead to an estimated death toll of well over 200,000.  That's 200 hundred THOUSAND.   I suppose tragedies are relative.  Some ARE worse than others.  Clearly.  Obviously.   But when the first ChCh quake hit, my wife was upset (for obvious reasons) and posted her worries on Facebook.  She received several replies along the lines of ... "well, it's not Haiti" [or some other massively tragic event].  True.  Obviously true.  Nevertheless, when it is your home, your country then relative differences are less meaningful in that moment.  So 400 dead is a terrible tragedy. Obviously.  And 200,000 dead is inconceivably tragic.  But when it hits home, it hits home.  And when your home is ChCh, then it is an incredibly relevant, incredibly hard-hitting event. [For the record, we contributed money to Catholic Relief Services and to the Timkatec School in Haiti to help foster Haitian recovery and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same].  But for my wife, this event has deeply affected her.]

Feb. 2011: ChCh Cathedral

  So what does ChCh have to do with running?  Nothing, really.  But in the context of having a bad training week, a bad training week really doesn't matter, right?  In the context of ChCh, worries about rainy, cold weather on race day seem utterly irrelevant.  Right?  Obviously right.

I'm looking forward to the NVM.  Thoughts of ChCh will run through me.  I ran some memorable runs there.  There is that connective tissue...I suppose that is the beauty of running.  It connects you to where you run, to where you have been.  It creates memories.  I have wonderful memories of ChCh. 

Out.
B.

I found some hills to run + spurious correlation=f(Four Loko + Joose + birth control + condom)

I found some hills to run on.  In Davis, there are none.   Literally, there are NO hills.  But fortunately drive 20 miles or so to the west and just past Winters, CA there lies a gem of a road: Pleasants Valley Road (yes, the appended "s" is meant to be there).  This little meandering road connects Vacaville, CA to S.R. 121, the road to Lake Berryessa and Napa Valley.  While the road is narrow and not pedestrian friendly, the traffic flow is relatively low and drivers seemed mindful.   ...though judging by the detritus I saw on the side of the road, I'd avoid this road at certain "unseemly" hours.  More on that later.

To the run.  Estimated distance is a bit over 14 miles.  Avg pace was slow: 7:50 but if you stare at the route elevation profile, you'll soon see the first half was a bit *slower* than the second.  The volcanic looking object in the elevation profile is my path up and down Cantelow Road, one of the greatest little (it's short) climbs I've ever run (not counting trail run climbs). I think it counts as a real hill!  The overall route had 1200 feet of elevation
gain/loss (is was out and back hence the symmetry in the elevation profile). 

The day was sort of cold and wet but after the initial slow going, I really got into this run.  As you might imagine, I particularly enjoyed the return down Cantelow road.  Apart from Cantelow, which is an atypical stretch of road, Pleasants Valley Road is fairly similar to what I'll be running on in two weeks in Napa.  Silvarado Trail (the main road for NVM) is meandering and rolling.  I'm hoping my running legs have memory so those hills won't feel so hard.   Overall...pretty happy with the run.  I meant to run 20 but that intention was predicated on running in Davis.  I think I accomplished the necessary goal in 14 given the hills.

So, a pretty good day.  Beautiful little run and if you've never driven Pleasants Valley Road and you live in this area, then you should.  Cantelow is awesome.  Today was particularly interesting.  While the sky was concrete-colored and mostly dreary, there actually was some snow on the coast range bordering Solano and Napa Counties!  I don't recall ever seeing snow on the front range and at low elevation so that was nice.

But then there is the detritus ... which every place has.  You know...the litter that scumbags throw out their cars into the drainage ditches and whatnot.   Pisses me off.  But today's detritus was both disconcerting and weirdly intriguing.   Here is why it was disconcerting.  As usual on rural roads, I see lots of discarded beer cans, liquor bottles, etc. Which of course occurs because people drink while they are driving and then discard the empties out the car window.

