8/13/07 - 8/19/07 The Origin of Feces (425 minutes, 1 tempo run)

Sunday 8/19/07 (60 minutes)
Certain elements have requested that today's entry discuss the origin of feces. Feces, as you well know, is colored brown because it contains the remnants of broken-down hemoglobin. Babies have green feces because they lack a bacteria crucial to this hemoglobin decomposition process.
Guinea pigs eat each others' feces. This is said to be because they are trying to get some of the nutrients other guinea pigs have have excreted. Incorrect. It is actually because guinea pigs are really dumb. This feces-eating behavior is also observed in rats, hamsters, lumberjacks, and my cousin Peter.
What do all these things have in common (besides fitting comfortably inside your mom's vagina?) That's right - nothing.
Conclusion - the only logical origin of feces-eating is your mother's vagina. Logic wins again.

Saturday 8/18/07 (30 minute tempo, strides)
Everything began with auspicious turtles. Twenty of them roiled madly around a corner of Throop pond as I exited SFL after a drawn-out, air-conditioned nap. They were, as I discovered upon the requisite examination, devouring the remains of a half-eaten fish. What was best was, over on the other side of the pond, a five year old kid kept calling to his dad, "Dad, look I found a baby one. A baby one dad. It's a baby one. Dad look, a baby one. A baby one dad, a baby one!" Distracted by the strident calls of his offspring, the man abandoned my corner of the pond and the spectacle of the feasting turtles was MINE ALL MINE!!!

Eventually, I went to the field, only to discover that the turtles had made me miss the 7:30 closing of the gym, so I instead just crapped in a sewer and started running. It had cooled off a bit, the sun was setting, I was on the north field illegally, the ground was soft under my bare feet, and I had to entire field to myself. It was completely badass.
After 30 minutes I pushed it up to a strong pace, and did a 30-minute threshold run that felt easy and smooth. My legs were churning underneath me, lean and fast, surging a bit with excitement whenever my thoughts got ahead of me.

I finished with five minutes of jogging, five long diagonal striders, and five minutes of cooldown before celebrating at Parkwood with pork sandwiches, beer, and some sort of reddish alcoholic beverage that I didn't understand very much but I think it's for grownups or old people like Arjun.

Friday 8/17/07 (50 minutes mountain)
Dumbo the elephant could fly like a motherfucker, but first he had to learn to believe in himself. But I get ahead of myself. Ian, Garrett, Matt and I rode up to Chantry Flats before pushing our way up the trail beyond the helipad. Normally I hate mountain runs because they hurt for a long fucking time, but this one was surprisingly okay. I let Ian lead, and if we'd gone much faster it'd have hurt, but as it was I even glanced out at the wide, smoggy vistas of almost the whole of the greater East Los Angeles area. When we got to the top we met a crazy old vedic mystic. His beard, six feet long if an inch, curled around itself in intricate knots, symbolizing the unity of life, and his staff changed with the angle of the sun from a mere stick of wood to a great serpent to an enormous dildo, I think. His feet never quite touched the ground, and he glowed with an aura that might have been the setting sun, if it weren't for the way it seemed to shimmer and dance circles around his frail, ancient figure. Afterwards I got happily intoxicated, scaled several buildings, walked myself home and watched some Dumbo.

Thursday 8/16/07 (30 minutes, strides)
Old friends and I reacquainted ourselves today - I held a little reunion for myself and my fast twitch muscle fibers. I jogged thirty minutes on the south field with a few easy accelerations tossed in. At first, the legs, sore from two days of abuse, complained about the unusual demands of sub-5:00 pace, but by the end of the run our dialog had become quite amicable, and I even opened up the floodgates all the way for a good forty meters.

Wednesday 8/15/07 (75 minutes)
Kiesz and I ran an unevenly-paced full arroyo, including too-aggressive start, too slow middle, and much-too-fast mad sweat-spraying, baby-frightening, car-dodging, light-hopping, fart-loosing, insane, inexcusable, incontinent return through Pasadena.

Tuesday 8/14/07 (5 mile tempo)
Saw Kiesz just heading out to the arroyo, but neglected to join him because at the moment I was toting 20 pounds of milk on my back. This led me to realize how much easier it would be if Pavilions would just install a pipeline to deliver milk and other pipelinable food items (juice, round fruits, live hamsters, cottage cheese) when I want it. They could have a flowmeter at the end, and every month you'd get a milk bill, just like that one company does with the electricities.
Later, did 10 laps at Lacy in 28:30. Originally I planned 16, but by 7:30PM it had only cooled from criminally hot at two down to worrisomely hot. I decided to cut down the miles for my first timed tempo run in a while.

During the run I had the feeling of being a bit out of shape, both physically and mentally. It takes time to learn to focus in on workouts again after a layoff. I tried very hard not to compare this run to others I've done at Lacy, because I know that 1) it's not as fast 2) it will push me to train too hard. But I couldn't help it. On 8/21/06 I ran 6x2laps with one minute rest, averaging 5:17 (compared to 5:42 today). On 5/26/06 I did 10 laps in 28:25, went to the bathroom, and did another ten in 28:13.

Of course it was my first tempo of the year, and hot, and loops today were a bit longer than those old ones, but still, it's clear I'm not in top shape yet after the injury.

But on the other hand, I probably ran close to a full five miles in 28:30, which is faster than most of my cross country races so far, and I was not yet at full effort. I had a small unfair advantage in that Garrett was gracing the park with his svelte self and cheering me on, so I wanted to show off for him.


Monday 8/13/07 (75 minutes)
I was planning 90 minutes, but my back was a bit sore, so I stopped early. I went to the weight room for the first time in a while, and just did the core exercises that I think are essential to my general fitness, but which I've been neglecting.