But today's detritus got me thinking about correlation, spurious or otherwise.  Let me explain.  Around mile 3, I see a discarded can of ... yep you got it ... FOUR LOKO ... and then about .5 miles later, a discarded can of ... uh huh ... JOOSE ... and then 1 mile later a discarded birth control pill dispenser (apparently empty)  and then ... .5 miles later ... a ... hmmm.... condom (soiled).  And so to think of things other than the hill I was climbing, I started wondering about the story that would connect these four events together.  But of course, Occam's Razor says "the simplest explanation is probably the best" (or something like that) and so the best explanation is that the detritus I observed is a series of independent events.  But then again, how independent is FOUR LOKO and JOOSE???? As for the other events, I'll leave that to you.

But to the day.  All good.  Because my run was out and back, I got to see this wonderfully sweet horse across the road from where I parked my car. This little pony just tracked me the whole time.  I went over and petted him/her and then took off.  She/he started running after me and then when I returned, he/she seemed to know who I was.  Petted him/her again and saw a sweet little (or big) horse.  All good. 

So I found my hills.  I got two weeks til my marathon. I"m not prepared but what the hell?  It's
a good day and a good day doesn't have to be a Friday.

Out,
B

My Tribute to Bob Stinson

RIP Bob Stinson, Dec. 1959 - Feb. 18, 1995.

Bob was the lead guitarist in one of the greatest rock bands ever: The Replacements.  IMHO, the 'Mats WERE the greatest band ever.  Period.  No argument.  Bob sadly left us on 2/18/1995.  I chose "Takin' a Ride" as the background music because the lead parts in this song are, as someone once described them to me, radioactive.  I was fortunate to have been able to see the 'Mats when Bob was with them.  Memories I'll never forget, music that can never be replaced (no pun intended).

Motivated Reasoning: NVM vs. CIM

I'm about 2 weeks out from the NVM.  Training has taken a bit of a lull lately mainly due low motivation, high workload demands, and lately, unsavory weather.  As I posted yesterday, I stumbled across a quote by Dick Beardsley who compared the Boston Marathon route to the Napa Valley course.  This was of some concern to me as I've always heard Boston is a nightmare and, well, since I'm not in great shape and never run on hills, am a bit concerned about the route.  Well...I'm not *that* concerned...it's just a race and one must make adjustments...but still...you know.

My marathoning experience is limited.  I've run the California International Marathon 3 times, never once had I trained more than just a few weeks beforehand.  But a comment somebody made on FB made me think about comparability of CIM and NVM.  I have run 11 miles on the NVM route and so I plotted the route on Google Earth for those 11 miles.  I also plotted the central miles of the CIM.  These plots are below. 

I'm one of those who actually thinks the CIM is a tough course.  While it is net downhill, there are significant portion of steady, moderate climbs.  The NVM, I would characterize, as a meandering route with lots of "rollers" (not really hills).  The plots confirm this, more so than I even thought.  There of course will be some imprecision here both in the mapping and plotting; however, the size of the rollers are significantly "steeper" in the NVM than the CIM.  Not having trained on hills at all will make this route a nontrivial run for me ... but again ... it's a race and I'm there to have fun.  Make adjustments.

My overview of the Napa Valley course (based on the 11 miles I ran and based on the full distance I drove) is this:  overall downhill with numerous rollers, some significantly long (esp. between miles 13 and 18).  The main road, Silverado Trail, is heavily crowned and so the best bet would seem to try and veer toward the center of the course.  The road is exposed to the west and so if the wind is blowing from the southwest, it could be a long day.  And...it's a beautiful route.  Whether overlooking the vineyards in the valley or looking up the coast range hillsides, there are very few dull moments.  This is in stark contrast to CIM, which is not a particularly scenic course (but it IS a great event and is well managed). 

Overall, I'm looking forward to March 6!

Out,

Napa Valley, Miles 7-18

CIM Miles (roughly 7-20)

Valentine by the Replacements.

My Replacements Video. 

Time is Running Out and HOLY CR@P

Today was a good run mostly.  I can tell that despite my efforts to do otherwise, I'm getting fitter.  Fit=running faster and more easily...losing some lbs on my boiler.  Ran 7.6 or so @ 7:20 pace and it felt pretty easy.  Blood sugar levels are always fluctuating and that always impedes my running...but this isn't anything new.  Thanks for GU. 

Met up w/Arlen at Arboretum and we did our wonderful Zia lunch...always a simple highlight of my week and her's as well.  Good times.  Easy.

It is almost 2 weeks until I tow the line in Calistoga and run to Napa.  It's apparently about 26.2 miles to do that.  I signed up to run the NVM because my Tucson guys were all coming to run it...I think they still are.  I'll make a prediction of my time in advance but I'm not so sure how optimistic I am about it.

If you look at the course profile (see map), it looks mostly downhill but there are some rollers (but see my post a few weeks back where I ran part of the course).  Still, I thought the course looked "out-of-shape-friendly" until...I read this:

"The Napa and Boston courses are similar to each other in many ways,"Beardsley said. "They're both rolling, point-to-point, and potentially fast if you run them intelligently. And, Napa has its own rendition of (Boston's) Heartbreak Hill at 20 miles."

Now my whole life, I've understood the following: the Boston Marathon course is f*cking tough.  I've also known, most of my running life, that Dick Beardsley knows his stuff.  SOOOOOOOOOO....Dick says NVM course is like Boston and Boston is a tough course. If Dick is credible, then things could get ugly on the Silverado Trail (main road on the NVM course). 

Still, I'm trying to be optimistic.   

And I'll do fine. 

Out. Brad  

Not a great run...and yet...

Run for today?  Well among the worst runs ever.  Started late.  It was (relatively) hot.  Man, concerned about my fitness for the upcoming Napa Valley Marathon.  Oh well.   Allegedly ran 21 miles.  Avg. pace was 7:37 ... but with lots of stops.  I hated the run but it got done.  Still feeling the impacts of an awful run.  Tired as.

Today was a set back for me.  Hot, way too tired.  Ran to the Yolo Bypass.  Saw beautiful shore birds, blue herons, etc.  Just that getting there from here sort of sucked.  But the run is in the books, so to speak.

Oh well...why am I wasting my time with this?

My take on Valentine's Day...thanks to the 'Mats.

Wanted to see if my initial foray into iMovie would work.  It did! My Valentine's Day Gift (which I'll post on 2/14). 

Davis Stampede + Super Bowl Sunday

I had this bright idea that it would be *fun* to run a half-marathon as a *training run* in advance of the Napa Valley Marathon on Mar. 6.  When the alarm bells rang, the bright idea seemed like a dim, distantly memorable nightmare.  But I got up, ran some miles in advance and towed the line.  

I decided my goal was to run 1:35 for the distance.  The first few miles were easy and too fast (7 mpm or under).  Around miles 7-10, things got ugly.  Since my watch doesn't really work, I have no idea what the pace was.  The last two miles I got remotivated and ended up at the finish line in 1:34:58. That works out to basically 7:15 mpm pace.  I had two seconds to spare.  Though had I not stopped at mile 8 for like 30-40 seconds, I might have had more.  Basically I've determined a major flaw in my training.  While I have done "long" runs, I tend to stop during those runs to "Gu" up or just catch my breath.  So a 20 mile run really is just a series of shorter runs.  Distance running requires endurance, which I don't have.  So today, the 13.1 kicked my ass (though I did meet my goal) precisely because I couldn't stop (with exception of the 8 mile mark) and couldn't stop the watch.   So I have exactly 1 month to the day until Napa.  No clue what a plausible goal is.  1:35 times 2=3:10 and that is not a possible goal at this time.  So we'll see.

On the Davis Stampede?  I waited in line yesterday for 45 minutes to pick up my race number.  So I wasn't happy.  But the management of the race today was tremendous.  Conditions were not ideal: a stiff headwind from the north/northwest and for the exposed parts of the course, it actually was pretty warm.   Ultimately, I'm glad I did it, though halfway through, I was not too happy. 

Total miles for the day....around 18.5 or so. 

NOW, it's Super Bowl time.   Enjoying some Sierra Nevada Torpedo Ale.  Going to eat tri-tip, buffalo shrimp w/blue cheese dip and celery and what have you. 

I love watching the Super Bowl even if the Chiefs seemingly will never, EVER make another appearance.  I'm rooting for the Packers.  It will be a cold day in hell before I pull for the Steelers.  Prediction: Packers 24, Steelers 20. 

I'm tired.  But all is good.

Out. 

Yawn.

The week that was.  Tired tired tired.  I'm running Napa Valley Marathon in a few weeks and I don't really feel like a runner right now...which isn't necessarily a good thing when one is a few weeks outside the date of a marathon.  But there you go.

This week in summation: 21.1 on Saturday. Around 7 on Tuesday (4.5 of that at 6:45 pace); 6.5 (or so) on Wed.@7:25 pace; and today...8.6 at about 7:19 pace.  The jpg for today's route is posted here.  I basically feel like crap but the pace of the runs seem to be coming down.  That's good.   This weekend's run(s)?  Dunno for tomorrow.  Depends on how motivated I am.  Sunday?  Well I signed up for the Davis Stampede Half-Marathon.  Intend to run 3 in advance and 3 post giving 19 for the day.  The Davis Stampede is a pretty well run event. I did it last year and clocked the slowest 10K time of my adult life and somehow managed to be in the top-3 in my age group....which basically says the following: good runners run the half. 

Well I have no creativity in my bones right now.  So I'll STFU.

Out. B

David Lowery's "The Palace Guards"

News of the day: David  Lowery's solo album, "The Palace Guards" released; 2.5 hours of teaching regression diagnostics; a must-do run that was hard to get motivated for.  I'll discuss regression diagnostics and my run later. 

First things first.  I've simplified my music interests.  This devolution has unfolded over about an 18-20 year period.  Probably longer.  It's no lie that my favorite band ever...and this will never change...is The Replacements.  The derivatives from The Mats...Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson, Chris Mars, Slim Dunlap and so on (though I suppose there is not much more "so on" to this) "count" in my accounting scheme as Replacements-related.  But the news, for now, isn't about the Placemats.

My second favorite band of all time...this too won't change (I guess this is ossification?)...is Cracker.  Over the past 19 or so years, the Cracker Brand has released some of the best American rock that has ever been offered.   That's not hyperbole.  One must just listen.  A few years back, Johnny Hickman, Cracker's co-founder, released one of the best records of the first decade of the 2000s, "Palmhenge." It took a few more years for David Lowery, the other co-founder (and co-founder of the iconic Camper Van Beethoven) to finally release his solo record.  That release date was today.

Which made today a very good day.

While I could have ordered this record on-line (for about half the price I paid), there is still something exciting about knowing that an anticipated release is  there, waiting at a real record store, for me to show up and buy it.  That store: Armadillo Music in Davis, CA.  It's a hole-in-the-wall truly independent music store.  Small but eclectic, it actually makes me happy to buy stuff there not only for the music I am getting but for the small, admittedly meager support given to an indie record store.

So I got David Lowery's solo record, "The Palace Guards."  And love it.  I'm obviously not a rock critic and I've already announced my bias: I love Cracker.  So I'm sure I cannot give an unbiased review (so I won't try).  Nevertheless, I can say the record is incredible  in many ways.  The diversity of the topics David Lowery conjures up, decides to discuss, or randomly comments upon is vast, thought-provoking and funny all in turns. This, by the way, extends beyond the music and into the liner notes (yes, there are real liner notes).  Yet despite the diversity of subject matter we get here,  through it all, it is wonderfully tied together by a vivid, emotive, thread, sometimes ethereal, sometimes palpable, sometimes dark, and sometimes, terribly sad.   In the liner notes, David Lowery references the late Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse), a personal friend of his (and of other Cracker and CVB members).  Since I'm not a musician, I really don't know anything about recording or playing...but some of the thread that binds this record (in my ears) echoes, channels, or what have you, elements of Sparklehorse's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot.  Just subtly.  Just a part of a larger picture David Lowery paints here.  Songs held together without overtly being held together by anything.

I've not listened enough times to comment on my favorite songs.  Yes I like them all.  I'm sure I'll like some more than others.  I find "Marigold" to be beautiful.  But is it my favorite?  I don't know.

I do know that if you read this, love good music then get up tomorrow, go to that record store, and pick up this  record.  Or order it on Amazon or some other site.

Yeah. I am biased in my assessment.  But I'm pretty sure I'm right!

Out,
Brad

PS: I'm proud to say I've met the artist who produced the illustrations, the great Michael Wertz.  Michael is great because he is one of my many Facebook friends who I actually DID meet (had a beer with, 12/2010...fun time).  AND, the inside photo of DL was taken by Julie Bradlow, who I happy to claim as a friend!